EVEN OLDER STUFF

-- February 15, 2016 --

Hot Spot

Many are going to ask, "What's so weird about the corner of Irving Ave and Moffat St?" and I'm here to answer.
This street junction, in the NYC borough of Queens, happens to be the most radioactive place in the entire state of New York, and would be the northeast's if not for NJ's McGuire Air Force Base in Burlington County (called "the most contaminated base" in 2007 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency).

In 1918, chemical engineer Alcan Hirsch, and his brother, mining chief Marx Hirsch, opened a chemical plant where today sits most of the businesses on Irving Ave's north side. In 1920, they christen it Hirsch Laboratories, and later added the mining company Molybdenum Corporation (aka Molycorp). The Hirsch brothers sold the lab in 1923 to Harry Wolff and Max Alport, who renamed it Wolff-Alport Chemical Company, but continued their mining operations, and supplied W-A Chemical with the rare-earth metals needed to produce a huge list of products.
The plant processed Monazite sand, which, when treated with Sulfuric Acid, separates into the rare-earth Sodium Sulfate, but also the radioactive waste known as Thorium Pyrophosphate.
It wasn't till the United States’ nuclear weapons program in 1942, known as the Manhattan Project, that Thorium became useful. Until 1947, when the Atomic Energy Commission began to purchase the fertile heavy element from Wolff-Alport, and for the full 20-years prior, the Thorium waste was simply dumped into the area's sewers.
In 1974, the Department of Energy created the FUSRAP initiative, which stands for "Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program", in an attempt to clean up environmental contamination, but it wasn't until 1987 that they notified New York City officials about the dangerous pollutants that stemmed from the Wolff-Alport plant. From 1988 to 2006, tests claimed the levels of radiation in the area were below regulatory limits, but broader tests in 2010 proved this was untrue.

The land where the chemical depot once stood is now Los Primos Auto Repair and Sale (1127 Irving Ave), and - if you ask nicely - the owner may show you the arches where the kilns once scorched apart the Monazite sand.
While a single X-ray may subject someone to 10 millirem of radiation, a worker at Los Primos is exposed to about 300 millirem per year (100 per year is deemed the highest "safe" dose).
It is said the site is not a danger to those who visit once or twice, but it's so bad within the auto-body shop, the Environmental Protection Agency has asked that no employee rest on their back within the premises, even though a sandwich of 2 inches (5 cm) of steel, 2 inches of lead, and another 2 inches of steel has been laid down under almost the entire block, by the E.P.A., to prevent further spoliation from gamma radiation.
One can discover more of NYC's odd sights and sites by visiting one of my many other blogs: This Hidden City.

-- February 08, 2016 --

Have You Seen My New Zine?

My new fanzine, titled Exscind, is now out in a limited edition of 100 signed, and numbered, copies.

It contains all new, tantalizing material, including writing, art, and photography. It's 36 pages, collecting all my writing of the last five years (minus my No Echo music articles), a full color cover and photos within, plus art and poetry, all protected by an acetate sleeve. Nonfiction articles, and biographical material, about sex, death, drugs, revenge, youthful stupidity, suicide, utopia, and the godmother of the American occult movement Anne Hutchinson. Photos, and art, about PCP, longhaul trucking, prison, solitude, and so much more.
$6 postage paid first class (or $4 sent media mail) in NAFTA territory, $8 rest of WTO. Make contact for copies.

-- February 01, 2016 --

Ezekiel, Connect Them Dry Bones

A new music video has been uploaded for the first track, "Kokoro", off the upcoming Memento Mori EP by industrial-noise outfit 156, which was made using human bones.

Much like 156's previous releases, the music is in the spirit of the early industrial of Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept., and Z'EV, but this time around all the sounds were created using only human bones, or the human breath passing through human bones. The record is supposed to serve as - for those who cannot obtain one - the skull's replacement in the Chivalric Order/Freemason ritual room where one contemplates death.
The Memento Mori sessions had been recorded sporadically since 2012, due to the scarcity of the instruments, which include skulls, femurs, and vertebrae, as well as bone whistles (made by the artist himself), and Tibetan thighbone trumpets (kangling). You can also view a short video on one of the practice sessions here.
The soon-to-be released 10" should be out by spring or summer of 2016 on bone-colored vinyl, so keep an ear/eye out for that.

-- January 25, 2016 --

Let's Hear It For Population Control!

Texas House Member Tom Moore, Jr. (who served McLennan County as a Democrat from 1967 to 1973), was tired of those in the Texas House of Representative not thoroughly reading through legislation.

On April 1st of 1971, with the help of Republican Representative Lane Denton, he decided to draw up a rather strange proposal, and submit it to the State House. Without a single word of complaint from any of the other 148 members of the House, the bill passed unanimously. What all were unaware of, was that the act was set to memorialize Albert de Salvo, who is better known as The Boston Strangler.
Some of the charter read:

This compassionate gentleman's dedication and devotion to his work has enabled the weak and the lonely throughout the nation to achieve and maintain a new degree of concern for their future. He has been officially recognized by the state of Massachusetts for his noted activities and unconventional techniques involving population control and applied psychology.

It was only after the statute passed that Moore exposed his April Fool's prank, and the measure was withdrawn. After some publicity, he admitted, "No one reads these bills or resolutions. If someone gets up and says it's a good proposal, then everybody votes yes without reading it or even giving it a good second thought."
Moore also made news that year by becoming part of what the Texas media labeled the "Dirty Thirty", which were 30 House Members who stood against the politicans who had been charged with bribery and conspiracy by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission - such as then-Speaker of the House Gus Franklin Mutscher, then-Governor Preston Smith, and then-Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes - in what became known as the Sharpstown Stock-Fraud Scandal.
While he paid a price for taking these stands (most turned their backs on him, and the rest of the "Dirty Thirty"), he is seen by many as a political hero.

-- January 14, 2016 --

The Spooky Sounds of Nothing

I wrote a new piece on "phantom records" that turned into an art project.

Check it out over at the No Echo website, as well as many other wonderful articles, and music lists, by musicians from all styles of music, and all over the globe.

-- January 04, 2016 --

Tomorrow Belongs To Laughter

The musical Cabaret, which is based on John Van Druten's 1951 play I Am A Camera (itself an adaptation of Goodbye to Berlin [1939] by Christopher Isherwood), is about a female cabaret performer, and her relationship with a young American writer, set at a German nightclub called Kit Kat Klub, during the rise of the Nazi Party. It debuted in 1966 on Broadway, London in '68, and was turned into a film in 1972 - starring Liza Minnelli, and Michael York, while directed by Bob Fosse.
The film omitted all the ditties performed outside the club, except for "Tomorrow Belongs To Me", where a Hitler Youth member proudly sings the song at an outdoor café. Many white supremacists felt the piece was a perfect example of the beauty of German folk music, as well as Nazi anthems, to the point where a handful of racist rock bands covered it, live and on record. The first were Skrewdriver, on their 1984 LP Hail the New Dawn, and many followed after, with some even thinking it was a Skrewdriver original.

What makes this all extremely funny is that the entire musical, including "Tomorrow Belongs To Me", was written by two nice Jewish boys: John Kander (music) and Fred Ebb (lyrics). This subject is made all the more so thanks to a casual search on the topic that reveals many on racist forums excusing Ian Stuart and the Skrew-crew by claiming the Cabaret number to be a ripoff of an old folk ballad, even though there is absolutely no evidence it's based on an original German tune, rather than admitting Stuart didn't do his research.
Sieg heil?
No, seek help.

-- December 30, 2015 --

Drive On

Traveling throughout the United States (during most of the 20th century), especially in the south, was a daring feat for African-Americans of the time. Jim Crow laws had peppered the country with inhospitable areas for minorities, and many had to know where it was okay to spend a night, or even just get a bite to eat.
In 1935, Harlem postal worker, Victor Hugo Green, had the idea to publish a book collecting info on safe places across the U.S., and The Negro Motorist Green Book (aka The Green Book) was born.

First published in 1936, The Green Book had Mr. Green himself visiting restaurants, and inns, throughout New York state, with the publication going national not long after, and international in 1949. He printed 15,000 copies every year, with the exception of the war years of 1941 - 1945, where he ceased altogether. Though the book helped black families move across several states without being terrorized, Victor did not live to see the day this country would have no real need for his book, as it was published for six more years after his death in 1960.

If you are curious to flip through an issue, the New York Public Library has digitally archived all Green Book volumes here.

-- December 21, 2015 --

Love and Death, Dolphin-Style

John C. Lily is known as an early member of S.E.T.I., the inventor of the sensory-deprivation tank, and for his experiments with consciousness and psychedelics, but he also highly contributed to our knowledge of dolphin behavior and communication, helping create the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
In 1965, NASA sponsored him to head an experiment, based in the Virgin Islands, attempting to teach dolphins to speak English. He was given a male bottlenose dolphin, about age six, which they named Peter. He hired a local as an assistant; a vibrant, and cute 23-year-old, named Margaret Howe. Peter and Margaret were to live together for ten weeks. They would eat, play, and have classes where Peter was given instructions: such as trying to say, "Hello Margaret" (the animal could never get its m's right).

By week four, Peter would start to get frustrated with the classes, almost always furiously swimming around Margaret with an erection. The research assistant soon began to masturbate Peter, so as to relieve him. She claims she saw it as simply a clinical method to help him focus on their task. She says it was never sexual for her, but admitted it made her life with him "sensual". In the BBC documentary The Girl Who Talked to Dolphins (2014), Howe looked back, remembering how she would seriously miss Peter when he wasn't around, and saying she could never go back to calling him "a dolphin" (only using his name to reference him).
After the experiment, Peter was moved to another Lily-run tank in Miami, FL, while Margaret stayed behind. Within weeks the dolphin's health declined, and one day he swam to the bottom of his pool, and held his breath. Brokenhearted, and missing his newfound mate, Peter committed suicide. Though hurt by the news, Margaret married John Lovatt, the project's photographer.
The experiment later inspired the 1967 novel, by French author Robert Merle, Un animal doué de raison (A Sentient Animal). That book was then the basis for the 1973 box office flop The Day of the Dolphin, which starred George C. Scott, but the star dolphin, Alpha, was named "best animal actor" at the 24th Patsy Award, so scales balanced, I guess.

-- December 09, 2015 --

A Blaze of Glory With A Side of Mutiny (In Space)

One of the Nazi scientists obtained under United States' Project Paperclip, Werner van Braun, had a dream about life in a space station, sometime in the 1950s. He presented NASA with the idea, and by 1963 they partnered up with the Department of Defense to build it. Plans were officially underway in 1969 with an order placed to McDonnell Douglas Corporation to spruce up some existing rockets.
On May 14th of 1973, NASA launched a modified Saturn V rocket from Florida with - what they originally called "The Orbital Workshop", but rechristened - "Skylab" aboard: the US's first space station. Originally shot up into space unmanned, NASA sent three manned-missions throughout Skylab's operation, each carrying three astronauts.

Sent up with the Apollo Telescope Mount, the crew was to perform quite a number of experiments, including a few on themselves, such as red blood cell metabolism checks, and constant urine analyses. The studies ranged from biological to technological, astronomical and personal. The third crew - (SL-4: consisting of Commander Gerald Carr, William Pogue (pilot), and Edward Gibson (science pilot) - were first time astronauts. Not used to the rigors of having to work in zero gravity, with the added troubles of bizarre sleep schedules, the crew began to complain to Mission Control of the workload. NASA was having none of it, and told the boys to get back to work. Six weeks in, the crew scheduled a one-day strike. All radio communication was cut off from Skylab's end. The crew spent the day sleeping, and long moments of just looking out the window into the majesty of space. The next day, Commander Carr contacted the operation's manager with demands of more free time, which Houston had to compromise on. The crew gave up their mutiny, and finished off their next six weeks with studies of the Sun.

Sadly, the original mission had damaged Sklylab, and the project was doomed from the start, as they realized - without full solar panel use - the ship could not collect enough energy to sustain long-term life. The third, and final crew, returned to Earth in February of 1974. The station stayed abandoned, as scientists debated as what to do. Skylab stayed in a parked orbit for years, until reactivation in 1978, after British mathematician Desmond King-Hele foretold of it crash-landing due to extreme solar flare activity.
This became a huge media event in 1979, as Skylab reentered the atmosphere, and people publicly prayed it wouldn't come crashing down on them, or dust us all with radioactive space germs on passing. While NASA aimed it southeast of Cape Town, South Africa, most of it burned upon reentry, with a large chunk falling in the desert of western Australia. The local government fined the U.S. space organization $400 for littering, which they have yet to pay.

-- December 01, 2015 --

Punks On Film

I recently wrote up a new list - of punk bands making appearances in movies - over at No Echo.

It's a fun read, so check it out.

-- November 23, 2015 --

Your Struggles Are Over

Looking to start a business? If you are looking into something with little investment, and decent yield, how about starting a publishing company. You can make quite a name, and bucks, for yourself by printing books that are in the public domain, and not have to pay a single author a dime.
This January, one can freely publish an extremely controversial book that sells up to 15,000 copies in the U.S. alone: Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.
Originally finished in a jail cell by a seriously confused anti-Semite, and edited by his mentally unstable friend (Rudolf Hess), the book - outlining one man's wacky political ideology - was first published in 1925. It sold poorly, but once Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, he had the book given to every married couple upon their wedding day - with his country's government picking up the tab, as well as paying him royalties. Even though he once said to Hans Frank, "If I had had any idea in 1924 that I would have become Reich chancellor, I never would have written the book," he reaped about a million reichsmark a year from its sale. By 1939, Mein Kampf had sold five million copies in eleven languages.

In 1942, the U.S. seized copyright of the book under the Trading with the Enemy Act. In 1979, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing bought the book's license from the U.S. government under Title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations, and became its only U.S. publisher.
Copyright laws' Duration of Copyright established the holding term of 70-years after the author's death, if there are no family members to stand for the rights. Unless it's proven that Hitler survived his days in the bunker (heading out for the mountains of Argentina, as some claim), then the book - as well as its unpublished sequel Zweites Buch - goes copyright-free in 2016.

-- November 13, 2015 --

Destructogenius

Thomas Midgley Jr. (1889 - 1944) was a man of many inventions. He also, as "Daddy of the A-Bomb" Robert Oppenheimer said of himself when quoting the Bhagavad-Gita, had "become Death, destroyer of worlds".
Innocently enough, Midgley grew up in Columbus, OH, and graduated from Cornell University in 1911 as a mechanical engineer. With encouragement from his father, who was also an inventor, Thomas began to work for General Motors in 1916, and moved on to a subsidiary of GM, Dayton Research Laboratories, a little after. There, he figuratively spread his wings, and flew.

By 1921, Thomas Midgley Jr. developed a way to make engines stop rumbling, after being shut down, by adding Tetraethyllead (aka TEL) to gasoline, which earned him the Nichols Medal in 1923 from the American Chemical Society. After a number of deaths (10+) at the processing plant, Midgley held a press conference to demonstrate that it wasn't TEL causing the problem. He poured the additive over parts of his body, and even inhaled it for about a minute. Without letting many know he became ill from it, and took a vacation to Florida.
Upon his return, he transferred himself to GM's Frigidaire division. In 1927, he thought to compound fluorine into a hydrocarbon, and his development team believed that the carbon–fluorine bond would be stable enough to prevent releasing hydrogen fluoride. They soon created dichlorodifluoromethane, the world's first chlorofluorocarbon (aka CFC), and began to add what they called "Freon 12" to all new refrigerators. The chemical was later used in aerosol spray cans, and asthma inhalers. For all of this, he received the Perkin Medal from the Society of Chemical Industry (1937); awarded the American Chemical Society highest honor the Priestley Medal in 1941; the Willard Gibbs Award, and elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences, both in 1942. In 1944, he became chairman of the American Chemical Society, but was struck down by poliomyelitis, which partially paralyzed him. He put his mechanics engineering degree to work, and set up a system of wires, and pulleys, which would help get him out of bed. On the morning of November 2, 1955, he became tangled up in his contraption, and accidentally strangled himself.
It wasn't until 1956 that measurements of Ozone first began, and though the first worldwide measurements didn't start until 1978 (using the Nimbus-7 satellite), M.J. Molina, and F.S. Rowland, had already published a laboratory study in 1974 that showed CFC's breakdown Ozone.
Though championed in his day, today - this one man - is seen as one of the worst causes of pollution. It is estimated that due to leaded gasoline several million lives were cut short, with another several million's health effected negatively. Environmental historian J. R. McNeill wrote in his 2001 book, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World, that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history."
Thanks for nothing, Tom.

-- November 02, 2015 --

A Bedtime Story

In 1987, Tallahassee police came upon two men - in suit and ties - watching over a group of two girls and four boys, aged 2 to 7, at a public park. When questioned, the men said they were on their way to Mexico, taking the children to a school there. Upon inspection, the kids looked unbathed, malnourished, and could not tell the officers any of their mother's names. The two men, Douglas Edward Zimmerman, 27, and Michael Houlihan, 28, were arrested.
It was soon learned they were members of a hippie cult from the Washington D.C. area, who call themselves "The Finders", founded by retired USAF Master Sgt. Marion David Pettie. The District of Columbia Police Department became involved, with Capt. William White III, acting as spokesman over the case. Both the arrested men were charged with one count of felony child abuse, held for $100,000 bond, and booked into the Leon County Jail. The six children had to be moved from their Florida shelter to an undisclosed location protected by armed guards because officials kept receiving threatening phone calls. D.C. Detective James Bradley had already been suspicions the cult was involved in child porn, and used the arrest to get a search warrant on all five of the Finders' properties, with backing from Ramon Martinez and Lynwood Rountree of the Department of the Treasury. On February 5, 1987, they raided homes, farm land and one warehouse, which contained a library, several kitchens, a sauna, and hot tub, plus a video production room, as well as several jars of urine and feces. The officers seized cabinets full of documents on activities of the organization in different parts of the world, including London, Germany, Japan, the Bahamas, Hong Kong, and Africa. There were intelligence files on private families, where a Finders member would respond to local ads for baby-sitters, and collect as much information as possible about the unsuspecting family. Though there was no proof found that the group was guilty of sexually abusing kids, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was ready to enter the case, believing children were at least being trafficked - against their will - across state lines, as well as internationally.
The story gained local press in Florida and Washington D.C., but was soon picked up by The NY Times.
In April, the State Department told the courts to free everyone, and give back their passports so they could go on their merry way. All the Metropolitan Police Department files on the case were deemed classified by the Central Intelligence Agency, and the F.B.I. Foreign Counterintelligence Division requested the D.C. Police no longer contact them on the matter. The press went quiet about it too. No other article appeared until the case was lightly brushed over in a U.S. News & World Report 1993 exposé of the cult. Luckily, much of the earlier reports are still available, so we can share this odd story with our kids, and let them know that there may actually be bogeymen out there.
By the 90s, cult leader Marion Pettie expanded the organization into dozens of properties throughout the U.S., with real estate holdings estimated to be worth over 2.2 million dollars at the time. Since, several members have left the group, with several complaints lodged, but none involve children.
Some say this story is proof enough the C.I.A. had its hands in some nefarious places, while others think the founder's son and wife, both employees of the Agency, pulled some strings to get the whole thing shut down. Would the C.I.A. stick its neck out for a secretary? Could they, as author of Spies and Provocateurs: An Encyclopedia of Espionage and Covert Action, Wendell Minnick claims, admit to "owning the Finders organization as a front [...] but that it had gone bad"? It all brings up so many more questions, I'm not sure I can sleep.

-- October 23, 2015 --

Listen To This Thing Called Luk Thung

I've recently written a brief history, and short guide, to the "Luk Thung" music of Thailand, which is now available at the No Echo music website.

There is so much more to check out there, and I have other pieces posted at No Echo - such as a feature on the first gang to lay it down on vinyl, The Ghetto Brothers. There's also a photo journal of this year's Tompkins Square Park Riot Show, and my Top 100 backpatches of the 2015 Maryland Deathfest. Also, I have a new article covering "sex records", and dirty recordings. Plus, an older piece - that was previously only available in my sold out book Some Words - titled "Let's Make Some Noise". Check that out here.
The No Echo website was unleashed on the world only last year, holds some great written work on music, and is run by Andrew from Aversionline, and Carlos of Noisecreep.
I hope to keep contributing pieces, so do drop by often.

-- October 12, 2015 --

Dropping E

In 1936, Ernest Vincent Wright had an idea to write a novel. Not just any novel, but a story with a blueprint for a better world, as well as a gimmick to sell it.
It took him close to six months of constant typing, but he managed to put together 50,000 words that got him little notice by publishers. Finally tired of hearing "no", Vincent self-published his opus, Gadsby, in 1939.
Written from a narrator's perspective (who throughout the book jokes about how bad his writing is), the story follows 50-year-old John Gadsby, who feels his neighborhood of Branton Hills is in a downturn. He forms a youth organization to build community awareness, and soon becomes mayor. Under his leadership, the town grows from 2000 residents to 60,000 - making Gadsby Wright's version of The Republic.

While Plato he ain't, Ernest's stunt turned out to be pretty novel, as the entire tale is written in lipogrammatic form.
A lipogram is a constricted prose word game, where one composes a small literary work omitting a certain letter, normally a vowel. Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a whole book in this style, and the letter he chose to edit out was E.

Very little is known of Wright's life, though a handful of articles about Gadsby do shed light on the book's process (such as tying the E key of his typewriter down). He was quoted in these pieces as saying his biggest obstacle was dodging words with the past-tense verb suffix "-ed", while complaining he could not write of any quantities after six and before thirty.
In 1968, the book entered the public domain (read it here), but - seeing as a lot of the first run were lost in a fire - original copies are book-collector favorites, and range up to $4000 each.

-- October 01, 2015 --

This Is Grrreat!

As a philatelist, I'm big on weird stamp stories, and during World War II, the Office of Strategic Services (which later became the C.I.A.) performed an odd act of psychological warfare on the Germans, using stamps, with their Operation Cornflakes.
In this particular PSYOP mission, the department had bombers strike air raids on trains carrying mail, the first of which flew on January 5th, bombing a cargo line headed to Linz. A following plane would then drop thousands of envelopes, in hopes they would be picked up with the rest of the scattered mail, and delivered to unwitting households. Most envelopes contained copies of the Allies' German-language newspaper, Das Neue Deutschland, and all had fake stamps - some bearing the likeness of Hitler turning into a corpse.

Three types of stamps were made by the Office: a counterfeit 6 pf, and 12 pf, of the original, and the 12 pf version with the skull. The first two, like the original German stamps read "Deutsches Reich", meaning "German Empire", but the totenkopf forgeries read "Futsches Reich", threatening to turn them into a "Destroyed Empire."

-- September 21, 2015 --

Taught Tao By A Bird

I recently released a newsprint fanzine, Auspex, which is Latin for "one who looks at birds". It's where we get the word auspicious, and I found it so, since I've been feeding birds on my windowsill for the past few years. Within the introduction, I dedicated the work to the many breeds of avian that visited me daily. As it went to print, a species I hadn't listed began to drop by: a blue jay.
I have a weird history with them. I once saved one from a tangle of fishing line, later I watched as another pair attacked a hawk, and it's the only bird that's ever made me bleed. While I enjoy their calls, it harassed the other birds, and ruled the window space whenever it fed. I had mixed feelings on its stay.
Then something odd happened. One day it showed up with no feathers around its neck, and, in a few more days, the poor bird's entire head looked like a struck match - black and burned.

click on image for larger view

It really hit me in an bad way. I studied up on molting, and couldn't find out what was wrong. For a few days, I constantly thought about it, and this nearly dove me into a depression. In about a week, the feathers began to come back, and the blue jay looked normal again. He seemed fine, and all was well.
Now, I feed birds various seeds at one window, with peanuts for squirrels on another, and around this time the blue bird switched from the sill with seeds to the one with nuts. That window being closer to the walking path of my apartment, I got to see it quite often, and many times he would look at me, and squawk, before grabbing a nut, and flying off. This led me to say to my girlfriend one morning, "I'm going to tame that bird." I then decided to name him. At first I thought of calling him "Mordecai", after the blue jay on Regular Show, but settled on "Peanut".
After it would stop for its first nut, I would hold out a peanut for its return. I set up my camera to film, and it only took two days of trying 'til it fed from my hand. My gf remarked, "Of course! These things happen with you all the time." I felt elated, and began to take it further. In another two days, I had gotten it to jump on my finger, before it took the food. I had the luck to be taping on the day I first fed him, as well as when I got that blue beauty to hop onto my hand (see video).

Then I took things too far. One morning, as my lady sat on the couch, streaming shows on the internet, I got it to land on my finger, and slowly walked over to her to show how tame it had become. This bird trusted me, and I stood in the middle of my livingroom proud as punch to have it doing so. I gave it a nut, and instead of flying out the window with it, he flew up on my ceiling fan. He struck the peanut once with his beak, but almost immediately felt something was wrong, and began to fly all over my apartment, calling out. Instead of being calm about it, and letting it find its way out on its own (which would have taken less than 5 minutes, I'm sure), I began to chase it thinking I was helping. Professor Reinhold Niebuhr was quoted as saying "We mean well, and do ill, and justify our ill-doing by our well-meaning."
It has been two weeks since the incident, and the blue jay has hardly returned, only feeding from my hand once since, and was very sheepish about it. I can't blame the bird, and while I am down I did something so stupid, I do thank it for aiding me to see that, sometimes, I need to heed the Taoist concept of wu wei (non-action, or the harmony to behave in a completely natural way). Sometimes, helping hinders, and one needs to know when to leave well enough alone. I didn't need an ornithologist to know birds don't like to be chased, but still followed a very unnatural path. It took a bird brain in helping this human to remember that "the Universe already works harmoniously according to its own ways; as a person exerts their will upon the world they disrupt the harmony that already exists." I'd swear I didn't need Lao Tzu to point that out, but my actions said differently.
Sorry, birdie!

UPDATE: Peanut is okay. All is forgiven, and though I got him to eat out of my hand once, I have decided it best to just go back to leaving him piles of nuts, and watch from a distance like the auspex I am.

-- September 14, 2015 --

Amnesty Brooklyn

My Bed-Stuy photo "The Obvious" from the Art vs Ads project...

...is part of Amnesty International Art For Amnesty's group show RIGHTS: An Art For Activism Exhibition at Forte in Crown Heights.

Opening night is Thursday, October 1st, 6 to 9 pm, and the show runs until October 27th.

-- September 08, 2015 --

That'll Show 'Em

In 1985, France, and everything she stood for, was under attack. The French government were planning a nuclear test on the Polynesian island of Moruroa (aka Aopuni), and word had reached back that a well-known group (who were perceived as terrorists) would attempt to use this event to their advantage. The French intelligence agency Direction-générale de la sécurité extérieure, and Defense Minister Charles Hernu, stepped in with a plan. They would have agents play the part of group sympathizers, and gather as much information on their nefarious workings, as well as the ship to be used in this affair; a 1955 former UK Ministry of Agriculture trawler, originally called "Sir William Hardy", but named "Rainbow Warrior" after its 1977 purchase.

In what they labeled Opération Satanique ("Operation Satanic") the DGSE agents were to board the vessel, offer to volunteer to work, and then secretly monitor communications, collect maps, and investigate their equipment. After a few weeks, the intelligence officers gathered what they needed, and while docked at at Marsden Wharf on July 10, 1985, in Auckland, New Zealand, a couple of French divers attached two limpet mines under the boat's hull. At 11:38pm, the first bomb was detonated, and blasted a hole 15ft (4.5m) wide in the side of the ship. Ten minutes later, the frogs pushed the button for bomb number two, causing the "Rainbow Warrior" to go down in another four minutes.
Though a few were hurt, most of the crew survived, except for Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira, who drowned while trying to film the damage after the first explosion.

With this act of bravery, the Land of Wine and Cheese would say to that terrorist outfit Greenpeace, nay, the world: don't mess with France.
For a more detailed account of this courageous operation, and its troublesome aftermath, read up on it here.

-- September 01, 2015 --

I've Become A Paid Shill

About a week ago, I got an email from a t-shirt company Illuminetwork (A Bold Revelation) stating that they can tell by my writing that I am "a member of the Illuminated Ones". After laughing my ass off, I replied that - if I was - there weren't many benefits, and they in turn told me that would change if I gave them a plug on this blog.
I checked the mail today, and I've been sent an armful of t-shirts to promote 'em, so here goes.

Created by a group of anonymous characters in NYC, the company boasts that more designs are coming, as well as collaborations with underground artists to create new versions of the Eye of Providence logo. The shirts only come in black (not surprised there), they have four designs so far, and - I have to admit - are pretty funny.
They're also giving away free shirts to anyone who can prove "membership", so feel free to try your luck.

-- August 24, 2015 --

Real Gangster Music

The recent release of the N.W.A. docudrama, Straight Outta Compton, has many looking back, and wondering where a bunch of thugs got the idea to make a record. Never mind that the movie forgets to script the part where Dr. Dre (Andre Young, a dedicated diver on his school's swim team) and DJ Yella (Antoine Carraby) helped create the World Class Wreckin' Crew, and it didn't showcase Ice Cube's 1986 rap skills, or document his enrollment at Phoenix Institute of Technology the following year for architectural drafting.

Truth is, that they weren't really associated with gangs previous to the rise of N.W.A. Before stardom, Easy E (Eric Wright) may have sold crack to get by, but even that wouldn't get them close to being the first gang members to lay it down on wax. That honor is bestowed upon The Ghetto Brothers.

Starting as a local street club around the early 60s in New York City's South Bronx, The Ghetto Brothers later became involved in Puerto Rican nationalism, and an association with the Puerto Rican Socialist Party was formed.
The gang first consisted of Ray de la Vega, Benjamin Melendez, and Hui Cambrelen (who named the group). They had a rep for being trouble, but also known for having a deeply philosophical side. The gang treated its women members differently than most crews (calling them Ghetto Sisters), and becoming involved in charities. By the late 60s, Benjamin began to notice the power he held, and took the position of neighborhood spokesman. By 1971, he brokered a truce among the gangs of the Bronx and Harlem at the Hoe Avenue peace meeting in December (which inspired the opening scenes of the 1979 gang flick The Warriors), as well as released a full LP, Power - Fuerza, with his rock band, also called The Ghetto Brothers.

When listening to the album, one doesn't get any hint it's a bunch of gang members jamming, but is instead overwhelmed by the sense that someone just really loved Santana enough to start a similarly sounding band. The lyrics aren't what you'd come to expect from gang members, which includes three of the tracks being love songs. To me, the most powerful song is the funk-dance number "Ghetto Brothers Power", which isn't much more than a catchy call-and-response number. Produced by Bobby Marin, the record was released on their own Salsa Records imprint, and only sold locally. Though leaving The Ghetto Brothers in 1976, after seeing a bit of interest build, Benjamin Melendez re-released Power - Fuerza on CD in 2008 on Brooklyn's Truth and Soul Records.
In the early 90s, the Ghetto Brothers and the Savage Nomads joined together to form Los Solidos ("The Solid Ones"), currently one of the most powerful Puerto Rican gangs in NY state. Other notable ex-members of GB are former-Hartford, CT mayor, Eddie Perez, and New York Daily News columnist Robert Dominguez. For more info, check out the 2015 documentary, Rubble Kings.

-- August 10, 2015 --

Art That's Out of This World

At a dinner party in late-1970, American astronaut David Scott met Belgian artist Paul Van Hoeydonck. Being who they were, their discussion turned mostly to art, and space travel, with the talk culminating in a collaborative effort to commemorate all those who died on the paths exploring space, titling the project "Fallen Astronaut".
Though each tells a different tale, basically, Hoeydonck was to make an artistic figurine, which Scott would smuggle aboard his next trip into the cosmos. Awesomely enough, his next scheduled rocket ride happened to be the Apollo 15 lunar mission, and he was to leave the 3.3" (8cm) aluminum statuette, along with a plaque reading 14 names of those lost (eight American astronauts and six Soviet cosmonauts).

click on image for larger view

On August 1st of 1971, Scott placed Hoeydonck's metallic sculpture within the Mons Hadley massif portion of the Montes Apenninus, a mountain range in the northern hemisphere of our Moon, and snapped the photo above.
He only revealed his act at a post-mission press conference, while adding "Sadly, two names are missing, those of Valentin Bondarenko and Grigori Nelyubov," (also forgetting the first black astronaut Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr.). Still, many were stunned, and none were more stunned than NASA, but after Walter Cronkite called it the "first art installation on the Moon" during a broadcast of the following mission, they thought to make it work best in their favor. The National Air and Space Museum asked for a display replica, and another was donated to the Smithsonian Institution on April 17, 1972.
Paul Van Hoeydonck felt he got screwed in all this, as none of the agencies believed in profiting commercially off of space travel and exploration. He was, according to his recounts of the story, to make several replicas after the fact, and sell them. David Scott claims this to be untrue, and says he would never have agreed had he know that. A July 1972 issue of Art in America Magazine published a piece stating Hoeydonck created 950 signed replicas to be sold at New York City's Waddell Gallery, for $750 each. NASA complained, and both the gallery, and the artist, retracted.
In 2007, art journalist Jan Stalmans reached out to Hoeydonck to ask how many of these small statues were actually in existence. He replied by mail, writing a brief note that only about 50 were made, most of them were still in his possession, and unsigned.

-- August 03, 2015 --

What A Big Spliff Up

The track "Smoked Two Joints" was covered by shitty, ska-wannabes Sublime for one of their god-awful albums, but what many an idiot began repeating - and who really knows why? - is that Bob Marley originally wrote it.
The fact is that this song was originally a B-side to a 12" 45 rpm released by Australian DJ Doug Mulray and his band The Rude Band in 1986 on Raw Prawn Records.

Doug Murlay… Bob Marley… sounds similar, I guess.
While the whole record was mostly lost to popular culture, until some now-dead alternaloser covered it, the twelve-inch single was actually for the side A track, "You Are Soul", which is a terrible disco parody poking fun at excess. The sometimes controversial DJ also produced the 7" "I'm A Punk" in 1982, taking a stab at the punk rock movement, discounting its politics, while focusing on the strange fashions, and was released to advertise his, What A Rude Album 12" LP and cassette that same year.
I believe "Smoked Two Joints" pretty clearly makes fun of the Rastafari religion, or at least their use of marijuana, so I don't see how it could have been mistaken for a serious song about the great plant Shiva left for the world, so fuck all this, and - in honor of all the reggae, dub, and ska legends we've lost - I'm gonna go get fuckin' stoned.

-- July 27, 2015 --

I Is Poet of the Week, Cuz Me Write Good

I was made "Poet of the Week", along with Californian poet Woodrow Hightower, for the week of July 27th through August 2nd over at the Poetry Super Highway website.

I'm honored that my "throwaways" are getting such wonderful notice.
Speaking of which, I recently released a collection of my "throwaway poems".

56 unedited, stream-of-consciousness doggerels filled with emotional wordplay, and indifferent pleasantries. The book has been released in a limited quantity of hand-numbered copies, and entirely produced to recreate the spirit of the original "throwaways project". Each 6x9" trade paperback comes with 55 printed poems, and one unique, handwritten "throwaway" penned especially for that particular copy.
Only $10 per book, with postage paid ($15 overseas). Feel free to contact me for purchase.

-- July 20, 2015 --

All Science, No Fiction

Many scholars once claimed The Blazing World (1666) by then-Duchess of Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, was the first real work of science fiction. British writer, Brian Aldiss, as well as many others, believed Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) was, adding Edgar Allan Poe threw his hat into the ring with what we know today as "real" sci-fi, with a short story about a trip to our moon (The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, 1835).
What many are coming to learn is that the earliest written evidence of science fiction was by a Syrian, known as Lucian of Samosata, in the 2nd Century.

Produced around 160 CE as a parody of travelogues, and titled True Stories, Lucian wrote that he and a group of explorers traveled beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar) to see what lay beyond the ocean. After two months at sea, they land on an island with a river of red wine, believing Dionysus had once made the place home. Continuing the trek, they are lifted by a whirlwind for several days, and then dropped upon the moon. Lucian and his crew soon find themselves in the middle of a war between the King of the Moon, and the King of the Sun, over who owns the Morning Star. During this battle, they meet mushroom men, dog-faced men on winged acorns, and cloud-centaurs. The war is later won by the Sun King, who casts clouds over the moon. After returning to Earth, the travelers are swallowed by a 200-mile-long whale in a sea of milk. They are then deposited on an island of cheese (called the Island of the Blessed), and meet Herodotus, Homer, and others involved in the Trojan War. By the end of the tale, they discover a lost continent, but the book ends stating that adventure will be for another time.
Sorry for the spoilers, but I didn't give everything away, so if you're feeling a bit nerdy, pick up a copy.

-- July 13, 2015 --

A Fanzine For the Birds

Just released 2000 copies of a newsprint fanzine, titled Auspex, which is Latin for "one who watches birds". It's free in NYC specialty, book and record stores, but $5 will get you 25 copies anywhere else in the States, and $8 will do the same outside of North America.

Auspex is a small slice of my work throughout the years (featuring older and newer articles, photography, and poetry), which unfolds to reveal a beautiful 23" by 33" (58.4 x 83.8cm) poster. It's a manifestation of the cyclic nature of one man's soul - from birth to death, and back, like a bird's seasonal migration - with the added bonus that you can hang it on your wall. Make contact for copies.

-- July 08, 2015 --

Practical Jokes For the Masses

The Easter Sunday Mass of April 9, 1950, started off as any other, as its yearly 10,000+ pack Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, and a live broadcast feeds it to millions on television. Yet, what was about to happen even shocks me to this day, 65 years later.
Michel Mourre appears at the pulpit, after the Credo of the Saints is given, dressed in the garb of a Dominican monk, he begins to read what many thought was that Easter's sermon:

Today, Easter day of the Holy Year,
Here, under the emblem of Notre-Dame of Paris,
I accuse the universal Catholic Church of the lethal diversion of our living strength toward an empty heaven,
I accuse the Catholic Church of swindling,
I accuse the Catholic Church of infecting the world with its funereal morality,
Of being the running sore on the decomposed body of the West.
Verily I say unto you: God is dead.
(translated from French)

At this point, the organ player realizes what is going on, and begins to churn out tunes to drown out the pranksters voice.
Mourre begins to shout into the microphone:

We vomit the agonizing insipidity of your prayers,
For your prayers have been the greasy smoke over the battlefields of our Europe.
Go forth then into the tragic and exalting desert of a world where God is dead,
And till this earth anew with your bare hands,
With your proud hands,
With your unpraying hands.
Today Easter day of the Holy Year,
Here under the emblem of Notre-Dame of Paris,
We proclaim the death of the Christ-god, so that Man may live at last.
(translated from French)

At this point the Vatican Swiss Guard began to unsheathe their swords, and approach Mourre. He smiles at the congregation, and blesses them with the Sign of the Cross. Mourre (who was at one time a Dominican monk), and three associates (Serge Berna, Ghislain Desnoyers de Marbaix, and Jean Rullier, all members of the radical Lettrist movement) flee the cathedral, being chased by nearly 50 or so parishioners. The four funnymen ran laughing, and screaming, down the Paris streets until they we arrested, subsequently saved from the mob that had formed to lynch them.
Mourre was later quietly locked up in an asylum, being they didn't want to press formal charges, and give the prank more publicity, though championed by Surrealist André Breton. The only other time such a stunt was pulled was on March 22nd of 1892, when a young member of the Blanqui movement had interrupted mass by shouting, "Long live the Republic! Long live the Commune! Down with the Church!"
Still, ladies and gentlemen, that is a good practical joke, but, sadly, no known footage exists. The best source for information on what became known as the "Notre-Dame Affair" can be found in Michel Mourre's 1953 biography, In Spite of Blasphemy, by John Lehmann.

-- June 29, 2015 --

Moshing All the Way to the ATM

This past March, Discogs announced it had facilitated their most expensive sale for a piece of vinyl yet at $6000+.
Some hardcore collector, dropped hardcore cash on the hardcore record Chung King Can Suck It by New York straight edge crew Judge.

The 12" slab of wax was released in 1989, in a limited quantity of only 110 copies. The story goes that fresh off Judge's sold out, Schism-produced 7", the kids headed into the Chung King studio to record their Bringing It Down album on Revelation Records. Bigger acts - like Beastie Boys, Run DMC and LL Cool J - were also recording there at the time, so the studio gave the guys the least advanced studio, along with a coked-out engineer inexperienced in heavy music. The results were audibly terrible to everyone involved, and it would take almost a year to catch up to where they were at. With pre-orders starting stacking up, to give a little something to those who sent in their hard-earned dough so long ago, the folks at Revelation got the bright idea to release an extremely limited run, with a title letting the world know why they were running behind on the official record.
Up until this time, the highest selling records on the Discogs website were a mint copy of The Damned's 1977 punk gem Damned, Damned, Damned at $2800, Eve from Japanese acid rockers Speed, Glue & Shinki, from 1971 for $1300, and the 1984 NYC 12" single "Hooked On Your Love" by Gina ($1200).
When asked how he feels about having put out such an expensive collector's item, ex-Judge vocalist Mike Ferraro said, ""I'm bewildered. I don't know why that record is worth anything to anybody when it's not worth anything to the people who created it."
To hear what you are (not) missing, check out Judge's entire mistake here.

-- June 18, 2015 --

Leftist Occultists

If you would like proof there are shadowy forces operating in the established media, the world's most open-doored lodge - The Order of the Occult Hand - is evidence something funny was going on.

When Charleston, NC reporter Joseph Flander's wrote an article late one fall night, in 1965 for The Charlotte News, on the familicide of a millworker, he didn't intend the start of a secret society.
By using the line, "It was as if an occult hand had reached down from above and moved the players like pawns upon some giant chessboard," which many writers consider 'purple prose', he received accolades from fellow journalists who met at the local bar. The original members - which included an associate editor, RC Smith, Stewart Spencer, the editorial writer, and city editor Jon Gin - vowed to sneak that expression into any piece possible. The group was to be open to all who could have those words secretly printed within a larger work in a circulated newspaper or magazine. Editors were quick to catch on, but the phrase "It was as if an occult hand had..." kept popping up, and even made it into The New York Times (1974 and 1998), The L.A. Times (1983 - 1999), The Boston Globe (1988 - 2000), and The Washington Post (1997).
In 2004, the Order was publicly unveiled by James Janega, adding the most ironic member into the Order, by writing of it (and the line), for The Chicago Tribune. Two years later, Pulitzer prize-winning page editor of The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Paul Greenberg, stated the Order had chosen a new idiom, and resumed its covert affairs.

-- June 10, 2015 --

A New Goodie By Yours Truly

My hardcore punk outfit sound4sound has a limited edition cassette out, Making the Right Ear Jealous.

Collecting the five song Rat Bastard-recorded EP, as well as six songs off the first two demos, and one unreleased track; equaling 12 songs of Bad-Brains-meets-The-Damned hardcore punk rock madness. The tape is only $5 with postage paid in the U.S. ($8 elsewhere), but - if you prefer digital - the entire release is available in MP3 or FLAC on the S4S Bandcamp page, where you can pay what you like.
Feel free to contact me for purchase.

-- June 01, 2015 --

Fill'er Out

The Central Intelligence Agency recently released a list of books that were found in an al-Qaeda compound, aka "Bin Laden's bookshelf", which included David Ray Griffin's conspiracy classic New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, some Noam Chomsky, and a copy of the Oxford History of Modern War by Charles Townsend.
Something they also found plenty of is: porn. However, with over 100 new documents declassified, and even though raiding soldiers have already admitted to seeing it, the government lists none - and, when asked, refuses to name any of the titles.
Still, in the most current release from their archive, there was a golden nugget of the interestingly odd.
Job applications!

In them, the heads of al-Qaeda would like to know if you would die for them, but, also, what your hobbies are.
That bit of paperwork - gathered during the 2011 sweep of Osama's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan - has been translated for us, complete with copyright retained by the Director of National Intelligence.

click on images for larger view

Recently, investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, alleges that our government hadn't performed the U.S. Navy Seal assault against said radical Islamist, and is only releasing these documents as a cover.
Ah - the rabbit hole goes deep with twists, and turns, so carry a torch to find your way about. Some of us will go get the pitchforks.

-- May 26, 2015 --

More Metal Than Ever

I shared my third year collecting backpatches, at Maryland Deathfest, over at the No Echo music website.

This year, it's over 60 photos more than what you loved about the last one.

-- May 18, 2015 --

Still Fashionable Wristwear

The world's oldest piece of stone jewelry was recently dated to 40,000 years ago, and it doesn't even belong to Homo sapiens.

This chlorite bracelet remained hidden in the Denisova Cave of the Altai region of southwestern Siberia, until 2008, when a treasure trove of Denisovan remains and relics were discovered by Michael Shunkov from the Russian Academy of Sciences. The cave was originally stumbled upon by Russian paleontologist Nikolai Ovodov in the 1970s when looking for the remains of cave bears, and a later excavation found a hominid finger bone. After mitochondrial DNA analysis (done in 2010) showed the bone once belonged to a juvenile Denisovan female, dubbed "X Woman", further excavations were made, and revealed artifacts showing the cave was in use as far back as 125,000 years ago.
In case you are wondering, Denisovans (Homo altaiensis aka Denisova hominins) are a distinct species separate from Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and modern humans (Homo sapiens). It is believed the species left Africa earlier than modern humans (but later than that of Homo erectus), after branching off from the Neanderthal species 600,000 years ago. Nuclear genome analysis has shown that, while Africans are pure Homo sapiens, and Europeans and Asians are Homo sapiens with a minor introduction of Homo neanderthalensis genes, Aboriginal Australians, the Papuan population of Papua New Guinea, and some Polynesians are Homo sapiens, with a slight mix of Homo neanderthalensis and Homo altaiensis genes.
Anyhow, there are several other very interesting things about the ornament. First, Dr. Anatoly Derevyanko found it has a 0.8 cm drill hole, which is uncharacteristic tool use for the Paleolithic era. Next is the fact that chlorite is not found near the cave, but over 200 km away, showing that the material was highly valued by that culture. Lastly, wear on the item shows it was worn on the right arm.
While this bracelet is seen as the oldest known stone work jewelry, it is not the oldest piece of jewelry yet found, which would be three 90,000-year-old shell beads (two from the Skhul Cave of Mount Carmel in Israel, and one from Oued Djebbana in Algeria) made from the marine mollusk Nassarius.

-- May 08, 2015 --

Rattle Them Bones

156's Memento Mori sessions, using all human bones, is finally done, and is now in the editing and mixing stage!
It should hopefully be released, on bone-colored 10" vinyl, sometime in late 2015.

You can view a short video on the project here, and to celebrate 156 has a new release out.
It's a collection of rare tracks, music from compilations, and previously unreleased material from 2013 - 2015.

Steel Rarely Stands Alone is 45 minutes of true industrial music, all completely free to download off the 156 Bandcamp page.

-- May 01, 2015 --

Pussy Done Peed Up the Parchment

I'm a cat lover, but let's face it: cats are dicks. Whimsically enough, it seems they always have been.
In 1420, a transcriber in Deventer, Holland, went to bed, leaving his work on the table, and - to bring us all joy centuries later - his cat used it as its litter box. The clerical scribe begrudgingly stopped his work on that page, but did draw a picture of the feline squatting above the stain it left, as well as scribbling a denunciation against the poor beast:
"Hic non defectus est, sed cattus minxit desuper nocte quadam. Confundatur pessimus cattus qui minxit super librum istum in nocte Daventrie, et consimiliter omnes alii propter illum. Et cavendum valde ne permittantur libri aperti per noctem ubi cattie venire possunt."
Translation: Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come.

The work was discovered at the Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln, in Cologne, Germany, by senior lecturer in zooarchaeology, Naomi Sykes, of the University of Nottingham's Department of Archaeology, while doing research in 2013 for her book Beastly Questions: Animal Answers to Archaeological Issues.

-- April 24, 2015 --

Oh, My Ears!

Back in February of 2014, Skinny Puppy released a statement saying they were handing the U.S. government a bill for using their music, without permission, to torture detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. While pretty hilarious, the truth of the matter is that it was more of a publicity stunt, than truth.
On December 9th of 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program (aka "the CIA Torture Report"), which is 6000 pages long, and cost taxpayers $40 million. In the 525-page portion released publicly, there isn't any mention of Skinny Puppy's music, though there is quite a long list of tracks used by the CIA in grilling War on Terror suspects from 2001 through 2006.
Here's a short list of just some of the annoying ditties used to warp the minds of prisoners into confessing, and - if you feel like torturing yourself - feel free to click on the link provided:

Sesame Street theme song
David Gray "Babylon"
Neil Diamond "America"
Drowning Pool "Bodies"
Christina Aguilera "Dirrty"
Metallica "Enter Sandman"
The Bee Gees "Stayin' Alive"
Eminem "Real Slim Shady"
Deicide "Fuck Your God"
Dope "Die Mother Fucker Die"
Barney & Friends theme song
Meow Mix commercial jingle
Tupac "All Eyez On Me"
Don McLean "American Pie"
Saliva "Click Click Boom"
(hed)pe "Swan Dive"
Matchbox Twenty "Cold"

If the other 5000+ pages ever become declassified, maybe we'll find the Canadian industrial band's name there, but so far, so funny.

-- April 17, 2015 --

That Is F'ing Fast

I made a new music video montage for Robert Turman's "F-berg", which is off his newest CD, Square Abstractions. The music was recorded in Copenhagen, in August of 2014, while the video footage was filmed throughout Brooklyn and Queens (along the Jackie Robinson Parkway) earlier this year.

-- April 13, 2015 --

Fort Tilden, Queens

Looking for a place to make a great dystopian music video, or film something in what looks like a Nevada nuclear test site? Then look no farther than Fort Tilden in Queens' Rockaway Peninsula.

If you'd like to read up on the history of the area, and see more pics, then check out the latest post on my This Hidden City blog.

-- April 08, 2015 --

Drink Up

It has been recently discovered in the National Archives Online Collection that, in 1974, the US Forest Service produced a chart on how to properly make and mix cocktails.

click on image for larger view

It is a mystery why that government office would make such a graph, which includes rare alcohols that weren't even available at the time (such as Creme Yvette, which hadn't been refined from 1969 until a recreation in 2009). The National Press Officer for the US Forest Service, Larry Chambers, has pointed the finger at Forest Service Region 8 Engineer Cleve "Red" Ketcham, as his signature is on the diagram. Sadly, Red passed away in 2005, so he is unavailable to let us in on whether it's a great joke or not.

-- April 01, 2015 --

April Fooled Again

Every April Fool's day I like to write about a prank gone wrong. One of my favorites is still the one pulled by an Alaskan with the unfortunate name of Porky Bickar, but my 2nd favorite is one that has been paddled a few times - each with disastrous effects.
Though this prank leads back to 1983, when the Michigan newspaper Durand Express printed it in an April Fool's Day edition, the first known radio event was in April of 2002, when Olathe, Kansas DJs Johnny Dare and Murphy Wells, of KQRC - The Rock 98.9 FM, told its 6am listeners that the city's water supply had "high levels of a naturally occurring substance: dihydrogen monoxide", which could cause "frequent urination, profuse sweating and wrinkling of hands and feet." Being in a state that ranks 11th (of 50) in intelligence didn't help that day, as many did not know it's the chemical name for H2O. This all lead the city's superintendent of water protection, Jerald Robnett (who called the prank a "terrorist act"), to get over 150 complaint calls, and 911 to get 30+ calls for help. Michael Wilkes, the city manager, called it irresponsible, and said the DJs had jeopardized public safety. KQRC program director Neal Mirsky pulled the plug on the joke around 8am, and later suspended the disc jockeys.
They say some never learn, and that seems about right, as the last time this stunt was scandalized on the air was in 2013 by Fort Myers, Florida DJs Val St. John, and Scott Fish, on a WWGR 101.9 FM morning show. General Manager Tony Renda heard the DJs joke that "dihydrogen monoxide" was coming out of Lee County residents' taps around 8:30 in the morning. He knew it would cause a panic, and pulled them off the air, as well as suspending them. The duo also faced felony charges, but were later dropped.

Other similar pranks include a 1994 website by Craig Jackson for the Coalition to Ban DHMO, as well as a member of the Australian Parliament announcing a 1998 campaign to ban dihydrogen monoxide internationally, and - to deter people from using a public fountain as a bathing area - executive director of Louisville, Kentucky's Waterfront Development Corporation, David Karem, posted a sign that read: "DANGER! – WATER CONTAINS HIGH LEVELS OF HYDROGEN – KEEP OUT".

-- March 20, 2015 --

The Long View

What's the longest movie you've ever sat through? Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac? Béla Tarr's 1994 drama Sátántangó (aka Satan's Tango)? While those two have a run time of a little over five, and seven hours, respectively, they pale in comparison to what is out there; commercially and experimentally.
On the commercial front, the French dominate the scene with their documentaries, as in the Top 5 there are three Frenchmen:

5) Claude Lanzmann's 1985 French documentary on the holocaust Shoah (10 hours, 13 minutes).
4) Evolution of a Filipino Family from Filipino director Lav Diaz in 2004 (10 hours, 45 minutes).
3) How Yukong Moved the Mountains, a 1976 documentary by Joris Ivens on the Chinese Cultural Revolution (12 hours, 43 minutes).
2) 1971's Out 1: Noli Me Tangere, from French New Wave filmmaker Jacques Rivette, which was based on Honoré de Balzac's La Comédie Humaine (12 hours, 53 minutes).
1) English director Peter Watkins produced Resan, aka The Journey (at 14 hours, 33 minutes); filmed from 1983 through 1985, it has only screened in 1987's Toronto Film Festival, the Mexico City International Festival of Contemporary Cinema in 2007, and Filmmuseum in Vienna, Austria, also in 2007.

In the field of experimental film, time truly marches on, as the lengths decuple. In the Top 25, Andy Warhol appears three times with Sleep (1963), Empire (1964), and ****, aka Four Stars (1967), but as with the commercial fare I'll only cover the Top 5:

5) 2006's Matrjoschka by German artist Karin Hoerler. The film is of a few simple photos, which change over time, and runs one-hour short of four days.
4) In 2011, New York City artist Josh Azzarella stretched out six minutes of The Wizard of Oz, into Untitled #125 (Hickory) to fill up five days.
3) Chinese artist Ai Weiwei drove around Beijing for 16 days in 2003 to produce Beijing 2003, which runs six days and six hours.
2) French director Gérard Courant worked on his Cinématon from 1978 - 2006, consisting of almost 3000 three-minute vignettes of various celebrities, friends and artists, ending an hour short of eight days.
1) At ten days long, Modern Times Forever is a 2011 production by Danish art collective Superflex, and shows the Stora Enso Building in Helsinki as if it were decaying over 1000 years.

When it comes to the world's shortest films, there are literally thousands of entries, and range from the shortest film to ever be nominated for an Oscar (2012's Fresh Guacamole, by artist PES), to one I made that only had 60 views in three years - until it went a little viral last month with an added 28,000+ views - titled Life In NYC As Expressed By A 1 Second Clip.
Happy viewing!

-- March 09, 2015 --

The Art Project That Saved Lives

In 1984, the Yugoslavian art collective Rrose Irwin Sélavy (now known as IRWIN), the Scipion Nasice theater group, and the industrial band Laibach created an artistic political movement called Neue Slowenische Kunst (or "New Slovenian Art"), whose aim was to showcase the complicated relationship between Germans and the Slovenian people. Being a true collective, artists releasing pieces under the NSK banner do not sign their work, and instead are stamped with the NSK logo, or have a certificate indicating the work is of NSK origin.
Besides a few Laibach hits, some of their more popular work includes the winning contest entry for the 1987 Yugoslavian Youth Day Celebration, where the collective replaced the swastika flag and eagle on a Nazi-era propaganda poster, with the Yugoslavian flag and a dove. After winning, the officials caught on, and banned the work, but it was later used as the cover for an issue of the left-wing magazine Mladina, which was then also banned by the government.
In 1991, the year after Slovenia gained independence from the Yugoslavian federation, the NSK claimed themselves to be an independent state, billing it as "the first global state of the universe," and began issuing passports.

With the government's blessing, the original passports were printed at the Slovenian Ministry of Interior Affairs' printing house, making the works high quality, and the look authentic.
While the passports are meant to only be an art project, and a handful of unscrupulous assholes have sold them to unsuspecting people thinking they were getting real work visas, the documents from the "State in Time" actually saved lives. During the Bosnian War of 1995, thousands of fleeing Croats' and Bosnians' used these passports when the actual state passports were deemed worthless.
More recently (since 2006), Nigerians have rushed to get NSK passports, and now constitute one-fourth of NSK citizenship. It is unclear why, and - fearing their use in further scams - members of the NSK traveled to the area in 2010 to hold an event, Towards A Double Consciousness: NSK Passport Project, so as to better explain the project to the locals, as well as interview passport applicants on why they are rushing to do so.
In 2012, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City held an exhibit of NSK folk art, as well as opened a temporary "passport office" so New Yorkers could apply for free.
If you are interested in applying for a passport yourself, please visit this link.

-- February 27, 2015 --

Short and Sweet (and Small)

As you can plainly read below, I've been on a kick lately to find the largest, smallest, shortest and longest in art, film and music. While doing some research on the world's longest and shortest films (post coming soon, or just research it yourself), I came across the world's smallest film. You may ask, "Don't you mean shortest?" Nope. Smallest.

In 2012, IBM Research created a minute-long movie using the manipulated movements of carbon monoxide molecules. The two-atom particles were photographed on a scanning tunnel microscope, which captures images at 1000,000,000x magnification. The folks at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, CA, moved the atomic structures slightly per frame, and set them together as a stop-motion film.
The short is about an atom who comes across a small boy. It dances for him, and the boy joins in. The boy then begins to play with the atom as if it were a ball, until the atom morphs into a trampoline, which the boy soon bounces upon. It ends when the boy happily throws the atom towards the sky, and it flies up into the clouds, forming the word "think".
A new question you might now bring up is: "Except for a cute experimental film, what does all of this mean for science?" Well, IBM has stated that this experiment led to the discovery that technicians can now fit one bit of information onto only 12 atoms, which will help growing issues with data collection, and storage, especially when it comes to Quantum computing.
You can view the entire film here.

-- February 18, 2015 --

Talk Dirty To Me

I have a new article posted on the No Echo website on "sex records".

The NE site was unleashed on the world only last year, holds some great written work on music, and is run by Andrew from Aversionline and Carlos of Noisecreep. Not unlike my last contribution, the piece I submitted is on rare records, which I have never written about, but also on sex, which I've written a whole lot about.
As usual, enjoy the insanity.

-- February 06, 2015 --

Slow Down!

Experimental composer, and music theorist, John Cage has written many a strange piece, including 1952's infamous 4'33" (three movements, in four minuets and thirty-three seconds, consisting entirely of silence).
In 1985, he composed a work for The Friends of the Maryland Summer Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts, titled Organ², otherwise known as ASLSP (or As SLow aS Possible), which debuted in 1987. A typical performance of ASLSP is to last from 20 to 70 minutes, but seeing as Cage omitted how slow the piece should be played, many have been stretching it out, and out, and out, since.

While, in Australia, the piece was played by Stephen Whittington, at the University of Adelaide in 2012, for eight hours, and, earlier (2009), Diane Luchese performed a fourteen-hour version at Harold J. Kaplan Concert Hall at Towson University, Maryland, the longest running performance is ongoing at St. Burchardi Cathedral in Halberstadt, Germany. That work began in 2001, and should continue for 639 years, ending in 2640. The Halberstadt performance length was chosen as the first known organ installation at the church was in 1361 - equaling 639 years when proposed in 2000.
To hear a section of that particular act, as well as see the organ, and church, visit this link.

-- January 26, 2015 --

Size Does Matter

In June of 1998, a charter flight passing over a remote part of southern Australia discovered a giant geoglyph etched into the plateau at Finnis Springs. This huge work, dubbed Marre Man, depicts an Australian native hunting with a boomerang, and is over 4 kilometers (2+ miles) tall, with the outline being 35 meters (115 ft) thick, and 30 cm (1 ft) deep.

Soon after the discovery, anonymous press releases began to pour in to the Australian media, claiming the work to be made by a group of Americans. The announcements called the figure Stuart's Giant, after Scottish explorer of Australia, John McDouall Stuart. The notices were actually first received before the discovery, by the William Creek Hotel in Marree, but were dismissed as a hoax. Many of the communiqués gave instructions on finding a pit nearby, as well as mentioning Ohio's Great Serpent, and the Branch Dividians in Waco. When the pit was discovered, it contained a jar with a satellite photo of Marree Man, and a U.S. flag. Later, more anonymous info lead investigators to a buried plaque nearby, which had an American flag, Olympic rings, and the inscribed words: "In honour of the land they once knew. His attainments in these pursuits are extraordinary; a constant source of wonderment and admiration."
How this amazing art piece was made, when exactly, and by who, is still a mystery, even though it is currently considered the world largest work of art.

-- January 13, 2015 --

Oh K

Not sure why I had yet to write about these chaps, so I'm finally going to jot down their brand of fun for you, as Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty are two great pranksters.

I'm no fan of their more popular work, and it was purposely written for someone very different than those who understand their more esoteric endeavors.
When the two first got together in 1987 (thanks to their shared love of author Robert Anton Wilson), they released the sample-heavy LP, 1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?), under the band name The JAMMs, or Justified Ancients of MuMu. They were quickly sued by a few artists for the samples, and the album was recalled, forever marking it as a wanted item in underground tape trade lists.
Soon after, they we kicking around ideas to write the worst pop song they could imagine, and succeeded as The Timelords, with the single "Doctorin' the Tardis", which contains a sample of the Doctor Who theme, and has been played at almost every sports event since. The only other release under that moniker was the following year, when the duo wrote a book, The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way).
Next came a bunch of ecstasy, and, thus, The KLF was born. With everything they learned, they released acid-house techno with the Wax Trax! Records produced, The White Room, and it brought them a handful of No. 1 singles. With the popularity of the new act, they were recieving calls for public performances, and, at the Brits Awards in 1992, had the death metal band Extreme Noise Terror pretend to be them, and play a heavy version of their hit, "3am Eternal". You can listen to that beautiful performance here.
Soon after, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty both announced their retirement from music.
In 1993, they formed the art collective The K Foundation. Taking a shot at the internationally-renound Turner Prize for Best Artist, the Foundation formed a prize campaign of their own. Releasing a list of that year's best artists for Turner, the K Foundation's was, in fact, for to the "worst artist of the year", but the money was double what Turner was presenting to their winner.
On August 24th of 1994, the K Foundation performed an art action, on the Scottish island of Jura, titled K Foundation Burn a Million Quid, where they did just that: burned one million UK pounds.
Just before that slice of maddness, the duo decided to show how little they were now enjoying music, by releasing the only record under the K Foundation name (actually "K Foundation presents The Red Army Choir"); a militaristic, repititious and lackluster version of the 1956 classic by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)", in an editon of 3000 copies, and made it available for purchase in only Palestine or Israel. The B-side was John Lennon/Yoko Ono's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", and you can punish yourself a bit, by checking out the title track here.

-- January 05, 2015 --

Moldy Oldies

When, at the British Library in London, a PhD student (Giovanni Varelli) from St John’s College University of Cambridge was thumbing through a 900 CE manuscript on the life of bishop Maternianus of Reims, he discovered an interesting note scribed within. Written in a space left at the end of the work, someone added a musical notation, which is now known to be the world's oldest example of polyphonic music.
The song is a chant to patron saint of Germany, Saint Bonafice, and, before this accidental discovery, the oldest known work was from the Winchester Troper collection, which dates to around 1000 CE.

click on image for larger view

The pic above is to the sheet music, while this link will let you hear a rendition performed by Quintin Beer and John Clapham of St John’s College.

-- December 21, 2014 --

Free At Last, I Guess

I posted of this tragic story two years ago, but there's been a development as of late.

George Stinney Jr was the youngest person executed in the United States, at 14, in South Carolina.
In 1944, Stinney was arrested for the murder of two young girls, tried in a single day, and sent to the electric chair the following.
On December 16, 2014, Judge Carmen Mullins vacated the verdict, saying GS Jr was coerced into confessing.

-- December 16, 2014 --

Dead In the Water

My 2010 photo series from south Brooklyn, titled "Dead Horse Bay", has been posted to Underwater New York, a digital journal of stories, art and music inspired by the waterways that surround New York City, and the objects submerged within them. Check that out here.

-- December 09, 2014 --

A Heavenly Voice

After the breakup of the Beatles in 1970, Paul McCartney began teaching his wife, photographer and animal rights activist Linda McCartney (1941 - 1998), to play keyboards, and added her to the lineup for his new band, Wings. Paul was ridiculed by music critics for her poor singing and playing skills:

Linda McCartney sings "Hey Jude"

The link above is supposedly of a bootleg recording originating from isolating Linda McCartney's microphone at a Wings concert taken by a sound engineer, but whether it is genuine has not been definitively established. The track is taken off the first disc of the two disc set Celebrities at their Worst, Volume Two.
Other little known facts about her include saving cartoon character Lisa Simpson from a life of eating meat, turning down The Smiths to play on The Queen Is Dead's "Frankly, Mr. Shankly", and penning the profanity-laced "The Light Comes From Within", released on her posthumous 1998 LP, as a stab towards her critics.

-- November 29, 2014 --

The Strange Case of One Crazy Song

Akmal Shaikh was a 53-year old business owner with untreated bipolar disorder. Born in Pakistan, his family immigrated to Britain when he was only a child, and he later became a British citizen. There, he managed a cab company, and later opened a taxi service, then moving to Poland believing he could start an airline. He was never checked out by doctors, but his family told stories of erratic behavior. Around the time he was living in Poland, Shaikh had a vision from God to write music that would usher in world peace. He penned the song "Come Little Rabbit", a short children's song, which repeats the lines "Come little rabbit, come to me. Come little rabbit, let it be. Come little rabbit, come and pray. Only one world, only one people, only one God." Traveling back to Britain, he acquired the help of friends Paul Newberry, and Gareth Saunders, to record the track in Poland. Both men claim they could tell Akmal was suffering from delusions, and bouts of mania.
In 2007, Akmal Shaikh met up with a man named "Carlos" who said he would help distribute the song, and make him famous. Akmal took a trip to Kyrgyzstan, were he was put in contact with someone named "Okole", who promised him a spot at his nightclub in China. Though married, and a father of five, he was told to travel alone, as the plane was full, and given a suitcase to carry.
Once in China, officials (who were alerted by Shaikh's bizarre behavior) searched him, and found a hidden compartment in the suitcase holding 4 kilos of heroin with a purity of 85%. He was immediately arrested, later sentenced to die, and was executed by lethal injection in the city of Ürümqi on December 29th of 2009, despite appeals from the British government, as well as the human rights organization Reprieve.

This is the song one man lived, and died, for: "Come Little Rabbit".

-- November 15, 2014 --

Everybody Panic!

Alejandro Jodorowsky is foremost known for his surreal films. What many don't know is that he was also loved to write, and draw, comics.
In 1966, he first collaborated with Manuel Moro on a graphic series, titled Anibal 5. From 1968 through 1973, Jodorowsky published a weekly comic strip series, which he called Fabulas Pánicas, appearing in the Mexican newspaper, El Heraldo de México. The newspaper ran about 120 of them, and all were later released as a series of five books in 1975.

click on images for larger view

In 1972, he wrote Memor, with artist Velazquez Fraga, and, in 1980, he began a graphic novel trilogy, The Incal, with Jean Giraud (aka Mœbius), which later inspired Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, as well as another trilogy titled Metabarons. Since, he has written many more comic books, including Les Technopères (with artwork by Zoran Janjetov), Bouncer (illustrated by Francois Boucq), Juan Solo, plus Le Lama blanc (both illustrated by Georges Bess), the 2001 award-winning Le Cœur couronné, with Jean Giraud, and Borgia in 2006 in collaboration with Milo Manara.
The Fabulas Pánicas are the only known, and released, drawings which Jodorowsky did himself, and a huge collection can be viewed online here.

-- November 06, 2014 --

Possibly Shocking Material

A previously unreleased 156 track, "Playing With the 3rd Rail", is now available on the Death Season IV annual compilation put out by the Minneapolis label Darker Days Ahead.

The 156 track has me performing solo with simply two microphones, a field recorder, and one live third rail of the New York City subway system.
The CD comp was released on Halloween, and contains tracks by Praying For Oblivion, Rei Rea, Isolated Existence, Cory Strand and more. It's presented in a beautiful slipcase, with removable transparent cover, along with a disc as black as your soul. For order info, head on over to the Darker Days Ahead website.
Another unreleased 156 track, "Hark!" was set loose upon the world on the Rhythmysticisms digital compilation, put together by Pennsylvania's Network Of Individualized Sonic Extremism, and is available for free on their Bandcamp page.

-- November 03, 2014 --

AccessArt Fundraiser

One of my (and Anthony Mangicapra) Disposable pieces is up for auction at the Brooklyn Art Council's November fundraising event AccessArt.

To view the entire catalog of artists, along with artist statements, as well as where to buy tickets, click here.
To read more about my Disposable project, click here.

-- October 15, 2014 --

Kiss My Bhutan

The Kingdom of Bhutan, located between China and India for the geographically ignorant, released an amazing set of stamps in 1972.
Called Talking Stamps, they were small records you could actually play. It's a pretty amazing thing, especially when you realize Bhutan didn't even have a postal system until 1962.

Designed by Burt Kerr Todd, these stamps are currently some of the most expensive, non-US, collector's items in the world of philately.
They are 33 1/3 rpm, and are hard to play on most regular turntables (due to their small size), but those who have gotten to play them say it's a near magical experience.
Have a listen to one here.

-- October 06, 2014 --

Small Poetry

A couple of my "throwaway poems" have been published in the newest edition (issue #3) of the poetry / art journal Small Po[r]tions.

Other poets / artists in this issue include Jeanne Heuving, Rebecca Brown, John McLaughlin, Sarah Hulyk Maxwell, Jonathan Harper, Nils Michals, Julia Laxer, Satoshi Iwai, Anne Royston, and Shinjini Bhattacharjee. The journal was edited and curated by Sarah Baker, Breka Blakeslee, Laura Burgher, Lynarra Featherly, Aimee Harrison, plus Travis Sharp, and is published by Letter [r] Press. Single issues are $10, with their back issues gong for only $5, while many of the featured works are also freely available on their website.
Please visit the Small Po[r]tions site for further info.

-- September 23, 2014 --

Aw Poop

There are close to a thousand artists that use blood in their work, almost a hundred using urine (such as Andy Warhol, and Andres Serrano), a little over thirty doodling with semen (including Marcel Duchamp), but less than a handful had the stomach to use their own feces.
You may have heard of artist Chris Ofili in the early 1990s, thanks to then-mayor, and devout Catholic, Rudy Giuliani getting his underwear in a bunch when the artist used elephant dung to form the breast in his painting The Holy Virgin Mary, but that doesn't count.
To date, there are a few who have used crap in their performances, like the Vienna Actionists Hermann Nitsch and Otto Muehl, plus more recently Fox Bronte (aka Ian Dennis), and Noritoshi Hirakawa. While none have yet to paint with it, there was one artist who made a little stink using his own waste.
Italian avant-garde artist Piero Manzoni canned his bowel movements in May of 1961, and released them in a limited edition of 90, signed and numbered, titled Merda d'artista (or "Artist's Shit").

Each can contained 30 grams of his own turd, and was sold for its weight in gold (then about 40 bucks).
The most recent tin to come up for auction was in 1991, which sold for $67,000 at Sotheby’s Fine Art Auction, though the only thing fine about that is the price tag.

-- September 08, 2014 --

This Fool Is Thrilled

My short film, Where Even Fools Often Fear to Tread, will be playing in this year's Experimental Music Festival VI Film and Video Show, which will be held at Spectrum in Manhattan (121 Ludlow Street) on September 29th. Others showcased include Bonnie MacAllister, Bryin Dall, Joshua Carro and Candace Thompson, while the films and video were curated by Jim Tuite. More info on the entire festival is available here.

Where Even Fools Often Fear to Tread is an experimental film created to show how the everyday, and mundane, if seen from the right perspective, can be beautiful, awe-inspiring, or possibly even psychedelic, while also believing the film showcases the fact that many of our hearts lay underground. The rights to the desired score (Angus MacLise's "Invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda") were not available to me, so a fitting piece by my industrial act 156 was edited together for this short. Technically, much of what makes up this film is illegal, as a large portion of 156's music involves trespassing, not to mention that one cannot film NYC subway trains, as well as tunnel infrastructure, due to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11th, hence the running time of nine minutes and ten seconds.

-- September 01, 2014 --

Voice Box LP Box Set

Over one year of hard work, and it's finally out! 156's Voice Box album.

click on image for larger view

18 songs, 17 of which will never be publicly released (except for brief edits on mp3 sites), collected in a lovely box set.
The music is standard 156 in sound, and style, all the while subtracting the usual percussive set. The LP can be best described by the example of two of the cover songs chosen (Jeanne Lee's "Yeh Come T' Be" and "This Is the Law of the Plague" by Diamanda Galas), as it is a mix of classic and experimental vocalizations, which even include Gregorian chants, and Islamic calls to prayer.
All 18 tracks are set, and properly spaced, over a 45-minute never-before-seen film within a hand-painted VHS tape, which has a handmade cover. The release also comes with a one-of-a-kind fanzine telling the story of the recording, a hand-painted t-shirt, and a hand-painted X-ray of artist's cranium - all inside a hand-painted box. This album is a work of art, as well as a ritual for healing.
This release is made in an edition of only one, and all money collected is being donated to a cancer research center.
UPDATE: This work has sold. Thanks to anyone who expressed interest!

-- August 22, 2014 --

Trial By Amplifier Fire

To many, Billy Joel is a keyboard-playing douchebag, but the guy did know how to rock.
In 1969, Billy, and drummer, Jon Small, were members of The Hassles, but soon broke away to form their own heavy metal outfit called Attila. The duo released one album, self titled, in 1970 on Columbia Records (later reissued by CBS, Inc. in 1985), which contains no guitars or bass, and is composed of nothing but drums and organ.

Here are two tracks from Joel's first outfit, before he became the "Piano Man".

Wonder Woman

Amplifier Fire

-- August 12, 2014 --

Both Large and Small

In June of 1980, artist Tom Van Sant, using mirrors that strectched across 1.4 miles of the Shadow Mountain area of the Mojave Desert, "drew" a giant symbol of an eye, later snapping a picture using the LANDSAT satellite. The work of art was titled "Refelections From Earth".

In April of 1982, with the help of Cornell University, he etched an eye symbol on a grain of salt using an electron microscope. He was the first to do so on such a microscopic level, and titled that piece "Ryan's Eye".

Interestingly enough, the desert work is 100,000x larger than the human eye, while the salt piece is 100,000x smaller than the human eye.

-- August 04, 2014 --

Brooklyn's Alright Season Two On the Air

Over the weekend, the newest season of my public access tv show, Brooklyn's Alright If You Like Saxophones, began airing!

Live music, music videos, and interviews with writer Cassie J. Sneider, Alexis Karl of Ondyne's Demise, Cinema Cinema's Ev Gold, poet Vincent Baeza, and many more.
Tune in, same time, same channel(s). Saturday mornings @ 1:30am, channels 56 (Time Warner), 69 (Cablevision), 84 (RCN) and 44 (Verizon), or live on the BCAT website on Channel 3.
You can also see select episode uploads on the BAIYLS YouTube page the Monday after show premiere.
Happy viewing!

-- July 23, 2014 --

It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's the Daily Planet!

If you've seen the 1978 big screen version of Superman, you may be familiar with these two sights.

Clark and Lois stroll across the scene as it serves as the lobby of the fictional newspaper The Daily Planet.
Originally, the building was The Daily News' headquarters from when built, in 1929, to 1995.

The globe in the lobby is still the largest indoor globe, and is considered a permanent educational exhibit...

...though its map has not been recently updated to fit world events.

-- July 08, 2014 --

Happy Alienversary

67 years ago, today, Roswell Army Air Field public information officer Walter Haut sent out a press release claiming the 509th Operations Group had recovered a "flying disk", which was picked up by the local press.
Later Commander General Roger Ramey, of the Eighth Air Force of the US's Air Force Global Strike Command, stated it was a weather balloon.
In this link you can hear the original broadcast of what is now known as "the Roswell incident".

It was kind of forgotten about, until in 1978, when physicist and ufologist Stanton T. Friedman, and Major Jesse Marcel (stationed in Roswell at the time, and claimed to recover parts) began to publish works asserting the military covered up a crash by an alien craft.
The story is now part of American pop culture, and you can view the first published articles of the event by clicking on the images above.

-- June 30, 2014 --

I Wasn't Expecting To Find This

I decided to, both, quit social media, and start a new online project.
I've had enough of shilling for websites that pretend to give one free speech, while they censor us. Also, please visit this link for proof many are unwittingly being manupulated by these sites. If you have a little over an hour of time, I would add watching the 2009 documentary We Live In Public to catch of glimpse of where many are headed, and some already are.
Now, on a different note, the photos of the oddities I came across tended to be people's favorites on my old social media profiles. Plus, I find quite a number of interesting things I never post of here, so I thought I'd start corralling it altogether in one place.

The new blog, I Wasn't Expecting To Find This, is a 365 day project, lasting from one summer solstice to the next, June 2014 - 2015, documenting some of the odd eye candy I come across. Found items, strange things on the street, and anything else that inspires a double-take. Captured in photos, image scans, sound samples, and - sometimes - just a story.
Feel free to bookmark the site, and visit often, as it will not be associated with this blog (unlike my This Hidden City posts).

-- June 23, 2014 --

A Little Slice of Berlin In NYC

Manhattan is a place to find all things, so why not a piece of the Cold War?
This permanent, outdoor installation is five large sections of the Berlin Wall, tucked near a trendy and expensive eatery in Midtown Manhattan.

Though addressed to 520 Madison Avenue, this relic of Capitalism-vs-Communism is actually located in the courtyard of the Continental Illinois Building, which is on 53rd Street, between Madison and 5th Ave.

The West face of the wall (which now faces east) holds the work of German artists Thierry Noir and Kiddy Citny, while the East face is blank.
This section of the Wall was moved here in 1990, when it was sold by the former DMP to Jerry Speyer of Tishman Speyer, the real estate developer who owns the building.

There are other pieces of the Berlin Wall in NYC, and they are located in the gardens of the United Nations headquarters, another at the marina of the World Financial Center, and a third at Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum in Times Square, though I believe this one is the largest.

-- June 13th, 2014 --

A Hole In Your Head

Dutch author Hugo Bart Huges, as an advocate of trepanation, probably thought the old adage about a "hole in your head" was propaganda against the act, but that didn't stop him from trying.
Taken from the Greek word trypanon, which means "to bore", trepanation is the cat of drilling a small hole - usually in the forehead - to release pressure in the head, causing greater blood flow. This is said to have positive effects on the brain, but not many wonder about the damage to the psyche, I guess. Trepanned skulls have been found in France's Neolithic sites, and even in pre-Columbian Mayan tombs.
In 1964 HBH produced a scroll, an article as a work of art, titled "The Mechanism of Brainbloodvolume", and picked up a Black & Decker just as soon as the calendar rolled over. He filmed, as well as photographed, most of the event, and even debuted the healed wound at a hippie happening in Amsterdam. After attempting to get proof from doctors that he actually did it, they locked him in the bin for a bit, claiming he was schizophrenic.

He may have been the influence for Amanda Feilding, who performed, and filmed (released as Heartbeat in the Brain), her drilling in December of 1970, but definitely was for Joey Mellen, a Brit who did the deed and then documented it for his book Bore Hole.
In 1972, Hugo released his autobiography, The Book With the Hole, which also contained much of another sought-after work, "Trepanation: A Cure for Psychosis". He passed away at the age of 70, and is buried at Zorgvlied cemetery in the Netherlands.
Some of Huges' tepanation can be seen here.

-- June 2, 2014 --

Out GG-ing GG

I was doing some research on the infamous case where a guy jumped on stage during a Cure concert to attempt suicide, and I came across another odd story of stage suicide.
Most often thought to only be a myth among Cure fans, it is indeed true (according to a July 29th Los Angeles Times article), though it wasn't a depressed goth kid, but a lonely middle-aged cowboy. The concert was on July 27, 1986 at Inglewood, CA's Forum Theater.

Seems that 38-year-old Jonathan Mooreland drove across half the country, unannounced, to meet his penpal sweetheart. When the under-aged girl told him to get lost, he wandered the city looking for a spectacle to cause another, and chose to stop into that very Cure gig. He knew that to show the girl how much he cared, as well as to win her over, he'd have to perform a public display of heart-on-your-sleeve buffoonery in front of an audience of a band he had never even heard of. With plan solidified, he jumped on stage during The Cure's set, he slashed away at himself. Finally plunging the knife into his chest, one time, before police could tackle him. He was lead off to UCLA Medical Center, and survived to become a whispered footnote to a bunch of guys in eyeliner.

Now, while looking into that event, I stumbled across another that is, like my blog entry of May 16, equally tragic, and strange. How it escaped the feeds in my social media is beyond me, but I don't recall hearing of it.
In the early 90s, GG Allin always threatened he would take himself out on his beloved pulpit: the stage. Instead he died doing what he really loved: heroin. Before, and after, there have been many who threatened they would do it, but it seems there is only one who actually has.
In April of 2011, 19-year-old Kipp Rusty Walker (pictured below) walked into Strictly Organic Coffee Company's open mic, in Bend, OR, and, after finishing up the deliberately titled "Sorry For All the Mess", took out a blade, and repeatedly stabbed himself. Many in the crowd of less than 20 thought it to be part of the act, and applauded. After about a minute of no movement, as well as the amount of blood, the paramedics were called, but Walker expired.

If you ever find yourself in desperate times, and are in need of someone to talk to, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

-- May 23, 2014 --

To Maryland Deathfest Again

Leaving to Baltimore this weekend for a mix of business, and pleasure, but mostly just to catch the set by My Dying Bride.
Last year's MDF was a blast, and I even did a little project while I was there.

In celebration of heading to MD again this year, I'm posting a link to my Backpatches of the Maryland Deathfest photo series. 13 pics posted on that page, with a zip file anyone can download containing the best 50 from the near 100 taken.
I plan to go for Round 2 this year. Here's to hoping I come across as great of a crowd as last time!
UPDATE: Music website No Echo has posted my "top 50" of 2014.

-- May 16, 2014 --

I Ain't Drinkin' That, Homeboy

In 1994, I walked into your typical nondescript $1 store, and saw a single bottle of Homeboy Soda. A bottle with a label, and flavor (Blueberry-Grape Wiz), that left me scratching my head to the point of wanting - no, needing - to buy the damned thing. Not to drink it, or even taste it, but to keep that poorly-named product sample for the sheer fact that it looks like a prop from a comedy skit show.

As someone who collects odd sundries to the point where, to many, his home is practically a museum, this one bizarre bottle has begun more conversations than almost any other piece in my bottle collection. Forget bottles of Crass, Bottom's Up, and even a bottle of Hi-Brew marijuana beer, the questions were always about the origins of Homeboy, so I just had to look up the lowdown on its makers.
Turns out the company's history is just as odd, though much sadder, than the drink.
In the very early 90s, entrepreneur Robert Crowder started Resource Enterprise Collective, and with a partnership with Brooklyn Bottling Co., started the line of drinks, which included flavors such as orange-mango, vanilla-peaches+cream, and passion punch. For every case the drinks sold, Crowder vowed to pay 25¢ (3% of profits) to a fund for local charities.

After only two years of peddling the drink, and years before hip hop caught the Illuminati bug, ugly rumors began accusing Homeboy of purposefully causing health risks to eliminate minority populations.
Even Newsweek photos of Nirvana members holding the drink (though it's certain they did it for the same facetious reasons as this writer), plus over 50 grand donated to good causes, couldn't stop the folks from filing for bankruptcy, and the soda headed to bargain outlets across the U.S., as well as into the realm of obscure curios.

-- May 05, 2014 --

Some Offline Reading

Last Sunday my form of worship service was to head over to the Brooklyn Zine Fest before going to work at the studio.
As a fan of fanzines, I set aside a crisp $50 bill for this free event, and was thrilled to take home so much reading material.
The 3rd outing of this yearly event was organized by Matt Carman and Kseniya Yarosh, and was held at Brooklyn's Historical Society Building in Brooklyn Heights, with two floors of tables packed with thought-expanding self-publishing.
I took home a wonderful armful of DIY material that kept me busy all week long.
A few art zines I picked up included the dark, yet some times bright, comic Late Night by Jack Reese (website), Caroline Paquita's trippy Garden of the Womanimal (website), the D&D-inspired A to Z in the Monstrous Manual from the mind of Bill Roundy (website), and, for a few friends and I, multiple copies of Lyra Hill's miniature possession scenes from The Exorcist (website).

When it came to the politics of resistance, I gave a decent bonanza to the anonymous collective Research and Destroy (website), whose news archives Brutal Death Ends A Man's Dreams and Cats Hate Cops were collections of newspaper clippings covering shit that went down between cops, Christmas and cats, respectively - or not, as the folks at RaD may say. Plus, they had Christopher Jordan Dorner's manifesto, with annotated footnotes by the zinesters. A member kindly threw in a postcard featuring a photo of cop-turned-cop-killer Dorner shaking hands with former LAPD Chief William Bratton. Powerful stuff.

On a lighter note, I love reading personal stories, so I had my hands full at those tables. Tales of triumph and failure, strength and weakness, loves and losses, all had me picking up ones such as Woody Leslie's 1" x 2" Tiny Stories (website); Deafula, which is one person's account of hearing loss, and living deaf, where the title is based on a sign-language film from the 1970s (website); the self-explanatory Mallgoth Chronicles by Suzy X (website), and the hilarious Miscellaneous Romance, which is a collection of the many replies to an online dating ad (website). Others included yarns on fandom (website), life in Los Angeles (website), two compilations with dozens of writers, one covering the sun, the other the moon (website), and many more journals.

Lastly, are the scene-specific zines covering music, film, poetry, and even other zines, which I picked up. I Love Bad Movies is... Well, you can read, so you can tell. Many a writer's take on many a bad movie, and there are so many bad flicks out there that they are currently at issue six (website). Vinyl Vagabonds is not just another one whose topic can be figured out by the title, but a fun collection of reviews to records we all may have heard, but never deconstructed. I believe this zine is up to their fifth issue now (website). I also grabbed a study on Soviet youth films put out by NYC's Spectacle Theater (website), as well as the fanzine that reviews fanzines by other fanzine writers: Xerography Debt (website), and a few others.

I came away with tons of pamphlets, pins, stickers, as well as Katie Haegele's book White Elephants (website), and a cassette tape of Sublime Frequencies-esque cut-ups of Indian radio by artist Phoebe Little (website), but, most importantly, coming into contact with many amazing people. Pretty inspirational.

-- May 01, 2014 --

Six Slabs Worth A Tab

A new article of mine, in the style of my old fanzine FHF, debuted today at the music site No Echo.

Only recently created, the NE site is run by Andrew from Aversionline and Carlos of Noisecreep, and the piece I contributed is on music, which I have never really written about, but also on drugs, which I've written a lot about.
As usual, enjoy the insanity.

-- April 25, 2014 --

Guys, I'm So High Right Now

Not sure how I stumbled across this one, but it was back on a trip to enjoy the Washington Heights area, and to see Mother Cabrini's mummy.
About 10 short blocks south of The Cloisters, right across the street from the the 181 Street subway stop's 183rd St exit is Bennett Park.

Named after James Gordon Bennett, Sr. who launched The New York Herald in 1835, the park opened in 1929. Bennett Park is a part of Fort Washington, which was part of the Continental Army's stand against the British during our independence.

The park sometimes holds Revolutionary War reenactments, but what the spot is most known for to locals, is being the highest natural point in Manhattan at 265 ft above sea level.

While admittedly not even the height of skyscrapers New Yorker's are used to, it isn't even the highest point in the entire city, which is actually Staten Island's Todt Hill at 390 feet above the waters.
Still, it was such a nice area to visit, and on such a perfect day...

...I decided to cross the George Washington Bridge over into New Jersey, just to say, "Hi!", since I was feeling so mellow.

-- April 12, 2014 --

Gone Fishing

David Berg was a wacky prophet, known as Moses David or Father David, who in 1968 founded the Children of God. In 1978 they changed it to the Family of Love, and shortening it to just The Family from '82 to '94. Since Berg's death in 1994 they have stuck with the name of The Family International. The families of River Phoenix and Rose McGowen were members, but the church still didn't get Scientology infamy.
It may have been due to the controversial Flirty Fishing, which sounds like it would have brought in new members in droves, but its creepiness made them all the more suspect as a cult.
Flirty Fishing was a practice used by the group from 1974 through 1987 where, thanks to a quote in Matthew (4:19) where Christ is the "fisher of men", teen girls in the order are to give themselves to men who were not, so as to "invite them in". They viewed it as evangelical prostitution, labeled the girl's "God's Whores", and put out literature to promote it all.

In the late 80s, this form of evangelicalism was dropped when several allegation of pedophilia came up.
After the death of the good Father in '94, the Family decided to go completely quite, but never completely went away.

-- April 02, 2014 --

Quiet Mind = Forgetful Mind

Not sure how I forgot to post this, but my book is out!
6x9 paperback, limited to 333 copies, and there are a little over 200 left. Hardcovers are sold out.

The Least Silent of Men, a chapbook on the subject of silence and experiences during a 30-day vow of silence.
$20 + 5 postage in NA for trade paperback ($20 + 10 postage, World).
The book contains a forward by artist George Petros, a lengthy article I wrote on my experience, as well as a transcript of the communication book I carried for that month.
The cover is a play on Barbara Kruger’s “Your Comfort”, I redesigned, and was executed by tattoo artist Liorcifer.
Paypal amount, along with mailing address, to: webmaster@feastofhateandfear.com - to order via check or money order, please contact me.

-- March 13, 2014 --

Classic Adult Movie Posters (Part IV)

Here’s the last of my smut.

School of Hard Knocks (1970)

The Pleasure Machines (1977)

I Feel It Coming (1971)

Trader Hornee (1970)

All Men Are Apes! (1965)

-- March 05, 2014 --

The Tallest of Queens

In the northwest area of Queens, there grows the oldest living being in New York City, called the Queens (aka Alley Pond) Giant.

This Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) is also NYC's tallest tree.

Dated between 350 to 450 years old, it measures about the size of the Statue of Liberty (134 feet).

It is located in an odd spot near I-495, which is the property of Alley Pond Park, though not directly connected to it.

The exact location is difficult to come across. Rightfully so, as the tree needs to be protected, but those savvy enough can find their way there.

I felt it to be worth the time and effort.

-- February 20, 2014 --

Slouching Towards Babylon

I will be part of the art show, New York Babylon, curated by Babylon Projects' Leonardo Casas, who put this together all the way from Chile, South America.

Opening March 5th in Brooklyn (721 Franklin Avenue, on display March 2 - 8 only), along with artists Gea*, Shaun Partridge, Casas himself, and a host of others.

-- February 13, 2014 --

Mother Cabrini's Mummy

On a rainy and foggy Saturday, I went to the Washington Heights area of Manhattan, near Ft. Washington and Ft. Tryon Park, to check out the remains of a Catholic saint.

Located just off 190 Street, is the St. Frances X. Cabrini Chapel, which holds the body of the first American to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church (in 1946).
Other than containing a mummified corpse, the building itself is no great feat of architecture, nor much of anything of interest, besides a few statues…

…and stained glass.

The body of Frances Xavier Cabrini (aka Mother Cabrini) was exhumed in 1933 (she died in 1917), and seeing it to be almost perfect, the congregation felt it to be a miracle, and placed her within a shrine, which was later re-designed by the architectural firm of De Sina & Pellegrino in 1957.

An interesting item of note is that the head of the good Mother isn’t there anymore, as, when she was sainted, her skull was kept at the wacky Vatican, just as all the noggins of all other saints are.

-- February 02, 2014 --

Please Don't Yell

I am terribly sorry to announce that the paperback version of my new book, The Least Silent of Men, has been pushed back a few weeks, due to problems at the printer.

Preorders are available, but the hardcovers are all sold out.
More information is available on the writing page of this website.

-- January 28, 2014 --

From the Heart

I'll have two pieces at a group art show held at the Wooster Street Social Club Gallery, titled From the Heart.

Valentine’s Day, 43 Wooster Street, 5 to 9pm, along with many amazing artists from around the world (and free booze).
I will also be DJing the event, so bring your dance shoes.

-- January 14, 2014 --

Rhapsody in Green

In 1978, French label Tchou Livre-Disque released yet another 12" by Roger Roger (real name), but with a twist. Titled De La Musique & Des Secrets Pour Enchanter Vos Plantes the album wasn't meant for humans.
Rather than the usual electronic Library Music they churned out, this record was equal parts neo-classical, and electronic music. This may have been due to that most of the music was collaborated with French electro-pioneer Georges Achille Teperino aka Nino Nardini.
If one can read French the liner notes (by Martin Monestier, who came up with the record's concept) explain the music is designed to be played for plants to promote health and growth, as he points out how scientists show rock music kills plants.

Below is a track off this LP in case you have some plants around that need help. I send them my best.

Side A "Effluves" (6.3 Mb @ 64kbps)

-- January 8, 2014 --

Prison Ship Martyr's Monument

Last week, I visited Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn to see the Prison Ship Martyr’s Monument - which is actually the 3rd one built. In 1808 it was first in Central Park, then in 1873 was moved to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The city of New York decided it wanted a bigger memorial, and the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument was constructed in 1908.

It was designed by architect Stanford White, who also drew up the plans for the second Madison Square Garden and the Washington Square Monument.

Through the main doors of the crypt, there is a passageway which leads to a three-coffined chamber under the column. In these large coffins are held the remains (bones) of several thousand U.S. prisoners, which were held captive on British war ships.

After walking up the 99 steps, one comes up to the Doric column, which is granite, and measures 149 feet. It has two brass doors on the east and west side, and a plaque on its southern end.

Atop the column is a brass funerary urn, that is 23 feet tall and weighs 8 tons.

The urn was designed by sculptor Adolf Weinman, who also created the four brass eagles which are located on the four corners of the square containing the column.

There isn’t much more to see here, besides a plaque donated by Juan Carlos King of Spain, and other sundries.

I do wish one could enter the crypt, or even the column, but the times (and the powers that be) don’t allow it.
Still, it was an interesting visit to a small slice of the area’s history.

-- December 28, 2013 --

Troutman Hanging Gardens

On the 24th, I took a walk into Bushwick to see something really weird, which I have begun calling the “Troutman Hanging Gardens”.
Hey, what do you do on Xmas Eve?
Anyhow, on Troutman Street (between Irving Ave and Knickerbocker Ave) in Brooklyn, there is a line of trees covered with toys, stuffed animals, paintings and other oddities.
As you walk upon them from either direction, it starts off small, where only one or two items hang from the trees.

But soon, you’ll find the trees covered.

Until you find the “Great Tree” in the center of the block.

Within this tree are cute items, like stuffed animals, but there are also odd ones, such as a gay Ken doll (complete with disco ball), and even a mask from the movie Scream.

Again, as you move away from the center, the trees get more and more bare, though some of the tschotskes are still eye catching.

No one is sure as to who has been doing this, or - at least - the locals ain’t saying. When asked, “Why?” many repeat, “To make our neighborhood look nicer.”

I’m not sure how “nice” this looks, but any answers to help solve this mystery are appreciated.

-- December 12, 2013 --

Flushing Meadows - Corona Park

I was thinking of areas I’ve been wanting to see, but have yet to visit, and the old World’s Fairground in Queens came to mind.
The park area, now called Flushing Meadows - Corona Park, contains a national tennis center, and venue for the U.S. Open tennis tournament, the home of the New York Mets baseball team (Citi Field), New York Hall of Science, Queens Museum of Art, Queens Theatre, Queens Wildlife Center, and the remains of the New York State Pavilion. Until demolished, Shea Stadium was also located in Flushing Meadows.
I, of course, went to see the old pavilions from the 1964 World’s Fair.

The pavilion was designed by modernist architect Philip Johnson in 1960, and work began in 1962. It was finished in time for the ‘64 World’s fair, and parts still remain in use, though much is abandoned. The pavilion was finally listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

After walking the remains of NY State Pavilion, I headed to the rear of the Queens Museum to shoot the Unisphere, a 12-story, stainless steel model of our planet.

Designed by landscape architect Gilmore D. Clarke, it was to represent “man’s achievements on a shrinking globe in an expanding Universe”.

Afterward, I walked much of the park, and stumbled upon this beautiful Roman column, given to the park as a gift in 1964 by King Hussein of Jordan, which is dated from 120 CE.

I did not traverse the entire park, so I missed works and sculptures by Jose De Rivera, Donald De Lue, Eric Fischl and others, not to mention I did not come across the infamous Fountain of the Planet of the Apes.
This way, I have a reason to return.

-- December 2, 2013 --

Taking A Look At A Moment Lost

The newest 156 EP has been released as a limited edition cassette on Los Angeles label Chondritic Sound.

This recording is the last work before handling nothing but death, where the listener is taken back to the original tribal style and ritualistic sounds heard on the self-titled debut CD.
156's Memento Mori sessions, using all human bones, are wrapping up. Sample a clip here. This will be released as 10" vinyl on a private press.

-- November 25, 2013 --

Get Out of Here!

In 1984, artist and friend, George Petros (along with Adam Parfrey) created Exit Magazine, which lasted five issues, though there was a sixth unreleased issue.

The magazine was one of the most controversial art rags around.
Politically incorrect as it could be, it contained art and articles by Charles Manson, GG Allin, Anton LaVey, Joe Coleman, Richard Kern, H.R. Giger, Lydia Lunch, Richard Ramirez, Genesis P-Orridge, Raymond Pettibon, JG Thirlwell, Nick Zedd, Robert Williams, plus several handfuls of other iconoclasts. One may be able to find copies on eBay for $100 and up.
In 1998, the series was released as a book, The Exit Collection, on Tacit. It has been sold out for years, and copies currently go for about the same as the ‘zines.
Recently, George decided to archive all the issues of Exit to upload, and catalog it on the internet for everyone’s enjoyment.
Have fun killing an hour or two over at Exit Magazine's archived website here.

-- November 23, 2013 --

AGAIN!?

Last year, around this time, Miami’s incredible Blowfly made it up to The Knitting Factory, and I was there, though late.
I had been on a several-day birthday celebration, and what better way to keep it going? However, when a man gets a message like this, he knows he’s got to move it.
Listen to 60’s funk and parody artist Blowfly put a curse on me for my tardiness: Blowfly chews out A.S. (600 Kb wav file).

I pressed 2 for months.
Anyhow, if you are unaware as to who Blowfly is, you are so very uncool. You dig?
Blowfly is Miami’s original, and world’s first, dirty rapper. Sexist, racist, offensive, but you’ll love every word of it.
Blowfly was born Clarence Reid in Cochran, Georgia and later moved to Miami, Florida. He soon got his act solid when a relative scolded one of his dirty rhymes with, “You is nastier than a blowfly.”
He released his first record in 1965, and “Rap Dirty” was to be the first of the dirty-dance numbers, let alone the first rap album. He followed that sucker up with close to forty more releases and even a documentary film, The Twisted World of Blowfly.
His tracks have been sampled by Puff Daddy, Ice Cube and Jurassic 5, and Reid has also written clean numbers for the likes of Betty Wright and KC and the Sunshine Band.
He was almost forgotten and chances are you would have never heard of him if it wasn’t for Miami journalist Tom Bowker (who set up Blowfly’s band, as well as handles the drums).
That evening was a haze, but Blowfly killed it, as did the legendary Andre Williams, and soulful Barrence Whitfield, but this next one should be even wilder.

This year, Blowfly is playing an early show at MoMA PS1 in Brooklyn on Sunday, November 24th.
So drop on by for some nasty raps! Maybe we’ll hang after, and you can run off with some of my birthday cake.

-- November 19, 2013 --

Tompkins Square Hawk

I had decided to take a stroll throughout the LES and Village to get some photos for a few new blogs I’m creating.
Earlier in the day, a friend had posted how she saw a hawk catch, and eat, a bunny. I thought of the majesty of nature, and all its greatness, but I also thought how I hadn’t seen a scene like that since 2008. While trespassing in an abandoned auditorium, I saw a bird of prey fly off after walking in on it, interrupting its lunch, leaving behind the pigeon it had caught.
On this walk, I got to Tompkins Square Park, and thought to take pictures of autumn leaves.

Soon, I feel eyes upon me, and look in their direction.

I felt a connection, and then the beast swooped down right by me, landing only feet away.

I thought he wanted to say “hello”, until I noticed the tiny snack of a mouse.

After gulping down the rodent (which apparently taste better than the hundreds of squirrels everywhere), it perched right by my side, and I pulled out my phone, because if it’s not on Instagram, it didn’t happen.

After a few moments, that beautiful creature took off, taking a piece of my spirit with it, as I soared for a bit after.

-- November 11, 2013 --

So Very Unsexy

I have a previously-unpublished piece, titled “Sex: It’s Out of My Hands”, in the FILTH issue (#7) of the San Francisco lit/art fanzine Be About It.

The article is about the hidden layers of nasty, yet sublime, sluttiness you can hunt down via the internet. It was read at only one FL performance in 2010.
The zine is $4 (postage paid), but you can contact them here for more order info.

-- October 30, 2013 --

Governors Island Children's Fair

As promised - ladies and gentlemen - I give you! - Drum roll, please...
Photographs of the nightmare fuel - or daydream diesel to others - that is the Governors Island Children’s Fair.

-- October 15, 2013 --

Governors Island

In NYC, there’s a small island just south of the tip of Manhattan that is also a city park.

Originally called Paggank, meaning: nut island, it was renamed Governors Island in 1784, which stemmed from colonial times when it was used as a home for New York’s royal governors.
The city provides a free ferry ride, so I took their hospitable offer, and floated on over.
After docking, we headed over to inspect the old Army YMCA, the barracks, and the military theater, while leaving the best for last.

Walking to the other side of the island, my party came upon Castle Williams.

Castle Williams, which was built in 1807 under the direction of Lt. Colonel Jonathan Williams, was the defensive system for NYC’s inner harbor.

During the Civil War, the building was used to house Confederate prisoners, and later it became a minimum security prison.

Sadly, I took a ferry over, and not a plane or helicopter, so I can’t include an aerial shot of the beautiful star-shaped fort, called Fort Jay.

The first fort built on the spot was in April of 1776 for the Revolutionary War.
In 1794, the fort was rebuilt once the Brits gave up the place after the Battle of Brooklyn, but it was mostly structured of wood.
Construction on the heavier fortifications began in 1808, and was then named after Federalist New York governor John Jay.

In the 1830s, the fort was renamed Fort Columbus after the explorer, but changed back to Fort Jay in 1904.
When landfill operations doubled the size of the island in the early 1900s, Secretary of War Elihu Root began a movement to preserve the forts and barracks as landmarks.
In 1964, the Army announced it was vacating the island, taking all of their toys along with them.

In 1965, the Coast Guard took over the island when the Army base was moved to Maryland, and almost demolished the castle fort, until deciding to make it a community center.
In 1997, the Coast Guard split, leaving the place rather empty, until 2003 when the National Parks Services listed the entire island as a national monument, and opened it up to the public as a park.

On our walk, we continud to the old library, the Governor’s Mansion (strangely, nothing to see there), and the South Battery.

Next up was the creepy children’s fair, but I’m saving that nightmare fuel for the following post.
From the boat, I waved goodbye to the shores of that bizarre little hunk of sand on the Buttermilk Channel of Upper New York Bay.
As uneventful as the trip back home was, the ride while I was there was kinda thrilling.

-- October 7, 2013 --

Morris-Jumel Mansion

I thought a fun way to spend some time would be to visit the oldest house in Manhattan.

The Morris-Jumel Mansion was built in 1765 by a British colonel. The home was confiscated during the Revolutionary War, and George Washington used it as a crash pad.
In 1790, he threw a dinner party, where he entertained Thomas Jefferson and others in the Octagon Room.

This was Washington’s bedroom and study.

The home was later sold to a French wine importer named Stephen Jumel. After his death, his ex married Alexander Hamilton’s murderer, Aaron Burr.
This is one of the Madame’s bedrooms.

After strolling though the garden, where I made friends with the bees…

…I walked up High Bridge Park to visit the High Bridge Water Tower, before heading back to Brooklyn.

-- September 25, 2013 --

All Along the Watchtower

This Saturday, September 28th, I will be in Philadelphia for the opening of a new art show (at Pterodactyl Gallery), called All Along the Watchtower.
The show is based around villainy, so I contributed a project using found bibles. I will have two pieces on display; one older (2005), one very new and unseen by the public.
Hope to see you there, or at the after party at Kung Fu Necktie with David E. Williams and Bain Wolfkind performing!

-- September 23, 2013 --

I'm Lenin A Lot Here

On the rooftop of a high rise, with the ominous name of Red Square (and located on at 250 E Houston Street) in NYC's Lower East Side, is quite an odd sight, even for those accustomed to the political swing of this place.
The monument is an 18' statue of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, also known to his comrades as Lenin.

It is one of 23 found around the globe in non-Communist countries, and only one of four in the US (others include Las Vegas, Seattle and Atlantic City).

The artists was Yuri Gerasimov, who constructed eight statues in the 1980s, but when Communism fell they sat around hidden in his yard. In the early 1990s, the artist began to give them away, as well as sell them.
The developers of the property thought, since the building was red brick, and squared, they would call it: Red Square. They, also playing on fears in which many believe the area to be a breeding ground for Socialism, purchased the statue in 1994, and added it to the building, as well as New York City's illustriously bizarre history.

-- September 17, 2013 --

Lock Me Up (Pt III)

Went to Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, last Sunday, and have been saving to post the photos of the cells until today.

View the full series here.

-- September 16, 2013 --

Lock Me Up (Pt II)

Went to Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA last Sunday.
The prison, which was built in a Gothic style to intimidate prisoners, was operational from 1829 to 1971, and even housed some infamous criminals such as Al Capone.
While I was there, I took so many photos, I’m sharing them here by splitting them up into three categories: cells, corridors and the exterior of the building.
The cells are the best, so I’ll leave them for tomorrow’s post, so next up are the corridors I was lost in.

View the full series here.

-- September 13, 2013 --

Lock Me Up (Pt I)

Went to Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA this past weekend.
The prison, which was built in a Gothic style to intimidate prisoners, was operational from 1829 to 1971, and even housed some infamous criminals such as Al Capone.
While I was there, I took so many photos, I’m sharing them here by splitting them up into three categories: cells, corridors and the exterior of the building.
The photos of cells are best, so I’ll leave those for last.
First up, here are the walls I kept trying to scale.

View the full series here.

-- September 5, 2013 --

The Least Silent of Men

The cover of my upcoming book is done!
It’s a play on Barbara Kruger’s “Your Comfort”, which I redesigned, and was executed by tattoo artist Liorcifer.
It will be limited to only 333 copies, out this fall, and contain a forward by artist George Petros.

-- August 19, 2013 --

Bannerman’s Castle

Last Sunday, after my Roosevelt Island outing, I got a group of friends together to take a trip out to Pollepel Island on the Hudson River, to see the Bannerman Armory Castle.
After the hour drive from Manhattan, we arrived in Beacon, NY, and took a ferry to the island, which is basically six acres of mostly rock.

The island was bought by Francis Bannerman VI (1851-1918) in 1901. He made his money in war-profiteering, which created the very first Army / Navy surplus store.
Bannerman kept all his black powder in NYC (just off of Houston Street in Manhattan), and was asked to keep it out of the city limits, in case of ignition. He built Bannerman Castle Armory to store it all.

In 1920, an explosion of 200 tons of gun powder took out a few of the shacks, and one, upon landing, almost destroyed the small home Bannerman built for he and his wife, which is located on the highest point of the island.

The island’s ferry, Pollepel, sank in 1950, and the island was abandoned, until 1968, when it was purchased by New York State’s Office of Parks.
In 1969, one week before the Woodstock concert, it was believed some hippies had a secret camp-out on the island. The floors of the castle were made from planks of old ships, which were soaked in kerosene. Someone must have lit a campfire inside, because the place went up like a tinder box, and only the exterior of the castle remained.
That is, until December of 2009, when, for no explainable reason, over third of the castle collapsed, and currently left what is pictured above and below.

After the ferry ride back…

…we decided to visit Breakneck Ridge for some added hiking, but the rains kept it a bit short, so I plan on returning someday.

-- August 12, 2013 --

Child Pjörn

Most people who know the work of Icelandic singer Björk believe her musical debut was in 1986 with The Sugarcubes, and later with her first solo album, Debut, in 1993.
What few know is that she was in an Icelandic punk band before this, called KUKL, whose name means “sorcery”. They released a few singles and LPs, so that’s info which isn’t very hard to track down.
What even less know is that before KUKL she formed Iceland’s first all-female punk band, Spit & Snot. They never recorded, so that information is a little more obscure.
What hardly anyone knows is that before all of this, at only 11 years old, she appeared on RÚV, at the time, Iceland’s only radio station. When the owner of Fálkinn Records heard the broadcast he offered her a record deal. In 1977 they released her actual debut, a 10 song self-titled album, which Björk herself would rather forget.
It wasn’t until I actually heard the album that I understood why she pretends it doesn’t exist.

Here, for your listening unease, are two songs off that LP.

Búkolla

Fúsi Hreindÿr

-- August 9, 2013 --

Roosevelt Isand

Last Saturday, I took a subway ride to Roosevelt Island (originally called Hog Island), which is between Manhattan and Queens on the East River, to see the old small pox clinic, and a few other landmarks, as well as to just get a sense of the very different feel of the island - compared to the rest of NYC.

Built in 1909, the Queensboro Bridge passes over the island, but has no access to it.

A smallpox hospital, simply called The Smallpox Hospital, opened in 1856 (by James Renwick, Jr), and closed a hundred years later.

After walking through the FDR Four Freedoms Park, which is inside Southpoint Park, I headed to the north point of the island to see the Blackwell Island Light, a 50-foot (15 m) Gothic-style lighthouse.

Then, it was a visit to Octagon Garden, the Chapel of the Good Shepard (built in 1889) and Octagon Park (which is where the New York City Lunatic Asylum, built in 1839, once stood).
After finding a few other interesting nooks…

…I floated off on the air-tram, probably never to return.

-- August 6, 2013 --

God Has A Tiny One

One year ago, scientists were looking for, and actually succeed in creating the smallest of subatomic particles, using the Large Hadron Collider on the border of Switzerland and France, along with CERN / European Organization for Nuclear Research.
They are dubbed “god particles”, as they are believed to be the first particles to exist, and are - currently - the smallest known particles which make up the atom. Their scientific name is Higgs Boson Particles, and they are thought to give the Universe its mass, as well as keep us all from being simple scattered photons.
Not long after the main experiment, a group of researchers, led by Dr. Lily Asquith, used an instrument called a calorimeter to give them more insight into these particles. The calorimeter measures energy in seven layers, and each layer is represented by a musical note. Below are links to the sonification of the energy produced by these “god particles”.

Higgs Boson Particle emerging (566 Kb @ 128Kbps)

Higgs Boson Particle in natural state (438 Kb @ 128Kbps)

Three different harmonics of the Higgs Boson Particle (901 Kb @ 128Kbps)

Higgs Boson Particle decaying (894 Kb @ 128Kbps)

-- August 2, 2013 --

Cleopatra’s Needle

Today, I learned that if you draw a line from the Washington Monument to a specific obelisk in London, the line cuts right through Central Park - almost corner to corner. Strangely enough, London’s sister obelisk is also in Central Park (though a bit north of said line), and is called Cleopatra’s Needle.
Immediately after finding out about this, I had to visit - dragging along my camera.
Quick history: In 1450 BCE two 71-foot, 244-ton granite obelisks were commissioned for Heliopolis, Egypt. They were later moved to Alexandria in 18 BCE. A companion was moved to London in 1878, and the other - three years later - to Central Park, NY. It is the oldest, man-made object, outdoors in NYC, and though called Cleopatra’s Needle, has nothing to do with her, besides being Egyptian.
These are the photos I took on my walk over.

The obelisk is balanced on bronze crabs. The history of the obelisk is etched on all the crabs’ claws, in several languages.

This is the south side of the obelisk, and translated it tells us of Horus, the hawk-headed child of Isis and Osiris.

In other words, it’s a big penis, used to remind you of sex and death.
So, try to get a lot of one, and not the other.

-- July 28, 2013 --

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Beginning August 1st, for one week only, Superchief Gallery, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, is having a large group show of resident artists.

I will have on display a sketch work I made under a heavy dissociative, which is just a small piece of a larger work dealing with experiments on self-conditioning.

Come take a closer look with me, as I will be in attendance, at the opening on August 1st or August 8th at the closing party.
9 Clinton Street, NYC.

-- July 24, 2013 --

Greetings From the Dead

In 1984, Canada’s Pezzaz Productions (owned by PezAmerica Resources Corp.) release a line of cassette tapes titled Greetings from the Stars. The line’s subtitle was “Humorous Recorded Greetings Just for You,” though anyone could buy them. There were several series, such as ‘Happy Anniversary’, ‘Cheer Up’, ‘Getting Married’, plus the strangely out-of-place ‘What Is Love?’, and each series contained three 70s celebrity has-beens rambling on about said topic.
Side B of the tape was left blank, so one could record their own rant.
The cardboard was then to be folded inward and taped, as it had a space on the backside of the packaging for an address label.
Afterwards, it could be mailed out to any friends, family, or enemies you wanted to cheer up, send birthday wishes to, or just mildly annoy.

Here are some choice cuts from this wacky bunch of dead jokesters.

Dom DeLuise (168 Kb @ 24Kbps)

Jonathan Winters (146 Kb @ 24Kbps)

Phyllis Diller (137 Kb @ 24Kbps)

Shari Lewis and Lambchop (221 Kb @ 24Kbps)

-- July 24, 2013 --

Skate or Draw

Looking through Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art, by Sean Cliver, I saw how some were really pushing the boundaries of graphic design, with social and political issues, on, basically, something that was meant for kids. While other skateboards really just made me wonder what the artist thought when they designed it, and the skater who approved it.
After the read, I decided to pick my top 10 “most controversial” board designs.

Todd Francis’ work for his Real Team board would be last on this list, as A) it tries too hard, and B) came so late in the game at 1996.

The next two - Ray Barbee’s by Sean Cliver and Natas Kaupas’ board by Marc McKee - are a tie, because they both came out the same year, 1991, and pushed the Satanic button immediately after Geraldo warned the world not to.

Next up is another Marc McKee, but from 1992, and for Guy Mariano. It should have been titled “Woops,” and was released around the first uproars over kids finding daddy’s arsenals.

The following pair are Tom Knox boards. First is by Nathan Carrico a full two years before Natural Born Killers would bring serial killer worship and media bloodlust titillation to light.

The second TK seven ply is a board from the same year, from a collaboration of Gavin O’Brien, Tom Knox and Johnny Mojo, and surely designed to make all the skaters jealous. Who wouldn’t want a board with George Bush and Adolf Hitler on it? Especially together, saying they are one. Shred on that, Illuminati!

Skull Skates' Mutant board by PD isn’t on here for graphics, but because of the board’s design. It was also called “the ankle breaker”.

The third board in line is just sad. I had a lot of friends turn to cocaine in my days of skating (there was no Red Bull around then), so this is just dirty to me. Strangely, it’s one of my favorite skater’s boards (Natas K.), and was put together by Andy Jenkins in 1991.

I have no clue what he was thinking when Carl Hyndman designed this in 1992, nor why Mike Carroll would say, “Good design to represent me,” that same year.

Lastly, we have Marc McKee’s “Napping Negro” for skater Jovontae Turner, in 1992.
Ballsy is all I can say!

-- July 11, 2013 --

Get Some Discipline

Pieces from my new art series, Discipline, which are all-natural sex toys, will be on display at Fitness Center’s residency at Culturefix’s Superchief Gallery, with opening party this Friday, July 12th from 6 to 11pm.

-- July 4, 2013 --

One of My Favorite Whores

About two weeks ago, I posted files showing artists shilling product.
It got a cyberbuddy and I discussing whoredom, and I had to admit that even some of my favorite people sell themselves.
Below, posted for your viewing pleasure, are four German commercials starring Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten discussing some of his favorite paints, power tools and home products - or at least the ones he was paid to talk about.

The commercials are from a German do-it-yourself hardware store called Hornbach. Watch a collection of the commercials here, where he reads from the Hornbach catalog.
Well, at least they are some of the greatest (and funniest) commercials I’ve seen.

-- June 27, 2013 --

Judging It By the Cover (Pt III)

Here’s the latest batch of some of the most controversial magazine covers of all time.

Rolling Stone's naked Lennon.

Vanity Fair's naked and pregnant Moore.

Esquire had Monica’s view of Clinton.

The New Yorker's Obamas as terrorists.

-- June 18, 2013 --

Still True

Last year I posted a few videos of artists shilling product as proof we’re all whores.
This time around I’m posting a few more, but they’re a hell of a lot weirder than the Warhol and Dali ones.
Here is actor James Mason trying to sell you on the “unique flavor” of Thunderbird Wine.
This next one is a newer one, with - of all people - John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) promoting Country Life British Butter.

And last is one by H. R. Giger, where he doesn’t act, but writes and directs an odd commercial for Pioneer Electronics.

-- June 18, 2013 --

Escargot, Anyone?

I created another video montage, which was specially curated for Jason Lescalleet's track “Escargot”, off his Songs About Nothing double CD.

-- June 4, 2013 --

An Eye on Bed-Stuy

I will have some photos on display at Superchief Gallery (9 Clinton Street, in Manhattan) covering life in Brooklyn, with my spotlight on Bed-Stuy.
Thursday, June 6th, is the opening party, 6 to 11pm.
The gallery will also have some of my photo work (signed and framed) available for purchase.

-- May 27, 2013 --

The Backpatches of the Maryland Deathfest

I went to the Maryland Deathfest, in Baltimore, this weekend.
A little after Aosoth’s set, I decided to take photos of backpatches.
I took over 100 photos of people’s backs, and asked every single person for permission. Each one kindly obliged, while a handful where ecstatically proud. Cheers to them all!

Click here to see my favorite 13.

-- May 23, 2013 --

5 of 33

A while back I wrote 33 throwaway poems, all titled Nonsense, and left each on individual train cars on Brooklyn’s G line (except for #33, which I mailed to a Masonic friend).
These are some of my favorites from that night.

-- May 17, 2013 --

Speaking of Walt’s Wackiness

In the somewhat racist comic book linked below, titled Mickey Mouse and the Medicine Man, Goofy introduces Mickey to a new medicine called ‘Peppo’ that seems to be some kind of amphetamine. They like the product so much, both decide to become salesmen for the product in Africa.

The hand-sized comic book was released in 1951 by Disney, and can be read, in full, by clicking here.

-- May 14, 2013 --

Say Uncle!

This LP is from an era Disney would rather forget.

The links below are mp3s of both sides from this 1963 album.

Side 1 (8 Mb mp3 @ 128Kbps)

Side 2 (10 Mb mp3 @ 128Kbps)

-- May 10, 2013 --

A Nightmare for Charity

This is a one-off, as I won’t be recreating this style, or attempting forms of “action painting” in the future.
Titled, Tattoo Nightmare, the piece was made by dropping tattoo pigment (ink), from several floors up, on a 46 x 46” canvas.
The work was sold at auction for a Big Brothers / Big Sisters charity in Sandi Pointe, NJ, in May of 2013, curated by Bill Dunleavy of Superchief Gallery in NYC, and Sarah Varacalli.
By all means, if you feel like being charitable, too, please feel free to visit the BB/BS link provided above. But do remember: Time donated has as much worth as money donated. Do whatever you can, when you can.

-- May 6, 2013 --

I Want To Be Friends With This Man

Not much is known about Tom Cleland, other than he was born in 1962, currently lives in Minnesota, and is a member of Nader’s Green Party.
The proof I used, when I originally posted about Tom on the FHF site in 2006, was in Tom Stream, a blog where Mr. Cleland still posts political rants.
Currently, there’s a lot more proof.
You see, I cyber-stalked Tom, and discovered he seems like a fun guy.
Before posting this, I researched T.C. again, and found his Facebook. Just like anyone else who strives for even minor celebrity status, his pictures are public. I found he’s still politically active, as well as into hiking, dancing, scientific experimentation, good food, friends, and having an all-around good time.
Still, there’s the Tom I used to know; a shadowy musical figure.
When mp3.com was huge, Tom’s entire 10 song album, Deadline 2000 (self-released in 1999), was fully available on the inspirational / Christian music pages, and though his page claimed he was a Born Again at that time, it’s unclear if he still holds his fundamental beliefs.
The music is over-the-top synth-madness, as if Cabaret Voltaire let Wesley Willis program a few of the keyboards, and handle a bit of the lyrics. Not sure who inspired Tom’s vocals, but I’m going to say Ian Curtis, being punched in the stomach.
Tom disappeared for some time from the internet, but when I originally looked into Cleland’s life, I saw he had not only recently returned with the above-linked blog, but also had a MySpace page that he created just two months before my research.
I should have sent the dude a friend request back then, as it would just be creepy now.

Tom Cleland “All Mosquitos Must Die" (965 Kb @ 24Kbps)

-- May 1, 2013 --

New York’s Ice Caves

Took a trip upstate, from my Brooklyn lair, to Sam’s Point Preserve to check out the Ice Caves, and while they were officially closed, we went in anyway.
It was scary, as well as thrilling, to cross a few of the iced-over bridges and traverse through crevasses, but we nearly killed ourselves, and had to backtrack most of the way, as the near-end of our path was impassable.
Still, got some great pics, so enjoy!

See more photos here.

-- April 26, 2013 --

Yo, These Are Phat!

Quite a few claimed comic books would make child readers tubby, hero-worshiping losers.
In many respects, thanks to the proof provided by internet-trolling basement-dwellers everywhere, they were right.
Here are some comic book covers, where the tale inside may have been trying to warn youngsters of their terribly dark future, underground.

-- April 15, 2013 --

The Last Jew of Nueva York

In 2008, while driving big rigs, I had a subscription to Paranoia magazine, as I loved a good evening kook-read in the cab of my truck, before bed.
Once in a while, they carried a classified ad, asking to send $2 to a Pennsylvania post office box, for pamphlets titled The Last Jew of Nueva York, and being a fan of kookdom, I sent in two bills, getting a stack of Jack Chic-styled madness in return.
I didn’t know what to make of the little booklet, and neither did my lady, but we loved ‘em, as the madness within was so wild, folks would often stare wide-eyed at the little tract, but never make any sense of it.
We sent him two bucks once a month, so we would always have a pocket full, and passed them all over the northeast, to friends, even leaving stacks at Philly’s Germ Books.
I’m not certain exactly what’s so dark Michael sees in Muslims, and Mexicans, besides their skin color, but Sakara is still around today, and, if you send him a couple of dollars, you will get a small pile of the panacea he printed up years ago, and probably still has filing all the drawers of his house in PA.

Read (view) the whole tract here.

-- April 11, 2013 --

Theyyyy’re Heeeere!

First batch of 100 are in, with 66 signed and numbered by Liorcifer!
Feast of Hate and Fear is proud to release this wonderfully morbid graphic novel. It’s a 12-page sketchbook of horror, done in pen and ink, telling a tale, while laying you into a body bag.

Visit the Feast of Hate and Fear website, or Liorcifer’s site for more details.

-- April 8, 2013 --

Satan Lived!

Satan Panonski, whose real name was Ivica Culjak, was a controversial Yugoslavian punk vocalist, poet and artist from Vinkovci, Croatia.
In 1978, he visited family in Germany, found punk rock, and was changed forever, starting the band Pogreb X in 1980.

Within a few years, he was charged with murder (after a fistfight with a stranger ended poorly for the stranger), spending several years locked up.
Later, due his outspoken homosexuality, he was secreted away in mental institutions.
Upon release in 1985, he donned his new moniker, and began to stage-read “punk” poetry, as well as perform his brand of “body art”, which was, basically, to slash himself to bits. A sort of GG Allin, but with political purpose.
After the Yugoslav wars began, Panonski became rather nationalistic, but still producing a library of poetry aimed at the State.
He later joined the Croatian armed forces, and was killed under mysterious circumstances.

Here are two rare tracks from this Yugo-hero.

Hard Blood Shock

Kiss My Cock

-- April 2, 2013 --

I Am Pretty Peculiar, I Guess

David Rondinelli, over at the blog This Peculiar Life NYC, posted a pretty in depth, and rather intense, interview with me, about many of my projects, as well as the rituals I preform.

-- March 26, 2013 --

Some Wicked Influences

I gave a lecture for the class Projects in Photography, at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development’s Department of Art and Art Professions, on occult and magic influences in and on photography, back in February.
You can download an mp3 of it, though with none of the images mentioned, here (22 Mb).
A video, with a few images, has been posted here.

-- March 23, 2013 --

A Very Limited Life

Artist edition of 156’s A Life Lived As If In Hell EP, has a CDr (containing extra unreleased track), tucked into straightjacket designed by A. Souto, with logo stenciled on chest. Limited to only one copy!
The standard version will soon be available on Out of Body as a 30-minute, professionally pressed, cassette tape, limited to 100 copies, with cover art (see below) by Rob Buttrum, and 156 logo by tattoo artist Liorcifer.

-- March 21, 2013 --

Stairway to Stupidity

In May of 1978, Little Roger and the Goosebumps, a band from San Francisco, released a single on Splash Records, both being the brainchild of cultural anthropologist Roger Clark.
The A side of said single was a spoof on “Stairway to Heaven” with the lyrics from the TV show Gilligan’s Island replacing the original’s.
In a little over a month, lawyers representing the band Led Zeppelin threatened to sue the hell out of Mr. Clark, asking that all copies be destroyed.
Except for a few 7”es that were already distributed, the band complied by nixing the single, as well as the song from their set list.

In 1980, they recorded another single, “Kennedy Girl”, which was based on Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl”. Young did not sue.
After years of internet infamy, and eBay sales of the single going for $1000 or more, Roger Clark reformed the band and produced their debut album They Hate Us Cuz We’re Beautiful, with 14 new recordings of songs from three decades of original material.

Here is a music file of the song that started it all:

Little Roger and the Goosebumps “Gilligan’s Island (Stairway)" (3 Mb mp3 @ 128Kbps)

-- March 18, 2013 --

Only 8 Steps In This Dance

Artist edition of 156’s Eight Steps In the Dance EP, has one professionally pressed cassette tape, enclosed in a 6x9” envelope, with unique, 8-pointed, hand-drawn cover work by A. Souto, along with a sealed slide of artist’s blood, collected after 156-day ritual. Only eight made, signed and numbered.
The standard version will soon be available on Goat-Eater Arts as a 30-minute, professionally pressed, cassette tape, limited to 93 copies, with cover art (see below) by Richard Vergez.

-- March 15, 2013 --

Bed-Stuy

I made a short "visual poem".

-- March 13, 2013 --

Addicted to Fractals

My studies of Benoit Mandelbrot’s theories are finally paying off, I guess.
Last March, I ended a ritual, and began my new year journey, with a series of digital photos. The first series was with a broken camera, where I captured black and white shots of trees.
Ending another ritual this year, I’ve been playing with that series, and am having a few of them printed up.

They are rather large (25” x 18”), and will look really nice, especially on high-quality photo paper.
I am also printing up smaller pieces, then make similar, larger collages out of those. They can cover walls of any size, and produce even more fractal patterns.

-- March 6, 2013 --

So Very Incorrigible

Pieces from my new series, A Joyous Swastika, will be up, for one week only (March 19 - 24), at Superchief Galley in NYC’s Lower East Side, for the group show INCORRIGIBLE.
The show is curated by Vincent S Bäeza.
Opening party on the 19th, VIP party Friday the 22nd, and closing party on the 24th.

-- February 26, 2013 --

Advertising Be Damned!

Here are some images for your ride home.
To replace ads, a certain someone has been posting these up in NYC subway trains for the past two years.

“Dear Life, Where are you taking me next?”

“So very few take the time to stop and think. Even fewer take the time to stop and thank.”

“The glass is half full vs. half empty is competitive thinking. Just be glad you have a glass and clean drinking water.”

Art vs. Ads!

-- February 22, 2013 --

"Allow Any Radio" Video

I created a video montage for Robert Turman, which he placed to his track “Allow Any Radio”, off his newest LP on Fabrica Records, Macro.

Robert Turman - Allow Any Radio from RTurman on Vimeo.

-- February 19, 2013 --

Dada Style Me Do

Fulgur Books has released the newest issue (#3) of Abraxas, which contains the article, “Do Me Dada Style” on my experience with Tristan Tzara’s Dada poetry technique.

In this issue, other mystical authors and artists included are Marco Pasi, Christina Mitrentse, Geraldine Lambert, and Rik Garrett, as well as containing full color photos of Aleister Crowley’s recently discovered Palermo Collection - as seen on the cover.
As usual, with the wonderful work they do, Abraxas is released in, both, limited edition hardcover book (250 copies), and standard magazine issue.
Get them both!

-- February 16, 2013 --

Satan’s Little Helper

Joseph E. Aufricht is someone many an internet junkie might know of. If you’re into trading tapes of the weird, then you definitely know Joe, or - at least - his work.
In 1990, Joe founded a Satanic organization called The Order of Dionysus Sabazios. He would hand out pamphlets for his group when he rode Cleveland area public transit, or just shoot the Satanic shit with anyone on the street who would listen.
Around the same time, Joe began a fanzine called Rejuvenation, which was a cut-n-paste collection of “…helpful hints for successful, happy living for all ages, including teenagers! Strategic rebellion tips and criticism against Christianity & other spirituality.”
Soon after, Mr. Aufricht began to make cassette tapes. His collection of cassettes were nothing more than what we all did art around age eight, which was make a radio show with a hand held tape recorder. The only problem is that Joe was 30 years old when he created his wonderful slices of magnetic nuttiness.
In 1993 he released Youthful Satanic Ecstacy [sic], followed by Evil Phone Prankster in 1994, and killing off the trio of tapes the next year with Mockery + Perversion.
In 1999, he - under the name Xaphan - formed a black metal outfit called Satanicon, but it doesn’t compare to the sheer brutality of the spoken word tapes.

Below are mp3s of two sides of two releases by J.A.

Youthful Satanic Ecstacy: Side One (42 Mb @ 128Kbps)

Mockery + Perversion: Side Two (42 Mb @ 128Kbps)

-- February 5, 2013 --

Judging It By the Cover (Pt II)

Here are a few more of the most controversial magazine covers of all time.

Time Magazine makes O.J. too black.

Rolling Stone had Kanye as Christ.

Baby Talk showed all of us some titty.

Texas Monthly gave Cheney another shot.

-- January 29, 2013 --

A Comic’s A’Comin’

Feast of Hate and Fear will be releasing a comic book this year, by tattoo artist Liorcifer!
This is a project which originally began in 2002, and only recently rediscovered.

Keep your eyes peeled, or I’ll peel ‘em for you.

-- January 24, 2013 --

A Joyous Work, Done!

My newest art series, titled A Joyous Swastika, based on the beauty of an ancient symbol, will be on display at Superchief Gallery in Manhattan’s LES, March of 2013.
Eight vibrant designs on five 12x12” and three 7x7” wood plates.
More info soon.

A Joyous Swastika No 4, SOLD, 12x12”

A Joyous Swastika No 5, $450, 12x12”

A Joyous Swastika No 2, $400, 12x12”

A Joyous Swastika No 8, SOLD, 7x7”

-- January 21, 2013 --

For the Love of Andy

My friend, and my director in Consumption of the Heart, Andrew Copp has passed away this weekend.
He was a director of underground movies and short films, he acted in flicks, such as The Manson Family and My Sweet Satan, he painted and made music, he taught college courses in film, and practically ran public access tv in Dayton, OH.
Cheers, brother!

1972 - 2013

You will be missed.

-- January 17, 2013 --

Butterfly Mind Melt

I’m no hipster.
I like music when it’s good. I don’t dig tunes just to make others think, “Wow, Adel’s really out there.”
Admittedly, I’ll play certain tunes, so people will say that about the person singing, and with that said, I have to ask, why the hell do people like Scott Walker? Especially when someone as bad as Mr. Walker already did it in the 70s, and with just as poor of a fake singing voice.
Arcesia is the idea of one man, Johnny Arcessi.
Not much info is known about Johnny, and what little anyone knows is from Irwin Chusid’s book Songs in the Key of Z.
Though we don’t know when Arcessi was born, we do know that he was a Providence, Rhode Island native, who throughout the early 60’s belted out a pound of sound as a big band crooner, and even worked clubs opening up for Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.
Sometime in the late 60’s, and pretty much already passing his mid-life crisis, he dropped a hit of acid and lost it. He fell in love with the stuff, bought a number of The Doors’ albums, packed up a few of his belongings and hauled it over to California to become part of the Summer of Love.
In 1969 he hired a few musicians half his age and recorded under the band name Arcesia. The outcome was a fifteen track psychedelic, acid-rock mess titled Reachin’ released in 1970 to boos and hisses.
Turns out Johnny is still around and believes his LP is worth a good god damn, as he’s built himself a bit of a website, though it’s been under construction since 2007.

Arcesia - Butterfly Mind (990 Kb @ 24Kbps)

-- January 12, 2013 --

Cyber-Pat On the Back

I’m proud to write that art blog Manufactured Dissent has me as their first featured artist of 2013.
They posted a long interview, as well as a few photos of my mailart project, A Catastrophe Upon Delivery, my piece for director John Waters, and some poetry.

Click here to read the interview.

-- January 10, 2013 --

Sham Shaman

Tuesday Lobsang Rampa was a Tibetan monk who, in 1956, wrote a book titled The Third Eye, which was a hit, spawning interest in the mysteries of the Far East.
Only problem was, much like Grey Owl (Archibald Belaney) before him, he was nothing more than a drunk Brit pulling everyone’s leg.
While ol’ Grey helped spawn the environmental movement by pretending to be a Native American, Cyril Henry Hoskin pretended to be from Tibet, though never even visiting.
The fact that his cover was blown as early as 1958, has hardly diminished sales of his 20 books, and people still buy them in stacks, including the one where he claims to have met our overlords from Venus (My Visit to Venus, 1957). To cash in, he and his publishing company even began producing 12” LPs covering meditation and “the path”.
Mr. Hoskin later had the gall to adopt the agentive “Dr.”, but no paperwork has ever been produced on his schooling or doctorate.

American tibetologist Donald S. Lopez gives copies of Rampa’s first book to his students without filling them in on who he is, and, almost unanimously, his class claims that The Third Eye is one of the best books written on Tibet.
The Dalai Lama himself has admitted, although Rampa and his books were phony, T. Lob had created good publicity for Tibet.
With that, I guess the recording linked below may help out someone, instead of hearing nothing but lies every time his mouth opens.
You be the judge.

Meditation - Side 1 (40 Mb @ 320kbps)

Meditation - Side 2 (36 Mb @ 320kbps)

-- December 27, 2012 --

The Left Hand Path

From Nov 11th of 2002 until Jan 7th of 2004, I kept a journal to practice writing with my left hand: an experiment done in an attempt to use parts of my brain I believed I hadn’t been.
I’ve just recently come across it, and thought I’d see what I was up to back then, around this time of year.

This is one of the early practice pages.

This page comes from Dec 13 and 23 of 2002.

This page is from Dec 18, 19, 22 and 30th of 2003.

This is my favorite entry, dated Dec 17th, 2003.

-- December 21, 2012 --

Brooklyn’s Alright

Episodes will debut on the internet the Monday following original airing @

Youtube.com/BrooklynISalright

-- December 18, 2012 --

It’s True

Here’s proof that all us artists are whores.
In the links, you’ll see Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí (May 1904 - January 1989) doing a commercial for Lavin Chocolate, as well as a commercial for Alka-Seltzer.

While Pop artist Andy Warhol (August 1928 - February 1987) did a commercial for Braniff Airlines.

Sex and money, baby.
What else is important?

-- December 15, 2012 --

Barry Sounds Bonkers

In 1995 President Barack Obama wrote a book during his stint in the Senate which was titled, Dreams from My Father.

Barry made an audio version of the book, where he reads it aloud himself.
His friend Ray, who he grew up with, has the best lines in the book, and when taken out of context Obama finally sounds like my kind of guy.
Had I posted this before the election, he would have won by a landslide.

That guy! (34 Kb mp3 @ 154 Kbps)

Ignorant (24 Kb mp3 @ 154 Kbps)

Fries (21 Kb mp3 @ 154 Kbps)

-- December 13, 2012 --

Classic Adult Movie Posters (Part III)

More of that steamy goodness.

Slip of the Tongue (1970)

Assignment Female (1966)

Wall Street Walker (1970)

Sex Rituals of the Occult (1972)

I Want You (1967)

-- December 11, 2012 --

Merry Shitmas!

Every Xmas, in the Catalan region of Spain, the Caganer, or “Little Shitter”, pops his ass out for the season. He has also been spotted in some parts of France (called Père la Colique), Italy (aka pastore che caca), Portugal and the Balearic Islands.

He is usually depicted pooping near a Yule tree, or even the Christian nativity scene.
Contrary to popular belief, he is not an elf, but a poorly dressed peasant, wearing a hat called a barretina.
It’s unsure as to how the tradition started, but it’s been around since the late 1600s, and is somehow tolerated by the Catholic church.
In 2005, the city of Barcelona tried to omit the Caganer from the local manger scene, but there was so much outcry it was returned the following year.
Well, shit the bed, it’s a brown Christmas this year!

-- December 8, 2012 --

Movie Posters From Around the Globe (Pt III)

The West African and Thai posters where a hoot, but these Polish ones are quiet surreal.
The Weekend at Bernie’s one makes you think it might be for a psychological thriller.

-- December 4, 2012 --

Ich brauche Geld!

He was an alcoholic, pill popping, meth-head, but an all around great country singer.
He gave us the Folsom Prison blues, though he never served more than a night’s stay for misdemeanors. And seriously, the only line he walked was the line between uppers and downers. Still, he is The Man in Black, and one hell of a Highwayman.
J. R. Cash was born in February 26 of 1932 in Arkansas, and was actually only named with the initials J. R., as it’s said his folks couldn’t agree what to call the boy.
In 1948 J.R. enlisted, and with the Air Force not accepting his initials as a name, he chose a name for himself, John.
In 1950 he was stationed in Landsberg, Germany where he worked as a radio airman, and soon started his first band, The Landsberg Barbarians, to cure some of the boredom between work rotations. In 1951 he lost the hearing in one ear when an incredibly stupid Kraut chick thought it would be funny to poke him in the ear with a pencil. It turned out to be a laugh riot, or just a prison riot on her face… I’m not sure.
In 1954 he was honorably discharged, married, moved to Memphis, Tennessee where he auditioned for Sun Records. By the next year he already had two singles that were doing well in the country charts - the rest is pretty much musical history.
Well, besides the fact he sung in several other languages.
In 1959 John decided to put out a few tracks in the barbaric language that he learned while stationed overseas. These numbers were released on smaller country / western labels, until Columbia-CBS put out two 45s in 1965, with four songs in German.
The track above is from his earlier 60s work, but his Germanic tracks didn’t storm the gates of Gaul like he thought they would, mostly because his German is terrible.
Though, if you’ve heard his Spanish records… they’re so much worse!
In ‘97, Cash was diagnosed with Shy-Drager Syndrome, a neurological disorder, which stems from diabetes. Johnny Cash passed away in 2003 from respiratory complications from the disease only four months after his wife, June Cater Cash, died.
All I have left to say is, “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!”

Johnny Cash "I Walk the Line [German]" (468 Kb @ 24Kbps)

-- December 1, 2012 --

Ever-Lasting Birthday Bash

Miami’s incredible Blowfly made it up to The Knitting Factory last night, and I had to be there!
I’m on a several-day celebration, and what a way to keep it going, but when a man gets a message like this, he knows he’s got to move it.
Listen to 60’s funk and parody artist Blowfly put a curse on me for my tardiness to a wedding: Blowfly chews out Adel (600 Kb wav file).

I pressed 2 for months.
Anyhow, if you are unaware as to who Blowfly is, you are so very uncool. You dig?
Blowfly is Miami’s original, and world’s first, dirty rapper. Sexist, racist, offensive, but you’ll love every word of it.
Blowfly was born Clarence Reid in Cochran, Georgia and later moved to Miami, Florida. He soon got his act solid when a relative scolded one of his dirty rhymes with, “You is nastier than a blowfly.”
He released his first record in 1965, and “Rap Dirty” was to be the first of the dirty-dance numbers, let alone the first rap album. He followed that sucker up with close to forty more releases and even a documentary film, The Twisted World of Blowfly.
His tracks have been sampled by Puff Daddy, Ice Cube and Jurassic 5, and Reid has also written clean numbers for the likes of Betty Wright and KC and the Sunshine Band.
He was almost forgotten and chances are you would have never heard of him if it wasn’t for Miami journalist Tom Bowker (who set up Blowfly’s new band, and the groom in the wedding I was late to).
The evening was a haze, but Blowfly killed it, as did the legendary Andre Williams, and soulful Barrence Whitfield.
I gotta keep this streak going!

-- November 28, 2012 --

For the Love of the Undead

I got to play the male lead in Andy Copp's short film Consumption of the Heart, which was just released.

The film is now out on volume five of JABB Pictures The Collective DVD series, and had its premiere at Chicago’s Days of the Dead this November.
For only $10, you get 10 short flicks by 10 underground directors with one synopsis: the undead.
It’s a zombie love story like no other.

-- November 16, 2012 --

These Sticks Kill Fascists

Handmade fasci - none left. All sold out, with last one given as a gift to Robert N. Taylor.
I no longer make these, as papyrus doesn’t grow well in NYC.
The 30” fasci with 23 reeds have all sold. The last two available - pictured below - were small (12”) with 13 reeds. All pieces were signed, and numbered.
A fasci is symbolic of the concept “united we stand” (or “bonded together”), and can be found on Mercury-head dimes pre-WWII, as well as on architecture throughout all major U.S. cities.

-- November 9, 2012 --

Heaven and Hell

Bob Larson is an Arizona-based Christian preacher who currently performs exorcisms. He has authored over 20 books, and also hosted an evangelist talk show, called Talk Back, from 1982 - 2002, which returned in 2004.
Throughout the early 1990’s, Bob would bring on guests to the show so as to debate their religion, philosophy and artistic projects. While Mr. Larson may have been trying to have serious conversations with the guests in attempts to win them over to God’s side, almost every episode wound up a hilarious bout of belittlement and arguments. Some of the interviews included GG Allin, Glen Benton of Deicide, Trey Azagthoth of Morbid Angel, and Boyd Rice.

vs.

In the links below Bob challenges musician, writer and (at that time) Church of Satan priest Boyd Rice. They begin by cutting down one another’s beliefs, but as the show progresses the two actually wind up becoming near-friends, and Boyd is invited back onto the show a number of times after.
Prepare yourself for over an hour of laughter.

Bob vs. Boyd Pt 1 (36 Mb mp3 @ 96 Kbps)

Bob vs. Boyd Pt 2 (35 Mb mp3 @ 96 Kbps)

-- November 5, 2012 --

Scope This

Twenty years before Mtv, and with way better material, came France’s Scopitones, and its Italian cousin Cinebox, which were music video jukeboxes.

They had sexy with James Darren’s "Because You’re Mine".
They had weird, as in The Martin Circus’ “Je M’eclate Au Senegal”, plus Arabic videos like Oukil Amar’s “Tizi Ouzou” and Noura’s “Ammi Belcacem”.
They had classics like Herb Alpert’s "Tijuana Taxi".
They had awesome garage tunes, Les 5 Gentlemen’s “Cara-Lin” and The Legendaries’ “Good For Nothing Bill”.
And they even had S&M in George De Giafferi’s "Sado Maso".
The first few fun lines of that last song go as follows:

Opening line: Owwww! That’s good.
Man: Eat this spider!
Woman: Ok, but that’s the last one.
Man: It’s time for you to get whipped!
Woman: Oh great, I love that!
Man: Now burn my chest!
Woman: With what my love?
Man: Use your cigarette!
Woman: It’s smells like grilled pork!

There a lot of great stuff there that was way ahead of its time, and with really neato colors, too.
For more Scopitones, check out this website. Happy viewing.

-- October 31, 2012 --

Day of the Death Mask

A death mask is a plaster cast made of a person’s face following death, and they are normally family mementos.
It is believed the process started in ancient Egypt, as part of mummification; the best-known being Tutankhamun’s burial mask. It was later picked up by the Greeks and Romans. A few, such as Abe Lincoln’s (by sculptor Leonard Volk), were created while living, but are often kept in collections of death masks, though called “life masks”.
The face of Resusci Anne, the world’s first CPR training mannequin, introduced in 1960, was modeled after L’Inconnue de la Seine (the death mask of an unidentified young woman, which became popular in homes after 1900).
Enjoy some pics of the dead, on this Day of the Dead.

Benjamin Franklin, 1706 - 1790

John Keats, 1795 - 1821

Robert E. Lee, 1807 - 1870

Sir Isaac Newton, 1642 - 1727

Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892

-- October 29, 2012 --

Frankensmoke

Since this “Frankenstorm” is headed my way, I thought I’d give in to the neurotic paranoia, and spread some doom-n-gloom myself with a bit of The Simpsons.
As you may have seen on many a screen, almost all TV shows are “closed captioned” for the hearing impaired, but did you know that with a DVS box (Descriptive Video Service) the visually impaired can enjoy TV as an audio feed which describes the action going on.
This system attaches to a television and will then pick up an audio feed run by the television program that we cannot hear, as it is on a specific audio channel that only the box can receive.

The Simpsons' DVS episode “Rapture” [May 08, 2005] (4Mb mp3 @ 24Kbps)

The above link is to an episode where Homer rents a Christian movie called Left Below (based on the LaHaye Left Behind series) and begins to predict the end of times and becomes a prophet to many of the Springfield townsfolk.

You may notice that while they are trying to be descriptive, they are also omitting scenes, such as when Homer tells the news crew that hippies may want to smoke marijuana (by pretending to smoke a joint) to view the apocalypse - the announcer just says, “Homer pretends to smoke,” and when Homer and Marge make love, they don’t say a word about it.

-- October 26, 2012 --

It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Society

Mad Society was an early 80s southern California hardcore band, who released a five song 7” in 1981.
All the band members were under 11 years old at the time of recording, and the recording kinda proves it.

Here are all the tracks from the record:

Riot Squad

Skitz

Napalm

Termanally

Little Devil

-- October 20, 2012 --

Brave New Blurb

Many know that Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World (1932), but very few know that it was also released in a narrated version, where the author himself tells his fictional tale of a futuristic world gone mad thanks to technology.
Originally recorded for CBS’s Theater of the Mind radio series, it was soon released on 12” LP in 1956 by Él Records, and later by Pelican Records in 1979.

Below are links to files containing both sides of this lost classic:

Side A (27 Mb mp3 @ 128Kbps)

Side B (27 Mb mp3 @ 128Kbps)

-- October 11, 2012 --

Drop Dead Gory

John Duncan is an American musician and performance artist.

He played with The Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), and some of his performance work consisted of shooting blanks at underground artists and film makers Tom Recchion and Paul McCarthy (Scare), molesting unsuspecting passengers on a city bus (Bus Ride), as well as letting only a few folks watch a movie, burning it, and letting none of them speak about it (The Secret Film).
In 1980, he performed a piece that made the U.S. art scene turn their collective backs on him, causing John to move to Japan.
The piece was titled Blind Date, and it was about self-torture. For Blind Date, John wanted to have a vasectomy, while using his last potent seed on something extraordinary, and highly symbolic. He succeeded.
Before getting snipped, he met up with a Mexican coroner, and they set it up so John could have sex with a female corpse.
In 1984, Duncan released the Japanese cassette tape Pleasure-Escape, and on side one of that tape was the audio of Blind Date.

Enjoy…

Blind Date (30 Mb @ 128Kbps)

-- October 8, 2012 --

A Catastrophe Upon Delivery

A Catastrophe Upon Delivery is a new mail art project of mine, which uses six found postcard books to create close to a hundred unique postal nightmares.
The project uses 93 (4” x 6”) postcards, each already containing an image of a classic work, which are then artistically traduced and symbolically defamed - meaning each card is uniquely trashed, using mixed media; from cut-n-paste collage and acrylic painting to handwritten poetry or even fire.
Called “the most difficult art to get a hold of”, all you have to do to get one of the 93 individual works is to simply reach out. Just head over to my website, and use the email link to send me your postal address.
All pieces will be mailed on Wednesday, October 31, 2012.
There are a little over 20 pieces left, with a little over 20 days left, so hurry!

-- October 5, 2012 --

Judging It By the Cover (Pt I)

Here are a few of the most controversial magazine covers of all time.

Time Magazine makes Hitler “man of the year”.

Esquire's Muhammad Ali as St. Sebastian.

Playboy's first black cover girl.

National Lampoon threatens a dog.

-- October 1, 2012 --

Either Way, You’re Screwed

Backmasking is known as the intentional or unintentional placing of messages, either regularly, so when played backwards they say something different, or backwards so the are unintelligible when heard regularly.
For years the Christian right has used supposed instances of backmasking to rail against popular music, calling it “Satanic”. The links below are believed to be coincidences of unintentional messages when a song is played backwards.

Metallica - Am I Evil? [Diamondhead cover on 1998’s Garage, Inc. LP]

FORWARD and BACKWARD

Supposed backmask line: “I am Satan. Yes, I am. Oh Yeah, I am. I am Satan. Oh Yeah, I am.”

Judas Priest - Beyond the Realms of Death [1978’s Stained Class LP]

FORWARD and BACKWARD

Supposed backmask line “I took my life.”

Quiet Riot - Mental Health [1983’s Mental Health LP]

FORWARD and BACKWARD

Supposed backmask line “Serve the Beast for money. There’s lots of money.”

Queen - Another One Bites the Dust [1980’s The Game LP]

FORWARD and BACKWARD

Supposed backmask line “It’s fun to smoke marijuana.”

Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven [1971’s IV aka Zoso LP]

FORWARD and BACKWARD

Supposed backmask line “Glory glory to my sweet Satan. There was a little child born, it makes me sad, whose power is Satan.”

Britney Spears - Baby, One More Time [1999’s …Baby One More Time LP]

FORWARD and BACKWARD

Supposed backmask line “Sleep with me, I’m not too young.”

Blondie - Do the Dark [1980’s Autoamericana LP]

FORWARD and BACKWARD

Supposed backmask line “Help, help, help, help me. Satan is moving in me.”

Eagles - Hotel California [1976’s Hotel California LP]

FORWARD and BACKWARD

Supposed backmask line “Yeah Satan, oh he came, and organized his own religion. Yeah, when he knows he shouldn’t.”

The Baha Men - Who Let the Dogs Out? [2000’s Who Let the Dogs Out? LP]

FORWARD and BACKWARD

Supposed backmask line “You fucked up, you fucked up nigger.”

The Pokémon theme song [anime TV series 1998 - 2003]

FORWARD and BACKWARD

Supposed backmask line “I love Satan, love Satan. I love Satan, love Satan!”

-- Sept 1, 2012 --

My Appalachian Trail Disposable

In case you haven't noticed, I'n been gon for some time.
Went out to the mountains, and I brought along a disposable camera for my trip out, as I left behind my phone, and all other electronic devices.
All alone, three weeks on the trail. High Point Mountain, Wawayanda Mountain, Sterling Forest and Bear Mountain.
27 exposures, but only 14 pictures made it. These are the best of the lot.

-- August 17, 2012 --

Zombification in 3, 2, 1

I’m flying out this weekend to Dayton, OH to play the lead in Andrew Copp's Consumption of the Heart, which is to be released on JABB Pictures' fifth volume of the DVD series, The Collective.
Besides in front of a few cops, I’ve never tried acting before, so this should be fun.

-- July 25, 2012 --

Moon Rock of Ages

In 1972, Anne Kilmer (professor of Assyriology, University of California, and a curator at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology at Berkeley) transcribed one of the oldest known pieces of music notation, which is the “Hymn to Nikal”.
The clay music tablets are in the cuneiform script of the Hurrian language, and were excavated in the early 1950s at the ancient city of Ugarit (in Syria).

The tablets date back to approximately 1400 B.C., and the track is a song for the moon god’s wife, Nikal. Remarkably, the tablets also contain detailed performance instructions for a singer, accompanied by a harpist, as well as instructions on how to tune the harp.

Hymn to Nikal (1 Mb mp3 @ 128Kbps)

-- July 24, 2012 --

Trance Error Express

Jim Roche, a performance artist from Dallas, and part of a group of artists called the “Oak Cliff Four”, made his way onto the New York art scene in the 1970s and began performance pieces in galleries where he would go into a trance-like state and channel redneck characters from his old neighborhood. He later became a professor at Florida State University.
Many of these channels were released on a double LP, Learning to Count, in 1982 by a museum in Kansas, and the album tracks below are some the most racist and sexist audio rants to ever be put on vinyl.
You have been warned!
Enjoy.

Every Man, Woman and Child - 1972 (3.6 Mb mp3 @ 64Kbps)

Cadillac - 1973 (2.7 Mb mp3 @ 64Kbps)

Whatsda Matter Wit Jew? - 1977 (2.5 Mb mp3 @ 64Kbps)

“Little Angels” by Jim Roche

-- July 23, 2012 --

Music for Dummies

The type of person who either reads the FHF website, or visits this blog regularly, should be familiar with Cathy O’Brien (and Mark Phillips).
In 1995, Ms. O’Brien wrote TranceFormation of America, where she alleges that, as a teen, she was kidnapped by the C.I.A. in a top secret government project called Project Monarch. This project consisted of creating mindless sex slaves to be used by Presidents, Congressmen, Senators and other top government employees. After several years she had a daughter who O’Brien claims was also used in Project Monarch.
Mark Phillips is the co-author of the aforementioned book, as well as the man supposedly responsible for helping break the C.I.A.’s hold on Cathy, and free her from her captor and so-called handler Alex Houston.

Now, if you have read the book, you know a little on Alex Houston, but not much, I’m sure.
The book mentions that he was a performer, as well as a ventriloquist. Not much is known about Alex, whether through the book, or on the internet. He is a shadowy figure indeed, as I cannot find birth info, or anything substantial, besides a few career notes.
What is known is that Alex Houston wanted to be a ventriloquist since the age of five. In High Point, North Carolina he bought his ventriloquist dummy, Elmer, for $50 from a local sheriff. He got his first break on Jimmy Dean’s tv show in 1954, and was a regular there for five years. Later he moved to Nashville and worked as an opening act to country stars like Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Conway Twitty. Houston has released several records under the stage name “Alex Houston and Elmer”, ranging from country and holiday music to children’s and comedy records.

Anyhow, here’s the track from an ad below. Enjoy, and try not to get molested.

Burn Your Bra Baby (1.8 Mb @ 128Kbps)

-- July 22, 2012 --

Jesus Chlist Supelstal

The Japanese love that baby Jesus, and the older hippie-hipster one they can dance and sing about is just the tops to ‘em.
So much so, Keita Asari remade the 1971 musical by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jesus Christ Superstar.

Here are some samples:

The Last Supper (9.8 Mb mp3 @ 192 Kbps)

Pilate and Christ (3.5 Mb mp3 @ 192 Kbps)

Crucifixion (5.8 Mb mp3 @ 192 Kbps)

-- July 21, 2012 --

The Litanies of Synthpop

Ruth White, born in 1925, is an electronic music pioneer, especially due to her work on the Moog synthesizer. Though having several degrees from Pennsylvania universities, and being trained in piano, she taught herself to use synthesizers and electronic music equipment.
Her first two albums are quite popular with the neo-folk crowd, as they are somber compositions dealing with the occult.

In 1968, she released her first LP, 7 Trumps From The Tarot Cards (on Limelight Records). It contained an all-electronic score, and lyrics dealing with her impressions of the tarot. The following year, she released her most popular record, The Flowers of Evil (also on Limelight), which - again - was entirely composed and played electronically, though all the lyrics were taken from poems by the French Romantic Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867).
In the 1970s, she founded (with Paul Beaver) The Electronic Music Association. Mrs. White continued to release LPs, but none of her discs are as prized as her debut and sophomore releases, though 1971’s Short Circuits (on Angel Records), which was filled with electronic versions of classical compositions is still enjoyed by many. Her last album was Animals Are Wonderful, and was released by Tom Thumb Records in 1981.

Here are three tracks taken from her two best known releases:

The Magician

The Hanged Man

The Litanies of Satan

-- July 20, 2012 --

July 26th - 29th

I am honored to be presenting a gift to director John Waters, for his south Florida performance of This Filthy World, July 28th, 2012.
I’ll be down in FL all week, so look at these dates:
July 26th, 156 solo performance, free noisefest w/ Last, Drowning the Virgin Silence, Kenny Millions, Rat Bastard and many more @ Churchill’s Pub (Miami).
July 27th, A. Souto reading @ Laser Wolf for John Waters’ VIP pre-party (Ft. Lauderdale).
July 28th, presenting gift @ Parker Playhouse, This Filthy World (Ft. Lauderdale).
July 29th, 156 all-female, full-cast performance @ Cinema Paradisio’s Splatter-Rama! (Ft. Lauderdale), as well as presenting director Herschell Gordon Lewis with a “lifetime achievement” award.

-- July 19, 2012 --

Movie Posters From Around the Globe (Pt II)

Many thought the West African posters were rather neat, so I thought I’d post some from Thailand.

-- July 18, 2012 --

God Save the Art Scene

The link below is an audio-tour from a show held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 3 - Sept 4 of 2006 called, AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion. Your tour guide is none other than Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols aka John Lydon of Public Image Limited.

Audio Tour Guide (1.4 Mb mp3 @ 24Kbps)

In the commentary he reads the lyrics to The Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen”, explains the use of safety pins in fashion, quotes Shakespeare, rants on class war, and kisses the listener.

No future?
Maybe not for you, because he’s living pretty well.

-- July 17, 2012 --

Kaboom!

Iran… you’re crazy.

Well, at least your cartoonists are.
Or! Is this CIA created?
*cue detective movie soundtrack*

Iranian Suicide Bomber Children’s Cartoon

-- July 10, 2012 --

A Rockin’ Sacrifice

The UK band Black Widow began in 1966 as Pesky Gee! (releasing 1969’s Exclamation Mark), but after their female lead singer, Kay Garrett, left, they changed their name. The band continued their psychedelic hard rock sound, but added witchcraft and occult themes to their lyrics and imagery (after consulting the British “King of the Witches” Alex Sanders for advice), as well as to their stage theatrics, including holding black masses and mock sacrifices.
In 1970 they released their first album on CBS / Sony Music, Sacrifice, which reached #32 on the UK Albums Chart. In ‘72 they released their second, self-titled LP, followed by 1973’s Black Widow III, and recorded Black Widow IV in 1974 without a record contract, but it wasn’t released until 1997 (on Mystic Records).
While the band members went their separate ways in early 1975, they continue to be an inspiration to many Goth bands, as well as highly collectible to seekers of psychedelia.
In 2008, Mystic Records released the band’s only known filmed concert as the Demons of the Night Gather To See Black Widow - Live DVD.

Here are two tracks off their debut LP:

Come to the Sabbat

Sacrifice

-- July 5, 2012 --

I’m So Hooked

Because we all know: junkies love nothing more than comic books.

Hooked! was a comic book put out in 1966 by The National Institute of Mental Health, which was a branch of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
It was distributed from May to July at methadone clinics in New York City.
Read the whole thing here.

-- July 2, 2012 --

Exterminate (and Dance)!

Delia Derbyshire was born in 1937 in Coventry, England. She spent her late teens schooling in Cambridge’s Girton College, and received a degree in music and mathematics.

In 1959 she applied at Decca Records, was informed that they did not hire women to work in the recording studio, and then told she could get a job working at their front desk, or as a secretary. She gave them the finger, applied at the BBC, and later got a job as a studio manager in the Radiophonic Workshop.
Delia felt she had found a private paradise where she could flirt with her interests in music theory, and sound perception, using modes and tunings, as well as communicating moods using purely electronic sources.
Her first public work was a remix of Ron Grainer’s original Doctor Who theme, which soon became one of the most famous and recognizable TV theme songs ever. She also created, and helped create, many of the sound effects later used throughout the show’s history.
For the next several years she composed dozens of award winning scores, and theme songs, for British documentaries and TV shows.
She is known as “the unsung heroine of British electronic music” and credited as an influence by Aphex Twin, The Chemical Brothers and Pink Floyd.
The following link is an edited version of a track from a 1966 documentary on Tuareg tribesmen. The only non-electronic source on this recording is her voice, though she used a cut-up / re-edit style.

Delia Derbyshire "Blue Veils & Golden Sands [edit]" (4 Mb mp3 @ 160 Kbps)

Also, for fans of Dr. Who, this link is to a BBC website which has a “Dr. Who Theme Generator” which is a load of fun, and quite addictive. Try to hit the loops in the center first to create a backdrop, and then hit the sound effects in the outer-circle to create your own theme.
Have fun!

-- June 28, 2012 --

BP Was Bored With Boardgames

In the UK, over the past few months, David Harrison donated some toys and board games - all in mint condition - to a local museum.
Among the offerings was a quite obscure and hard-to-find boardgame called, BP Offshore Oil Strike.

Made by a Scottish company, Printabox Ltd, in collaboration with British Petroleum Company (BP) the boardgame was released in the early 1970s. Strangely, the play-money in the game is in dollars. There are playing cards marked “hazards”, “blow out!”, and “rig damaged”. Landing on “oil slick clean-up” will cost the player one million dollars.
The museum’s curator, Mr. Goldsmith said, “The picture on the front of the box is so reminiscent to the disaster, with the stormy seas, the oil rig, and an overall sense of doom. I was so knocked over by how relevant this game is, made some 35 years ago, to BP’s current crisis today.”
Goldsmith is also releasing a price guide on collectible board games, and will now be including this rare find in his first edition.

-- June 21, 2012 --

Getting No Answer

This cassette was for sale at Radio Shacks across America, and was made by their parent company, Tandy, in 1985.
On side one of the tape were corny answering machine messages in several, poorly played, musical genres, while the other side was just the music, so you could make your own terrible mistake.
Use the links below, and put ‘em on your cellphone. Perfect for hipster douchebags!

Side A (4.6 Mb @ 128Kbps)

Side B (4.1 Mb @ 128Kbps)

-- June 17, 2012 --

Broken Glass

Made a short film, for Father’s Day, using my appearance at Paul Lucas' Show and Tell series.

-- June 11, 2012 --

Music From the Other Side

In 1972, the piano-playing, spiritual medium Rosemary Brown recruited Peter Katin (another pianist) to release a record like no other.
They were to contact long dead composers, and play new pieces by them channeled through the recording duo.
The takes were released as A Musical Seance, on Interfaith Library Project, in 1974.

Here are a few tracks from that release:

Franz Liszt - Jesus at Prayer

Frédéric Chopin - Longing

-- June 7, 2012 --

A Pedo’s Favorite 12 Inches

This 12” LP is the bright idea of Nathan Leichman, PhD., and Stanley Z. Daniels, MD., and was a split release between Event Records, and Carapan Records, in 1972.
Sex Explained For Children is actually, a “volume one”, as there are two other wax discs out there, which complete a sex trilogy, Sex Explained For Teens, and Sex Explained For Adults.
The teen edition is quite understandable, the adult release is rather retarded, and this one is kinda creepy.

Side A (11 Mb @ 128Kbps)

Side B (10 Mb @ 128Kbps)

-- June 4, 2012 --

Posters For Movies You’ll Never See

These movies are 100% unavailable, and - as a trader of rarities - I can state that they are near-impossible to find.
We’re talking The Day the Clown Cried-type of rare.

Troika (1969)

Hu Man (1975)

The Strange Case of Captain Ramper (1928)

The Last Moment (1923)

King Kong Appears in Edo (1938)

-- June 1, 2012 --

Classic Adult Movie Posters (Part II)

Male Service (1966)

Come One Come, All! (1970)

Spread Eagles (1968)

Girls That Do (1967)

Casting Couch (1972)

-- May 30, 2012 --

I’m Just A Sweet Translator

Who would have thought that a shitty musical stage show about transvestites from space would lead to so much?
Written by Richard O’Brien and opening in London, June of 1973, it spawned a movie (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975) and a slew of countries staging their own performances, and releasing album after album; from the UK, the US and Germany to Iceland, Korea and Mexico.

This is the Norwegian version of “Sweet Transvestite” called “En Hip Transvestitt”. (2.1 Mb mp3 @ 96Kbps)

This is the Mexican version of “Sweet Transvestite” called “Dulce Travestista”. (2.3 Mb mp3 @ 96Kbps)

This last one is the Icelandic version of “Sweet Transvestite” called “Taumlaus Transi”. (2.4 Mb mp3 @ 96Kbps)

-- May 23, 2012 --

Sounding Like A Broken Record

As a fan of Christian Marclay, I thought I’d share with you some of his influences, such as the unbelievably-ahead-of-its-time LP by Milan Knízák, Broken Music.

Milan Knízák (1940 - ) is a Czechoslovakian artist, musician, theorist, and was an all around avant-garde thorn in the side of Eastern European Fascism and Communism, until its fall in the 1990s.
Knízák had organized Prauge’s first Fluxus concert, supposedly had a hand in helping VW with their engines, befriended and worked with such varied underground figures as Allen Ginsberg and Vienna Aktionist, Wolf Vostell, as well as being labeled “Enemy of the State” by his home country - all by age 30.
The LP I’m showcasing of in this post was recorded throughout the 70s, and released in 1979 by Berliner DAAD-Galerie for an exhibition titled “Broken Music”, which was shown in Berlin. It was released as a limited, one-sided, flexi-disc, held in an artful 278 pages book, written in English, French and German, featuring essays by the curators Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier, philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, audio and visual artists László Moholy-Nagy, Jean Dubuffet, Hans Rudolf Zeller and, of course, Milan.

Here are the alpha and omega of this magnum opus:

Composition No. 1 (17 Mb @ 128Kbps)

Composition No. 5 (13 Mb @ 128Kbps)

-- May 20, 2012 --

Purging My Daemons

In the Enochian system of magic, when you draw a sigil, you are communicating with a daemon, or “angelic spirit”.
Yesterday, for 12 hours, I guess I spoke with exactly 747 of them.

249 cards, each having a handwritten phrase on the reverse side. All of which will be left on NYC subway trains, throughout the month of June, before I leave on a July vacation to my hometown of Miami.
Speaking of which, I’ll be presenting director John Waters a work of mine, during his This Filthy World performance at Ft. Lauderdale, FL’s Parker Playhouse (July 28th).

-- May 18, 2012 --

They Like ‘em Young in the South

George Junius Stinney Jr., born in October of 1929.
In March of 1944, at the age of 14, he was arrested for the murders of two young girls, Betty June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thames (ages 11 and 8). He was tried, convicted and executed within three months.
Stinney is the youngest person ever executed in the 20th Century United States.

Thanks, South Carolina!

-- May 16, 2012 --

Caveman Porn

Researchers think they have come across the world’s oldest graphic image in a cave (pictured below), in the south of France, dating the piece to 35,000 BCE. The rock shelter is at a site called Abri Castanet, which is in the Vézère River valley.

New York University anthropologist Randall White believes, as do other teams of researchers, that it is of a female vulva.

-- May 14, 2012 --

Pure As Hell

I hung out with Peter Sotos this past week, so I thought I’d school those who aren’t in-the-know.
Peter Sotos (April 1960 - ) was born in Chicago, and while attending the Art Institute of Chicago began working on his first, and most infamous work, Pure Magazine. He was arrested while working on issue three, in 1984, as the magazine was viewed as child pornography. The charges were later dropped, but Sotos was still charged (and is the first American to ever be charged) with possession of child pornography.
In 1992 he was asked to join the power electronics outfit Whitehouse, and made the United Kingdom home from then until 2002, when he returned to Chicago.
Sotos has released several books (Total Abuse, Tick, Lazy, Proxy, etc), which have drawn him equal acclaim and hatred.

The link below is to a file which contains both issue one and two of Pure.

Pure 1 & 2 (13 Mb PDF)

-- May 11, 2012 --

When Pigs Fly

In one of the most hilarious 911 phone calls I have ever heard, Michigan police officer Colonel Edward Sanchez explains he has just eaten from a batch of brownies he had baked with his wife, which contained about a quarter ounce of weed.
He thinks he is dying, yet wants to know the score of a Red Wings game? Nice.
Prepare to laugh at a very stupid piggy…

“Send help, I think I’m dead." (842 Kb mp3 @ 24Kbps)

When the officer came down, he was allowed to quit the force without being charged, even though he admitted to obtaining the marijuana by stealing it from a suspect.

-- May 9, 2012 --

The Swinging Sounds of Saturn

My favorite planet is Saturn. Though I don’t believe in astrology, it could be its connection to death and destruction, or the celebration of the Saturnalia (December 17th - 23rd) for Dionysus (Bacchus).

So, when the Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave Receptor picked up sounds from Saturn, I was mystified.
In the first link, the CRPWR has picked up lightning inside of Saturn’s atmosphere. The lightning-related radio emissions cover a broad range of frequencies, and last only about one-thirtieth of a second. The CRPWR recorded a strong thunderstorm beginning on January 23, 2006, the radio emissions appear as speckles at random frequencies normally above 2 MHz.

Saturn’s lightning (220 Kb wav file)

Next, we find that Saturn itself is a source of intense radio emissions of electrostatic discharges, with rising and falling tones, very similar to Earth’s auroral radio emissions. The radio waves are closely related to the auroras near Saturn’s poles, and are similar to Earth’s northern and southern lights. The Cassini spacecraft began detecting the following radio emissions on April of 2002.

Saturn’s polar radio emissions (720 Kb wav file)

In this last file, we can hear another clip of the electrostatic discharges from the April 2002 recording, where we find a very complicated interaction between waves in Saturn’s radio source region, though it is an interaction which has also been observed on Earth.

Saturn’s polar radio emissions (130 Kb wav file)

-- May 7, 2012 --

A Picture Worth 1000 Winces

The photo above was taken on October 12th, 1960, only a second before Japanese Socialist Party leader Inejiro Asanuma was assassinated by 17-year-old, right wing student Otoya Yamaguchi, who plunged his wakizashi (a Japanese long knife) into Asanuma’s chest.

Photographer Yasushi Nagao received a Pulitzer prize for this photo, but later said that he was only in the right place, at the right time.

-- April 26, 2012 --

Today is the last day I can tell your fortune!

In 1999, I found a pack of Rider-Waite tarot cards. Still in their box, and as a complete set.
For the last 13 years those things have sat in a drawer, as I am not a fan of divination or (despite the title of this post) fortune telling.
Doing a bit of cleaning, and discarding, I decided to get rid of the pack, but why throw it out, or jokingly give it to a friend, whose drawer would get just as cluttered?
I decided to turn it into a (sort of) mini-project. I drew on the face of each card two sigils, which came to me only at that moment, as well as fitting my street name (Adel 156) somewhere within the picture.
On the back side, I wrote out a unique fortune-cookie-esque babble for each of the 78 plates, and three sigils (that were copied on all cards), which had come to me when I originally started the work, and, then, signed each.
Strangely enough, I have only 13 cards left, and will cease to read fortunes after April 26th, 2012 - tonight’s the last night!
The remaining cards will be left on the subway to either find a good home, or cause a minor panic.

If you haven’t gotten yours done yet, find me, quickly.

-- April 25, 2012 --

The Disposable Photo Series

The Disposable photo series is a new project I am collaborating on with several wonderful artists.
Fifteen disposable cameras, each containing a series of photographs.
The exterior of each camera is rendered to become an art object itself, making each piece several works of art at the same time.
Within just a few years the film will deteriorate, and the camera will revert to being a single art object, but within that time frame, the question arises as to how to save the photos without destroying the exterior artwork.

Series No. 1 (featuring artist Anthony Mangicapra)

Throwaways: 8 cameras / 25 photos each.
I photographed 200 of my “throwaway poems” scattered throughout NYC, 25 per camera.
Anthony Mangicapra is currently finishing up artistically rendering each camera.

-- April 23, 2012 --

Beat Me With Your Christian Stick

Circumcellions were a Berber Christian cult that hardly survived for less than two hundred years (300 - 450 CE) in north Africa. They were also called “agonistics” meaning “fighters for Christ”, though many would surely think it was because - in a sense - they loved agony.

This sect had regarded death through martyrdom as the highest virtue in Christianity.
Members would lie in wait, hiding in roadside shadows for travelers to pass, and then they would attack, screaming “Laudate Deum” (Latin for “praise god”).
Now, because Jesus had scolded Peter for his use of a sword, they carried only blunt instruments (which they called “Israelites”). It didn’t matter anyhow, as the attack wasn’t really meant to injure the traveler. They were usually more of a fright, so as for the passerby to defend themselves, and, in a seemingly ancient version of suicide-by-cop, the travelers were to kill the Circumcellion, sending the martyr straight to heaven.
After a while, they felt bad about the attacks, and would simply walk into courts in session, making a huge ruckus until the judge passed an extreme sentence of death for contempt of court.
Sadly, they died out in the 5th Century, and I say “sadly” because all the excitement of road travel fizzled once they were gone.

-- April 21, 2012 --

Just A Little Creepy

The body of first child to ever appear on the side of a milk carton may have just recently been found.

Etan Patz, went missing in 1979 (he was only 6 years old). His remains may have been found just several blocks from where he lived.

-- April 18, 2012 --

I’m Silly for Syphilis

Actually, I don’t want syphilis, but I would like these WWII posters against it.

-- April 16, 2012 --

Racism, South of the Border Style

In June of 2005, Mexico put out some stamps that got quite a few panties in the Unites States bunched up, including Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton’s undies.

The five-stamp series features Memín Pinguín, a character from a comic book Pepín created in 1940 by Alberto Cabrera, which later became Memín in 1943.
A spokesman for the Mexican Embassy described the depiction as a cultural image that has no meaning, and it was not intended to offend, but many Americans didn’t agree.

-- April 14, 2012 --

Bootleg DVDs aren’t just cheap… they’re often very funny too.

-- April 11, 2012 --

New Music Genre: Volcanocore

Volcanology researchers were growing bored of looking at numbers and graphs when charting volcanic activity, so they turned seismographic patterns into musical scores and then played them using a MIDI interpreter on a computer.
Here are two volcanoes whose activity you can compare “musically”:

MT. ETNA in Italy (1.3 Mb mp3 @ 192Kbps)

TUNGURAHUA in Ecuador (1.3 Mb mp3 @ 192Kbps)

The researcher responsible for this synthpunk weirdness is Domenico Vicinanza of Italy.

-- April 9, 2012 --

Staring At the Ground

Hey! I made another short film!

-- April 6, 2012 --

A Blind Draw

In the late 1950s, Harper’s Magazine asked a few comicstrip artists to draw their favorite characters. First, regularly, and then blindfolded.
Below are images from that issue’s experiment, including Chester Gould who did Dick Tracy, and Chic Young trying out his Dagwood (of Blondie).
The results aren’t just worth a giggle, they’re a bit interesting as well.

-- April 4, 2012 --

Where Even Fools Often Fear To Tread

I made a short film. My first!

-- April 2, 2012 --

WTF!?

To remind everyone: on March 1st, I ended a month-long observance, and to celebrate, I took a walk to a local gourmet doughnut place. I grabbed a busted camera, which I was to use up, and immediately throw out when returning home. To view that series of photos, click here.
After that morning, I thought about how I don’t take enough pictures with the cameras I do have, often using only the camera’s digital video capabilities.
I decided to take one series of digital photos every Saturday in March, each having to do with a walk through my neighborhood.
From my place in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, every Saturday in March of 2012, I took a circular, 30-minute walk, and snapped a few pics, making each one a series of pics.
Forgetting this March had five weekends, I skipped going out on the fifth one, and instead collected all the WTF photos from this past month’s walks.
Of the 30+ photos, these are the best of the batch.

-- April 1, 2012 --

April Fools, Indeed

In what is probably the world’s ballsiest prank, Porky Bickar decided it would be a laugh-riot if, on April Fool’s Day, 1974, he made the town of Sitka, Alaska think they were all going to be killed by dormant volcano, Mount Edgecumbe.

(actual photo of event)

In what seems like something that could happen only in Alaska, he got an okay from the FAA, and local police, went up to the mountain, then lit tires and rags on fire to produce smoke. With logs he had written “April Fools”, but, as someone named Porky would be prone to do, did not realize the logs could not be read from the distance of the town, so mass panic ensued.
You know… sometimes the fool is the prankster, not the other way around.

-- March 30, 2012 --

The World’s First Photographic Images

In 1826, Joseph Niépce set up a camera obscura pointing out his second floor window, and produced a one-of-a-kind photograph on pewter.

In 1837, this technique of dauerreotyping was developed by French chemist Louis Daguerre, in collaboration with Joseph Niépce.

In 1839, Robert Cornelius, a Dutch chemist, took a daguerreotype of himself, and made the world’s first human portrait.

-- March 28, 2012 --

The Day the Clown Cried

It was Jerry Lewis’ forty-first film, and it turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes in cinematic history. Unreleased, and said by the few who’ve seen it to be totally unwatchable, The Day the Clown Cried (1972) is a film about an unhappy German circus clown, Helmut Doork, who is sent to a concentration camp for drunkenly acting like Hitler, and is then forced to become a sort of Pied-Piper, entertaining Jewish children as he leads them to the gas chambers.
It was supposed to be Jerry Lewis’ first serious role as both an actor and a director, though he was skeptical when he first read the script, though not necessarily about the material itself. He later quoted himself when speaking on being asked to play the part, “You’re asking me if I’m prepared to deliver helpless kids into a gas chamber. Ho-ho. Some laugh - how do I pull it off? What a horror … It must be told.”
The script had actually been written in 1961 by Joan O’Brien and Charles Denton, and it attracted the attention of Milton Berle, Dick Van Dyke, and Bobby Darin - any one of whom would have been able to play the title role, but it was around Lewis that the financing for filming coalesced.
Upon filming the shooting went to hell, backers fled, Jerry finished it with his own money, and then it turned out that no one bought the rights to the story from O’Brien and Denton. Only a rough-cut of it was finished, and it was placed on a single videotape of which only Jerry Lewis has a copy of. He reportedly keeps it in his office, protected from bootleggers in an unmarked briefcase. Over the years, he had screened it - or pieces of it - for a number of colleagues and only one journalist.
If you have time on your hands, and want to read the final script (written by Joan O’Brien, Charles Denton, with added material from Jerry Lewis), click here.

-- March 26, 2012 --

Total Garbage

From my place in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, on March 24th, 2012, I took a fourth, circular, 30-minute walk, and snapped a few pics of what my neighborhood has the most of: garbage.
Of the 50+ photos, these are the best of the batch, and sadly, I hardly left my block to take ‘em.

-- March 23, 2012 --

Everybody… Shut Up!

In Persia’s Zoroastrian religion, decaying matter - such as your rotting corpse - is seen as the most corrupt substance on Earth. So what’s a poor Zoroastrian to do with his dead mum’s body?
If he buries it in the ground it will infect everything that grows, and possibly the water.
A funeral pyre? Fire is seen as most sacred, so that’s out.
Well, then, why not section off a parcel of land, build a tower, and place all the bodies at the top so the vultures can dispose of them?

That’s just what the Zoroastrians have been doing for a thousand years, or more.

They are known as the Towers of Silence.

-- March 22, 2012 --

Movie Posters From Around the Globe (Pt I)

In Ghana, as well as some other African countries, movie theaters usually play bootleg copies of a film because they cannot afford the rights to play such fair.
If they can’t afford to pay a distribution company for a movie, how do you think they’ll promote the playing of a film, seeing as they can’t ask for movie posters for a movie they didn’t order, right?
Enter, the African movie poster bootleg trade:

More often than not, the movie posters are a hell of a lot cooler than the actual movies being played.

-- March 19, 2012 --

I’m Seeing A Pattern Here

From my place in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, on March 17th, 2012, I took a third, circular, 30-minute walk, and snapped a few pics of all the odd patterns I found (natural and man-made).
Of the 30+ photos, these are the best of the batch.

-- March 17, 2012 --

Germans Really Know How To Mess With People

In what is commonly seen as the first known use of modern psychological warfare, the German Lt. Von Hidessen dropped thousands of French leaflets over Paris in 1914.

The translated leaflet reads:
“The GERMAN army is at the Gates of PARIS: the only option now is to surrender. - Lieutenant VON HIDESSEN”

-- March 15, 2012 --

Let’s All Commit Hara Kiri

Hara Kiri: Journal Bête et Méchant (Hara Kiri: Stupid and Evil Magazine) was a satiric periodical founded by Georges Bernier, along with Cavanna and Fred Aristidès in 1960. An attempt by the French government to ban it occurred in 1961 and 1966, only to have it officially banned in 1970 (by the minister of the interior Raymond Marcellin) after a cover blurb about the death of general Charles de Gaulle.
Here are a few covers from that excellent rag…

-- March 12, 2012 --

Thee Black Lodge

From my place in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, on March 10th, 2012, I took a second, circular, 30-minute walk, and snapped a few pics of every African-American place of worship I came across.
Of the 20+ photos, these are the best of the batch.

See them all here.

-- March 8, 2012 --

Two For One

I wrote a short piece for the Manhattan modern dance troupe, New Dance Alliance, but they decided not to use the text, so I’m sharing it here.
It’s close to my own style of writing, they just asked that I keep Mark Twain in mind. The subject matter, on the other hand, isn’t what I’d normally write about. That’s what they asked for.
How am I going to grow if I don’t try something new, right?
Enjoy the read.

A Toast to the Waters of the Mississippi

Ice, surging heavy from purple mountains, majestic northlands run south into the heat.
Droplets, blessed of once belonging to the Great Lakes, carry themselves to warmer climates.
Signaled by the shifting of the new Spring sun, drips trickle their way east, as if a herd, migrating from the range of the Rocky Mountains, to the low grasslands through an intricate network you carved millennia ago.
Closer to the temples of Memphis, orange clay mixture runs thick like blood, where the ships, as iron-rich cells, rush back and forth, carrying food from the folk of the land, to the people spread throughout that land.
Here, you often flood in a soupy amalgam of life-giving waters, and mankind’s ignorance to the forces of nature. What was once harmless water, barrels down roads, wiping out houses, or - as they call them in those parts - homes.
The waters will soon subside, when the subtropics give way to much of it returning back skyward, and one can, literally, when standing on your shores, dear river, breath you in.
Now, the salty Gulf awaits you, and gorges upon the freshwater silts of the delta.
Soon, merging with your mother until we see you, cyclically, and innocently - again - as ice.

I’d also thought I’d post the 13 “throwaway poems” I read for the collaborative Brooklyn show with outsider jazz assassin Kenny Millions, back in Sept of 2011.

The collab was available as a cassette reel release, limited to 12 copies.

-- March 6, 2012 --

All Hail Emperor Norton!

Joshua Abraham Norton (1819 - 1880), was a London-born businessman, who in 1849 moved to San Francisco, CA, and soon lost his fortune investing in Peruvian rice. This setback severely damaged Norton’s mental capacity and he soon lost his mind. Upon returning to San Francisco in 1859, from what he termed an “exile” (though self-imposed), he sent letters to every newspaper he could, proclaiming himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States”. He would later add the title, “Protector of Mexico”.

Whether it was due to his good nature or public pity, the locals humored him. He sent proclamations to the local paper (which they would print), and could often be seen inspecting the streets of San Francisco in his blue and gold uniform. He was so loved that he was fed, gratis, at most restaurants, printed his own money, which was accepted in all local stores, and in 1867, when arrested so as to commit him to a mental asylum, the public protested and held rallies for his release - even having newspapers run pro-Norton pieces. Upon his release he granted the arresting officer a pardon, and, from that moment on, all city police officers saluted him.
On January 8, 1880, Norton collapsed and died on his way to a lecture. Upon his death the San Francisco Chronicle published a long and somber obituary on the front page, with the headline “Le Roi est Mort” (“The King is Dead”).
Today, most everyone is unfamiliar with Emperor Norton, though many see his face often, as it is used by Wells Fargo in their logo.

These are images of his royal bank notes (strangely enough, collected by, and housed in the Wells Fargo History Museum).

A $10 note:

A $5 note:

A 50¢ note:

-- March 5, 2012 --

The Burn-Outs of Bed-Stuy

On March 1st, I ended a month-long observance, and to celebrate, I took a walk to a local gourmet doughnut place. I took along a busted camera, which I was to use up, and immediately throw out when returning home. To view that series of photos, click here.
After that morning, I thought about how I don’t take enough pictures with the cameras I do have, often using only the camera’s digital video capabilities.
I decided to take one series of digital photos every Saturday in March, each having to do with a walk through my neighborhood.
From my place in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, on March 3rd, 2012, I took the first, circular, 30-minute walk, and snapped a few pics of every burn-out, or abandoned building I came across.
Of the 30+ photos, these are the best of the batch.

See them all here.

-- March 2, 2012 --

Holy Buddhist Hoaxsters

You think the Christian church was the only one who pulled scams on their parishioners?
There are enough “pieces of the cross” out there to make a cross several times over (unless Jesus was a giant). Quite a few Churches contain the bones of saints, but some have doubles (such as the four churches who claim to have the original skull of John the Baptist). There is actually so much of Christ’s foreskin out there, one could make a duffle bag.
Well, no one religion can lay claim to being the only ones into pulling the sacred wool over people’s eyes so as to help build faith.
In Japan there are Buddhist temples that hold mummified remains of supposed demons (or oni). The pictures below are mostly from the Zuiryuji, Zengyoji, and Rakanji Temples.
Don’t be scared.
There are no monsters.

-- March 1, 2012 --

29 Days Later

I’ve just finished a month-long, self-denial of sugar, smoking, and only eating what fits into the palm of my hand, topped off with a 36-hour food and liquid fast.
During this year’s observance, I wrote of my February experiences in the, limited to 20, and now-soldout, half-sized zine, 29 Days Later.
To celebrate March’s entry, I strolled to the local doughnut shop, and chowed down.
Along the brisk, half-mile walk, on a rainy, 35 degree morning, I took 8 photographs with a broken camera, which I threw away upon arriving home.
I aimed the camera, through trees, at the sun behind the clouds. My results almost make me want to keep the busted thing, though it may just be my love for all things unfixable.
I know they’re no big deal, but I secretly hope either of the first two end up as the cover of a Burzum live bootleg.

-- February 28, 2013 --

A Fissionist’s Dada Poem

I walked into an incense shop in Bed-Stuy, on Nostrand, near Fulton, and gave the chap $2 for two different types of sandalwood sticks, both imported from India. Each had elephants on the box, and that was a good enough sign for me, though who knew what my nose would tell me later.
Upon opening the hexagonal-shaped cardstock exterior, I found a tube of paper rolled within, which supported the flimsy outer container, as much as it protected the incense inside.
A darling of mine noticed it was fastened together using a page from an old textbook, where someone in India was studying nuclear fission. Much of the words were underlined, as your average collegiate tends to do.
I took it as the Universe telling me to use it in some sense, and thinking upon my earlier experiment with Tzara’s Dadaist poem technique, I asked her to pick a number between one and ten.
She chose six, so here is the nuclear student’s Dada poem, comprised of every sixth underlined word.

A absorption approximately is fission.
Defect according ?m on¹ KR?² Nuclear.
Nuclei nucleus amount called require these tracer,
or of and fields the radio-active hence.

Well, we can’t always spin gold.
I hope that this experiment, if anything, gave a little good will to that student’s progress, or, if they’re a terrorist building a bomb, a psychic slap hard enough to have the bomb go off in his lap.
The incense does make my apartment smell pretty good, so win / win.

-- February 27, 2012 --

Some Classic Adult Movie Posters

Hot Lunch (1978)

The Marriage Manual (1970)

Debbie Does Dallas (1978)

The Erotic Adventures of Zorro (1972)

Bang Bang (1967)

-- February 26, 2012 --

Always Check, Then Re-Check Your Work

In a Party City advertising flier circulated to thousands of North Texas residents, a message above the word Hanukkah read: “C.C. hates the Jews.”
The flier was to announce items the Party City store was selling for the Jewish holiday.

The advertising company, ADVO, which produced the ad, says a graphic artist at their Pittsburgh shop left his desk, and a coworker altered the words as a prank, thinking it would be caught before going to print.

-- February 22, 2012 --

The Case Against Abstract Art

[NOTE I] If you think I wrote this because I am jealous that I could not get tickets to any of the Kraftwerk shows at MoMA, you are dead wrong, as this piece was written in 2007, and can be found in my book, Some Words: The Best of Feast of Hate and Fear Fanzine.

[NOTE II] If you think I am currently re-posting this because I am jealous that I could not get tickets to any of the Kraftwerk shows a MoMA, you’re so very right.

THE CASE AGAINST ABSTRACT ART

For many it’s hard to understand, much less fathom, that we are being manipulated at every turn. Only a few know how public schools are set up to help establish the “bright young minds” of the future. Less know about television and the internet’s metabolism-lowering and Alpha wave-blocking attributes (as the obese make for better consumers). Even less know of the C.I.A.’s hand in establishing Top 40 Radio, as well as early Rock ‘N’ Roll, but almost no one knows about the shadowy hand of the government and their artistic brush strokes.
Art, like all other forms of media, is a tool useful in control. It inspires and elevates the nature of being human, but it can also anger and confuse.
For millennia, artists have had a special place in society. Those who patron the arts had an equal, if not higher, societal standing, and rightfully so, as they are usually the rich and those in power.
Artists, being held in such esteem, usually had control over the placement of their work in the market, as well as their own economic interests, sometimes making an artist equal to a politician or even nobility. That is, until the end of the Industrial Revolution as bohemian mythology set a standard where artists refused to see their works as commodity, while rejecting the values of everyday society, and so was born “the starving artist”. Soon after, we had the rise of U.S. museum culture and the gallery system, placing control of the arts back in the hands of the rich and powerful, which are often members of industry and the government.
With the rise of the European art school known as Symbolism, as well as the Surrealist movement, also came a rise in Socialist thinking, and our government feared that when this found its way into the States, it would spread like wildfire in the underground.
It was a lucky strike for the Capitalist system when the Stalinist regime, following National Socialist ideals, brought about its artistic code of “Socialist realism”, thus banning abstract and surreal modes of art. This did well for a new developing school of art from the U.S. called Abstract Expressionism, and, in turn, that school of art did well for the U.S. government.
Abstract Expressionism is actually several styles within one school, and range from “action painting” (the splatter and throwing of paint onto a canvas), “hard edge” (many straight lines on a canvas), and “color field” (simply one or two colors spread on a canvas). Artists of this school include Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still. To many AE seemed to have taken the childish look of Abstract art and made it even more child-like, with its lack of image identity and wild emotional impression - the total opposite of “Socialist realism”.
To understand how this art was used as a tool to help the spread of Capitalism, I’ll have to go into a brief history of The Museum of Modern Art (known as MOMA). MOMA was founded in 1929 by one of conspiracy theorists’ favorite families, the Rockefellers. Just before 1940, Nelson Rockefeller took the helm, though soon leaving to become a cabinet member in President Roosevelt’s Office of Inter-American Affairs, and later returning in ‘46.
Since WWII all policies of the war against Communism, as well as almost every Secretary of State has been shaped and educated by the Rockefellers. This also includes John Hay Whitney, who was MOMA’s Board of Trustees’ Chairman in the early 40s and was quoted as saying, “The Museum can educate, inspire, and strengthen the hearts and wills of free men in defense of their own freedom.” While it does sound a bit like propaganda, it’ll sound more so after you hear that before his boardship, John worked for the Offices of Strategic Services (who later made a name change to Central Intelligence Agency). MOMA then became, though minor, an actual war contractor, with a near-40 contracts for the Office of War Information, as well as the Library of Congress. The contracts were to ship art exhibits to Asian and Latin American countries on the brink of turning Communist, all under the direction of Porter McCray, who was working for the government’s Office of Inter-American Affairs.
MOMA also had a hand in the Mexican muralist art movement, who were anti-Nationalists, coincidentally, one would think, at the same time Mexico was attempting a nationalizing of their oil fields, which threatened a large portion of Rockefeller’s oil business.
MOMA’s executive secretary from 1948 to ‘49 was Thomas W. Braden, who left the chair only to join the C.I.A., and staying there until 1954. Braden is best known, not for his art world connections, but for his 1967 article in The Saturday Evening Post, titled “I’m Glad the CIA is ‘Immoral’”. In that article Braden admitted that the Central Intelligence Agency gave money and political backing to a large number of cultural programs, not to mention founding the National Student Association (a confederacy of university student governments), and even Encounter Magazine (a literary arts publication).
After the Cold War the traveling art exhibit, as well as literature and art publications, became a mechanism to show fledgling countries or newfound governments and their people how rigid culture had become in Socialist regimes, and how stiff and inflexible artistic expression was in Communist controlled areas.
Now do you see where modern art becomes a tool of the Democracy and Capitalist systems?
The Museum of Modern Art and the Abstract Expressionist movement, whether it was known by the artists themselves, were used to sell a vision of America as being in the avant-garde, opposed to European Socialist and Russian Communist competitors. It was all a well-marketed show for the world to see how life, and art, is benefited under a Capitalist and Democratic society.
It’s better than blood splatter, I guess, though that would look pretty cool on a canvas.

-- February 21, 2012 --

The N-Word

I used to love that word, and I couldn’t help it.
There was a period in my life where I used it all the time, until it was taken over - re-appropriated, if you will.
It was perfect, however, as it described something I felt in the pit of my very soul.
The n-word was descriptive of many things. It brought to mind exactly what the speaker was trying to convey. It was most commonly a noun, but later found its use as an adjective, as well as a verb. There are very few words which could bring to mind all that simple word once did, but the people responsible for its re-appropriation really made life difficult for me, and you have to understand why.
First off, they did not come from the same soil as did I. They are foreign to me, and, hence, are different; culturally and socially. I’m not xenophobic, but one must realize the differences in societal norms nearly an ocean apart.
The second reason for my dislike of these folks, which many would agree with, possibly finding it more important than my previous sociological reasoning, is their hygiene. They are usually unkempt, dress poorly in ill-fitting clothes, and worst of all, are unwashed, usually stinking up the place.
My last point - and due to my love of music in general being my most pressing issue - is the way they ruined music. These people have taken what is most dear to me, and stripped it of anything exciting. They have, literally, dumbed it down for the masses, and tweaked it to the point where it has lost its soul.
For those three reasons alone, I hate them, and all that they created, with true burning passion. I call for death to their scene, their fashion sense, forms of speech, mannerisms and everything else they helped begin.
With that I say, fuck Nirvana. They weren’t that good of a band anyway.
Wait! What did you think I was talking about, you racist?

-- February 19, 2012 --

Some Piggy for Your Sausage

Ladies and gents, I present… the world’s oldest (known) condom!

This is a pic of a reusable condom which dates to 1640, and came with a users’ manual, written in Latin. The manual suggests that users immerse the condom in warm milk prior to its use to avoid diseases. In case you’re wondering, it is made of pig intestine.

-- February 13, 2012 --

New Meaning to the Term “Transparent Music”

In the 1950s, many underground Russian nightclubs couldn’t get a hold of actual black market vinyl to spin for their dance floors, so they had to make due.
A group of DJs would gather enough dough, and buy a single record, which they would then record, and repress on a wax-disc cutter. The vinyl used for these presses being hard to get a hold of, as well as expensive, they - again - had to make due.
What many a disc jockey used were old X-rays films. Easily obtained from medical trash, or sometimes stolen from doctor’s labs, where they were actually pretty abundant at the time.
This technique then spread to Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and even Poland.
It also shows the enterprising technical skills of the young lads who just want to dance.

-- Feburary 10, 2012 --

Max Neuhaus’ 1974 Radio Experiment

In 1974 avant-garde composer Max Neuhaus was working the night shift on National Public Radio.
In a flash of brilliance, he decided to run a few of the phone lines in sync.
Now, back then each station affiliate individually received the signal from the main broadcast headquarters stationed in New York City via NPR’s Round Robin Network.
Neuhaus hooked up an extra signal to one station, and asked that station to hook up a signal to another, and then that station to another, and on to another. Lastly, the signal was sent to a station in Chicago, which broadcast the signal back through the previous three stations, and onto the NYC headquarters.
He then requested callers to call in, and whistle.
The following link is an edit of the one-hour sound experiment he broadcast, titled “Radio Net" [3 Mb mp3 @ 128Kbps].

-- Feburary 5, 2012 --

Dada Poems

An original, unique piece was finished in November 2011, titled Dada Poems, on an experiment I did with the Dada poetry technique.

The work contains a six page article on an experience toying with Tzara’s Dada poem technique, as well as the ten original poems from the experiment, and includes a forward by Dr. Vanessa Sinclair, plus a poem by her on paper crated by artist Anthony Mangicapra - all encased in two plies of wood, screwed shut.

-- February 4, 2012 --

Disney Sucks, But So Does New Balance

Many thought that if Ian Curtis (July 1956 - May 1980) of Joy Division hadn’t already killed himself, he would surely had wanted to after Disney’s t-shirt, but these uglies came out years before that.

-- January 31, 2012 --

Pointy Hats vs Pointy Noses

In 1926, this article appeared in The Washington Post…

The two baseball teams, The Hebrew All-Stars and The Klansmen faced off in Arlington, Virgina.
Must have been a fun game.
I wonder who won?

-- January 29, 2012 --

Toilet Training Yr Cat

In 1964, virtuoso jazz bassist (and pianist) Charles Mingus wrote a pamphlet on toilet training your kitty.

1
First, you must train your cat to use a homemade cardboard litter box, if you have not already done so. (If your box does not have a one-piece bottom, add a cardboard that fits inside, so you have a false bottom that is smooth and strong. This way the box will not become soggy and fall out at the bottom. The grocery store will have extra flat cardboards which you can cut down to fit exactly inside your box.)
Be sure to use torn up newspaper, not kitty litter. Stop using kitty litter. (When the time comes you cannot put sand in a toilet.)
Once your cat is trained to use a cardboard box, start moving the box around the room, towards the bathroom. If the box is in a corner, move it a few feet from the corner, but not very noticeably. If you move it too far, he may go to the bathroom in the original corner. Do it gradually. You’ve got to get him thinking. Then he will gradually follow the box as you move it to the bathroom. (Important: if you already have it there, move it out of the bathroom, around, and then back. He has to learn to follow it. If it is too close to the toilet, to begin with, he will not follow it up onto the toilet seat when you move it there.) A cat will look for his box. He smells it.

2
Now, as you move the box, also start cutting the brim of the box down, so the sides get lower. Do this gradually.
Finally, you reach the bathroom and, eventually, the toilet itself. Then, one day, prepare to put the box on top of the toilet. At each corner of the box, cut a little slash. You can run string around the box, through these slashes, and tie the box down to the toilet so it will not fall off. Your cat will see it there and jump up to the box, which is now sitting on top of the toilet (with the sides cut down to only an inch or so.)
Don’t bug the cat now, don’t rush him, because you might throw him off. Just let him relax and go there for awhile-maybe a week or two. Meanwhile, put less and less newspaper inside the box.

3
One day, cut a small hole in the very center of his box, less than an apple-about the size of a plum-and leave some paper in the box around the hole. Right away he will start aiming for the hole and possibly even try to make it bigger. Leave the paper for awhile to absorb the waste. When he jumps up he will not be afraid of the hole because he expects it. At this point you will realize that you have won. The most difficult part is over.
From now on, it is just a matter of time. In fact, once when I was cleaning the box and had removed it from the toilet, my cat jumped up anyway and almost fell in. To avoid this, have a temporary flat cardboard ready with a little hole, and slide it under the toilet lid so he can use it while you are cleaning, in case he wants to come and go, and so he will not fall in and be scared off completely. You might add some newspaper up there too, while you are cleaning, in case your cat is not as smart as Nightlife was.

4
Now cut the box down completely until there is no brim left. Put the flat cardboard, which is left, under the lid of the toilet seat, and pray. Leave a little newspaper, still. He will rake it into the hole anyway, after he goes to the bathroom. Eventually, you can simply get rid of the cardboard altogether. You will see when he has got his balance properly.
Don’t be surprised if you hear the toilet flush in the middle of the night. A cat can learn how to do it, spurred on by his instinct to cover up. His main thing is to cover up. If he hits the flush knob accidentally and sees that it cleans the bowl inside, he may remember and do it intentionally.
Also, be sure to turn the toilet paper roll around so that it won’t roll down easily if the cat paws it. The cat is apt to roll it into the toilet, again with the intention of covering up- the way he would if there were still kitty litter.
It took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, Nightlife. Most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom. Do it very slowly and don’t confuse him. And, remember, once the box is on the toilet, leave it a week or even two. The main thing to remember is not to rush or confuse him.

Good luck.

(signed) Charles Mingus

-- January 22, 2012 --

Dying For Attention

The anonymity of the web has helped many a perv get their rocks off, but some of these freaks take it to levels that even a sociopathic loose nut, such as me, hadn’t even dreamed of.
I was always aware that there were many of us who use death to our advantage, though, while using your aunt’s passing to skip out on work isn’t the best proof of one’s standing in the upper echelons of moral class, not many of us has made up the death of a totally imaginary person to win a battle in a never-evolving war on how things are, and always will be.
Now, I’m not sure when, or why, this trend started, but my case begins when one looks up the words “suicide notes” on YouTube, and is suddenly provided with an ever-growing list of weirdos.
Of course, nothing says “real”, like having that word in parenthesis after a headline, so the viewer immediately knows their leg is not being pulled.
But, sadly, the hints at falsehood start dropping fast… the cool names, the unbelievably sad music, not to mention the calls to fight bullying, cold-hearted parenting, child molestation and goth make up.
This note-gone-booklet was written by Raven, LaceandStripes’ sister.

Their biggest mistake is not realizing that a suicide note past three sentences is one of the rarest items on earth, yet page after page of yelling at mom and dad scrolls up the screen.
Some make it worse when they use a full name, not knowing that anyone can look up newspaper articles, police suicide reports, and other outlets to fill you in on whether they are pro or con.
Hence, Sebastian Surrey’s epic tome.

So, you see, there are a lot of folks out there that will do things that normals (or even a few leftfielders) would scratch their heads over, especially when they step back, and take a look at all the facts.
Well, one fact is simple, and undeniable: as an animal it is near impossible to willfully ignore an evolutionary-biological command, such as eat, drink, sleep, fuck, fight, run. Let alone, be instructed / convinced to do so, when you are in disagreement. Along with those, come some nasty things anarchists would rather have us forget, such as social hierarchy. It’s even more so difficult to take control of things we hardly know how to express, like depression.
So, please, don’t try to fool me with your definitely not-dead daughter’s ten-page letter on how daddy stuck a finger up her butt, or your supposed-sister’s four-minute whining session on the brutality of the head cheerleader’s choice words.

I’m not sure what the next sick trend basement-dwellers will come up with next, but I’m sure it’ll be almost as entertaining.
The best part about it is that it’ll definitely be on YouTube for the world to see.

-- January 15, 2012 --

Schizotypal

Feast of Hate and Fear has published my new book - now available - of two different writing experiments, and one performance piece / ritual of automatic drawing.

Schizotypal is limited to 93 copies: signed, numbered and containing a unique sigil. Only $23, postage paid.
FHF will also be releasing another limited edition book in 2012 - title to be announced - on my October 2010 experiences during a vow of silence.
Head to FHF’s merch page for more info.

-- December 11, 2011 --

Some Words With You

SOME WORDS is now SOLD OUT!
SOME WORDS: The Best of Feast of Hate and Fear Fanzine (ISBN: 978-0557415069) is sold out.
It will be repressed, reedited, and with all new material - in another edition of 1000 copies - sometime in the near future.

You may still be able to pick up a copy of the original at Amazon, but note that they will NOT be signed.
There are also a few copies at Radio-Active Records in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

-- November 17, 2011 --

FHF’s Freaky and Forgotten Free Film Festival

I'm screening eight crazy flicks, and doubt you've seen even one, so do stop by!
Four Saturdays, four double-features, for free!
@ Don Pedro, 90 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn / 4 - 8pm

Nov 19th @ 4pm: A Bootyload of Blaxploitation
Alabama’s Ghost (1973) A janitor discovers a secret room, to become “Alabama, King of the Cosmos,” as a Nazi scientist builds a robot version of him, and the fight to win the souls of mankind is on!
Darktown Strutters (1975) The craziest, and most surreal of the Blaxploitation genre! A true gem, about a gang of wild biker chicks out to investigate the local BBQ rib joint’s possible kidnapping and brainwashing of neighborhood folks.

Nov 26th @ 4pm: Original, But Shelved Superheroes
Captain America (1992) The original, and terrible, version of the Captain America movie! Remember to watch out when Captain America throws his mighty shoddy acting.
Fantastic 4 (1994) Originally shot by Roger Corman, this film was shelved - and never released - so they could bring you the new version that’s almost as bad. A true superhero stinker!

Dec 3rd @ 4pm: New York City No Wave Theater
The Long Island Four (1980) Anders Grafstrom’s no wave classic about four Nazis infiltrating the 1940s NYC scene. Featuring Klaus Nomi, Lance Loud, and Gedde Watanabe (aka Long Duck Dong).
Rome ‘78 (1978) James Nares‘ “lost” no wave masterpiece about Rome and its decadence. Filmed entirely in NYC, and starring Lydia Lunch, James Chance, and John Lurie.

Dec 10th @ 4pm: Must See Insanity!
World’s Greatest Sinner (1962) Quite possibly the world’s best Christian film, and certainly the first punk movie ever! A bored insurance salesman quits his job to become the world’s greatest rock star, “God”.
Blood Freak (1973) Drifter eats tainted turkey meat after smoking grass, only to become a turkey-headed monster who feeds on the blood of junkies! It’s horribly hilarious, and hilariously horrible.

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