nodoctors.com archive december 0006 |
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TANKERTOWN it's weekly but missed a date so sorry.
posted by elvis ## Flying to Baltimore for holiday times. Occasional updates here are likely through the rest of the year. Last night I was enjoying a post-packing high-brow film at my apartment (X-MEN 3 - a disappointing take from a hack director, but the first two remain excellent), and got a taste of the weirdest minor quake jolt that I've felt since moving to San Francisco (and again this morning, apparently - yuy!). Less than two hours later, a kid got shot right outside my window. Time to head for the Mason-Dixon! posted by elvis ## There have been honest artist businessmen. Some of them are very canny. Picasso was very canny. But he was very watchful and hawklike about it. He was very into the economy, the guarding of the purse thing. He did a wonderful thing: he'd go around, and he'd always carry a checkbook with him. If you wanted a pack of cigarettes or something like that, he'd go into a store and he'd ask for a pack of cigarettes. Of course they'd know who he was. I mean he was the legendary, famous guy and they'd go, "Oh my God, it's Picasso!" And he'd say, "Can I pay with a check?" and the guy'd say, "Certainly, Master, certainly." And so he'd fill out this check for this little amount of money and sign it PABLO PICASSO! And you knew damn well that the guy would never, ever dream of cashing it. And this was a regular routine with him, he did this constantly, it didn't hurt anybody. A lot of folks have these swell check - I wish I had one! --Gahan Wilson posted by elvis ## Shortwave Enthusiasts Roundtablet dept. mp3 of shortwave "number stations" can be found here. posted by chauncey ## Last minute xmas shopping for Elvis dept. I know many of you are thinking: "during these times of fest, what can I get the nodoctors.com webmaestro in appreciation of his monk-like patience & dedication towards bringing me, many days of the month, such a fucking awesome website?" Well... Good booze that I've never had before is always "enjoyed" (good for feeling better, good for feeling worse). Whoever subscribed me to the utterly foul petplace.com newsletter can gift me some kind of high-grade dead fish in recompense. And another thing: animal rights activists could stop acting like self-sabotaging mo-rans and get their priorities straight! Some sort of mild lobotomy; I will probably fight you now, but thank you later. I am still waiting for my bionic eye. Any tips on how to best siphon my 0007 moneys towards old Sunday newspaper comicxks pages would be appreciated. Go spend money at Toad's so they stay open and I can continue to watch football and drink beers there. No "terror" noises please! An Ebow - or two, I could probably totally use two. BUH ##
No Konsp Korner this week - will return 12/30 and into 0007. Archives always here, and at some point I will start filling in gaps for the many previous radio segments (dating back to early 05). ## Mr. Brians's entry was inspired by the recent noise surrounding the long-lost 1966 Velvet Underground acetate that was recently surfaced at a Chelsea sidewalk sale for a modest sum and auctioned for a princely one. I grabbed what appears to be an official mp3 rip here - you may or may not have luck with the link. The bummer about the version of 'Legendaly' (discussed below) that I have is that some of the tracks are abruptly cut off. Still, to get an idea of what it offers, here are two good examples: "What Goes On" and "I'm Set Free" (.wma, sorry that's what I got - if anyone has a good mp3 version drop me a line --ed.) 'Legendaly Guitar Tapes' Upon first glance, I read "Legendary Guitar Tapes" as the title for one of the cooler bootlegs I'd ever
heard. Someone had the brilliant idea of setting up the tape recorder right in front of Lou Reed's guitar amp at a Velvet Underground performance at the 'Boston Tea Party, 15/03/1969'. Upon closer inspection,
the title of the bootleg was actually "LegendaLy". THEN I noticed the
damn thing was released in Japan! Totarry confroosed! (E - is this too
racist? fuck it! publish it!) TANKERTOWN weekly comicxks like train coal burnin
posted by elvis WHAT REALLY HAPPENS dept. Don't forget to "vote"! The chairman of the Federal Election Commission yesterday predicted that 2008 will produce the first $1 billion presidential race and that the $500 million that each party's candidate will need to compete will severely limit the field of contenders.
posted by cansafis Elvis's Konspiracy Korner 16 December 0006 1230 CST Wacky fed tricks like this cannot be divorced from the puritan legacy of this country that haunts us whenever the discussion turns even slightly toward sex or religion. Alan Moore has a fantastic history of pornography in the current issue of Arthur, and you can (barely - it's small type) read it via PDF if you can't find a hard copy (Moore's piece begins on the last page of the second PDF). He makes many solid connections relevant to the above & below, generally pointing towards the different consequences and legacies of the more sexually progressive and restrictive cultures through history. Perhaps an contemporary exhibit of the legacy of our current post-puritan mess can be found in this newsflash from my old stamping grounds of Carroll County MD, as reported in their paper of record: The Westminster library was evacuated Wednesday when a man brandished a realistic-looking BB gun during an altercation that began when he threatened a pregnant woman with a syringe, according to court records... The incident began before 4 p.m. when Reidel approached a pregnant 17-year-old who was standing in front of the library at 50 E. Main St. and threatened to stick her with a syringe, said Capt. Randy Barnes, a spokesman for the Westminster Police Department. According to court records, Reidel approached the 17-year-old, pulled the syringe out of his pocket and said: "Your stomach is so big, can I have [some] of that stomach juice?" In his "Answer to Job", Jung discussed the contradiction that lies in Christianity's self-identification as a "monotheistic" religion and the central role of Satan in its mythology. How much weight can be given to a "hell" or binary view of the afterlife without the trio upstairs losing their starring role in things? All of the above is tangentially related to this week's tall thinker, William Edward Hunt. I must begin by applauding Hunt's exceptionally strong work in the realm of konsp HTML design (an aesthetics that I am rather comfortable discussing at this point). Hunt scores marks with the tried & true tactics of organizing the page into an handful of very, very long single-page scrolls, helpfully broken up by different text sizes & colors throughout. But he ups the ante over most of his peers by both adding numerous diagrams & illustrative comicxks from his own pen, and most impressively by center-aligning the whole damn thing, a bold gesture with which others in this game have flirted, but none have executed with the vision and success that Hunt exhibits in delivering us the good news: "THE BIBLE IS A PROVED HOAX". There is a *lot* to dig into here, and I am sure you will get tangled in Hunt's impressive weavings, but I will point to a few initial highlights that caught my interest alongside his central concern in separating God from the bible, and his tactics revolving around an angle of the bible being a hoax plagiarized from an Egyptian Pharaoh 5,000 years ago. Hunt is basically discussing an old and very sound argument against organized religion: that it is primarily an instrument designed for the control of the masses by a small minority, and the associated extraction & concentration of wealth toward the minority ("church"). The fact that he does so in a sort of super-theistic manner by beating the bible at its own game (giving the reader an history & understanding of God) sets him apart from the crowd. Hunt also has a pretty tangled explanation of the actual Christ being Amenophis IV, a cranky Pharaoh's daughter who claimed the sun as her father, but I am half-allergic to Jesus konspiracies due mostly to my lack of perspective on the whole mess. I do appreciate his linking of the sun as an initial inspiration for the idea of an afterlife (via the Phoenix metaphor) and to Moses as the "fire that burns but does not consume". I like his placement of the idea of "hell" as central in the religion, with "Hell creating a need for Christ" not the other way around. I also applaud his materialist explanation for the origin of the afterlife concept in ancient Egypt (the Pharaoh desiring a reason to reign forever, rather than pass the crown to th' left upon death) only to have this idea borne of base & selfish motivation ripped off and incorporated into the grand moral & theological narrative of Christianity. He is pretty ruthless on the Hell stuff, identifying it as the supreme terrorist tactic of control, and placing it as the fundamental point of abuse in any Christian church prior to molestation by authority figures. He notes that in the Christian conception, the only power of God that can be vested in man is the power to condemn, and questions an entire human life that is essentially defined as a test to be concluded at the point of death. He turns one of the best pseudo-Marxist pronouncements I've caught in a while: "he who profits from the laborer is the laborers boss", fingering the big man as Satan's boss (I don't remember this bit in "Value, Price and Profit"). All this, much more, and the aforementioned excellent diagrams from the author's hand. None of the above would be very exciting coming from a snotty undergrad, but it's the extent of Hunt's investment (the energy as well as substance) that informs his approach that makes his work so compelling, even if it discusses some familiar ideas. Again, I have barely scratched the surface, and Hunt is still writing (the most recent entry is dated November 06). Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think. NOTE FOR PROSPECTIVE KONSP JOURNALISTS: (tip o' th' konsp to kevekev.com for alerting me to both Hunt's work and the "stomach juice" article) 'leven' "Sunburst Peach"
posted by cansafis Elvis's Konspiracy Korner Saturday 12/16 1240 CST YouTubin' I have admittedly been quite allergic to the "youtube" style of modern internets, and will generally flinch at any such links sent my way. I don't pretend this is rational, but it is certainly sensible. Any such "mecca" that does not immediately offer me full search-gratification re: "the dictators", "bill orcutt", "new port", "von lmo", "sightings" (to name but a few) is highly suspect. Also, it looks and sounds like shit. But this is not news to anyone, 'tuber' or non. This is my first & last "youtube post" and I make neither explanations nor apologies for its content (full disclosure: I was hastened by Mssr. Dolman's recent excursion). Yr 'aisle musicks' comes courtesy the excellent Jack Rose (still dominating), chased with an quick intro into the hole by way of a brief snippet of Terry Riley (pre-9/11) clearly making a farce of the whole "youtube" project. I always recommend a good "Astronomy Domine" session, particularly if Gilmour is not intruding (?) and this '67 clip is as good as many. Weasel will inevitably be chafed to butt shoulders with such ponce, but my selection of his cherished Carmen clip rather than one of the very good Luttenbachers alternatives should ameliorate. "Spanish boots of Spanish leather" indeed. Chauncey spotted this inarguable gem from BJ The Messenger and I really hope that this soundman is operating at the next No Doctors show. Well played all around. "le-le-le-le-leave it alone!" Speaking of facial gear, I never doubted Keith when he claimed to have been "freezing cold with a cage on my head filmin 'Poppa Large'" but now I totally get it. BREAKING:
"Fair & Balanced" section: I think one of the public services that the "youtube" may aspire to is the delineation of the effects of lack of sufficient intoxicants on youth of the day, and MacKaye & co. co-operate: d00d, when you're the lead singer and your mic gets unplugged, don't just 'vamp' it...do it! Near the opposite of 'vamping' would be: this (I'm sure typical) end to a late-era Manowar set, or perhaps J.-L. Costes bleeding th' 'plebs' , and certainly Karp destroying an AL record store circa 1996 (thanks to Jason Monitor for th' tip on this last one). BREAKING: "Local Kids Making Good" section: Alright enough intro let's get down to SERIOUS GUITAR BIZ: The more early AC/DC I bother to listen to, the more embarrassed I get; this '78 clip is merely one typical example of Angus making me cry whenever I think about anyone paying attention to "Jimmy Page" (bonus points for excellent backing vocals on "Live Wire"). I read in the "Rock And Roll Comicxks" that Angus was never interested in any of the usual base r&r tropes: he was content to spend his incomes upon identical Gibson SGs and maximum chocolate bars. And speaking of "way better than Jimmy Page, ever", look at the fear in Keith Richards's cherry as he introduces a better rhythm section than he'll ever see and a fine-form Townshend within the "Rock And Roll Circus" supposedly curated by the Stones. They start so casual! kevekev.com thankfully tipped me to this killer "Blizzard"-era Ozzy set with the casual aplomb from Randy Rhoads that makes him most-assassinated (F--Ray Vaughn) guitarist. Also note Ozzy in peak-cocaine sincerity. The solos are killer, but the verses are just as brilliant if you know which way's up. I don't think you can see it in this clip, but the full set shows the super-nasty bass-hack licking his fingers in between plucks - grossout! Bushwick remains my most favorite existentialist MC, and I welcome suggestions toward usurpation. "'Nuff said" posted by elvis "Sunburst Orange"
posted by cansafis All the news fit for CLXPS BEIJING, China (AP) -- The long arms of the world's tallest man reached in and saved two dolphins by pulling out plastic from their stomachs, state media and an aquarium official said Thursday.
posted by clops "Sunburst Blue Dots"
posted by cansafis TSUNAMI WORMHOLE Part Three This is the next part where it happens. The aching, obfuscated, Weds. quick hits from kevekev.com: "Marmaduke" explained. When your your teeth hurt, they're making looove. Also, Mel Gibson was born with a physical anomaly called "horseshoe kidney". His two kidneys are fused at the base into a "U" shape. This fusion anomaly occurs in one of about every 400 people. posted by kevekev.com "Sunburst Bright"
posted by cansafis Cures for the Common Cold addendum from Michelle: In Chinese medicine, the common cold is the result of external pathogenic factors (EPF) invading the body. These pathogenic factors (Wind, Cold, Heat and Damp are some examples) are omnipresent, and only turn into an illness when the body's defensive Qi is weak in relation to these factors. So for example, a person may be relatively strong, take good care of himself and yet due to exposure to an extremely strong EPF, he becomes ill (Elvis). Conversely a weakling will become ill with even the slightest exposure to an EPF (you know who you are). posted by michelle TANKERTOWN that weekly web-comickxs
posted by elvis "Sunburst Pink"
posted by cansafis TSUNAMI WORMHOLE Part Two Nightfox: the elaborate baboon and his bassoon, memory banished; they
fixed breakfast and served it, copper-bright. to be concluded... posted by chauncey
posted by cansafis Elvis's Konspiracy Korner 9 December 0006 1230 CST Quick hits this week, because I was too "busy" to not leave the heavy homeworks to you, dear reader. Dr. John Coleman has the straight shit on the all-powerful Tavistock Institute, and you should take note. After all, they created the CIA, jump-started the Ford Foundation to ensure Left Gatekeeper coverage, and even put the US space program on hold for nine years (to let the Soviets catch up). One of the better points Coleman makes here is the role of small-scale sustainable agriculture as a fly in the vaseline of end-times smooth sailing. Stalin knew how to handle this particular headache with the Kulaks, and ADM, Monsanto & associates have clearly observed the effects. All this in service of the standard Illuminati goals ("give me the money and the weapons"), as blandly outlined by Coleman here. One devious prong of the Tavistock campaign sprouted the Stanford Research Institute, which has a fairly-documented poisonous history related to various mind control tactics aimed at procuring superior CIA assassination tools, as discussed by the highly recommended Alex Constantine in this piece. Now divorced from Stanford University proper, the SRI is still dominating and proudly displays their list of clients on their website, tainting the dreams of all who read the lines of this particularly diabolical rogue's gallery. Speaking of mind control, "Professor Pan" draws some excellent inferences from the specific "interrogation" techniques being employed at Guantanamo, and wonders if some of the detainees currently being treated in these extra-constitutional venues will re-visit us at some point in the near future as convenient assassins or instigators of false flag "terrorist" events. I say good point. And while on that topic , I parse this transparent newswire hysteria as a clear sign that there may be some noise on the other side of the Atlantic over the holidays. Not that the Democrats (D) need any excuses to get down to their dirty biz for 07. BONUS FOR TALL THINKERS ONLY: BONUS FOR COMICXKS THINKERS ONLY: Very good cartoonist & powerful role model for alcoholics everywhere, Wood had the oft-quoted motto "never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up." Sounds like rock and roll to me! 'leven' posted by elvis Kommon Kold addendum from Dr. Bigs: As a Doktor, I can add the following: posted by elvis Elvis's Konspiracy Korner Saturday 12/9 1240 CST Elvis's Cures for the Common Cold Wow it's that time of year again!! People get sick!! And sick people spread their nasty germs all over stuff that you touch!! Think about it - will you ever truly be free again? Functional OCD aside, I must admit, even with my robust immune system, impeccable dietary & supplementary regimens, and 'moderate' & 'sustained' drug abuse, I myself have recently fallen prey to that asshole the common cold. I fought it hard, and just as I had begun the rebound with symptoms ready to ease, Ms. Michelle, student of Chinese medicines, dropped some crazy powder on me that made me feel great and now I am ready to go out drinking and smoking tonight. Thanks, doctor! In this spirit, I humbly share some of my empirical and scientetical thoughts on fighting the common cold: Wash your hands and stop touching your face! Didn't your mom ever teach you this? Seriously, aside from inhaling other peoples' sneezes (*grossout*) the real way you catch the cold is by touching your eyes/nose/mouth/etc with dirty germ hands. Cut it out already! I can't believe the way people fondle all over the bars/straps on BART, MUNI, etc. This is so foul. I bet half of them get off the train and go eat a burger without washing their hands. Then they get sick and continue commuting to work coughing and sneezing on the other commuters in the transit petri dish. Jerks!
Take your vitamins! Regardless of your diet, I highly recommend a strong whole-foods based daily vitamin, year-round. I like this one but there are many good ones out there. This will not only keep you healthy in the short-term, but if combined with a decent-to-excellent diet, it will help you live a longer, healthier life (no shit - read the ingredients and ask yourself: why not?). When you start to feel the first symptoms of a cold (usually a sore throat), start "mega-dosing" with vitamin C. Get the 1,000mg pills w/ rose hips (higher absorption rate). One gram (1,000mg) each hour until you start to experience "gastrointestinal distress" is the general method. This worked great for me with no nasty belly aches, but I have a strong stomach, so you may want to go easier. Regardless, the theory is that everyone has a different tolerance to vitamin C and you want to find yours, then settle just below this threshold, taking a gram an hour until you reach it for that day. Do this until the symptoms are completely gone. I have successfully pre-empted illness multiple times using this method along with increased water and sleep over a few days. This was all pioneered by Linus Pauling, a great man by several measures. Of course, in addition to the supplements, Emergen-C is great (worth the small amount of sugar, and they are also vaguely creepy in a good way - see the new slogan "feel the good") and fresh citrus fruit. You do not truly have a kitchen until you have a grapefruit spoon: I also endorse the zinc lozenges which are not effective for everyone, but work for most people. Same general principle as the vitamin C, but modest dosing: get the dissolvable lozenges that are at least 20mg zinc, preferably 30mg+, and take them every few hours all day until symptoms are completely gone. Zinc and the common herbal immune-boosters still get a bad "placebo" rap from ignorant corners. Many materialist medical practitioners have come around on these and conservatively endorse them. The lack of empirical data supporting their efficacy has more to do with a lack of study than anything else. The inconclusive studies that are often cited are actually incomplete in a larger context. Just like any drug (say, opiates), a significant portion of the population does not respond at all to the substance, or has a negative response. In drug studies, they control for this by focusing further studies exclusively on responsive populations. If they did this for zinc, echinacea, etc, the results would be much more substantive. Drink a ton of water and get plenty of sleep. It's repeated ad nauseam, but these two are crucial. Once the first symptoms appear, drink as much water as you can stand, and try to get 8-10 hours of sleep for a few nights.
Sweating medicines! This one is crazy and I must tip the hat to both the aforementioned Ms. Michelle and Paul Pitchford for enlightenment. The basic idea is to drink some diaphoretic tea, take a hot bath, and sweat heavily for at least an hour. Tea: (you must use organic ingredients, because you're rinsing them and dumping them in whole) One bunch of green onions/scallions, white base only (6-8 individual bulbs), and about a finger's length of ginger, unpeeled, chopped into 6-8 circles and smashed with a knife. Dump it all in 3-4 cups of boiling water, simmer it for at least 20 minutes and it will reduce to <2 cups. Add a teaspoon of raw honey and drink it up. You can reuse it but it definitely loses potency after the first or second round. It sounds weird but tastes really good. Drink one big cup, take a really hot bath or shower, then take another cup to bed and wrap chin-to-toe mummy style in warm blankets. Put a winter hat on, too. Then watch a decent movie and don't move for at least an hour. You should sweat heavily. It is pretty psychedelic but not unpleasant. Don't sweat to the point of exhaustion. Get up and rinse off in the shower, then go to bed (with clean sheets, duh!). The theory behind this is essentially that the common cold is an external condition, with pathogens invading at the surface level of the skin. The sweating helps repel them and give you a fresh start to keep fighting the next day. Hopefully Michelle will weigh in with some actual knowledge on this. I have done the sweating medicines a single time and successfully pre-empted a cold. It was because I caught the very first symptoms. This time, I was a day late on the symptoms, and I did it once a night over three nights, with great results. I have heard that you can do it up to twice daily as needed until the symptoms are gone. It certainly doesn't hurt. Use your neti pot! I could go on and on about this as a separate piece, but I cannot recommend the neti pot highly enough. It is great when you are sick, but only because it is great always. It essentially cured allergies I have had since I was a kid. I swear by mine and everyone I've turned on to it loves it, even snide skeptics. I would say use it once a week minimum, ideally 2-3 times a week, and daily when sick. It's a hatha yoga thing, can you dig it?
Stop eating so much! Whenever I hear "comfort food" associated with being sick I think "that is one dumb glutton". Yes I am mean, but also I am right. Pay attention to your body: whenever you are sick, you have much less of an appetite. This is a good thing. Giving your body less food to digest gives it more energy to devote to fighting the illness. Basic!
Don't eat ANY dairy products, refined sugars, or anything really rich or heavy. Stick to simple foods: raw fruits and cooked vegetables. Soup is indeed the best for this because you cram a bunch of fresh vegetables into a small amount (because you're not that hungry, remember?). Again, dairy and refined sugars are poisonous anyway, and twice as poisonous when you're ill. Quit drinking! This one sucks, but is necessary for obvious reasons. I would say a little marijuana is less than ideal but highly comforting depending on how bad your symptoms are. Many may disagree. No OTC junks! This stuff is the worst. If you are in really rough shape and need drugs to take care of biz and/or sleep, stick to simple caffeine and marijuana. All the over-the-counter stuff will harm you more than help. And remember, if you feel like shit, you are most likely contagious so stay home from work and stay off my train! I don't know about you, but I feel much better! posted by elvis "Return of the ghost of the bootlegger's ghost" ed.
posted by elvis TSUNAMI WORMHOLE Part One He felt like a kitten in the lap of God. Everything got easy. It was It seemed simple enough. He had executed the pattern probably a He walked out the front door and slammed it behind him. He stopped on the porch and squinted his eyes at the grey-blue-magenta ring around the sun's hot center that poked through to the middle of his vision in an almost sexual manner. It was a thick hot day and the sun was on its way down now. In about an hour and a half it would be nighttime and then the bugs and dogs and the children and the noises would all shift to that eerie sensual nightmare mode of living. He finished chewing his greens and juggled the plates on the way to
the sink. Afterward he sat down and thought, "well... now what? Well that was enough for old bandit boy Jimmy Fiddle. Swallowed a "Well, it couldn't be too far from me now, could it?" he asked himself in his mind. "This seems to make nice to a close center." to be continued... posted by chauncey TANKERTOWN IT IS COMICKXS IT IS WEEKLY
posted by elvis The GUARDIAN has a very good "top 50" list of arts you should see before you split. It is very good because it includes architecture and medieval pieces as well as the modern stuffs. posted by kevekev.com Elvis's Konspiracy Korner 2 December 0006 1230 CST The rationale behind this semi-regular contribution to the radio show, website, and general internets is sincere, but perhaps not immediately apparent. I am certainly not the first, last, or best to attend to the 'beat' of konspiracy consolidation, discussion, etc in any medium, but I do perceive a lack of the approach that I attempt to bring to the ideas at hand, and that is what I set my sights upon when preparing these pieces. This gap lies between what one could consider to be the 'primary' and 'secondary' levels of the game of konspiracy-mongering: those who generate the actual content, and those who discuss the various efforts of these true believers. Both levels of the game certainly lend themselves to the 'for better or worse' criterion, but I think it is important to always defer the benefit of the doubt towards the primary source, rather than to the parasites (this applies to 'legitimate' journalisms as well: journalists of any stripe are easy to loathe for a number of fine reasons, but one of the finest is the fact that they are essentially "ambulance-chasers" waiting, pen in-hand, for the truly bold to act before they are able to produce anything of substance (for better or worse)). What I hope to contribute to the gap between these two levels is a sincere appreciation for the work of the primary sources. These thinkers truly patrol the trenches of contemporary consciousness, and regardless of how excellent or atrocious their texts are (and they do inevitably span the poles), they deserve more than an open-shut consideration composed of ironic detachment or mockery. Although I don't pretend to avoid either tactic, what they do deserve is an additional sincerity and respect in approaching their ideas, and I try to keep this in mind when preparing these segments. I strongly believe in the potential to extract substantial meaning from an adequate threshold of energy as well as substance in any given text. The motto I have chosen for this series is entirely sincere, and I don't hesitate to recommend it: 'better living through ecstatic agnosticism' should be equally applicable to the realm of rational discussion as it is to music or any other of the more nebulous & intuitive realms of communication, and I think to deny this is to opt for the lazy way out of such obligations that we are tied to if we aspire to be thinking human beings. The only thing more obnoxious than the middle-brow self-proclaimed "materialist" is the highest-brow chest-beating "skeptic", that scourge of art, beauty, and orgasm that - despite concerted PR efforts to the contrary - is in fact the same gangster that put the hemlock to Socrates a while back. These profoundly smug anti-intellectuals protest way too much in their pursuit of "truth", and are in fact concerned only with conserving the simplest of womb-like pseudo-truths that vainly attempt to stamp upon even the most primal and productive capacities for wonder & curiosity that are fundamental to the human race and are perhaps the only things that keep us hanging on at this point (inertia is admittedly also a strong contender). If you would rather get stuck drinking next to one of these skeptical "killjoys" than a rabid anti-semitic nut with a masonic-royalist theory on 9/11, then you need to actually try it and observe the effects. Heidegger asked: "What is it, to be?" The skeptic asks: "Have we yet debunked the 'big-foot'?" I've been digging into the "Aquarian Konspiracy" as proposed by one Dr. John Coleman, and it is a useful case study to quickly illustrate my above reductionisms. I was tipped off to this excerpt from Coleman's book by notorious dark magus Nondor Nevai, and there is a ton of food for thought to be found in this chunk. One of the stranger bits thrown in without elaboration is an assertion that none other than Theodor Adorno was the nefarious ghost-writer behind the Beatles. Of course, I scrambled to try to turn up any non-redundant mention of this on the webs, to little avail. But look at the way this Whitehead Adorno-phile character explains it all away with such ponce. This is the most egregious type of shallow engagement with the primary konsp thinkers that I'm referring to; it's less like picking on the easiest target in the schoolyard, and more like making a fool of yourself by trying to pick on the guy that's actually talking way over your head. All things being equal, the Coleman piece expands my options for considering a number of very relevant things related to the materialist & magickal history of rock and roll and post-WWII American trajectories, while Whitehead simply makes an ass of himself by foolishly attempting to conjure a meaningless "Religious Right" (sic) cabal that leads nowhere, while at the same time making the nuttiest of konsp nuts look like HTML pros with his asinine web design and predictably name-dropping tired skeptic bogeymen Larouche and Icke for no discernible reason; all this with nary a supportive or interesting hyperlink to be seen. According to his bio, Whitehead "teaches English" in Manchester, and has a "special interest" in the works of Alfred Hitchcock. What a thinker! Meanwhile, over on the right coast Coleman is busy examining the viral introduction of the Beatles into American culture in interesting terms related to the basic magickal properties of rock and roll: hypnotic repetition of sound forms and the resulting effects upon lyrical magicks; emphasis of potent imagery over substance; the emergence of frighteningly rapid & masterful control over the establishment media monopolies; the subsequent determination of linguistic means among the young in ways that are not easily explained in materialist terms; the chicken-egg relationship of massive media-noise related to contemporary cultural crises; extremely interesting ideas re: threshold levels in large populations related to intensive immersion in novelty over short periods of time, etc. Of course, Coleman also: assumes common knowledge in the reader of the most arcane levels of his personal highly-developed konsp paradigms; refrains from citing sources when they are dearly needed; makes a big point of asking "where was the DEA" prior to the DEA being created in 1973; expends a great deal of words weakly maligning Ginsberg and mis-spelling his name; appears to be strangely fixated on estimating "dollar amounts" comparable to the "free" advertising given the hippies in their prime; compares the non-response of the corporate media to his personal "expose" of the Federal Reserve to media coverage of 1970 in 1970, etc. During my undergraduate studies, Adorno was offered up to students as a straw-man with "easily" refutable arguments against cultural evolution and rock and roll righteousness. Aside from being a cruel reduction of a substantial thinker, is this any different from what Coleman does in casually smearing him as some sort of illuminatus super-villain puppeteering the very origins of rock and roll? This is a lot to work with from one brief and less-than-stellar excerpt from a lesser light in the primary-source konsp circles. As stated above, I certainly appreciate what I absorb from the energy levels of such texts in addition to the substance, and the skeptics offer little of either: they are generally content to wallow in cheap mockery aimed at more adventurous frontal lobes. And they're rude about it, too. Addenda relevant to Coleman's piece: This is a much sloppier and more scattershot kitchen-sink piece on the Beatles, but I think it is relevant due to the focus on synchronicity, which I will return to in coming installments. Essentially I propose the same basic question: why is such a synchronistic paradigm not relevant to an examination of contemporary events? What is the danger of employing such an approach? Why does it terrify some and enrapture others? This 'word to the wise' re: the technical anomalies of Phish's light show is one of the best things I've stumbled upon in a while. All I will add is that as a musician, I tend to attribute any profitable music that I don't like to "mind control". Next week: Deeper along the same course, examining Coleman's fixations with the Tavistock Institute, Stanford University's research into electromagnetic mind control tactics, and more, I'm sure. 'leven' posted by elvis "WTF" FRIDAY Tipped via Blastitude: The Chicago Tribune inexplicably takes a break from the usual journalism-lite garbage mill and offers up a top notch music video for heavy ND comrade-in-arms Little Howlin Wolf that appears to be some sort of pre-apocalyptic valentine from the death throes of post-capitalist USA. Like a wise man once said, "wtf?!?" (tribune junkwall login available here) posted by elvis Elvis's Konspiracy Korner Saturday 12/2 1240 CST SHOW REPORT: San Francisco CA 11/29/06 I spent my early evening drawing an elf ear CLOPAS in the Temple Bear, the west Oakland practice space we have shared for the last two years. This is approximately the 11th or the 13th practice space we have called ours since the late 20th century. Among others: our parents’ basements, Elvis’s apartment, Chauncey’s college dorm room, my apartment living room, WNUR, an associated bootleg squat auditorium, a shared Minneapolis basement (w/ kegerator), Glenn Spence’s place, freezing but friendly Il Dojo in Chicago's Jefferson Park, and 667 House. Okay, just kidding, but man does that video stink. Holy crap. So to make up for it here is the best celebrity video of all time. That should give you a fix. Please somebody give Dan Aykroyd a solo. posted by cansafis |
