doktorhander

Vintage Wheels #13: The Super Van

2011-11-30T08:42:00.000-08:00

Even Mr. T's 1982 custom AMC shrinks with embarrassment when The Super Van rolls up. This baby is a shaggin' wagon powered by the sun!

Unlike your typical '70s van, this isn't just your average bed on wheels. This baby has a TV, tape deck, and "lighting effects" (I wonder what 8-track is in that tape deck.... my money's on Foghat). I'd give anything for just five minutes in that Captain's Chair, wheel in one hand, CB in the other. It would really make me sad if this fine specimen is rusting away in some scrapyard.

I'll bet it still smells like pot.

click to view full size

Meanwhile, Down In Goose Creek, South Carolina...

2011-11-30T05:48:00.000-08:00

...a young boy is in the hospital recovering from a rattlesnake bite that took 40 vials of antivenom to counteract.

Judging from the description of the snake it was probably an Eastern Diamondback, and if it was a 6-footer (probably not, people always overestimate the length of snakes in a snakebite incident) it would have been capable of injecting huge amounts of venom, and it got the boy twice on the leg. Kind of late in the season for a snakebite, but this is Low Country South Carolina we're talking about, and it's been warm so far this fall.

If you're not familiar with modern treatment for snakebite, be advised that cutting the bite and using suction to suck the poison out doesn't work, and has the potential to make things worse. Just get to the hospital as quickly as you possibly can so they can start treatment with antivenom. No tourniquets, either, unless you definitely wish to lose a limb.

If Paul Bunyan Had a Rifle...

2011-11-30T05:25:00.000-08:00

...it would probably be about this size.

.75 Chinese Fortress Rifle.

Yes, you read that right. .75 caliber.That's bigger than the Ma Deuce, bigger than the .600 Nitro Express. It's three quarters of an inch. I don't know if you could shoot the thing unsupported. Recoil? I wince just thinking about it.

h/t The Firearms Blog.

First Stop Hospital, Second Stop Jail

2011-11-30T05:05:00.000-08:00

He picked the wrong grocery store to rob, because the clerk had a gun of her own.

A clerk at a Kannapolis grocery store turned the tables on a thief.

Police say John Davidson III tried to rob Bethpage Grocery on Mooresville Road at gunpoint Tuesday night, but the clerk got out her own gun and shot at Davidson.

Davidson ran away but police say he called 911 and told them he had been shot.

Attagirl.

Meanwhile, In Galveston, Texas...

2011-11-30T02:20:00.000-08:00

...a Marine Vietnam War veteran's body lies unclaimed on a cold slab in the morgue because the town can't find next of kin and won't recognize his best friend or his unadopted stepdaughter as sufficient to release the body.

A decorated war hero who died on Veteran’s Day might get his final wishes fulfilled if a probate judge agrees to release his body to his stepdaughter during a probate hearing this morning.

Manual Maurice “C.W.” Walden, a U.S. Marine veteran who received the Purple Heart twice and was awarded the Bronze Star for valor for his service during the Vietnam War, died Nov. 11. His remains have lain unclaimed on a refrigerated slab in the Galveston County morgue since then because the medical examiner has been unable to find any blood relatives.

His close friend Coyt Mangum said that is just not acceptable.

“I’m really angry over this,” Mangum said. “I’ve been getting the runaround, no one would allow me to move forward and take care of his final arrangements because they can’t find any family. His family is gone; I’m the only family he has.”

Mangum, who also served in Vietnam, met Walden in a Galveston bar 25 years ago. The two became fast friends and often worked welding jobs together. In recent years, Mangum built the disabled vet an apartment on the ground floor of his home because health issues forced Walden to use a wheelchair. Mangum said the retired welder was well known around Galveston as a guy that would give the shirt off his back to anyone in need.

As it turned out, Walden was helping others even after his death. Mangum on Monday gave Walden’s wheelchair to Al Perdew, a veteran whose own wheelchair had been stolen from his truck.

Click the link to read the rest. Representative (and Presidential candidate) Ron Paul, whose district this is occurring in, has gotten involved, and hopefully it will be resolved in the near future.

Child Molester Killed In Prison

2011-11-30T01:22:00.000-08:00

Story.

The convicted child molester who was strangled over the weekend while serving a 20-year sentence at McCormick Correctional Institution was mutilated and his body went undiscovered for some time, possibly for hours, state officials said Tuesday afternoon.

His cellmate, John Michael New, 32, who is serving a life sentence for hostage-taking, was charged with murder, according to an arrest warrant made public by the S.C. Law Enforcement Division.

New is charged with killing Ricky Cooper, 49, who was found dead late Saturday morning in a common area in front of a shower near his cell, according to prison officials.

Wonder why he wasn't in the Protective Custody Unit? Either he thought he was safe in the general population, or maybe he got transferred out of PC for pissing off someone.

I don't personally gloat when men are raped or killed in prison, no matter how much they might deserve it. When they stood before the judge to be sentenced for their crimes, (s)he didn't add and I also sentence you to be gang-raped on a regular basis and killed for simply trespassing into another inmate's personal space, or looking at him funny. This is the United States of America, and we're supposed to be better than that.

Think about it, and have some empathy. There but for the grace of God and proper upbringing go you yourself.

You Took That Too Far

2011-11-30T00:15:00.000-08:00

What Does Stevie Nicks Have to Do With Punk Rock?

2011-11-29T17:25:00.000-08:00

What does Stevie Nicks have to do with punk rock? Well, nothing, really. But she's totally gonna help me raise money to put together my coffee table book of images from my traveling photo exhibit, Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond.

Stevie and the rest of the Rumours line up of Fleetwood Mac (I was rather fond of the original Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer line-up myself), aside from being world renown hitmakers, are among the musicians I have photographed in my lifetime and the photos of the first Buckingham-Nicks performances with Fleetwood Mac are an intrinsic part of my life in the Central Coast beach suburb that informed my perspective.

You will see these photos of Fleetwood Mac in my book's intro.

So, I have decided to offer select images from the 1976 line-up of Fleetwood Mac, featuring the earliest appearances of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. They'll make a great Christmas Gift for the classic rock fan on your gift list.

These photos were taken at the UCSB stadium where Fleetwood Mac performed on May 2, 1976 - or that's the date on my envelope that contained these negatives. I also saw them open for the Faces in August of 1975 and was a bit confused by the presence of new members, Buckingham and Nicks. Confusion was negated by a decent version of "Oh Well," and once the Faces hit the stage, nothing that preceded them mattered.

As time passed, however, in the very few months between the Faces last gig as The Faces until their 21st Century reunion (without Rod the Mod), all that classic rock seemed to matter less and less for my closest friends and me.

We were rocking something new that resonated for us in a way that The Beatles resonated for kids like us back in the earliest days of the 60s. Girls screamed for the Fab Four; we had our own Fab Four, too... The Ramones. Not that the rock n roll that went before was all for naught; we took lots from the Beatles and the Stones. But we took from their periods of urgent relevance, and from there, we launched our own period of urgent relevance, and kept it more urgent and quite simply kept it urgent all the time.

In 2011, every single one of these bands mentioned on this page and most of them visually referenced, are in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.

It is enduring. And a picture is worth a thousand words.

Stay tuned for more info on the Vintage Classic Rock Photos by me, Theresa K. They won't be available for very long, and buying them means you get a fairly limited edition piece of art and you're helping me create the coffee table book for Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond. Help punk rock endure! Spread the word!

Arrival

2011-11-29T13:14:00.000-08:00

Ka-Bar's modern version of the US Navy Mark I knife:

Purchased as a birthday present for myself with the Amazon gift card provided by my sister.

The Mark I knife was the predecessor of the more famous Mark II, the famous "Kabar" carried by Marines since WWII. If I recall my military knife history, the Mark I knife had a flaw that was corrected in the Mark II: the pommel in the Mark I was threaded onto the knife's tang, which proved insecure when the knife was used as an expedient mallet or hammer. In the Mark II, the threading was replaced by a pin that pierced both tang and pommel. They are made that way to this very day. This new version has the pinned pommel, a Kraton rubber handle instead of the original's stacked leather, and a sheath made of Kydex and nylon instead of leather. The blade is carbon steel, and instead of being Parkerized, is coated with a modern baked-on black paint. The edge is hair-popping sharp right out of the box, as is usual with Ka-Bar knives.

This knife is a good choice for general outdoor use, short enough to be effective for hunting and other light camp work without scaring white people into thinking it's a deadly weapon.

I could see this one becoming a personal favorite.

It's Arizona's Version of the Poe Toaster

2011-11-29T11:49:00.000-08:00

That is to say, a mystery recurring over many years, to the delight of local residents.

Once upon a time on a Thanksgiving weekend long ago, an unassuming juniper tree on Arizona Interstate 17 became more than just a tree.

Under cover of darkness, parties unknown adorned the evergreen with ribbons and ornaments and tinsel so that motorists between Phoenix and Flagstaff might smile and admire its cheery demeanor.

As sometimes happens, the secret trimming became a holiday tradition, and it became a subject of Arizona lore.

The spectacle was dubbed "Mystery Christmas Tree."

For about three decades, travelers eagerly awaited a glittering diversion in the median near Milepost 254, just north of the Sunset Point rest area.

Investigative journalists tried -- and failed -- to identify the anonymous decorators. Some folks credited Santa's helpers. Others insisted that Arizona Highway Patrol officers or Department of Transportation workers were involved.

But no one was ever caught in the act, and nobody stepped forward.

Just like the Poe Toaster, whose decades-long tradition of "toasting" the grave of Edgar Allan Poe on the occasion of the poet's annual January birthday sadly came to an end a couple of years ago.

He Must Have Been Watching The Walking Dead...

2011-11-29T09:22:00.000-08:00

...season 2, episode 201, "What Lies Ahead." That's the episode in which Karl is shot by Otis while approaching a deer.

Well, ya see, there's this buck, and I took a shot at it, and just as I shot it jumped and ran away, and I didn't realize there was a horse standing there behind the buck, and...

Anyway, that's my guess. The hunter might have another story in mind:

AIKEN — Authorities say they have charged an Aiken County hunter with animal cruelty after he shot at what he said was a buck and killed a horse instead.

Investigators told the Aiken Standard that the 7-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding had to be euthanized after it was wounded around 6:30 a.m. Saturday.

Deputies say they were able to find a hunter in a nearby tree stand who said he was shooting at a buck when the bullet hit the horse.

Of course, the simplest solution is that he's a dumbass and simply shot the horse because it was a target of opportunity.

Another possibility is that he shot the horse while it was in deep brush and couldn't be identified as a horse. In that case, he shouldn't have been able to identify it as a buck, either. And if he shot into a thicket without being able to identify his target as a buck deer of proper size, then again he's a dumbass.

World of Sport for all..

2011-11-28T23:10:00.000-08:00

Sport of all/any sort is the theme we'll be kicking around on Radio Podrophenia tonight. Joining us in the commentary box straight from the sportsdesk is our resident expert @marmite boy

We're playing 4 a-side (tunes that is) from Piley, Marmite and myself - pitching in a couple pop quizzes with chatabouts that may include..sport in unlikely places, have you won a medal in any event and how does Hadleigh in Essex, one of the UK's flattest counties - become the arena for the Olympic mountain biking event

Kick off is at 9 tonight - join us for a ringside seat at Chance Radio

You can lend an ear to last weeks fixture here (or on iTunes), fitted around the theme of Food

Radio Podrophenia - Food

In a last minute switcheroo - we've had to play a substitute with Jack Gestures is now filling in for Marmite...

Vinyl Dynamite #36: Climax Blues Band

2011-11-28T17:59:00.000-08:00

I want bands to start looking ugly again. Not ugly as in "pretentiously weird ugly"; I mean ugly as in "they obviously have not showered in months, and their pockets are probably full of mystery pills and dried vomit". Those kind've guys always made the best music (I'm talkin' to you AC/DC!).

So, I just wanted to give a quick fist bump to one of the scariest looking groups, The Climax Blues Band. Like so many other gritty smelly looking bands of the seventies, they cleaned up in the early eighties, had a final hit or two... then were gone. Well, I wanted to bring them back for a moment.

Here's a couple incredible songs that epitomize the change from dirty-n-fugly '70s to squeaky clean '80s.

Sav'ry Gravy is some badass funky shit. This is cannabis fueled blues at its best.

I Love You is early eighties radio-friendly gold. Is there a better crafted pop song out there? McCartney surely wondered for a moment if he'd written it.

"El Esqueleto: The Skeleton" Issue 1

2011-11-28T17:01:00.000-08:00

It's here! My new web comic, "El Esqueleto: The Skeleton".

I've posted issue #1 in it's entirety. Issue #2 launches Wednesday Dec. 14, new comic day. Updates will post each Wednesday, there after (barring cataclysm, ape-rule or zombpacalypse).

So, take a look. LMK what you all think and I hope you enjoy "The Skeleton" and his action-packed life as an Operator for the Battle Science Bureau.

More to come!
-Matt
(Dr. G)

He Cain't H'ep It...

2011-11-28T12:37:00.000-08:00

...he's just an ignernt redneck.

PALM CITY, Fla., Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Police in Florida said a man arrested for allegedly brawling with his son told officers he shouldn't be arrested because "fighting is what redneck people do."

Investigators said Wach's 18-year-old son told deputies he confronted his father about 45 minutes before deputies arrived because the older man was intoxicated and shooting his pistol at the son's lawn mower in the yard of the 18-year-old's home, TCPalm.com said.

The son said he took the handgun from Wach, who left but came back a short time later with a shotgun he allegedly pointed at the younger man. The two men fought until a passing deputy noticed the altercation, investigators said.

Wach allegedly refused to comply with the deputy's demands that he stop fighting and he was shocked three times with a stun gun before being taken into custody.

Deputies said Wach did not understand why he was being arrested.

"He then stated that he shoots in the yard all the time and that fighting is what redneck people do," the arrest report states.

To the deputies who arrested him, it was aggravated assault; to Wach, it was just another typical redneck weekend.

If you've ever tried to shoot the lawnmower and then got into a fight with your own son...you might be a redneck.

Treasure Blog: Proto-Mickey Mouse Silent Film

2011-11-28T07:53:00.000-08:00

Called Hungry Hobos, the film is from 1928 and features a character recognizable as Mickey Mouse - - but with rabbit ears.

Yes, Mickey started out as a bunny.

You've heard of sex changes and gender reassignment, right? Well, Mickey was on the cutting edge of that stuff in 1928, he had a species reassignment!

Needlework-a-Go Go #24: Yarnvertising

2011-11-28T05:41:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd hit you with some truly awesome advertisements from the 1971-1972 issue of McCall's Needlework & Crafts magazine. Some stellar ads that you don't want to miss - so, read on!

This Columbia Minerva ad is incredible. It looks like this dude is ready to beat the shit out of this girl.... ah, but it's a joke. "Crewel" sounds like "cruel".... get it? Maybe if they'd have given her a black eye and a bloody lip, it would've been funnier.

I'll be honest.. fellas, it was sounding great. But.. I could've used a little more cowbell. So.. let's take it again.

How can I comment on this, other than to note that the single greatest headline for an ad I have ever read, "The Blazing Beauty of Beads", is followed up by some of the most boring "unblazing" examples imaginable: a chart, a clump of fruit, and a vest?

The fine print reads: Warning: These fashions are only considered acceptable attire in certain remote regions of Finland.

Ahem. Last I checked, the Knitty Gritty Bang Bang was not a yarn, but rather something you did in the back of a van. I'm just sayin'.

"With the Number Of Guns We Let Walk...

2011-11-28T01:18:00.000-08:00

...we'll never know how many people were killed, raped, robbed." - - ATF agent John Dodson.

The Arizona Republic newspaper has a great primer on Operation Fast & Furious, the ATF's plot to let guns "walk" into Mexico and into the hands of drug cartels.

Canary Warp

2011-11-28T00:15:00.000-08:00

Paul PJ Cheng

Had he but the temperament
This dreamtime to conform
Would he walk the barricades
In starched black uniform?

Had he but the tall plumed hat
To Tower above us yet
Would he give your matches back
Or light your cigarette?

Had he but the shiny shoes
To reflect his power dreams
Would he dust your un-dunked doughnuts down
With powder-finger schemes?

Had he but that showman’s smile
To dazzle and amaze
Would he pick your wallet clean
With wicked eyes ablaze?

Had he but the balls of steel
Required to face it straight
He’d reacquaint these dictionaries
With what it means to educate

Re: Walking Dead, Mid-Season Finale

2011-11-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

Wow. Just wow. A few observations:

1. Rick's really a dumbass for going along with Herschel about capturing zombies and bringing them back to the farm.

2. Herschel knew Sophia was a walker, since she was in the barn. Letting Daryl and others continue to search for her in that circumstance is heinous.

3. Watch Rick the next time you see him with the Colt Python. I don't think Fred Lincoln has much experience with guns, he holds it in a way that looks dramatic...and stupid. He's actually holding it so that the gun is above his line of sight, angled downward. I think he's trying to look like Clint Eastwood facing down the black bank robber at the beginning of Dirty Harry, but he doesn't have the gun savvy to do it.

4. Shane is the only one truly serious about survival, but he's a psycho.

5. The black guy at this point is getting next to zero screen time, and hasn't even been given anything to do other than get himself injured early in the season. I'm surprised that the usual race hustlers (Jesse Jackson, NAACP, Spike Lee, et. al.) aren't raising hell about his lack of screen time. Hell, he's a token black guy in an all-white cast.

6. I wasn't really surprised by Sophia being in the barn as a walker. She looked pretty good, though, hadn't obviously been chewed on. That may be foreshadowing, in the comics they eventually learn that being bitten isn't required for the dead to come back as walkers.

That's all I can think of for the moment. I may add more later.

Update. In animal pack terms, Shane is trying to assert himself as the alpha male; he successfully dominated Dale, nearly got into a fight with Daryl, and ended the show flouting Rick's leadership. He even made overtures to Lori, boasting of his ability to defend/protect her in comparison to Rick.

Even Glen is asserting himself in pack terms these days.

The group is divided into those who realize that the paradigm has changed since the zombie apocalypse, and those who don't realize it. Most of them aren't facing it.

A Stern and Unbending Sense of Justice

2011-11-27T07:51:00.000-08:00

When 49-year-old hunter Timothy Bolognani accidentally shot and killed his hunting companion, 39-year-old Benjamin Birch, he then did what most guilt-ridden hunters who make a tragic mistake don't do: he took his own life in payment.

Think about that. A hunting accident is one scenario in which you can kill someone and get off scot-free, or with a slap on the wrist. Bolognani obviously didn't see it that way, though. Possibly he felt he'd incurred a blood debt that could only be repaid in blood; or, perhaps, he had such a bond with Birch that he couldn't face living in a world without him.

The story doesn't say whether the two men had families. If they did, I wonder if it's a comfort to Mrs. Birch that Bolognani paid such a debt?

Tragic, tragic story.

h/t Drudge Report.

Yer Video of the Day

2011-11-26T05:07:00.000-08:00

H/T Velociworld.

November 26, 1961

2011-11-26T04:13:00.000-08:00

I was born. Pretty day outside for a 50th birthday.

Mysterious Earworm

2011-11-26T01:23:00.000-08:00

Mysterious as in "How does a particular earworm attach itself to our brain? Most often, I think, it's because you hear it somewhere; a radio, on the television, or even someone singing/humming it.

Why, then, when I don't watch TV or listen to soft rock on the radio, would I be plagued by Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl upon awakening at 2:00 a.m. with a full bladder? More particularly since I've never been a Rick Springfield fan, and even in high school I'd see a copy of Working Class Dog in the record stores and think That's sooo stooopid! (It should be noted that I'd walk out of the store with Hank Williams Jr. cassettes, so I can't claim any profound musical taste, myself).

Wikipedia has an entry for earworms, believe it or not. Looks like some famous people have written about them.

Incidentally, to get rid of the Jessie's Girl earworm, I'm currently earworming Man In the Rain by Mike Oldfield.

In the Belly of the Whale

2011-11-26T00:15:00.000-08:00

penumbra . 5

Still from Béla Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies

The Leviathan’s passengers, frozen as they are in subjective time, are not prone to speculation about anything, least of all their continued unscheduled orbit around the planet.
Given the nature of the Leviathan’s belly, even if one of those passengers should, by some fault in the support systems, find themselves awake, they would have no way of determining how long they had been away, let alone have any inkling of their journey’s disastrous lack of progress toward the New.
Ivan Devoto, like DeSandro Bien spends his time in solitude but, unlike DeSandro, Ivan finds no solace in his solitude.
“Ivan, would you like me to prepare a little something for you?”
“Get outta my head Trinny.”
“Ivan, you know it is my duty to ensure that your head remains capable of its own duties.”
“Just leave me alone.”
“Ivan, as you wish.”
As is often the case when the loneliness becomes a tangible presence on the Leviathan’s bridge, Devoto turns to the muted monitors for comfort. He watches the interchangeable news readers from MantraRay and Carpathia struggling to mask the panic behind their eyes; watches footage of burning forests, encroaching desert and heavily guarded greenhouses, Leviptrons rising and landing in great flurries of petals and dust; watches the catastrophic world in which he, and indeed the Leviathan, are all but forgotten.
The Leviathan calls; simultaneously baritone and soprano; and her cry echoes through her cavernous body, resonates both through her bones and through the reinforcing steel beams that contain her cargo. Devoto cannot be sure but he imagines that her calls have become stained with deep sorrow these last few months, as if she too had given up hope that she may swim out into the New.
“I’m working on it old girl” says Devoto to the emptiness that follows her call.
“Ivan, working on what?”
“I wasn’t talking to you Trinny.”
TRNE goes back to the base routines, searching once again for one that will prompt TRNE’s human companion to move beyond the rigor-mortis of his despair. TRNE has data that infers that this is a great responsibility, even if TRNE has no capacity to understand the human significance, and this lends weight to the priority matrix that guides TRNE’s allocation of processing resources. Resources that TRNE has drawn away from the anomalies in the Leviathan’s vitals, anomalies that TRNE has concluded are not threatening to the creature’s life but stem rather from the fact that the mission has not been able to break free of the planet’s gravity.

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Gilligan's Instant Queue

2011-11-25T17:08:00.000-08:00

For me, finding a 60s-80s movie on Instant is often a frustrating experience. There's a whole array of long-forgotten classics buried in their vast storehouse of instantly viewable material; the trouble is finding them.... and it simply should not be so hard.

Well, there's a lot of apps out there (i.e. Instant Watcher) that can make finding things easier. I thought it might also be beneficial to present a few weekly offerings here at Retrospace. I've been wanting to do this for while, but never pulled the trigger, the reason being movie reviews take me forever to write. Most of my posts take 15-20 minutes to compose.... these can take several hours.

The obvious solution to this quandary is to simply keep it brief. My goal is to just provide you enough information for you to determine whether or not to give it a try, not write a dissertation on each film. Here's what we'll go by from here on out...

Star Quotient
Even the worst movies can be saved by Evil Knievel and Paul Lynde
Badassitude
Chuck Norris and Shaft excel in this category
Action Fraction
Chase scenes, be it chopper or speed boat, are a worthy addition to any film
Laughtermath
Will you laugh hysterically or just smile awkwardly
Sexitivity
The T&A factor: for many of you, the only score that matters
Disturbulence
How badly will you need to take a shower to wash away the painful memory
Frighteousness
Scariness; Exorcist = 10, Shaggy DA = 0
Storytelling
The part between the explosions and the nudity

I'll also follow each review with ~four screen grabs. Let's begin!

C.C. & Company (1970)

Plot: Pretty rich girl falls for biker; predictable trouble ensues.
Star Quotient: 10
Joe Namath and Ann-Margret headline - about as good a reason to watch a movie if there ever was one
Badassitude: 4
Namath is a shit kicking biker gypsy, but acting is way too awful to pull it off
Action Fraction: 3
Several yawn inducing motorcycle races
Laughtermath: 3
Humor is nonexistent except for unintentionally hilarious script
Sexitivity: 3
Brief out of focus nudity on a few occasions; Ann-Margret remains fully clothed throughout
Disturbulence: 3
Ann-Margret is nearly raped by two bikers; uncomfortable, but Namath steps in before it got too ugly
Frighteousness: 0
Capitalized on the fears of older generation - young biker gangs run amok; lame by today's standards
Storytelling: 1
Appears to have been written by a mildly retarded 14 year old

====================================================================

For Those Who Think Young (1964)

Plot: Wacky beach loving teens must save a local hangout. Psuedo-hilarity ensues.
Star Quotient: 10
Another gathering of greats: Nancy Sinatra, Bob Denver, Tina Louise, Ellen Burstyn, Paul Lynde
Badassitude: 0
James Darren is a dapper young gentleman; but, even Troy Donahue looks tough by comparison
Action Fraction: 0
Merchant Ivory films have more action than this movie
Laughtermath: 4
Corny Laugh-In style gags abound; cheesy but a lot of fun nonetheless
Sexitivity: 4
Hot young teens and Tina Louise as a burlesque queen; yet, G rated booty is all you'll get in this flick
Disturbulence: 1
Seeing Bob Denver and Nancy Sinatra as a horny couple should count for something
Frighteousness: 0
Storytelling: 1
Paint by numbers mid sixties teen movie

===================================================================

AKA The Jezebels (1975)

Plot: Like The Warriors, but with lots of estrogen
Star Quotient: 1
The neighbor dad in That 70s Show is in it (see image below)... that's about it.
Badassitude: 8
Maggie takes a cigarette burn to the navel and still keeps swinging. She is an ass kicking machine.
Action Fraction: 8
The pace is frantic; the massacre at the roller rink is B movie action at its finest
Laughtermath: 5
It's hard for me to give such high marks to unintentional humor, but this has to be seen to be believed
Sexitivity: 5
No nudity to speak of; however, Maggie is in hot pants or mini throughout.
Disturbulence: 4
A couple scenes of implied rape; surprisingly tame given that it was made in '75 and some scenes are in a women's prison
Frighteousness: 0
Storytelling: 3
Rolls along swiftly, keeping the entertainment level high. However, the dialog is exquisitely horrible.

Since this is the first post of its kind, I'd love to hear some feedback - perhaps a rating category that I overlooked. Plus, I'd love to hear your two cents on some of these films.

Headline of the Day

2011-11-25T07:40:00.000-08:00

"NC bell ringer sets sights on world record."

Well slap my face and call me Quasimodo.

And I wonder if the headline writer is aware (s)he's using a violent, gun-oriented metaphor in the headline? If Sarah Palin did such a thing, we'd never hear the end of it.

Retrospace Mix Tape #18: Something Man

2011-11-25T07:26:00.000-08:00

The history of pop music is riddled with songs defining the man. Some of the best known are:

Sharp Dressed Man (ZZ Top), Nowhere Man (The Beatles), Iron Man (Black Sabbath), Spoon Man (Soundgarden), Magic Man (Heart), Street Fightin' Man (Rolling Stones), Guitar Man (Bread), Piano Man (Billy Joel), Boogie Man (KC & the Sunshine Band), Macho Man (Village People), Rocket Man (Elton John), Soul Man (Sam and Dave), Mr. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan), Simple Man (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Old Man (Neil Young), Ramblin' Man (Allman Brothers), Traveling Man (Ricky Nelson), Solitary Man (Neil Diamond), Tin Man (America) and Hurdy Gurdy Man (Donovan).

However, this is Retrospace, and we like to explore the less traveled nooks and crannies of the retro-landscape. Thus, I bring to you a heaping helping of Something Man songs gathered far, far from your weekly Top 40. They come complete with my erudite commentary on a handful of tracks, and the full mix tape can be found at the very end of this post. Enjoy!

Whiskey Man by The Who

Take it from a band that knew the dangers of fire water better than anyone. Even better, it was the sole contribution of Entwistle on the A Quick One album.... a guy who lived a life of "wine, women and song" to the bitter end. Moon gets most of the attention as being the wild child of the band, a title he certainly came by honestly. But let's not forget Entwistle died of a cocaine fueled heart attack in the company of a prostitute... in 2002!

How amazing that a catchy little ditty like this could land such a punch? It speaks directly about getting wasted and its shitty consequences, but can't seem to decide if it's worth it or not. In one line, booze is the cause of misery and isolation, at another the singer proudly announces he and booze get on just fine. This is an alcoholic's theme song if there ever was one.

Naked Man by The Grass Roots (1975)

I really need to do a post covering the streaking phenomenon of the seventies. If you didn't live through it, it'll be hard for you to imagine how big it was. Why people suddenly felt the need to parade their penises and hairy seventies bush in public places is beyond me. Even worse than doing it, perhaps, was singing about it - I'm talking to you Ray Stevens!

Who would've guessed the same hippie group that sang "Let's Live for Today" in 1967, would be singing about streakers in '75. If this has some deeper subtext that I'm not comprehending, I'm just not getting it.

And please don't remind me in a comment that the dude in the picture above is a "flasher", not a "streaker". I don't want to hear it.

Kite Man by Three Dog Night (1975)

Sweet Lord. This is easily the highest song ever recorded. What do I mean by "highest"? I mean this song was undoubtedly written while high, recorded while high, and produced while high. I wasn't there, but I can say with absolute conviction that no one was not stoned during any point from inception to release of this song. In fact, I think they should have given a marijuana plant writing credits for Kite Man. This song is what THC sounds like.

Ice Man by The Ice (1968)

When The Beatles Anglicised R&B, a wholly new art form arose which, when combined with LSD and cannabis, resulted in a creative Krakatoa, the likes of which the music industry had not seen nor will ever see again. The cream rose to the top, but most were left buried underneath its ashes. Decades later, we sift through the rubble and find traces of greatness once lost, but there are still more to find. Gems like this one by The Ice remind us that the psychedelic movement was short-lived, but produced a metric fuck ton of material that we are only now getting acquainted with.

Wah Wah Man by Young-Holt Unlimited (1971)

It's funny. Despite the incredible diversity of music put out during the seventies, when you ask someone to sing/hum something from that decade, you'll often get the stereotypical "bowm chicka wah wah" porn soundtrack. For some reason, the "wah wah" sound has been so inextricably linked to the seventies, it almost represents it as a whole! I'll admit the "wah wah" was used a lot - it was everywhere for a while. Disco used it almost without exception, game shows opened with it, Barry White made sweet love to it, and TV detectives put the smackdown on pimps and drug dealers to it. It's unfortunate that the decade ended with the world still enmeshed in the omnipresent "wah wah".

The Barbarians - Mr. Tambourine Man The Creation - Painter Man Irma Thomas - Cheater ManThe Who - Whiskey Man The 'In-Crowd' Scene - Yesterday Man Hershel Gober - Forgotten Man Neil Meryweather - Neon Man World Of Oz - Muffin Man The Grass Roots - Naked Man Three Dog Night - Kite Man Celebration - Junk Man The Ice - Ice Man Schadel - Shadow Man The Hubbels - Hippy Dippy Funky Monkey Double Bubble Sitar Man Five Americans - See-Saw-Man Manfred Mann - Driva Man Care Package - Vinegar Man Staccatos - Weather Man July - Friendly Man Young-Holt Unlimited - Wah Wah Man

DOWNLOAD

This Little Girl Can Sing!

2011-11-25T06:17:00.000-08:00

Angie Vasquez, who is only 10 years old, and already has a viral video on YouTube:

She looks like a young Catherine Zeta-Jones, which won't hurt her budding career, either.

Meanwhile, People* Are Wondering Why...

2011-11-25T05:23:00.000-08:00

...President Obama is being so very quiet about gun control.

Must be keeping it under the radar, no doubt.

*Fox News, actually. Which will bring a snort of derision from one of my regular readers, no doubt. In truth, I rarely link Fox News stories just so as to not have to listen to the carping.

They Promise Not To Pepper Spray You Here In Charlotte

2011-11-25T03:18:00.000-08:00

Story.

Of course, that doesn't mean that they might not Tase you to death, bro.

update: Looks like the Black Friday deals in Los Angeles are so hot that shoppers are pepper-spraying each other to get at them.

update 2: Hell, Fayetteville, NC has Los Angeles beat: Shoppers are shooting at each other.

Punk and Beyond: New Artworks from New Wave Artists

2011-11-24T23:05:00.000-08:00

There is (well, there was) a very British tradition of musicians and music biz types - finding creative inspiration and influence while working though an academic stretch at Art School - Lennon, Townshend, Keef, Jimmy Page, Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Eno and of course later - the class of 76: McLaren, Matlock, Poly Styrene, Adam Ant.

Punk, as a movement, was almost a sonic blast of Pop Art shock with it's Warhol pallet of out-of-register graphics, dayglo spray and droptone trim. Continuing this - Gaye Advert launches her latest expo at the Signal Gallery, Shoreditch - Punk and Beyond. A collection of new, or of-the-time art from first generation punks and new wavers. Heavy-hitting contributors to the current installation include...Marco Pirroni,Thurston Moore,Paul Simonon,Jamie Reid and Jill Furmanovsky.

Punk and Beyond runs from 25th of November to December 17th with live music performances on Saturdays from several of the artists on show - ..

A few of the sights to see include pieces from...

Jamie Reid screen print from '76

Gaye Advert

Marco Pirroni self portrait from 76

A top rocking night was had by all who attended last night's preview - with a punk ledge count that included: Gaye Advert, Don Letts, Andy Czezowski, Shanne Bradley, Knox, Barry Cain and Billy Childish...

X-Ray Spex - The Day The World Turned Day-Glo (Rough Mix)

Listen out for the Andy Warhol chorus on this Adam and The Ants obscurity

The Icy Finger of DEATH!

2011-11-24T08:42:00.000-08:00

We interrupt this holiday from blogging to bring you the Icy Finger of DEATH!!!111!!1ONE!!!!11!

Tell me that doesn't remind you of the scene from The Ten Commandments where the "hand of God" comes down to kill the firstborn of Egypt.

h/t Radley Balko.

Comic Books #33: Dazzler - Disco Super Heroine

2011-11-24T08:16:00.000-08:00

Any child of the seventies will tell you that the Kiss comics were a high water mark of their childhood. It was the perfect recipe: Kiss + Comic Book = Total Freaking Awesomeness.

Kiss' label, Casablanca, and Marvel tried to recreate the magic with another music-comic hybrid - Dazzler. While Kiss fell into the glam rock genre, Dazzler was to be a disco singer/ super-heroine... and it was going to be BIG!

Well, disagreements between Marvel and Casablanca ensued, and the tie-in never came to pass. However, Stan Lee still pushed for the comic's release. And, while not the global phenomenon they envisioned, Dazzler still sold at respectable levels.

Due to her perpetual link to pop music, Dazzler became the perfect icon for the eighties: a disco queen at first, then when disco fell out of fashion, she moved on to "rock". If you want to learn all about her, there's always Wikipedia... if you want to take a little and look at some Dazzler eye candy, there's always Retrospace.

This is what appears on a video monitor when Galacticus investigates Dazzler.....

Self Preservation Levels: Superior

Adaptability: Superior

Booty Quotient: Superior

To draw Dazzler comics, you had to be an expert at drawing boobs from all varieties of angles.

Despite her connection to the pop culture scene, she was no lightweight like Jem. In fact, she was affiliated with the X-Men...... Jem would've never fit in with the X-Men.

Dazzler received a lot of criticism for being too "soft", with a heavy reliance on romance and hum-drum real-life problems. I call bullshit on that. After going back through these old Dazzler comic books, I noticed that Dazzler would often really take a beating. And the romance aspect wasn't played up any more than other superhero romances (i.e. Manhunter-Scarlet Witch, Superman-Lois Lane).

I just don't get it. She's a smoking hot super babe.... and she chooses this schlub? Bitch, pleez. Ken is the lamest character inked since Jimmy Olsen. She should be dating Wolverine.

Did I mention that Dazzler was mostly about boobs?

"Once upon a time, you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime - - didn't you?"

Are you kidding me?

A little girl on Sunlit Lawn

Dreams of the day when she will be grown

She can convert sound into lasers, but she can't rhyme. It's sad, really.

Some classic Dazzler moments...

Riding in a big rig with She-Hulk

Dazzler makes Spiderwoman sing a Cole Porter tune

Sounds like a deal to me. Power Man and Iron Fist would be fools not to go with that.

And who can forget her nude scene? Well, well, well...

Some of the Dazzler covers were pretty cool - primarily the later issues. Here's a few examples (click to view full size).

In the end, the comics just got kinda stale. It would seem the Power of Disco was what kept her going - once it died, her days were numbered. I'm not exactly sure what ultimately became of her. Knowing how comic books operate these days, they probably turned her into a lesbian zombie (which would be pretty cool, actually).

Happy Thanksgiving To You All.

2011-11-23T22:49:00.000-08:00

I hope you enjoy a happy and blessed Thanksgiving, whether you are alone or with your family. Most especially my thoughts go out to military members around the world. Be safe out there.

Posting will resume on Friday.

Update: President George Washington's Proclamation of the first national Thanksgiving Day, 26 November 1789. (h/t Cassy Chesser)

Meanwhile, Over At The New York Times...

2011-11-23T13:17:00.000-08:00

...Editorial Page editor Andrew Rosenthal talks about the AK-47 clone used to fire at the White House recently.

The WASR-10 is a Romanian version of the AK-47 assault weapon and definitely not for hunting deer amid the fall foliage in the Pennsylvania hills.

The WASR-10 is imported into this country by Century International Arms in Florida. You can buy it online for less than $500.

Why am I taking up your time with this? Because the WASR-10 was the weapon that Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez allegedly used to shoot the bullets stopped by ballistic glass on the second floor of the White House this week.

Mr. Ortega-Hernandez is said to have obtained his WASR-10 from a friend who purchased it in Idaho Falls, ID.

It’s a reminder of how lax American gun laws are and why that matters.

And this goes far beyond whether an unbalanced person tried to kill the president. The WASR-10 sells for about $400 in shops on the U.S.-Mexican border — but $2,000 to $3,000 in Mexico. Why the premium? Mexican gun laws are much stricter than those in the United States. So the re-militarized gun has to be smuggled into gun-shy Mexico from gun-crazy America.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, more than 500 of the Romanian AK-47/WASR-10s have been recovered in Mexico that were first imported by Century from Romania into the United States.

He then does the usual NRA-bashing. Nowhere in the article, however, are the words "Fast," "Furious" or "gunwalking" mentioned.

Go on over there and leave him a comment, won't you?

What Do You Do With A Drunken...C.O.?

2011-11-23T12:55:00.000-08:00

Well, this one got Admiral's Mast and got hit with Sexual Harassment, Conduct Unbecoming, Drunk and Disorderly, Use of Indecent Language, Maltreatment of a Subordinate, and Simple Assault.

You never make Admiral after that, so he resigned his commission.

There's Gold In Them Thar Trees

2011-11-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

And where there is gold, there is soon to be thieves:

SAVANNAH, Ga. Hired by farmers as a private security guard, Brooks Rucker patrols thousands of acres of Georgia farmland on the lookout for thieves toting 5-gallon buckets.

He rarely comes up empty handed. Since the fall harvest began Oct. 1, Rucker says, he and two other guards have caught more than 160 culprits in the act. Some they let go. Others get handed over to police. Either way, he's recovered thousands of dollars' worth of stolen goods: mounds of pecans snatched from his employers' trees.

It's not just pecan pies and other nutty goodies driving demand so close to the holidays. Prices have soared as China has developed an insatiable appetite for pecans, while withering drought in the southern U.S. has limited supplies.

In Georgia, the nation's top pecan producer, farmers and authorities say criminals can earn a tidy profit by stealing the nuts - worth $1.50 or more per pound in smaller quantities. Pecan grower Bucky Geer estimates a single 5-gallon bucketful is worth about $38.

At work my supervisor and I were talking about pecans just this very morning, remarking on the high prices and pondering supply and demand. It's not going to get better soon, either, because the trees need years of growth before they start producing in commercial quantities.

Citizen Journalist Stands Up To NYPD

2011-11-23T10:32:00.000-08:00

A video from Reason magazine online. It should be noted that, after several hours of standing off the NYPD, the female journalist was finally forced into a pen with other journalists by female NYPD officers.

The First Amendment in action.

Still Operating In the 20th Century

2011-11-23T04:55:00.000-08:00

Went to the NC DMV office yesterday to renew my driver's license, had the usual hour-plus wait. Noticed that the DMV still uses fairly old computer gear, and haven't transitioned to accepting debit cards for payment; only cash or personal checks are accepted. Now I know that upgrading all the gear in all the DMV offices throughout the state would be extremely expensive, but I also noticed that each of the examiners was a cash handler, too. You could very easily rearrange things in the typical NC DMV office so that the examiners do testing only, and then turn payment over to a single cashier, who would collect cash, checks and debit cards. The pace is so slow in the DMV office (union workers, no doubt) that a full-time cashier would make sense, and mean fewer cash-handling mistakes.

Well Whatever Nevermind

2011-11-23T00:15:00.000-08:00

Fads #18: Poster Girls

2011-11-22T18:39:00.000-08:00

I've got a question for you: Do you know anyone, young or old, who has pictures of half-naked women hanging on the walls of their bedroom? I'm betting that, unless they happen to be in prison, none of your friends or children or children's friends have a single one.

Not so in the 1970s. I remember those poster racks being a popular attraction in every store I went to, from K-mart to Elder Beerman (my peeps in Ohio know the name). Of course, there were plenty of non-pin-up posters that were plenty popular. I, for one, adorned my bedroom walls with a King Kong poster (the 70s Dino DeLaurentis remake) and a Battlestar Galactica poster. My wife tells me she had Shaun Cassidy and David Soul posters.

I think posters of any kind in the 1970s could safely be called a "fad".

Although all manner of posters were selling big, we all know the ones that sold the biggest - the pin ups. Careers were made by having a successful poster. Any child of the seventies is well familiar with the iconic posters of the decade:

Farrah Fawcett in the red one piece with a bad case of headlights
Loni Anderson in the bikini, hair blowing in the fake wind
Catherine Bach in her trademark daisy dukes
The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders
Cheryl Tiegs had two popular ones - the tee-tiny pink bikini, and the see-thru one piece
And let's not forget Susan Anton, who had a ton...

The ultimate example of poster mania is contained in a scene from Saturday Night Fever. Travolta is getting spruced up for a night at the disco, the Bee-Gee's "Night Fever" kicks in, and you see him posturing in front of a mirror as our attention is directed to both a Farrah Fawcett poster and a Serpico poster. Fucking brilliant. Watching it even now, I get chills.

Patti Hansen poster 1979 (future wife of Keith Richards)

Alas, as with all fads, they are short lived. Kids' rooms will always be hung with crap they like - whether it was Duran Duran in the 80s, or Justin Bieber today. But smoking hot babes plastered all over your young lad's walls is largely a thing of the past. And maybe that's a good thing...

Galloping DJs

2011-11-21T23:10:00.000-08:00

A belly-busting buffet of foody tunes are on the menu for tonight's Radio Podrophenia.

Breakfast, tomatoes (sliced), grapes - baking even are all on the shopping list of popular song. Although given some of the subjects that have been bouncing around the board over the last couple of weeks: Biffins Bridge, Pouch of Douglas and I won't even mention the G word (NSFW in *any* way) - you may be best to have your tea before listening, not after...

Chat and banterwise Piley and I would like to know: extreme eating experiences, forgotten fast food chains and your grimmest eating out moments please

Prick up your ears and prepare for a double helping of 'hellos' from all at E. Pellici's (below) in English and Italian. We're live from 9 on Chance Radio tonight...

And if you fancy some extra seasoning, last week's edition: Seasons is available for take away here..

Radio Podrophenia - Seasons

Fact or Fiction #18: Vintage Look-A-Likes

2011-11-21T19:29:00.000-08:00

The Von Hiatt Trio

I was just going through some old pictures of bands and musicians that never made it real big (I posted on it not too long ago) and started noticing that some of these people looked miiiiighty familiar. Like creepy familiar...

Von Hiatt and Thom York of Radiohead

What the Hell? Same lips, nose, eyes and bone structure. Was Thom York's dad in The Von Hiatt Trio, a group that would've considered themselves lucky to get booked at a Holiday Inn? Very doubtful. It must be my mind playing tricks on me.

And then I saw this...

Perhaps not as impressive, but still a bit scary - The Ace Trucking Company. Let's have a look here.... there's a woman in dire need of a brush, a poor-man's David Crosby at her right leg, and - whoa, what's this? Is that you, Fred Willard?

Although this next lounge duo claims to be Carol and Alan Ascher, we know better....

Could it be that this man, who once tickled the ivories at your local Howard Johnson's cocktail bar, would become a US Representative? Shouldn't the poster read Carol and Anthony Weiner?

I'd insert some sort of lewd joke about Weiner's predilection for ball sack photography, but the Weiner joke ship has long since sailed. Bon voyage!

"There! Wot did I say? No good'll come o' that, I said."*

2011-11-21T11:39:00.000-08:00

And sure enough, no good did come of it.

Shareca Latoya Jones, 28, has been charged with trafficking cocaine, distribution of a controlled substance, providing contraband to an inmate, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, possession with intent to distribute a schedule IV controlled substance, unlawful carrying of a handgun and possession with intent to distribute a schedule I controlled substance, the release states.

The investigation began when a package mailed to the Lieber Correction Institution in Ridgeville was returned to a business in Lancaster earlier this month, according to the release. Inside, the package contained razor knives, a cell phone, about 30 ecstasy pills and about 28.8 grams of cocaine concealed inside a Bible.

"Why, hillo! Look here, now; this ain't lucky! You've gone and cut this out of a Bible. What fool's cut a Bible?" *

*Bonus points for identifying the literary reference.

Excellent News

2011-11-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin novels are going to be released as e-books.

World's So-Called Funniest Signs

2011-11-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

According to Travel & Leisure magazine.

I LOL'd at this one:

Miniskirt Monday #94: Shoe Sales - A Job Worth Dying For

2011-11-21T05:59:00.000-08:00

Google "best job in the world" and your liable to be directed to careers like "professional wine taster" and "island resort blogger". Or, perhaps, you have personal interests that dictate what you'd call the greatest job ever - maybe baseball writer or puppeteer?

Well, hardcore Miniskirt Monday fans will beg to differ. The greatest job in the world is... (drum roll please).... a shoe salesman between the years of 1969 and 1974. (ta-daaaa) Any arguments to the contrary are invalid.

Sadly, as the date parameters indicate, this field is no longer the fertile ground it once was. Life was good for young Al Bundys, but sucked hard once the miniskirt fell out of fashion.

Is it a bit sad and pervy to make this claim? Maybe, maybe not. But take a look at some vintage shoe salesmen in action, and then make up your mind.

THE END

Head

2011-11-21T00:15:00.000-08:00

M. C. E s c h e r: f u c k i n g g e n i u s

I can sit here in this glass room at the top of the world
Looking down on myself and all the other night crawlers
I can pass judgment in my thoughts as if they were to blame
For all of my body reaction
Complexity don’t mean nothing to the call of the wild
Asking for nothing but expecting the world
So fragile so stringent so that’s what it’s all about
Never catching the rhythm tongue touching the lime
Awake at the end of the dopamine line
I can see clearly why my sleep idolises
The shape of your hips the rise of your spine
Against the hands of the clock the oestrogen mine
Where the awe of the digging
Brings the future to mind

Retrospace Podcast #23

2011-11-20T21:15:00.000-08:00

Yogi's Gang Intro 1973
"The 5th" by Ekseption [1969]
(overdub) Clip from Superfly
(overdub) All in the Family
clip Gilligan's Island Honeybees intro
"She Was Naked" by Supersister (1970)
Micronauts commercial
Blazing Saddles clip
"Miami" by Martin Mull
Radioactive makeup commercial
Riptide TV theme
Batman TV clip
"Son of my Father" by Chicory Tip 1972

Total run time ~ 17 minutes

PODCAST 23

You've Heard of Tom, Dick, and Harry...

2011-11-20T05:37:00.000-08:00

...but did you know about George?

Most people didn't know about George.

Three tunnels nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry were constructed 30ft underground using homemade tools. While Tom was discovered and destroyed by the Germans, Dick was used for storage.

The third tunnel, Harry, became the stuff of folklore on the night of March 24, 1944, when Allied prisoners gathered in hut 104 before crawling along the 100ft tunnel to a brief taste of freedom. Only three escaped; 73 were rounded up by the Germans and 50 were summarily executed.

Few could have blamed their devastated comrades for sitting out the remainder of the war. Yet far from being dispirited, a few men began work on a fourth tunnel nicknamed ‘George’, which was kept so secret that only a handful of prisoners knew about it.

Incredibly, George has just been uncovered after a team of engineers, archaeologists and historians excavated the site, a project filmed for a Channel 4 documentary Digging The Great Escape.

Relics.

Second Amendment But-Heads

2011-11-20T01:04:00.000-08:00

These are people, mostly Democrats, who give lip service to the Second Amendment in the wake of the US Supreme Court's Heller and MacDonald decisions. They take their cue from President Obama, and preface their call for new gun control by giving lip service to the Constitution with some variation of the following line (this one uttered by a Republican prosecutor in West Virginia:

"I am a very strong supporter of the second amendment, but there must be some common sense applied here."

It's always a variation of that construction: I am a supporter of the Second Amendment, but...

These are the same people that denied the main clause of the Second Amendment because of the prefatory clause: A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Let's apply some actual common sense here. If you're one of these Second Amendment But-Heads, what you are proposing is that law-abiding citizens who have undergone the necessary training and background checks to become legal gun carriers have their right to do so infringed. You're not proposing additional laws that would penalize criminal misuse of a gun, nor are you proposing that already-existing laws against criminal misuse of guns be more rigidly enforced. No, what you are proposing is that law-abiding gun owners give up their right, because they scare you. You don't want them in a restaurant with you, nor in a mall with you, nor in a workplace with you. In fact, you don't want them anywhere with you, but you're not allowed to say that anymore, because the Supreme Court ruled against people like you, much to your horror and chagrin. So if you're a gun-hating politician of the Barack Obama sort, you have to give lip service to the Constitution by saying I support the Second Amendment but... all of the time.

Sucks to be you, doesn't it?

h/t Lagniappe's Lair for the WV story.

Ads #44: Album Adverts

2011-11-19T07:44:00.000-08:00

Leo Sayer is the perfect example, for me, of an artist whose music would suck were it not for the intimate tie-in with my childhood. Even the most ardent Sayer fan would have to agree that "When I Need Love" and "You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'" are both pretty cheesy. But when I hear those songs I am psychically transported back to my childhood days in Massachusetts.

I think I've mentioned that my school bus actually had an eight track player. We'd all request the Grease soundtrack so we could shout out the expletives in Greased Lighning. I also have fond memories of the whole bus shouting "You make me feel like dancin', WHOOO! Dancin' WHOOO! Dance the night away."

In summary: Are Leo's greatest hits cheesy? Yes. Will I continue to love everyone of them till the day I die? Fuck, yeah.

Back in 2008, I stated that Dr. Hook is the ugliest band in the history of popular music. I still stand by that claim. But, unlike Leo Sayer, I don't have the same warmth and affection for their music. They always seemed like they were having a good time; but, their goddamn songs sucked. I'm pretty sure you have to be baked to like anything in their catalog.

A combination of tortured artist persona and heavy handed lyrics made this sort of music off limits for me as a kid. I could handle nouveau if sounded like The Cars, but bands like Genesis were out of my league. It's funny that, as I got old enough to appreciate a more intellectual and creative brand of music, Genesis had gone in the reverse direction.

Had they started out with trite garbage like "Invisible Touch" and "I Can't Dance" and ended their run with quality stuff like Selling England by the Pound, we'd have been in sync, Genesis and I.

And speaking of selling out in the 1980s... but then, who didn't sell out in the 80s? Everybody from Jefferson Airplane to Steve Winwood had traded in their hippie cred for a Casio and big heaping wads of cash. "Danny's Song" is a stroke of motherfucking genius. "Danger Zone", not so much.

"I'm Rick James, bitch!"

(Sorry. I saw this ad and just couldn't resist.)

Children In Deed

2011-11-19T00:15:00.000-08:00

Are we all trapped within these adult bodies?
There is an element of panic to my thoughts
Feeling like a prisoner in an asylum
Of Peter Pan Syndrome sufferers
Not that they, oblivious, suffer
But inflict their childhoods on those around them
And claim their bodies’ adult immunity
From contradiction from contra-dictation
With hand-me-down prejudices
And top-of-the-range ignorance packages

Must Be Hell To Be Burdened With a "Conscience Thing."

2011-11-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

Lucky for us the former Speaker of the House of Representatives isn't so burdened.

Why, yes, that was an example of irony. Thank you for noticing!

Convenience Store Clerk Shoots Robber - - Update

2011-11-18T06:22:00.000-08:00

The clerk decided to play at being the Compassionate Gunfighter:

Around 11:30 a.m. Thursday an armed man demanded that the clerk, Mark Headstrong, hand over money from the register.

This is the third time a robber has tried to steal from him.

But this time he pulled out a gun and told the robber to drop his weapon. When the robber continued to point his gun, Headstrong said he shot at the floor and the bullet ricocheted into the man's leg. When the robber still wouldn't drop his gun, Headstrong shot him in the finger.

"I had to protect myself," he said. "And he said, ‘Please don't call the cops. Just call my girlfriend.'"

There's a couple of broken rules right there. You don't fire warning shots, because you can't guarantee where your bullet will go after it leave the gun, and you're responsible for where it goes. If it hits an innocent bystander, you can be arrested for negligent homicide or even manslaughter. Another rule is that you don't shoot to wound, you shoot to stop. You've been lucky so far that the robbers you faced only wanted cash; one of them might get kicks out of taking life, and you should not trust the good intentions of a robber.

And, of course, the police trot out the usual tripe about being a Good Victim:

Crockett pointed out that one of the lessons taught in robbery-prevention training is to comply with an armed robber.

"The advice is the same whether we're discussing robbery from persons or commercial robbery. No amount of money or property is worth the potential loss of life," she said. "Many companies even have written policies instructing their employees to meet the demands of an armed robber."

No One Told the Frogs

2011-11-18T02:06:00.000-08:00

Turns out that the frogs weren't as extinct as originally thought.

A frog species believed to be extinct has hopped back into sight in northern Israel.

Omri Gal of Israel's Nature and Parks Authority said Thursday the Hula Painted Frog was seen for the first time in 50 years this week. He said it was declared extinct.

Gal said, "It's an amazing find, now we have a second chance to preserve the species."

The frog is native to the Hula Valley, a swamp drained in the 1950s to stop malaria.

John Smith & Anna-Marie

2011-11-18T00:15:00.000-08:00

penumbra . 4

Still from Frankenstein courtesy of Dr Macro's

If it wasn’t for the books he’d liberated from the Leviathan’s belly before it had left the planet, John Smith thinks perhaps he too would gamble it all on the chance of one last poppy-fuck rush to the stars; would give himself to oblivion and bear the risk of leaving his empty husk to dance in the garden with all the other deadmen; but these empty hours, perverse in their arcane clockwork, demand filling. So he spends his days in the books, venturing out only to scavenge amongst the deadmen for food, or sometimes just for the illusion of company. The food consists largely of unlabelled tins of animal produce in gelatinous suspension or powdered residue of soft drinks that transform into sickly sweet glue when combined with water. And these, when consumed in the bubble of his solitary existence, serve to enhance his life with a sense of luxury; an escape from the grim reality of a world on the edge of the precipice.

Languid in the first degree, his shadow follows him across the silver-tracked switchyard like a dull un-feathered fallen-from-grace bird-of-paradise; his shoulders bear the weight of a million lost souls in the fallow light of a deadman’s dream moon.
And flurries of vagrant petals, escapees from the boxes of unloaded flowers at the siding on edge of The Great Station Hall, make pale funereal clouds in the wake of his passing as he threads needle-nosed toward the overgrown garden.
If we were to sketch the scene in soft charcoal, animated stop-frame jagged, we would see him pass the long empty animal house; a cross-hatched sketch of shadows and bars; and passing, all stick-man thin and acute angles, we would see him encounter the startling figure of the once aristocratic Anna-Marie.
This is what you get when you dance with deadmen.
It isn’t the first time she’s approached him, unrecognizable in his disguise, but this evening the ruins of the animal house behind her, spouting vines and over-ambitious weeds, proclaim something new; something different; a beginning in a time wrought with endings, so he relents to engage.
He watches tears break free and drag the welled emotion from the lower lid of her healthy eye, streaking her cheek with reflected orange light.
Leaning forward in an attempt to hide her anguish, Anna-Marie’s tears hiss on the exposed element of her damaged plasma heater and the flare of yellow light emitted exposes her empty eye socket to John Smith’s sympathy.
“This is what you get when you dance with deadmen,” she repeats, “They don’t see you for what you are but rather for what you have to offer.”
Our charcoal sketch would now reveal that the air is thick with suspended solids, galaxies and stars that clog the rag John Smith ties across the lower half of his face both as disguise and as filter; disguise because to reveal himself, even to the notoriously thought-impaired deadmen, is a risk not worth taking: experience has taught him that to be recognized is to incur the weight of blame for the state MantraRay and indeed, for the quality-less lives of the planet’s residents.
His consent obtained, Anne-Marie follows as he slinks past the skeletal conservatory where all glass has been long lost, the frame held together by molecular habit since all scientific proof of its solidity has long been banished by the past.
John’s glasses mask his eyes with a reflection of the fires set there to allay the onslaught of the night so feared by those deadman unlucky enough to yet possess some semblance of thought.
Anna-Marie follows John Smith across the tracks while DeSandro Bien, distracted by his duties, observes them from a window in The Great Station Hall.

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Dear Diary:1980 - November

2011-11-17T23:25:00.000-08:00

Without question - the most muted month in the history of Dear Diary doings. As theaction switches (temporarily) to the trusty ol' Silvine notebook - where the newsis...

Coming 105th in Cross Country Run (and some poor puffing shunters 'got lost'apparently). Well it was through the woods. And who knows - some of those runaway nags may still have been on the gadabout.
On the 8th: a trip to Leigh, buying Adam's King's album and, where we pop in to see LizKarslake whose older sister (Jo) later became Mrs Ron Wood

Everybody's favourite Science Teacher Mr Hamilton - spent a lump of the lessonunravelling and popping holes in the baggy formulas and theories that made up Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. A trip to nan's for Pie and Mash (also Sounds and The Unexplained too).

And how about this - pals Andy Hampson and Barney pop up as presenters on TV's musical yoof show - Something Else. Dexy's Midnight Runners were the turn on this episode and you can catch a Dexy's extract from this exact edition below. Calendar-wise. It's the return of our school year's lumpy chums Mullen and Turnidge who 'went mad'. Although there's no anecdotal evidence to support this - I suspect 'narking' them was probably the root truth of the meltdown.

Records bagged were Kings of the Wild Frontier and The Black Album. Two albums that, for me, were Narnian wardrobemoments of other worldliness and portals to punk/new wave's potential possibilities and technicolour dreamscapes, that left formulaic punk fodder seeming generic, dated and faded. A bi-dynamic pairing which are equally, early outings in new waveexperimentation - and templates that stand as indicators and shapers of the 80s fads and fashions thatfollowed: new romanticism, narcissism, new-wave-goes-pop, guitar twang, psychedelic revival,60s revisionism, goth.

Black Album not pictured - it's buried in the loft somewhere

Exactly 31 years on from buying these albums - I've seen most variations on both bands this year Adam (June), ex Ants -The Wolfmen (July) and last Saturday, The Damned recreating the Black album at The roundhouse (review here). The Damned, who've always delivered and never disappointed live are now, more polished and accomplished than ever. The Wolfmen take Adam's antics into new glam/garage areas. And Adam has compressed his characters into a composite rather than move on - but he hasn't lost it ( in a performance sense) either.

Two tasters from both then - The Damned's midnight cinematic shimmer, with a coda that always reminded me of the Hooray for Harold Lloyd incidental music...

The Damned - Twisted Nerve

And Adam's feedback and drum-rumbling psychological selfportrait - that's perhaps King's closestrelation to Dirk-era Ants

Adam And The Ants - Killer In The Home

Top 75 singles

Top 75 albums

Food & Drink #15: Wrigley's Pan Fried Nightmares

2011-11-17T15:53:00.000-08:00

Wrigley's Spearmint needs to stick to what they know: GUM. Branching out was a huge mistake.

Take for instance, the dish presented above. Only a gum company could make so many mistakes in a single dish. Are these cookies? They've got nuts and raisins.... but they're covered in ketchup, so they can't be cookies. It looks like raw meat molded into patties.... yet, the text says they are meatless. What the f**k is this? It's going to take a lot of gum to wash away the taste of this meal.

I'm just not grasping the chewing gum tie-in. At first glance, it looks like they're advertising paella flavored gum! Plus, the red/white/black color scheme of these ads doesn't lend itself to making this food look even remotely appetizing.

It's bad enough that I have to associate my chewing gum with big slabs of meat, but now they've gone and dropped glazed doughnuts on my ribs!

Okay, these appear to be cored apples. It took me a minute. Still yuck.

Oh, Lord. Did some poor 60s housewife actually try and make this stuff? I realize men back then loved their meat, but, even then, there were limits.

And, I'm still struggling with the gum connection. You don't see Tyson Chicken birthday cake recipes, or Oscar-Meyer butterscotch pudding recipes, or Hormel brownie recipes, or..... screw it, you get my point.

Convenience Store Clerk Shoots Robber

2011-11-17T10:55:00.000-08:00

Over in Wilmington, NC.

An employee at the Wrightsville Country Store in the 2400 block of Wrightsville Avenue shot someone who was trying to rob the store about 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, Wilmington police spokeswoman Lucy Crockett said.

The suspect, whose name was not yet available, was alive and en route to the hospital, she added.

This is the second time the Country Store has been robbed in recent weeks.

Wonder if it was the same clerk both times? And if so, wonder if he got permission to arm himself, or just did it anyway? If the place is corporate-owned, (s)he'll probably be fired over it. If it's a mom-and-pop place and (s)he had permission to be armed, then well done indeed.

Opinions and Rants #37: 12 Short Arguments to Legalize It

2011-11-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know - the last thing you want to read right now is another dude's opinions on why weed should be legalized. However, my retro-infused perspective may offer a few arguments that you might not have thought of before. Give it a read, and if by Reason #6 you still are nonplussed, move on to one of my comic book or miniskirt posts and forget you ever saw this. So, here goes...

1) We live in a world that's falling apart at the seams - the amount of rapes, murders, and home invasions in this country is mind boggling..... yet, we spend a huge percentage of our law enforcement budget tracking down potheads and throwing them in jail. I hope you are never the victim of violent crime, but just know that a lot of money was diverted away from a law enforcement presence in your neighborhoods toward arresting dope smokers.

2) There is no dissenting opinion on whether cigarettes are addictive; they simply are. However, there is very little consensus in scientific literature on whether marijuana is addictive. More than likely, any addictive properties lie in its positive stimuli rather than its chemistry. In other words, it's soothing and relaxing, and therefore something you apt to sorely miss if you stopped smoking it, in much the same way that Starbucks coffee can be addictive due to the positive mental and physiological state it brings. The chemical properties are non-addictive, but its positive results are likely to illicit a Pavlovian desire for more.

3) It certainly wouldn't solve our economic crisis, but there can be no doubt the government would benefit from the taxation of marijuana.

They kicked the habit. Now they can take baths again.

4) We would save billions by no longer having to prosecute pot smokers and dealers, plus we could get to the cases that actually do need to be tried ASAP. What a travesty that our district attorneys are tied up with pointless drug cases, while rapes and other violent crimes have to wait in line. Our circuit judges shouldn't have to divide their time between ridiculous criminal possession charges and violent crime. What a sinful flagrant waste of our court system.

All dope smokers look like this.

5) A metric fuck-ton of the money funneled into the anti-marijuana lobby actually comes from the alcohol and tobacco industry. Now, why would they do that? Those of you that buy the anti-marijuana message are largely victims of corporate tobacco and alcohol sponsored propaganda.

Marijuana turns prom queens into hippies

6) There is zero scientific evidence that marijuana is a gateway drug. It's the least hard-core of all the illegal substances out there, so it's a natural and logical starting point on the path to destructive drug usage; however, it is a logical fallacy to assume it is the cause of the escalation. Often, a person begins with cigarettes, then marijuana, then harder drugs.... why don't we call cigarettes a "gateway drug"?

Close the fuckin' door, pot!

7) No doubt, the tobacco and alcohol lobby against legalization is a big factor; however, many believe the suppression of marijuana legalization stems from a grander conspiracy. The dumb stoner (a la Tommy Chong) is a groundless stereotype. Marijuana actually enhances mental acuity and accelerates thinking "outside the box". In other words, you are much less likely to waste your evenings glued to Nancy Grace when you're smoking marijuana, and much more likely to start thinking creatively and questioning things... a definite no-no to a government who wants to keep its ignorant masses content.

Don't bogart that joint.

8) Crimes associated with marijuana are directly associated with it being criminalized; legalization would immediately reduce drug related criminal activity.... unlike alcohol, a legal drug which causes tens of thousands of deaths per year via drunk driving, domestic violence, and alcohol poisoning.

Pot will turn you into a tea drinking lesbian.

9) Just because alcohol and tobacco are legal, doesn't mean marijuana should be legal as well. It's the old "two wrongs don't make a right" argument. However, it should at least give us pause to contemplate why we are okay with one but not the other being legalized. When you stop and analyze why you are fine with more deadly drugs being legal, but adamantly opposed to the legalization of a relatively harmless one, it should at least make you question whether you've been duped at some point. If you're a rational human being, the inconsistency of it all should raise questions.

10) The concept of legalization crosses party lines; i.e. it's not just for those "hippie" democrats. The tea-party and libertarians should favor it because this is yet another example of big government stifling our freedom. If you want to shrink government, why not start with the DEA?

11) And speaking of the DEA, how are we doing on the drug war? Have we won it yet? And if not, do we have any hope of winning it in the future, unless there's a serious game changer? It's a war that's been raging for decades and we seem to be no better off than we were when it started. Perhaps the DEA could get a handle on the drugs that actually cause harm like heroine and crack if they didn't have to spend so much time chasing down pot heads.... and then maybe, just maybe, we'll finally win that war.

Shut up, ma. You're killing my buzz.

12) It's sounds trivial until you really stop and think about it: there would be a lot of commerce generated via the legalization of marijuana. Not only in terms of the plant material meant for smoking, but it has also historically been used to alleviate headaches, physical pain, and sleep problems. Not to mention all the paraphernalia that is a cottage industry in and of itself. Plus, the fibers can be used for paper, textiles, etc. Yada, yada, yada. You get the point - it's a cash crop not to be underestimated.

If you'd like to add your own short argument, by all means leave it in a comment. If you have a dissenting opinion, I'd like to hear it as well.

A Blitch and a Son of a Blitch

2011-11-16T14:13:00.000-08:00

Don't look at me, I didn't name them Blitch.

We'll call this one not quite a homonym.

I Guess Bull Halsey Or Uncle Ernie King...

2011-11-16T06:37:00.000-08:00

...would be unwelcome in the modern Navy.

To some of his subordinates, Capt. Greg Thomas was direct and demanding, but got the job done.

To others, he was “abusive and lacking in trust, dignity and respect,” as described in an April 4 command climate survey launched following an anonymous hotline complaint about Thomas’ conduct.

In mid-May, Naval Sea Systems Command temporarily yanked Thomas, a rear admiral selectee, from his perch atop Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va. A naval inspector general investigation completed Aug. 31 found Thomas’ conduct “went beyond the limits of professional conduct expected of persons in authority.” The firing was made permanent Oct. 25 after Thomas was formally reprimanded for conduct unbecoming an officer.

The IG interviewed 45 witnesses who served in various leadership positions under Thomas during his nine months as commanding officer of the shipyard. Nine said they were subjected to “demeaning, insulting or profane language or intimidating behavior” privately as well as in public. All names other than Thomas’ were redacted from the report, which was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Down at the bottom we see the possible reason for Thomas' behavior:

Thomas told the IG that he was under pressure to improve the yard’s performance on intermediate-level submarine maintenance. Thomas quoted former Submarine Forces commander Vice Adm. John Donnelly as telling him, “My No. 1 distraction in command has been your shipyard’s performance on my I-level work.”

Thomas acknowledged the criticism, telling the IG, “We had a very poor record. ... We were not getting boats underway on time.”

One commanding officer interviewed by the IG said he could relate to Thomas’ situation. “I saw a lot of pushback from the civilian workforce that wanted to maintain the status quo,” the officer said.

So what we had was lazy civilian workers - - probably union workers - - who didn't wish to deal with an old-fashioned ass-kicker who was working them harder than they were used to. A clusterfuck, in other words:

The Plumber He Said, "Never Flush a Tampoon." *

2011-11-16T06:23:00.000-08:00

Onboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush, the heads (toilets) are not working as required.

And sailors are being written up if they, out of desperation, look for an emergency substitute:

The Navy’s newest aircraft carrier has a messy problem. Since deploying in May, the Norfolk, Va.-based carrier George H.W. Bush has grappled with widespread toilet outages, at times rendering the entire ship without a single working head.

But it’s no laughing matter. Sailors tell of combing the ship for up to an hour to find a place to do their business, if they can find one at all. Others have resorted to urinating in showers or into the industrial sinks in their work stations. Some men are using bottles and emptying the contents over the giant ship’s side, while some women are holding it in for so long that they are developing health problems, according to sources on the ship.

The sailors blame the ship’s vacuum system. But the Navy is blaming sailors for flushing “inappropriate material” down the toilets.

Some are taking extra showers when they need to urinate. Women are finding working men’s heads and putting a sentry at the door. Or they’ll use the industrial sinks in their workspaces. Men are sneaking onto catwalks to surreptitiously relieve themselves without getting busted by a master-at-arms on patrol, searching for sailors using anywhere but a head as a bathroom.

“If you violate a direct order, you go to mast. We had one seaman go thus far,” one chief told Navy Times.

An AIRLANT spokesman confirmed that one sailor received non-judicial punishment for “urinating on a sponson.”

*bonus points for identifying the source of the post title.

Hell With It

2011-11-16T05:38:00.000-08:00

I just am not much interested in doing lots of posts any more. I can't keep up with it, and it takes too much of my leisure time. I'll try to do a post or two a day, and somedays more if I'm feeling communicative, but I'm not going to spend a half-day every day reading all the stuff in my Google Reader. We're talking over a hundred blogs to look through, and that's before I even get to the newspapers.

Target Video's Solo Gallery Exhibit in Los Angeles - NOW!

2011-11-16T04:46:00.000-08:00

The Cramps, Whisky A Go Go, 1978
The Cramps are one of the highlights of the Target Video body of work - their performance at the Napa State Hospital is infamous and fortunately, because of Target, the (moving) pictures can prove it.

I've often said it (and the Target principals think I exaggerate BUT, I think its true): San Francisco's Target Video was the punk rock version of Andy Warhol's Factory. Their solo gallery exhibit opens in Los Angeles tomorrow, November 17. The text below is directly from the press release for the over-arching project Pacific Standard Time, a collaboration of art/culture centers celebrating Art in Los Angeles, 1945-1980 (or as I call it from Post War to the beginning of Post Punk):

targetvideo77: Cal Punk & Performance

As a participant in Pacific Standard Time, Annie Wharton Los Angeles is pleased to present “Cal Punk & Performance,” the first solo gallery exhibition in Los Angeles by targetvideo77. In 1977, artist Joe Rees started targetvideo77, capturing some of the edgiest performances of the era. Rees (in collaboration with Jackie Sharp, Jill Hoffman, Sam Edwards and others) archived early performance art, punk, and hardcore bands on video and film, with the artists sometimes risking their own safety by shooting from precariously tall places, inside of an insane asylum, or within the confines of a prison.

“Cal Punk & Performance” will feature original works of music and performance art from targetvideo77’s rich archive, many of which have never been seen in a fine art context. A single channel installation of Black Flag videos will also be on view, featuring epic concert footage and their first video for MTV, “TV Party.” Included in the raw and compelling videos to be shown at AWLA is one of music's most infamous performances at Napa State Mental Hospital in 1978. The show was headlined by the Mutants and opening on the bill were the Cramps. This, along with performances and artists as diverse the Crime, Dead Kennedys, The Dils, Flipper, Mutants, and Noh Mercy that were recorded by targetvideo77 in California in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Photographic stills from the videos will also be shown in the exhibition, along with ephemera and posters from the original shows.

The Dils, San Francisco, 1978
The Dils were and are a perennial fave band of mine and one close to the true meaning of the punk rock movement - their music is a hybrid of the emotional launch pad for British punk, combined with the furious and frenetic pace of The Ramones

targetvideo77’s punk rock videos were featured in The Getty’s “California Video” exhibition in 2008, and has been exhibited in the Coliseum (Rome), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Steven Wolf Fine Arts (San Francisco and Chicago), The Fillmore (San Francisco), The Pacific Film Archive (San Francisco), Cinefamily Theater (Los Angeles), the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), and the San Francisco Public Library. Their work is currently featured in the MOCA/Pacific Standard Time exhibition curated by Paul Schimmel entitled “Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981.”

The exhibitions open in conjunction with Pacific Design Center’s Design Loves Art programming from 5:30-8:30pm on November 17 and runs through January 4, 2012. AWLA gallery hours are from 12-5pm, Monday – Friday. Please call for holiday hours.

More on Pacific Standard Time can be found here:

www.pacificstandardtime.org/galleries.

Darby Crash, Whisky A Go Go, 1977
Target Video captured some of the best and earliest performances of The Germs ever, full stop.

I Have To Wonder...

2011-11-16T04:30:00.000-08:00

...if it was a Fast & Furious gun.

The Secret Service says a bullet hit a White House window, stopped by bullet-proof glass.

A round of ammunition was also found on the exterior of the White House grounds, the Associated Press reports.

The Tuesday discoveries came after reports of gunfire near the White House on Friday.

The discovery follows reports of gunfire near the White House on Friday. Witnesses heard shots and saw two speeding vehicles in the area. An AK-47 rifle was also recovered.

The Secret Service says it has not conclusively connected Friday's incident with the bullets found on the White House grounds. U.S. Park Police have an arrest warrant out for Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, who is believed to be connected to the earlier incident.

And, if we're going to entertain conspiracy theories, it seems rather a coincidence that the same sort of weapon passed on to drug cartels in Mexico is being used to shoot at the White House, right at a time when Attorney General Eric Holder is under pressure to resign...

Papa Don't Preach

2011-11-16T00:15:00.000-08:00

Decade of the Stache: Neil Peart

2011-11-15T19:30:00.000-08:00

Think you can handle this moustache? I don't think so.

I think it is my duty as Grand Purveyor of All Things Seventies to establish a series of posts on the symbol of the decade: The Mustache. Like all my regular features, I will drag it out over a number of years, and wrap things up when the Mayan Calendar comes to a close.

The seventies were the decade of manliness and machismo. Baby Boomers were in their prime, and now it was time to start broadcasting their virility via tight pants and mighty womb brooms. These were beacons of manliness the way a stag's rack and a lion's mane are signals of their raw manhood.

Mind you, the homosexual community took it up a notch, so I can't lay all the credit to hetero seventies swingers. But none - I repeat, NONE will ever top the feather duster that adorned the upper lip of the great Neil Peart.

Don't let the Adidas and Geddy's grandma pants distract you from that goddamn amazing mustache

I know there have been other great mustaches in rock: Frank Zappa and Freddie Mercury spring to mind. But none can compare to Peart's gargantuan thigh tickler. It's almost unfair that he could be the undisputed king of both drums AND moustachemanship. Indeed, how many other musicians do you know that have a Facebook page devoted to their facial hair?

34 Years Later, He Gets To Say "I Told You So."

2011-11-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

After that long a period, the emotional satisfaction is likely to be bittersweet.

It's not unusual for an archaeologist to get stuck in the past, but Carl Gustafson may be the only one consumed by events on the Olympic Peninsula in 1977.

Sifting through earth northwest of Seattle, he uncovered something extraordinary - a mastodon bone with a shaft jammed in it. This appeared to be a weapon that had been thrust into the beast's ribs, a sign that humans had been around and hunting far earlier than anyone suspected.

Unfortunately for Gustafson, few scientists agreed. He was challenging orthodoxy with less-than-perfect evidence.

or almost 35 years, his find was ridiculed or ignored, the site dismissed as curious but not significant.

But last month, a team that re-examined his discovery using new technology concluded in the prestigious journal Science that Gustafson had been right all along.

The pierced bone was clear evidence that human beings were hunting large mammals in North America 13,800 years ago - about 800 years before the so-called Clovis people were thought to have migrated across the Bering land bridge from Asia.

And presumably many of the people who ridiculed his conclusion are dead, and went to the grave thinking that they were right.

Shipwreck Blog: 17th C. Swedish Warship

2011-11-15T10:31:00.000-08:00

Named Svardet (Sword), she went down in the Baltic Sea during a battle with Danish/Dutch forces.

And because the Baltic Sea is too cold for shipworm, it's likely that the hull is in a good state of presevation. Other shipwrecks found in the Baltic Sea have also shown good preservation.

Wow.

2011-11-15T09:51:00.000-08:00

Watch this soldier from the Old Guard silence a crowd at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:

Tomb of the Unknown Guard Silences Disrespectful Crowd: MyFoxDC.com

Bravo Zulu to the soldier. Very well done, indeed.

About Your Pulitzer, Ms. Atkisson...

2011-11-15T05:26:00.000-08:00

Don't hold your breath waiting for it.

Back in the 90s, J.D. Cash told me about a class of FBI snitches called "sensitive confidential informants." J.D. derisively called them "high-level snitches." These were members of the news media, the clergy, politicians and congressional staffers who the FBI had on the string. One of these, we know now, was then ABC reporter Chris Isham, who is currently the CBS Washington Bureau chief.

Yes, folks, that makes him Sharyl Attkisson's boss.

That would be the Sharyl Attkisson who has been one of the few MSM journalists actually covering he Fast & Furious scandal.

Read the rest of that post, as well. Vanderboegh also accuses Utah Senator Orrin Hatch of being an FBI lackey because he got caught in a sex scandal.

Seasons to be Cheerful, Part 23

2011-11-14T22:54:00.000-08:00

A medley of seasonal sounds is on the menu for tonight's Radio Podrophenia - our 23rd editon

Including: two types of Fall {one song, one band} Summertime, Rain and David Alexandre Winter's Qu'est-Ce Que J'Ai Danse! Although for all the scouting about - I couldn't for the life of me find a springy-thing. Any suggestions - let me know. Also piping hot off the press is a live Damned track recorded at The Roundhouse during their 35th Anniversary gig last Saturday

Natter abouts may include real life shop names: Touching Cloth, Threads Atomic Dustbin. And body parts that sound like place names (Biffin's Bridge, Pouch of Douglas) or vice versa..

And coming in to pitch some live acoustic tunes in our general direction is Canvey's own Darren Jones

We'll be parked up from 9pm hereabouts at Chance Radio. Should you fancy catching up on the last couple of back issues - grab both below

Podrophonic Alphabet - E

Keeping it Peel

Vinyl Dynamite #35: Hold Your Ferret Aloft and Other Crazy Fabulous Song Titles

2011-11-14T20:10:00.000-08:00

Hold Your Ferret Aloft by Clive John (1975)

I won't lie to you. Sometimes I like something just because of the title. Hobo with a Shotgun (2011) wouldn't have been half as good without that title... and I'm not sure I would be so attached to Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh! album were it not for that wonderful title. Steinbeck could have called his book The Joads Look for Jobs, but he went with The Grapes of Wrath because he knew we are all suckers for a title.

.... and if you've got a penchant for the strange and odd, then you're going to be especially suckered into these songs with weirdly awesome titles. I could've easily drawn everything from 70s prog rock, which reveled in awkward titles more than anybody; however, that would get old quick. Also, please note that this is just a small collection of oddly amusing titles - this is by no means a list of the "funniest" song titles ever.... that's a topic for another post, perhaps. Until then, enjoy!

Mummy Was An Asteroid, Daddy Was A Small Non-Stick Kitchen Utensil by Quiet Sun (1975)

We Grasp the Naked Meat by Nine Days Wonder (1973)

De Doodgewoonste Dingen by Passe-Partout (1976)

(A tune from the Netherlands, which, according to Google Translate means "Death to Ordinary Things" - a pretty profound title in English, but it makes me giggle like an idiot when I hear it in Dutch)

Don't Eat Stuff off the Sidewalk by The Cramps (1981)

Scoobidab by Ginger Ale (1971)

Bite Your Granny by Morning, Noon and Night (1977)

Miniskirt Monday #93: Stairways to Heaven

2011-11-14T08:18:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's true we're engaging in undeclared wars on three different countries, our economy has fallen into the abyss, and our country is as divided as it has ever been since Lincoln.... but we still have one thing good goin' for us - miniskirts on Monday.

This time we're looking at minis on steps and stairs. Long a source of potential embarrassment to girls and a source of joy for boys, the stairs and bleachers at school were both a blessing and curse during the Age of the Mini.

They also serve as the perfect place to pose for the camera whilst wearing minis as sitting could result in the dreaded "upskirt" photo for all perpetuity.

So, bring on the miniskirts - and stairs!

THE END

Meanwhile, Down In York, SC...

2011-11-14T06:47:00.000-08:00

...a man was killed and a boy was injured when they were thrown from the 1923 Model T Ford motorcar they were riding in.

No seat belts; the Model T was built before anyone saw the need, and the law doesn't require it of cars in that circumstance.

Shipwreck Blog: The "Jesus Boat"

2011-11-14T06:39:00.000-08:00

A fishing boat from the first year A.D., to be exact. Found in the Sea of Galilee.

“The Sea of Galilee will give us a treasure one day,” one brother told another. Turns out, he was right.

In 1986, Yuval and Moshe Lufan, two sons of a fisherman in Kibbutz Ginosar, were walking the shores of the Kinneret. The drought that year dropped the level of the lake lower that the men had seen in years. One brother noticed something odd protruding from the mud. An old nail. As he poked around with his finger, he found another one. Then another. More digging unearthed pieces of ancient wood.

While they didn’t realize it at the time, they had discovered a fishing boat that dated to the first century.

I don't think you could, given the decayed condition of the boat after all these centuries, find any evidence to link it to New Testament events, but it's fun to speculate.

They Lived Together, and Died Together

2011-11-14T06:34:00.000-08:00

Because when you spend 48 years of your life together, you don't want to be parted by death.

Allan DeLaine told "Rhoe," when he visited her in the hospital a few weeks ago, that "Rabbit" - her husband - wouldn't last long in this world without her. After 48 years, 11 months of marriage, the couple had become as one, not only to all the people who knew them in their Clayton community, but to each other.

Rhoe didn't dispute him.

"She agreed with me. She said 'I know,' " DeLaine told me last week in the parking lot of Johnston Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church. "I just knew he wasn't going to be able to make it without her. I had no idea he would go as quickly after her as he did."

A few feet from where we stood talking, two long, shiny black hearses were warming their engines at the head of a procession, preparing to take Cynthia Rhoenna Gardner Sanders and Augustus Cromwell Sanders to the cemetery where, side by side, they'd spend eternity - or at least until that great gettin' up mornin' that Mahalia Jackson sang about.

Sometimes it seems like later generations have lost that devotion and sense of commitment that the Sanders obviously had for each other. Great story, click the link to read the rest.

Hitchens On Armistice Day, and War

2011-11-14T03:40:00.000-08:00

Being a literate man, Hitchens ties War and Armistice day up with reflections on Rudyard Kipling and Wilfrid Owen:

Even as Kipling was repressing his doubts about the nature of the war and the death of his only son, there was a sort of revolution of poets at the other end of the country. In a mental hospital in Scotland were confined, because of their opposition to the war and their “battle fatigue,” men of the stature of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

Then he ties it in with current events, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Occupy Wall Street protests:

Last week, some mediocre California mayoress announced that she wasn’t going to attend a Veterans Day event in her city of Richmond. Gayle McLaughlin, in fact, was down with the “Occupy” guys and gals instead. You can easily picture the response she got: the city of Richmond insulted, along with the memory of its brave men and women in uniform. Indeed, there might not even be a Richmond if not for those unforgettable volunteers. But if this were true, then the writing of history would always be simple. So would the composition of morality stories. Both Kipling and Owen came to the conclusion that too many lives had been “taken” rather than offered or accepted, and that too many bureaucrats had complacently accepted the sacrifice as if they themselves had earned it.

And this has made a lot of difference. It means, for example, that each case needs to be argued on its own merits. I am convinced that the contingents who went to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, though badly led on a scale almost equal to that of 1914 to 1918, are to be praised and supported. But I take no comfort from the idea that this should be an official position. I must say I think that La McLaughlin expressed herself with awful casualness (because Nov. 11 is, after all, truly—still—a solemn day on the calendar). But it’s still more important on such a day to discuss dissent, and to reflect on whether it might have been your own enemy, or your deeply mistaken father, who brought you bound to the pit and alive to the burning.

Stardust Memory

2011-11-14T00:15:00.000-08:00

porny glam via Neako

If I were to see the night sky painted
A spray of energy white slicing the night
The silence that distance forgets to bring
A symphony of crickets and faraway cars
I would breathe that sky like a memory
Cold against the inside of my nose

You Don't Want 'Em? We'll Take 'Em Off Your Hands

2011-11-13T13:36:00.000-08:00

The US Navy and US Marine Corps agree to buy all of the Royal Navy Harrier jets, plus spare parts.

I used to watch Harriers take off and land when I was in the Navy, serving on board USS Saipan (LHA2) and USS Nassau (LHA4). Impressive, to say the very least. I'm sorry that Great Britain is in such distress that it can't afford them any more, but glad we got them so we can extend their use in our own fleet.

Who Eats Collards?

2011-11-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

I don't, but if you do, there a good article and recipe for them here.

I don't, in fact, eat anything green at all, unless it's a pickle. Or lime Jell-O.

I Wonder If They Make Them In Rootbeer Flavor?

2011-11-13T08:45:00.000-08:00

Lollipops for pain from battlefield wounds.

Occult #11: Josie Possessed

2011-11-12T19:39:00.000-08:00

In the last Occult post, I showed you a story in Archie comics that seemed a bit heavy handed with the occult. Well, that was nothing, folks. In this one, Josie becomes possessed by an evil spirit... and it is disturbing as shit.

I know Archie comics became "born again" at some point in their history, but this ain't it - the rest of the issue is completely "normal". The Josie issues before and after this issue were free from overt religious messages.... so, I don't know what the f--k is going on here.

I'm no expert in Archie comics (I have, however, been reading them for four decades), so I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable than I can fill me in.

Perhaps Archie comics were slipping in "born again Christian" story lines as early as '73, but I seem to remember this happening much later (like the early eighties). Or, perhaps, the authors had just seen The Exorcist and let their enthusiasm run away with them.

Either way, shame on them. Archie comics are supposed to be lighthearted fun. How dare they have Josie literally scratching and growling like Linda Blair. If I had read this as a kid, I would have rolled up into the fetal position and crapped my pants. This just serves as another example of how nothing, I repeat NOTHING, was off limits in the seventies.

Check out the story in its entirety. I'm not making any of this up, and I haven't altered a single image. This is the real deal - Josie & the Pussycats #72, October 1973. You have been warned.

Arrival

2011-11-12T06:53:00.000-08:00

CRKT Gekkota:

I'm currently experimenting to see how best to carry one. Right now it's around my neck on a bead chain; a little heavy, and tends to pull out the odd chest hair. Since many of those are white now, that's not a big deal. It might end up on the key ring, which is sort of a mini-survival kit in its own right, what with a whistle and pinchlight already installed thereon.

Thanks to Weer'd World and Feral Irishman for the inspiration.

The Boob Tube #28: 1960s Sitcom Sociology

2011-11-11T14:45:00.000-08:00

I grew up on sitcoms that prided themselves on realism: All in the Family, Good Times, Rhoda, One Day at a Time, etc. (Thank you Norman Lear); but this wasn't the case just a few years prior to the Bunkers hitting prime time. In the 1960s, situation comedies consisted of genies, witches, martians, monsters, and a talking horse. It all was a bit silly, but well crafted fun nonetheless. We certainly wouldn't still be reminiscing about it four decades later if it hadn't been any good, right?

Maybe I'm reading too much into these things, but if James Franco can compare Three's Company to Molière (if you haven't already heard, don't ask), then I'm entitled to a few words of boob tube sociological analysis.

I can't help but notice that the sitcoms of the 1960s followed the same basic formulas from the "fish out of water" trope. You know the gag: the comedic hilarity ensues when a person(s) is somewhere where he or she doesn't belong (i.e. Crocodile Dundee and 3rd Rock from the Sun). It's a fail safe formula.

But what the fuck was going on in the sixties that nearly every sitcom was about not fitting in? Think about it: Darren spends most his time blowing a gasket over Samantha's eccentric family ruining his reputation. Major Nelson spends all his screen time fretting over looking strange and out-of-the-ordinary. In fact, all those shows: The Munsters, The Addams Faily, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and The Beverly Hillbillies all touch a nerve about not fitting in in this new world of the "perfect" white picket fence Pleasant Valley Nuclear Family lifestyle.

The Nuclear Family was a fairly new phenomenon in the mid 1960s. Before WWII, it wasn't at all uncommon to have extended family members in the home, and family units (namely Catholic homes) could be ridiculously huge. After the War, the family unit became: Mom, Dad, 2 - 4 kids, dog, house in the suburbs. Cat optional. If you violated the Cleaver rules of The Nuclear Family, you may as well be a goddamn hillbilly or monster.

Norman Lear got a lot of kudos for injecting realism into the sitcoms of the seventies; but weren't they just more of the same, but without the fantastical element? The Jeffersons is a "fish out of water" trope-driven sitcom if there ever was one. Even All in the Family operated along the same conventions with Archie being the fish out of water - a racist pre-WWII stereotypical male (i.e. the fish) in a changing world of hippies, integration, and women's lib (i.e. the water).

The Beverly Hillbillies, The Addams Family and The Munsters were total subversions of the Nuclear Family. They didn't take themselves nearly as seriously as Normal Lear productions, but they were no less topical. Issues of not acceptance based on outward appearances and "foreignness" certainly were in play in the American psyche of the 1960s.

Leave It to Beaver glamorized the Nuclear Family concept. It was American Ideal in sitcom form. And, I've got to admit, it looks pretty damn good. I'd love to be Ward Cleaver and come home and greet my wife decked out in pearls every day, whilst my 2 strapping lads hang on my every word. And you better believe Wally will never, I repeat NEVER, get Mary Ellen knocked up. And he definitely will not be coming home with a black chick.

You get my point. Everything had to be perfect... but reality isn't perfect. Shit happens. Lumpy Rutherford may lose his legs to a landmine in Vietnam. Ward may get canned when his company "downsizes". June may then have to go to work as a nurse where she contracts hepatitis (okay, I'm getting carried away).

I'm not saying these shows were bad because they didn't show the seedy side of life as Norman Lear brought us. In fact, I prefer a little escapism with my sitcoms. What I am saying is that I think many of these 1960s sitcoms took aim at the popular delusion of The Perfect Nuclear Home, but they did it without the heavy-handedness of Lear.

So, next time you watch The Beverly Hillbillies, remember that you are actually watching something high minded and of cultural significance. Now, y'all come back now y'hear?

Family of Brian Terry Break Silence

2011-11-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

And they blame Eric Holder for their son's death.

"If they never let the guns walk, maybe Brian would not have been out that day," Josephine said. "I just can't believe our own government came up with a program like this that (let) innocent people get killed."

The Terrys watched Holder's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Asked if he wanted to apologize to the family, Holder declined, saying only he regretted what happened.

"That shows what kind of a person he is," Kent lamented. "To me, he is not much of a person. I don't know if he has a son. But if he lost his, he would think different."

"I sat in a chair and cried," Josephine said. "It was so inhumane. An apology to anybody means at least they are trying to fix it. He didn't."

Both parents want Holder to resign, citing his response to a question from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who asked if Holder thought it was his responsibility to have known about Operation Fast and Furious.

"There are 115,000 employees in the Department of Justice," Holder said. "I cannot be expected to know the details of every operation on a day-to-day basis."

To which Kent said: "Holder says he has 115,000 employees. That is his job. If he can't handle his job, he should get out of it."

Today's Earworm...

2011-11-11T06:12:00.000-08:00

is from that genius multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield:

This one sticks in my head in a good way, I like it there. It's a comfortable earworm. I imagine hiking somewhere with a staff in my hand, listening to it.

I'd guess he probably played everything in this cut except the uillean pipes, he probably got Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains to do that for him.

Funny factoid: when my son was an infant, I'd often play Oldfield's LP's Ommadawn and Five Miles Out on the stereo, and my son would screw his face up and start screaming his head off when uillean pipe solos by Moloney would play. Weird.

This Sounds Interesting

2011-11-11T05:46:00.000-08:00

Blackthorn, a Western movie about the latter years of Butch Cassidy, who in this version survived the shootout against the Bolivian Army.

Please God, don't let there be a Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head section in it.

11.11.11

2011-11-11T03:11:00.000-08:00

Wear that bullet-hole on your chest
Send you off to some foreign shore
Celebrate this culture of violence
Tell you that it will end all war

Drape yourself in colours red white blue
Send you off to some foreign shore
Celebrate the winning team
Tell me that you know the score

Dress yourself in Gucci skin
Send them off to some foreign shore
Celebrate your pile of green
Labour left on the killing floor

Ask yourself who do you love?
Who decides your views for you?
Who demands your loyalty?
Who decrees these facades true

Funky Friday - Dial F for Funky

2011-11-10T23:02:00.000-08:00

Picking up from Tuesday's funky run-out, today, I'm pitching in a 22 track, 70 minute mix whisking together all shades of soul, funk and groovy doings. Heavy-handed Hammond,New Orleans grinders, mod stompers, Jamaican moogie-woogie and Latin flavouredwig-outs. Mostly fitted around the letter 'F' wrapping up with two fast and furious and finishers. And a first in this neck of the blogs - funky country. Literally!
Dial in below to fill your fruity boots....
Dial F for Funky

Or to back track and catch up Tuesday's Radio Podrophenia (the letter F) dig in here..

Radio Podrophenia ~ Podrophonic Alphabet. The Letter F

Track list can be found in the comments..

Same and Dave. Well overdue for a toot on the blog. And check out the swish~hipped horn section!

Lebben Lebben Lebben

2011-11-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

Happy Veteran's Day to my fellow veterans on 11/11/11.

Attention All Veterans & Military Personnel

2011-11-10T13:35:00.000-08:00

Here's what a Suffolk Law professor thinks about your service:

I think it is shameful that it is perceived as legitimate to solicit in an academic institution for support for men and women who have gone overseas to kill other human beings. I understand that there is a residual sympathy for service members, perhaps engendered by support for troops in World War II, or perhaps from when there was a draft and people with few resources to resist were involuntarily sent to battle. That sympathy is not particularly rational in today's world, however.

The United States may well be the most war prone country in the history of civilization. We have been at war two years out of three since the Cold War ended. We have 700 overseas military bases. What other country has any? In the last ten years we have squandered hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary foreign invasions. Those are dollars that could have been used for people who are losing their homes due to the economic collapse, for education, to repair our infrastructure, or for any of a thousand better purposes than making war. And of course those hundreds of billions of dollars have gone for death and destruction.

via Michael Graham, the Natural Truth.

Gotta love a liberal prick that pens such a screed a few days before Veterans' Day, huh?

Needlework-a-Go Go #23: Yarn-valanche

2011-11-10T11:24:00.000-08:00

Yarn Goddess

Let me give you a quick lesson in 1970s Yarnology. Nowhere will you find (1) better examples of bad seventies fashion and (2) hotter looking seventies babes. It's having your breath taken away by the combination of unbelievable threads and dynamite foxes. This is as close to Nirvana as you're likely to get, my friend.

I dig the brown outfit; but, didn't both Margaret Thatcher and Prince have a haircut like that?

The gal on the right appears to be half woman, half Chia Pet. Does the outfit require regular watering?

One thing about these home woven yarn creations is that they were often see-through. In the 1970s, this might get you noticed - in the 2000's, it might get you arrested.

You know what? If my girlfriend is going to wear an outfit like that, I honestly wouldn't mind dressing like a complete jackass. I think it's a pretty fair trade, don't you?

"This is the future calling. Just wanted to let you know that letting someone take a picture of you in that layered Hula skirt was a big mistake. Bye." (dial tone)

Look! It's Yarn Lass and Craft Gal! I wonder what their super powers are?

Honey Badger Blood Orgy - - NSFW

2011-11-10T09:25:00.000-08:00

This one had me literally laughing out loud. It takes a couple of minutes to get going, but once the Honey Badger appears, the bloodshed begins.

Now I'm Hungry

2011-11-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

Over at BBQ Jew, a YouTube video of Bridge's BBQ Lodge in Shelby, NC.

Sara and I have eaten there a couple of times. Sara liked the sauce so much that she bought a half-gallon of it to take home with her.

You'll see NC BBQ expert Bob Garner in the video, eating one of the sandwiches.

Bil Keane, 1922-2011: R.I.P.

2011-11-10T07:49:00.000-08:00

89 years old, of congestive heart failure.

One of the all-time greats of cartooning. I didn't generally read Family Circus except on Sundays, and then only if it was one of the strips in which one of the kids went on an expedition; Keane usually drew these as a dotted line on the landscape, with explanatory notes as to where and why the kid lingered at any one area.

The Old Man Would Understand

2011-11-10T07:27:00.000-08:00

Trying to rebuild stocks of Menhaden along the Atlantic Seaboard.

Called menhaden, the fish — part of the herring family — is today mostly used as fertilizer, feed for animals and farmed-fish and bait. Its place in American history goes back to the Pilgrims. Menhaden were the fish that Native Americans taught the Pilgrims to plant with corn as fertilizer. New England tribes in the pre-Colonial era called the menhaden munnawhatteaug, or "fertilizer."

As the most heavily harvested fish, in terms of pounds, on the East Coast, its numbers have dropped to about 10% of its Colonial-era population.

So on Wednesday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted 14-3 to reduce the amount of menhaden that may be caught by about 25% compared with the previous year's catch. That should mean on average 60,000 metric tons "more fish in the water to help the population begin to rebuild," says John Crawford of the Pew Environment Group's Northeast Fisheries Program.

The commission's decision was complicated, based on the estimated percentage of spawning-aged fish , says Ben Landry, director of public affairs for Omega Protein Corp. The Houston-based company catches 75%-80% of menhaden, which it turns into fish meal and fish oil at its Reedville, Va., plant.

If you've ever read The Old Man and the Boy by Robert Ruark, you'll remember that the Old Man, Capt. Ned Askins, owned a "pogie boat" for Menhaden fishing in Southport, NC, and young Robert had some of his adventures on that boat. You'll also recall that the Old Man was a firm believer in conservation, teaching Ruark the importance of preserving various species (quail, in particular) by not over-hunting or over-fishing.