New Year's Resolution

My New Year's Resolution for 2009 is to grow stones like Illinois Gov. Blagojevich. In pure shit-stirring defiance, he selected former state Attorney General Roland W. Burris to take the Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama. Blago has the kind of balls I think most guys would be happy to have. Crazy dangling over sexed balls that may land him in prison but then again could get the man re-elected Governor. What a masterful political stroke to name a beyond approach african-american politician and dare anyone and everyone to challenge his selection. Daringly shrewd and fucking funny. Politics is the true stuff of pipe dreams.

Previously on the Mule - Blagojevich is Walking on Sunshine No More

I'm All Lost In This SuperMarket

The Washington Post's coverage of how the mad scientists of Wall Street brought world financial financial markets to the brink of collapse is a real humdinger. It's a tale of a little guy, in this case a gal, with the unlikely name of Brooksley E. Born, telling Wall Street legends Alan Greenspan, the then Federal Reserve Chairman, Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. that derivative swaps where a dark market shell game poising an enormous danger to the world's financial system. The fellas however had made too much money playing unregulated to be swayed by her "sky is gonna fall" exhortations. So they merely hung fire and banked.

The section of the story surrounding the devise and implementation of AIG's "Beautiful Machine," the very system which tindered the whole meltdown, makes for a particularly compelling read even for those of us who didn't attend the Wharton School of Business. In short, their craftily created credit default swaps are to three-card monte what Bernard Madoff is to me losing a 2.95 service charge to the ATM. Magnitudinaly different short cons.

Read More...

Tips On How To Enjoy The Upcoming Depression

This seriocomic comic book guide by Gabe Soria on getting the most out of the onset of the new lean times in the good ol' US of A was for the new issue of Arthur magazine. Ironically, Arthur is getting kicked in the butt by the economic downturn and the new issue is (hopefully) temporarily only available online instead of in your local coffee joint/record store. Illustrated by the great Joseph Remnant, the comic is a one-page assemblage of advice and nonsense suitable for printing, framing and posting on telephone poles and wheatpasting on boarded-up buildings everywhere.



Please support Arthur because it's a great mag and with all the cheap drinking he's devised, Gabe is gonna to have a lot of library fines.

The Rivalry: No Holds Barred

College football recruitment is one of America's shadiest businesses. In particular, the competition for prized athletes between the programs at Oklahoma and Texas spurs a rivalry matched only in ferocity by the arabs and the jews. Mascot affiliated hucksters from these two institutions have pulled more fast ones on each other than Charlie Ponzi and Bernie Madoff. This rivalry is a "no holds barred" event.

So when Jamarkus McFarland, considered the best defensive tackle to hail from Texas in more than a decade, agreed to let let the NYTs follow him through the recruiting process. We knew there would be dirt. The legions of shadowy boosters from both schools make the scheming of the KGB look civilized.

McFarland's experience at a party thrown by Texas after this years OU-Texas game is easily the sexiest part of the story.

"I will never forget the excitement amongst all participants,” McFarland wrote. “Alcohol was all you can drink, money was not an option. Girls were acting wild by taking off their tops, and pulling down their pants. Girls were also romancing each other. Some guys loved every minute of the freakiness some girls demonstrated. I have never attended a party of this magnitude ... The attitude of the people at the party was that everyone should drink or not come to the party. Drugs were prevalent with no price attached."

Conversly, a sorority party he attended at Oklahoma was much more low key and specifically there was very little "romancing."
Seems an easy decision, no? If you are curious, get your booster on freak with the New York Times and find out which school McFarland chose. It's quite a romantic tale.

Everything's Bigger in Texas

Twas The Night Before...

The Dodos of TV

Extinction-Level Television Event

I’m a runt of Generation X, which means 1) I’m supposed to define myself entirely through ironic references to pop culture, and 2) as a member of the last generation to come of age in an era of only three TV networks, I assume everyone will understand when I drop a quote from “Scooby-Doo” or “The A-Team.” But the generation immediately after mine has never known life without cable, and the generation after that won’t know a life without streaming video.

Having only three TV channels to watch must sound as quaint to them as radio plays do to me. Today’s entertainment universe provides endless variety for every demographic and taste, and the things that everyone actually wants to watch together are few and far between. That’s what makes NBC’s decision to surrender its weekday 10 p.m. timeslot to a new Jay Leno talk show as inevitable as it is sad.

Read More... of Alan Sepinwall's original article at NYT

The Buzzwords of 2008

WASHINGTON — Politics without buzzwords is like sports without clichés, math without numbers or Blago without bleeps. Tough to imagine, in other words, especially in such a game-changer of a campaign year in which buzzwords were flying like shoes. Buzzwords are what political wiseguys use to sound all important and knowing in a profession whose prime currency is the illusion of being both. They are like secret passwords for the chattering class, the verbal equivalent of a terrorist fist jab.

Picking out political buzzwords from 2008 is like shooting moose in a pigpen. The fundamentals were so dizzyingly strong, it could be tough to keep them all straight. Before you knew it “The One” had become “That One” and the “team of mavericks” were going rogue on each other. You mixed up Client 9 and Candidate 5 at the holiday party and tried to change the subject.

Read More...

The Strange and Mysterious Life of Michael Connell

The high ranking Republican "IT Guru" Michael Connell died in a plane crash last night.

Connell is familiar as a key witness in the King-Lincoln v. Blackwell lawsuit regarding fraud in the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio. That recently revived, long-standing lawsuit led to Connell's deposition on November 3, 2008, the day before this year's general election. According to plaintiff's lead attorney Cliff Arnebeck in July, a tipster had warned that Connell had been threatened by Karl Rove in an attempt to intimidate him into "taking the fall" for Ohio election fraud not long after a motion was filed to lift the stay in that case. Connell had sought protection after the Karl Rove threatened. He supposedly about to come forward with damning information on Karl Rove.

Connell had been memorably described as a "high IQ Forrest Gump", by the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Ohio fraud case, for his apparent penchant at the scene of "every single crime" from Florida 2000 to Ohio 2004 to the network firewall on a number of key Congressional committees to the case of the missing White House emails. For more

Thou Shalt Always Kill

The Ox: World's Greatest Rock n' Roller

I was a true blue Who fan in the years before punk broke stateside. The dangers associated with Pete, Keith and John Entwistle and the music they made were the draw for me. Daltrey always reminded me a bit too much of my brother, the golden boy. Therefore I was inclined to idolize the weirdoes of the band. And Entwistle was the sly hero just in the wings working the bass guitar like nobody before or since. He was known as "The Ox" because of his strong constitution—his seeming ability to eat, drink or do more than the rest of them. The prototype of our beloved BlackoutMan.

This video showcases one of the weirdest things you are likely to see outside of a recording studio. It features John and his bass from a live performance of Won't Get Fooled Again. Because the only audio feed to the camera is from John's bass its like your own private lesson. The other members of the band flit by occassionally but the Ox is unfazed. It takes a while to get going but the ethereal audio and casually crazed finger work is completely mesmerizing. The Who is definitely alright.



See it all ~ The Kids Are Alright

*For an incredible account of Keith Moon's life head over to the Selvedge Yard.

The Con Man You Know

Bernard Madoff would have made Charles Ponzi proud. He took Ponzi's namesake scheme and worked it to perfection. Both con men knew that their marks needed to be smart enough to understand they were cutting corners but also be possessed of the ablility to see the scheme's resulting profit; and above all, both men knew just where to look for their victims. They preyed on their own cultural communities, those predisposed to trust them. Charles Ponzi worked his charm on other Italian immigrants while the majority of investors in Bernard Madoff's swindle, like himself, were Jewish. Madoff used his ties to the community to hustle fellow jews be it financiers, fat cats, non-profit foundations or charities. "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't" the adage goes though a postscript should add "but the devil nonetheless." Beware the stranger in the mirror.

An enlightening video at the TimesOnline shows Madoff talking about risk and foreshadowing being found out.

Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme was only slightly more outrageous than the shell games of Wall Street. Cheap credit, low standards and high greed. Both were prepared to do anything to keep public and private spending surging. After all, it was legal for banks to give risky mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, bundle a group of them into bonds, and then receive premium ratings for these bonds. And like the belegured investors of Madoff and Ponzi, we believed the magical growth in our economy would go on for ever. So go easy on the suckers cuz we're all just looking for that one good investment.

Meet The War Criminal: Dick Cheney

Richard Bruce Cheney admitted unapologetically to being a war criminal in an ABC News interview yesterday. Read it and you should weep.

ABC: Did you authorize the tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
CHENEY: I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency, in effect, came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it.
ABC: In hindsight, do you think any of those tactics that were used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others went too far?
CHENEY: I don't.
ABC: And on KSM, one of those tactics, of course, widely reported was waterboarding. And that seems to be a tactic we no longer use. Even that you think was appropriate?
CHENEY: I do.

*The first statement is an absolute lie, proven by the Senate report.

The decision to torture individuals was made by Bush and Cheney before the CIA ever asked for legal cover for the torture they had been ordered to commit. The torture and abuse was planned before even the January 2002 presidential memo that authorized torture:

In December 2001, more than a month before the President signed his memorandum, the Department of Defense (DoD) General Counsel’s Office had already solicited information on detainee “exploitation” from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), an agency whose expertise was in training American personnel to withstand interrogation techniques considered illegal under the Geneva Conventions

Creating and monitoring a torture program is unambiguously a war crime. Torture is a bullshit abuse dating back at least to the psychotic Catholics of the Spanish Inquisition. It is characteristic of the worst people in the world. Nice company Dick. I don't care if you hate the fuck out of every Arab on the face of the planet you can't have it both ways. The law is not in question. Islamo-fascists may be fuckheads of the first order but this is America and we're only as good as the rule of law outlined in our Constitution.

Dick Cheney is brazenly admitting he is a war criminal. It's an open and shut case. He seems unworried yet for an elected official of the US government to disrespect both the Flag and the Constitution of the United States is beyond the pale. Remember now we have prosecuted others for torturing our soldiers and the British put people to death for this very behavior. So the only question remaining is will Americans aid and abet Cheney's admitted crime. It's is hard to say which is sadder, that some chicken hawk politico would blatantly disregard the preeminent legal document of the world or that a bunch a hapless Americans juiced on American Idol and TMZ don't care. The opiate of the masses indeed. Fuck the Taliban.

And if you think the ends justifies the means you might wanna double check the ends as outlined in the article Reckoning Tortured Reasoning by David Rose in Vanity Fair.


UPDATE - 1/14/08
Bush Official Admits Torture

UPDATE: Diamonds are a Cross Dressing Thief's Best Friend

The NYT reports that the gang of well dressed men in drag responsible for the heist at Harry's in Paris are part of a larger network of Serbian jewel thieves referred to by international authorities as the Pink Panthers. This pop culture reference seems to show how intrigued the police are by this gang rather than (we hope) as a metaphor for their own police investigations. At the heart of the Pink Panther movies is Inspector Clouseau a bumbling French simpleton of a cop played most famously by Peter Sellers. Two tibdits: the pink panther of the movie title is actually a diamond containing a flaw which forms the image of a "leaping panther;" and Inspector Clouseau is repeatedly perplexed by transvestites, to the extent that he addresses them as "Sir or Madam." Coincidence?

The real gang of thieves has a penchant for the dramatic. In addition to impersonating Guns n' Roses, they crashed two Audi sedans through the glass of a Dubai shop as a means to a successful burgle. Investigators believe there are about 200 members in the group — linked by village and blood — and they blame the group for scooping up jewels worth more than $132 million in bold robberies in Switzerland, Japan, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Dubai, Spain and Monaco. The Panthers purportedly live all over Europe, with some working in mundane jobs as hospital cleaners our perhaps simple houseboys like Clouseau's Cato Fong, waiting to be summoned for the next discount flight to a foreign capital.

Album of the Year - Feed the Animals

The sample driven mayhem of Girl Talk's record is like choosing the music category on Jeopardy while the intellectual property rights police are wrestling you for the handheld buzzer. By brazenly citing fair use as punk veterans Negativeland did, Girl Talk's mash-ups incorporate all kinds of stuff to terrific effect and when strung together as one seamless mp3 Feed the Animals is a pretty magical rock experience. And as the magical season of virgin births and flying sleighs is upon us, I'm a believer in the gift of Girl Talk.

Pay what you please at Illegal Art or come up with a reason to pay nothing at all. It's really that easy and tough times call for tough musical choices.

Try Walking a Mile in This Guy's Shoes

The shoe chucker, Muntader al-Zaidi is becoming a folk hero to many in the world. Could anyone have ever inagined it getting so bad people would be throwing shoes at the President of the United States. And these shoes weren't even a 30 Rock inspired product placement.

The Ultimate Fake ID

Hey kids tired of not being able to get into clubs because you look too young? Has your baby face impeded your ability to purchase beer or wine at your favorite liquor store. Well you are in luck because the Running Mule has come up with a fool proof plan to get you into bars and down with strippers, or peelers as they are affectionately referred to in Canada.

Simply get the same shears that EVERYONE uses to shave their head with and cut out this simple pattern. In the enclaves of black market viagra and double strength propecia this is known as the male baldness pattern. It's a hairdo guaranteed to put at least 16 years on you and no one will ever expect it's phony. I mean guys are way too uptight to ever do something like this on purpose. Give it a try and lets us know how it works out.

Oh, and the part about the strippers. These girls love to take their clothes off for old impotent men. Guys with tons of dough, bad combovers, and limited penile functionality are truly the rock stars of strip clubs the world over. All you have to do to woo your favorite peeler is sweep up the clippings that formerly resided on the top of your head, tape and/or glue them together in a pattern reminiscent of a toupee, don’t worry it will look bad enough and therefore real enough no matter how you do it. Once your mock toupee is formed and installed by some adhesive means to your head cruise over to your local silicon purveyor order a Cutty Sark and settle in for the titty bar experience of a lifetime. War Sugardaddies!

Gentrified Stake with Danny Hoch (& Derrick Beckles)

The rapid fire gentrification of the Brooklyn over the last 20 years has been an incredibly wild ride and Danny Hoch's one man show Taking Over nails the nuance and the specific realities. With his coterie of diverse and crazed Williamsburg characters he pokes sharp and incisive fun at an interesting turn in New York City history. It's a have to laugh or you'd be crying story. Everyone's affected by the maniacal development and while pretty young girls have ruined few neighborhoods, old-timers are both pissed and scared by the colonialism.

Unless you have lived through the endless tidal waves in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, it's hard to imagine any negatives associated with the sprucing up a shithole. And no one denies it was a shithole. Our own stumbling through the hood's mean streets of Hassidic gangs and wild dogs in the 90's led to the making of Toxic Brooklyn. Watch us here and go see Danny in the Theater cuz it's good to get out of the neighborhood for bit and clear your head. At least of the fumes.

Zimbabwean Coffin Biz Booming

Cholera Is Raging, Despite Mugabe’s Denial

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Do The Collapse Zimbabwe

McDumb Shits

Earlier this year, McDonald's started a dumb site called Unsnobby Coffee to promote the launch of espresso drinks under the presupposition that everybody thinks Starbucks Coffee is too expensive. 4 Bucks= Starbucks. It's a funny dig but is it dumber than 4 Bucks for a Big Mac?
This is indeed a classic pot-kettle, kettle-pot conundrum.

Greece Aflame: Falling Oil Prices make Molotov Cocktails Affordable

Student protesters pelted 20 police stations with rocks and bottles, overturned cars and blocked streets in central Athens again today. Police responded with tear gas as sporadic violence persisted amid Greece's worst rioting in decades. At least 70 people have been injured and about 100 arrested since Saturday, when the rioting broke out within hours of the police shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos. Hundreds of stores have been damaged or destroyed as gangs of masked youths and self-styled anarchists smashed windows with metal bars, looted stores and set up flaming street barricades in cities throughout Greece. Protests have spread beyond Greece's borders, with demonstrations in several European countries, including Italy, Spain and Denmark. Greek diplomatic missions have been vandalized in Istanbul and New York.

Greeks love protest and for the most part the population is sympathetic to criticism of the Conservative government. While much of the reporting is of young anarchists at the center of the trouble there's also significant support from working people over the country's financial straights. For the record, real anarchy is not about nihilism or the absence of rules, but rather an anti-authoritarianism based on mutual aid. A bit of a hippie pipe bomb dream to be sure but falling oil prices making molotov cocktails affordable again, the Greek kids are having their say. Unfortunately, this action will have little coherent message in the end as issues blur into spats of hair pulling and smoldering shops.

Democracy was born in Greece and it could very well die there. διατηρήστε την καλή πάλη

Teasing is Pleasing

While your "friends" may dismiss it as a sophomoric waste of time, it turns out that teasing (and pranking!) is good for inter-peer behavior regulation. We all know that the best friends are the ones who lovingly point out your flaws, but Lord knows it ain't easy to call a hairdo a bird's nest and get away without a bloodied nose. According to the Times, science recommends that criticism take the form of a gentle tease, as it apparently facilitates "coordinated action, cooperative physiology and the establishing of common ground." And ideally some good gaffaws!

The article also advises that if you find yourself on the wrong end of this sort of jesting at a frat initiation (or the next workplace team-building activity; same diff), remember to keep your head down and relish the sweet burn of blush on your cheeks. The redder you are, the more sympathetic your peers. Public embarrassment is like Velcro: It keeps the group tight.

And here's more good news for you married wiseacres: Couch your bitching in a joke or two cuz "Studies find that married couples with a rich vocabulary of teasing nicknames and formulaic insults are happier and more satisfied" Forget Merry Christmas; bring on what Shakespeare called "the merry war." And whatever the Elizabethian name for "make up sex" might be, we know the best method is to start with a tease — preferably strip.

posted by AB

Blagojevich is Walking on Sunshine No More

Idiots come in every stripe but it's unimaginable Rod Blagojevich didn't see any of this coming. If you're daring people to tape your conversations you might want to check the hubris and keep the extortionering on the down low. Funny how the longer you get away with shit the more you feel you'll never get caught and in turn you step up your game. (see OJ) And trying to sell the rights to the most famously empty seat in the history of the US Senate while calling the president-elect "a motherfucker" seems a pretty rich game. In Blogojevich's case, the perceived Teflon® must have given him Alzheimers. His bizarro actions actions are either those of a brazen and thuggish crook or the most demented highbinder in a generation. The aluminum has surely come to roost in the lobes of the Governor's brain so throw out the pans, Patti and everybody plead insanity.

Dead Souls: Not Just A Pop Culture Reference

George W. Bush may be a douchebag but Vladimir Putin is a devil of a man. In 2001, Genius George revealed that he had sensed Putin's sympathetic soul after a face to face meeting. At the time the flap was all about the Bush ability, obviously on loan from God via Limbaugh, to peer into peoples' souls. A claimed psychic insight seen foremost as a manifestation of the President's guileless religious quackery. Yet the day Bush marked Putin as his democratic kindred spirit was the day he cemented his legacy as moron extraoridnaire. In a spell binding Vanity Fair article, Masha Gessen highlights Mother Russia's own misreading of Putin. Talk about rich comedies turned to horror. The very idea that this tiny man from the KGB could have been the successor to the Yeltsin's democratic leanings is frightful and the consequences both mind boggling and heart exploding. The Family mistakenly thought they could manipulate Putin but like Bush they were victims of the ultimate oxymoron, their own faulty intelligence.

New York Cares

Review of the Party from the scientists at Street Carnage

A Clean Room Is A Sign of Perversity

In the BBC News Magazine, Clive James delves in why a neat and tidy room is useless for the busy mind. While this slideshow sampling of photographs from Eamonn McCabe's Writers' Room Project is a simpler exercise if your busy in the body.

Diamonds are a Cross Dressing Thief's Best Friend

A gang of hirsute men brandishing sawn-off shotguns while wearing women's wigs, make-up and long coats stormed the Harry Winston boutique in Paris robbing the place blind. Just like Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves did in their cross-dressing bank robber movie. Our real life pistol-whipping, stick-up artists knew most of the names of the 15 shop assistants plus the location of the Champs-Elysees shop's strong-box. The very same store was robbed last year so either these are brand loyal thieves or just maybe it's an inside job.

The stories are conflicting about which designer labels were favored by the drag queens. Regardless the clipping of the premiere diamond shop in the world dressed like you're on your way to work at Lucky Cheng's takes balls. Even if said balls have to be crammed in a penis sandwich and taped between your bum cheeks, $160 million is well worth the drag.

A Sad Day For Has-Beens

Not much of a day for cultural icons. First OJ is thrown in the clink for reals and now we hear Boy George has been convicted of some man on man naughtiness in the East End of London. Despite a well crafted defense contending Boy George was too fat to have attacked the trim Norwegian Audun Carlsen, they were unable to convince the Snaresbrook Crown Court of any innocence whatsoever. Old World indeed.

Everybody has their own take on good times so if the escapades of the Karma Chameleon in his Shoreditch flat sound like something you'd like up your alley, use Gaydar. It's for getting what you want when you want it. Boy and Audun did. Plus, The Old Blue Last is appropriately enough just there in Shoreditch! Tell Capper The Running Mule sent you.

UPDATE: The Juice Is No Longer Loose

Orenthal James Simpson
FREE MAN
July 9, 1947 - December 5, 2008

Watch Judge Jackie Glass lay the karmic wood to OJ and see The Juice's subsequent reaction. What a long strange trip it's been.

Original Post: October 4, 2008

Vodka Baths and Secret Police Dreams

To get an idea of just how hard the Ruskies have been hit by the global economic slump, look at recent market statistics on the country's most vital commodity. Not oil. Vodka. Newly impoverished Russians can no longer afford their national spirit. Sales are plummeting and stockpiles are soaring. The government says that store shelves are stocked with six times as much unsold vodka as last year at this time.

"People are having to save money, including on drinks, and this is connected to the impact of the financial crisis on people's disposable incomes," Pavel Shapkin, president of the National Alcohol Association, told Reuters. It's enough to drive Russians to drink. And it has. Shapkin said that 1,458 people died of alcohol poisoning in September, most of them after drinking homemade or bootleg spirits that are cheaper than store-bought vodka. It was the first time that alcohol poisonings grew in Russia since 2006.

That prompted vodkamakers to call for an American-style solution: a government bailout."At times like this, any grandmother can collect some old bottles, fill them with whatever she wants, and sell them to the alcoholics that are trying to save some money," Shapkin said. "The government has to do something for these people trying to afford the most basic essentials in life."

This is one case where the Russians are luckier than us because our government is too busy helping out Banks and Cars to be looking out for Joe Alcoholic. But heck it's easy enough to make your own hooch. Be Still My Liver.

Fat Asses Love Hot Weather

Louisiana is America’s sickest state. An annual state-by-state report that measures factors like smoking, obesity, and health insurance coverage put the Bayou State in health hurt locker and free-thinking Vermont at the top. But who's happier? One hint. GUMBO

The five healthiest states are:
Vermont
Hawaii
New Hampshire
Minnesota
Utah

And the five unhealthiest:
Texas*
Tennessee
South Carolina
Mississippi
Louisiana

California and New York were smack dab in the middle just like that delicious extra slice of bun in a McDonald's Big Mac.

Sherman and Peabody Spin the Globe of History

The sordid history of Sherman and Peabody themselves.

Klaus Kinski is a Fun Guy

"Why am I a whore?" That's the question the late German-born actor Klaus Kinski asks himself early in this wildly raw and misanthropic memoir, and it's a query with multiple meanings. "Kinski Uncut," which is finally being issued in an unexpurgated English version after becoming a cult favorite overseas (it has been published in six languages), is an almost satirically dark tour through the primordial ooze of Kinski's inflated ego. Brimming with buggery, bigotry and mindless violence, it reads like a (muddled) Celine novel as updated by Keith Richards' dark twin. It's unlike any celebrity bio ever put to paper.

Kinski's Cassanovian pursuit of sex ("I need love! Love! Nonstop!") gives the book its narrative push -- from roughly the age of 10, he feasts on nuns, teenagers, the teenager's mothers or whatever sack of animate female flesh falls into his path. Unfortunately, Kinski's whorishness extended into his career, too. While he appeared in a handful of memorable films ("Nosferatu," "Fitzcarraldo," "Aguirre: The Wrath of God"), the haunted-eyed actor also made literally hundreds of schlock-filled quickies, sometimes as many as 11 per year.

Kinski doesn't provide much New Age analysis of how he found himself locked into such a bitter, isolated spiral. Chapters on his impoverished upbringing in prewar Berlin, where he stole food to survive, and his conscription into the German army in World War II offer meager clues. His various wives and his daughter, the actress Nastassja Kinski, receive only the barest mentions.

Kinski spends more time blasting directors he's worked with. Werner Herzog, with whom he made his best films, is called a (take a deep breath) "miserable, hateful, malevolent, avaricious, money-hungry, nasty, sadistic, treacherous, blackmailing, cowardly, thoroughly dishonest creep." Steven Spielberg offers Kinski a part in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," but he turns it down because the script is "moronically shitty." David Lean "has a red Rolls-Royce Cabriolet, which, aside from the satyr [Kinski's latest sex toy], is what interests me most about making 'Zhivago.'"

Needless to say, this kind of nonstop venom isn't for the squeamish -- and maybe it's not for anyone. But "Kinski Uncut" does have a kind of raffish, gothic, back-lit charm. A compendium of sick thrills, it is -- if nothing else -- a fail-safe antidote to a shelf of bright, happy, as-told-to biographies.

~Dwight Garner

Jacked To The Gills: Mumbai Terrorists on LSD & Coke

Just like the Mahdi militiamen of Fallujah, it turns out the Lashkar-e-Taibat in Mumbai were out of their minds on drugs. The Pakistani bred terrorists used the nominally recreational drugs of lsd and coke to prolong their murderous rampages.


So to recap the current world at war drug sponsors: Somali pirates have their khat, the Taliban musketeers have their heroin, the Mahdi army has their epinephrine and now the Paki's have lsd and cocaine.

But what in the name of pharmacology is propping up our American GI's in the face of this mind bending enemy? 3.2 'near beer' and extra strength Tylenol? This is a psychotropic culture war America should be able to creatively dominate. We invented the 60's! Can't we co-opt some of our Latin American cocaine buddies like Reagan did with the Contras and turn the tables on these drug gobblin zealots? In the meantime, someone in Williamsburg please call your guy, our fighting men and women need spacefood STAT!

Who knew our homegrown epitome of debauchery the Merry Pranksters would one day become the raison d'être for religious psychopaths the world over. Mercy!

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A Drug For Every Age

Axl vs Kanye

The formerly blissed-out music critic Simon Reynolds
does a fine job of separating the wheat from the chaff
in The Egos Have Landed, a deft examination of the
methodical madness of both Axl's Chinese Democracy
and Kanye's 808s & Heartbreak. On behalf of Simon and myself,
could we please step away from the ProTools?

Passé Comitatus Already

Having never met a law or constitutional stipulation he liked, George Bubya is planning to illegally militarize our cities to the tune of 20,000 armed soldiers. The Civil War era Posse Comitatus Act was devised explicitly to prohibit this type of troop deployment within the borders of the United States and while it has long stood as the final bulwark against a nefarious government, its provisos have slowly been eroded by the malignant Big Brother/New World Order mission. This final bushwacking, which began with the so-called “war on drugs," is a wholesale overturn of the Act under the guise of “disaster preparedness.” Once again, the specter of 9/11 is being used to undermine the constitution and our civil protections.

Our already overstretched military will now be deployed within the United States “just in case” there are multiple simultaneous mass terrorist attacks. I thought the government had tapped our phones specifically to prevent this kind of bad guy action. Now we are supposed to relax in the knowledge that when the bombs go off, the US military will be there to shoot anyone left milling about? Convenient timing Mumbai. Alex Jones and Naomi Klein are gonna shit themselves when they see this report from The Real News Network featuring Bruce Fein.


UPDATE: Alex Jones wades into the fray.

Lest We Forget

Before you christen India's problems as so very different from our own, consider this recent run of similarity. In 2004, twenty-one women were killed in the northern Indian city of Lucknow after the promise of free saris set off a stampede. The lure of discounted stylish wraps had 10,000 people lined up in advance and turned the women into animals. While in the States on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving, anxious shoppers breached the doors of a Wal-Mart and their mad dash killed a 34-year-old male employee. The Black Friday stampede on Long Island was fueled by the promise of consumer electronic bargains. What wouldn't you do for flat screen plasma?

Chanting "push the doors in," the crowd of 2000 pressed against the glass as the clock ticked down to the 5 a.m. opening. Sensing catastrophe, nervous employees formed a human chain inside the entrance to slow down the mass of shoppers. It didn't work. The mob barreled in and bum-rushed. When the Christmastime madness ended, Jdimytai Damour was dead and four shoppers, including a woman eight months pregnant, were injured.

Lest we forget the murderous tragedy of Bombay, it should be noted that much of India's spiritual life is so dedicated to the possibility of reincarnation they refrain from killing even bugs. Jainism is one of the worlds oldest and most influential religions while Long Islanders are resolutely dedicated to the worship of affluence. Sadly, in both cases the crushing desire for material goods will forevermore be associated with the trampling of human life. I guess we should thank Lakshmi that among the advertised specials there were no discounted saris.

Items on sale at the Wal-Mart store included a $798 Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9.

Jon Swift: President Bush Should Pardon the Wal-Mart Shoppers

For the Last Time Hitler was Not a Monorchid

Ron Rosenbaum is tired of all the bullshit about Hitler's light nut-sack theories and wishes you would just read his book, Explaining Hitler. Rosenbaum is a smart guy writing knowingly about the hidden aspects of culture and his pieces in Slate are on my regular internet highway stop. The tantalizing subjects of his work include the link between Yale's Skull and Bones Society and the CIA; J.D. Salinger's walled-in house; the Zagat restaurant guide; Borges's efforts to disprove the existence of Time; the Shakespeare Wars and an homage to my personel favorite Charles Portis. But this unending Hitler sex concern is worrisome. Don't get me wrong, its fascinating stuff but i am starting to wonder who has Rosenbaum's balls in a bind.

What They Hate About Mumbai

My bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.

Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. “Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you. The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird. The terrorists want to kill the songbird.

Suketu Mehta, a professor of journalism at New York University, is the author of "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found.”
To read the full article of What They Hate About Mumbai go to the NYT



And a piece by Christopher HitchensOur Friends in Bombay














An interesting book about life in Mumbai by
Gregory David Roberts, who obviously loves it.

UPDATE: And Another Reason To Hate The Taliban

As we pointed out on 10/03/08, the Taliban, like some James Bond supervillian are attempting to corner the market on opium. Not since Auric Goldfinger starting painting prostitutes gold has such an insidious plot been hatched. The Taliban are pushers plain and simple, able to justify anything for their fucked up beliefs. Goldfinger at least had style and put his treasure to use in some original, albeit mad scientist ways. His obsession with gold was explicitly sexually: the yellow briefs, a collection of yellow-jacketed pornographic books and his penchant for fucking gold-painted women. He traveled in a yellow-painted car, employed a blonde secretary and even had a ginger cat. Though the cat was sadly eaten by Oddjob, his Korean henchman, who in hindsight and despite fricasseeing said feline seems a much better guy than the Taliban's Mullah Omar.

Goldfinger's colorful crimes were endearing compared to a hardline bunch of ignorant, psychotic fiends embracing pseudo-science and fairy tales of genies and angels. Caught in the grip of Muslim orthodoxy, the Taliban champion revelation over reason and predestination over free will. Like Mao they fear educated masses more than anything and their damning of mathematics as being against Islam is just one of the ethical glitches in their arch-evil manipulation of opium market forces. You have to wonder if these charlatans in beard and robe are dark age authoritarians who just need an Ian Fleming-type PR flack spinning 'drug dealer as hero tales' from the back of the cave.

Edible Brooklynite: John McSwain

The Jihadis among us talk of the promise of a Paradise complete with 99 black-eyed virgins. It's a nice lure but eternity with a bunch of hardline buzz-kill fundamentalists sounds like a perpetual pain in the ass and that's not a pun aimed at middle easterners' purported predisposition towards homosexuality. Though perhaps that should be a concern. I mean, how else could there be that many virgins left over to begin with?



Owning a patch of Paradise filled with nubile innocents sounds great except for a few years of awkward missionary sex. You'd need patience and a helluva sense of humor and there's only one guy I know enlightened enough to turn that scenario into nirvana, the perpetually effervescent John McSwain. This tall Floridian drink of water, with a bourbon back, has his own vision of Paradise, the Cheeseburger tattooed on his arm. So if McSwain can manage to die in Jihad and there's no swine in his burger recipe, looks to me like we have redefined heaven. And with plenty of burqa'd carhops to spare, the prospect of Paradise is looking better one bite at a time. Lets just call it McSwain's VirginBurgers and everybody willing to die is welcome.

For franchise information...

PS: If you Jewish guys wanna get in on the virgin land rush, we can '86 the cheese.

There's No Place Like Home

This peek at 70's rock stars in their parent's homes is illuminating for contrasting generations and its overall innocence. It's cute to see Frank Zappa, Grace Slick, David Crosby, the Jacksons, and Elton John hanging with their peeps in what are now somewhat patronizingly termed vintage surroundings. Just imagine the antique pickers frothing at the mouth over these mythical digs.

Still everyone's place looks a bit square and sad without a flat screen television to dominate the space. How on earth did they manage? It's no wonder they became minstrels, their parents were obviously Luddites forcing them to play stringed instruments and read (gasp) books. Regardless, I bet their libraries didn't hold a candle to this mad scientist's refuge. That there is some real star power.

Ruck Fussia

After reading my prediction that Zimbabwe is doomed, Russian politico Igor Panarin counters with the assertion that the USA is done for and it will soon split into 6 parts. You know what this means? More government!

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, Panarin said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles." He also cited the "vulnerable political setup", "lack of unified national laws", and "divisions among the elite, which have become clear in these crisis conditions." He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong. He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all."

Governor Palin, can't you do something about this Russian incursion into the American pysche? How stupid could we have been to let those Michiganders have control of all our cars.

Do The Collapse Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe has been a country for 28 years but it looks like the honeymoon is over. It's hard to say the place is even on the brink of collapse so far down is the situation. The former Southern Rhodesia is a place famous in the British book of imperialist venture. A land renowned for hunting and exploration. Robert Baden-Powell's scouting movement, the parent to Boy Scouts of America was founded there. But few would argue that the 20th century has been a spiraling nightmare for the former British colony as mercenaries fought brutal unending wars all across Africa in attempts to prop up white rule. Since Zimbabwe's creation at the end of Rhodesian Bush War it has gotten progressively uglier and uglier. President Robert Mugabe once thought to be a savior not only for Zimbabwe but all of black Africa has run place into the ground, chasing success away at the expense of authoritarian control. All semblance of order, economy or national direction is lost. It's clear Mugabe is no boy scout though neither was Cecil Rhodes nor Ian Smith leaders of white rule in Rhodesia before him. The stories of war are so entertwined with place that even a hippie like Warren Zevon penned a song, Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner about the dark mayhem Africa has lived through. See also the Congo

The Mugabe of today is an obvious tyrant living an "Emperor's New Clothes" existence. Jimmy Carter said yesterday from a news conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I think it's the established policy of the Mugabe government that there's no crisis in Zimbabwe. The entire basic structure in education, healthcare, feeding people, social services and sanitation has broken down. These are all indications that the crisis in Zimbabwe is much greater, much worse than we had ever imagined.

And now we find a country with no health controls locked in the grasp of a cholera epidemic that's threatening to decimate hoards of people. And there is no cavalry, no one is coming to Zimbabwe's rescue. Sometimes its hard to imagine this kind of shit. Endless death shits.

Do The Collapse is of course reference to a Guided by Voices record produced by Ric Ocasek. The album signaled GBV's ditching of the lo-fi Dayton sound for promise of the big time. Hopefully, someday Zimbabwe can ditch its lo-fi history and turn a corner to peace and prosperity but until then, don't drink the water brother!

Frontline has some incredible resources about Zimbabwe and the disasters of Mugabe

UPDATE: A death warrant has been issued with immediate effect to all Zimbabweans following the closure of major government hospitals and clinics countrywide.

What Would Jack Ruby Do?

What the fuck was Ruby thinking?

The Breeders Will Have Their Say

The New York Times jumps our train from 11/13 noting that Rev. Ed Young of The Fellowship is still at it. His campaign drive for non-stop reproduction of little jesus freaks is entering it's second week. Seven days may have been good enough to create the earth but these guys are after something fundamentally different than the birth of a diverse and evolving planet.

Conservative groups as diverse as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference are all aboard with the The Fellowship's religious factory farming initiative and are driving national birthrates sky high. These guys make old fashioned Roman Catholics look like prudes. And while good god-fearing people at home having sex with the people they love may not come as a shock they are a definite impact on the population and the political fortunes of the US. In comparison to say the lackuster mating rituals of Vermont free-thinkers, George Clooney, american intellectuals, power lesbians, computer engineers, and even those lovable lunkheads at Jackass, it would seem America is going to get more and more religious and more and more conservative as these babies come of age. So whenever you have a chance young intellectual, forgo the prophylactic and breed. Tell your gal it's for the intellectual good of the country, The floundering economy may have killed the space race but the sex race is officially on, so Mr President you better make some hay while the sun is shining or at least get in there knock boots with Michelle. Planned parenthood indeed.

D.B. Cooper Outed!

Deep Throat and D.B. Cooper were the two most mysteriously elusive characters of the last half of the 20th Century. Not long after Mark Felt was fingered as Deep Throat, attorney Galen Cook is positing that Bill Gossett, an ex-Marine who lived out his days undiscovered in Oregon, was D.B. Cooper. The identity of the legendary skyjacker has eluded the vaunted FBI since he jumped from of a Boeing 727 with 200,000 dollars somewhere over Washington State on the night of November 24, 1971. The FBI has investigated over 200 suspects but none has ever been confirmed as the skyjacker and the FBI has publicly stated that they don't believe the skyjacker survived the jump. The tale of that night has since entered into the realm American Folklore and the mysterious perp emerging a legend.

But Cook begs to differ and can be heard here a few months ago discussing the case. Since then he's named Bill Gossett as his definitive pick for the real D.B. Cooper.

According to Bill Gossett's son Greg, Gossett told his three sons he was the skyjacker and often spoke of the D.B. Cooper skyjacking even telling one of his wives that he could "write the epitaph for D.B. Cooper." Jumping from a 727 is no bullshit so it was always assumed that whomever the crazy bastard was he had some experience. Gossett indeed had parachute trained with the Marines in 1964 would have been 41 on that fateful Thanksgiving Eve 1971 when he plummeted scot free into infamy.

Now a Salt Lake City judge and friend recounts that "In 1977 he walked into my office and closed the door and said he was D.B. Cooper. I told him to keep his mouth shut and don't do anything stupid, and not to bring it up again." Gossett outfoxed the whole world by doing just that. He kept his mouth shut and didn't do anything stupid. His skyjacking remains a legendary exploit and it's about time the right guy got the credit.

Now with those two mysteries characters identified, if somebody could just tell me who the fuck Mullah Omar is I could get on with my life.

Texas Is The Reason or Shoot Here

An old man told me that growing up in Dallas his 1st birthday party just happened to be on the very day John F Kennedy was assassinated across town. He strongly remembered all the mothers crying around the television and the party ending abruptly with his father cleaning his rifle. Since then theories have abounded about what happened to JFK on November in Dealey Plaza and his birthdays have always been a bit of a bummer. Thanks for the anniversary, Texas.



There is the extended play version of what happened on November 22, 1963 as well as the jauntier Misfits' single.