God Damn I Love the 80's

Two of most compelling things about the 80's were the utterly monstrous, mind-roasting antics of OC and Stiggs via National Lampoon and the fist fighting to the oldies era of 80's Hardcore music. Both of these collectibles are hard to find in today's bubble gum media milieu, when true bohemia gets snapped up like an unguarded Beard Papa. But luckily ladies and gentleman you have me to rekindle. Through the hyper-dimensional connections of this blog, I know Randall Schwab of the old Lampoon gang. El Schwab, more often that I should admit, sends me perversions such as this remembrance over the internet. Why? Well OC and Stiggs so terrorized the Schwab family that like some fucked up Stockholm syndrome Patty Hearst type he keeps playing right along with them, to my undying amusement and to your good fortune.

The second goodie in this afternoon's cultural grab bag is the band 80s HARDCORE who are currently making the rounds in tiny clubs filled with topless girls in Doc Martens mysteriously undiscovered by the hipsterati. They're the worlds greatest hardcore cover band. You may be thinking, fuck a cover band. But if you remember my enthusiasm for the Sex Pistols posted last month, you should know I never miss a good show even if the band is lipsynching. I don't think 80's Hardcore lypsynchs cuz they fuck of lyrics constantly but no one is sure cuz the singer (Gavin McInnes) performs with a bag over his head. Anyhow, because my dedication runs deep I'm willing to risk a visit from the FBI and post their set list here. Music licensing and chinese democracy be damned!

80s HC SET LIST 11-21-08

Cro Mags “Hard Times”
D.R.I. “Rather be Sleeping”
Minor Threat “Straight Edge”
Black Flag “Wasted”
Angry Samoans “Lights Out”
Circle Jerks “Coup D’Etat”
Fear “Livin in the City”
Descendents “I’m not a Loser”
Agnostic Front “Victim in Pain”
Black Flag “Six Pack”
Iron Cross “Crucified”
Suicidal Tendencies “Institutionalized”
Bad Brains “Right Brigade”


Check them out tonight at Cakeshop ~ 153 Ludlow in Manhattan.
FREE. And print out the OC and Stiggs page. Chicks dig em.


BONUS THROWBACK: NYC Hardcore of Yore

Tight Pussy, Loose Shoes and A Warm Place to Shit

In 1976, politician Earl Butz was asked by the right wing Republican entertainer Pat Boone why the party of Lincoln wasn't able to attract more blacks. Butz, the then US Secretary of Agriculture said "I'll tell you what the Coloreds want out of life. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit."

This quip sunk Butz's political ship and inspired America's creative types to make Darktown After Dark in response. Hooray for Hollywood. And amen to the Big 3!

Related Posts~
I Am Not Gay But...

It Takes No Teeth To Eat Our Beef

Barbequed meats are the life blood of American culture and whether you prefer traditional sweet southern pork, the beefs of Central Texas' German and Czech traditions, Mexican influenced barbacoas and fajitas, or Cowboy styled muttons, Texas is ground zero. The King of Cue.

With apologies to neither vegetarians nor other regional pretenders, Calvin Trillin's piece in The New Yorker on Texas BBQ is worth ducking into, especially if the idea of beans and smoked brisket for breakfast tickles your fancy. Please tell me it tickles your fancy?

For the record here are the 50 best barbecue joints in the world.

The Pythons Are Mad As Hell And Not Gonna Take It Anymore

Monty Python is tired of getting screwed

Michael Pollan for Secretary of Agriculture

Ever wonder where your food comes from or how the food industry finds the awful garbage stuffed into most grocery store staples? Regardless, you need to know Michael Pollan. Give him a listen here, it's fascinating and devastating stuff.

If that isn't sexy enough for you heads out there, he's written quite glowingly about marijuana's intoxication is his book The Botany of Desire plus a super far out story for Harper's Magazine titled Opium Made Easy regarding his run in with the war on drugs and counterculturist Jim Hogshire.

To get Michael Pollan considered for the Office of Secretary of Agriculture of the United States of America, sign the petition. It's your food, stupid.

Which Way Is Up?

The National Recovery Administration was set up as part of FDR's New Deal to create free competition and aid workers. In 1933, Jimmy Durante made this vaudvillian NRA promo to rally support but the free marketing industrialists deemed the whole shebang economic fascism and soon the Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional. Things are going to require even bolder and more innovative economic thinking today. If Obama employs any part of FDR's Blue Eagle strategy expect a lot of collectivist talk among obstructionists, if he does nothing, start praying to the anti-christ cuz the portending maelstrom is gonna suck us all down, down, down.



Either way...boo, boo, boo.

And then there's Lyndon LaRouche

A Crazed Trouble in Paradise

Reporting from the front lines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, our buddy Les Neuhaus gives a glimpse of life among the government troops: smoking pot, drinking booze, wearing women's clothing, and occasionally hacking the genitals off of rebel troops. The battle between Laurent Nkunda's Rebel for Christ led National Congress for the Defence of the People and the Government's Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo is essentially a reprisal of the Tall Ones vs the Short Ones War that decimated Rwanda. Talk about grim confusion in the boondocks. And that's before you add to an already surreal battlefield pentecostal christians and their pet dinosaurs. Tall guys vs short guys is an age old quarel but only in the remote regions of the Dark Continent is this trouble the King of Paradise.

ID Skeleton Key
Watutsi = Tall
Hutu = Short

You can read Les's On the Front Lines in DR Congo at AJE

Texas Sized Marathon Sex Challenge

Of course, there's a hitch. Before you get too geeked about strap on love or packing your cocktail shaker with a preferred ratio of ecstasy, cocaine, viagra or ketamine remember this seven day Texas Sex-a-thon is designated for procreational sex rather than recreational. Since God created the world in seven days, Rev. Ed Young's flock is no doubt anticipating a payoff for their week long efforts. The Fellowship could probably use some pointers from the pro-orgy crowd but GLBT'ers this is a breeders only event. You guys and gals and tweeners will have to cowboy up some other time for the good of the world.

UPDATE: The New York Times reports that Ed Young is telling his flock a week later to "Keep It Up!"

Biting the Hand That Blings

The last person you want to click into an internet
war of wits with is Gavin McInnes. Trust me on this.
So why would an obscure Austin, Texas blogger
known as daz76 muck aboot with the wildcats of
Street Carnage? No clue. But it seems to me only a
pro lion tamer would dare throw a stick in such a cage.
Or perhaps a poet.



Dear Street Carnage Why Am I Banned?

FLASHBACK to an archived profile of Big Pinky,
the loveable ebony to Mr McInnes' ivory.

Back In Black

Like a phoenix, extreme leftist groups are risen in France. A black flag from the ashes of Action Directe's 1987 destruction is on the prowl. Black, or the negation of color, is most often associated with NYC fashion and anarchist groups. Like-minders that stand in opposition to the oppressive structures of plain jane clothing and stupid ass government respectively. The latest on on this seasons anti-govt blackies comes from French terrorism expert Roland Jacquard:

The economic and financial crisis the world is now experiencing is a dream come true to the extreme-left, especially with mainstream leftist political parties unable to mount any real opposition to ruling conservatives. That brings the possibility of social unrest radical leftists may seek to exploit — or even provoke through violence of their own.

With apologies to Oliver Hardy, here's another fine mess unforeseen by the Project for the New American Century.


.

The Land of the Setting Sun

The miserable sods in the UK House of Commons want to abolish Pub Happy Hours in England and Wales. Reckless drinking is apparently stretching the police force thin. But if pub spawned disorder is suddenly a negative character trait, we're talking not only about the ruin of an Empire but the negation of the British birthright. Brits need their pints to overcome personalities obliged by society stereotyping to be polite. For me the quintessential Victorian pubmate, Harry Paget Flashman has always been the role model for British behavior.

Flashman is an antihero who runs from danger or hides cowering in fear, betrays or abandons acquaintances at at the slightest incentive, bullies and beats servants with gusto, beds every available woman, carries off any loot he can grab, gambles and boozes enthusiastically, and yet, through a combination of luck and cunning, ends acclaimed as a hero.

And despite all Flashman's inherent advantages, I fear he'd be a merely a pedestrian James Bond without the enthusiastic (bargain) boozing of Happy Hour. Drinking is clearly heroic in both cases however. So please MP's, reconsider for the good of the national character. On the other hand, I'm happy to relay that Italy is considering sanctioning the use of vigilantes. A move more holding to the course of tradition than the shortsightedness of the UK's damnable Home Affairs select committee.

The Holyland ~ God's Monkey House

Monks brawl at Golgotha. Again!

Jerusalem's Old City is a place lost in time and people have been throwing rocks and fists at each other there since the beginning of competitive belief. Christians have only been partaking since say the 3rd century BCE and though late to the game these monks at the Church Of The Holy Sepulcher are so bugged out about Jesus they make British soccer hooligans look like American Idol fans.

Art Bell Finally Gets His Just Deserts

Our old buddy Art Bell will be inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame tonight at a ceremony in Chicago. All the crazy stuff we've been through together: John Titor's time travel claims, the secret craft purportedly lurking in the Hale-Bopp comet's tail, Art's Parts, Mel's Waters' mysterious hole, the caller who reckless flew into Area 51 while speaking with Art, Richard Hoagland's contention that Old Navy was running the world and Art's endearing crush on Crystal Gayle make Mr Bell one of the most deserving radio men to ever be so honored.

Coast to Coast is still a fantastic radio program but no one will every replace Art Bell's ability to lull us to sleep with such a silky delivery, scare us to death with his demonic cackle and even interrupt our tormented dreams (due to the show's subject matter) with his hacking smokers cough. Art, we miss you.

Give Art a listen as some Texan flies into Area 51. Haha. It is awesome.

The Squandering of the Conservative Opportunity

Of all the conservative thinkers, I've always prized PJ O'Rourke above all. For starters, he worked for National Lampoon, where he deftly and repeatedly inserted nuggets of conservative thinking tinged with vice into his humor and because he's stuck to those irascibly loveable guns ever since:


"Conservatives generally tend to be funnier in their private lives because of the hypocrisy factor. I am of course a big fan of hypocrisy, because hypocrites at least know the difference between right and wrong--at any rate, know enough to lie about what they're doing. Liberals are not nearly as hypocritical as conservatives, because they don't know the difference between right and wrong. In public policy liberals are always much more hilarious. Liberals are always proposing perfectly insane ideas, laws that will make everybody happy, laws that will make everything right, make us live forever, and all be rich. Conservatives are never that stupid."

In a Weekly Standard piece titled We Blew It, O'Rourke begins "Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone--gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy."

PJ O'Rourke is still the master so sit down, shut up and read him before its too late.

Lost and Found and Lost Again Weekends

The must attend event of the weekend if you have kids and a drinking problem is the Miss Pussycat Art Opening at Live With Animals in Williamsburg. Miss P, aka Panacea Theriac, is a New Orleans based puppeteer and the sexier half of the wild musical duo Quintron and Miss Pussycat. In addition to the display of her vast collection, there will be a live puppet performance of "The Mystery at Squirrel Ranch." Adult beverages are a must.


NOTE: Her puppet shows are revelatory so I suggest you get there early, as in 7pm on Saturday the 8th.

Trixie and the Tree Trunks produced by Gabe Soria



BONUS: Quintron and Miss Pussycat are playing the record release party for the their new album Too Thirsty 4 Love out on Goner Records at Santos Party House on Monday the 10th. Another rocking freak-out money-back guarantee presented by the Empresario.

Oh Shit!

Has Kim Jong Il Left the Building?

Rumors are ever swirling that North Korea's crackpot tinpot tyrant Kim Jong Il is dead. Famous for releasing crudely tweaked photos of food stores and functioning lights in order to prove the crumbling Pyongyang is a functioning Shangri-La, the North Koreans are at it again. The PR chicanery is now focused on showing the mysterious 'Dear Leader' woodenly taking in the sights like the roaming gnome of Travelocity as proof he's alive and kicking. The latest baited switch, to be released by (?), is a shot of Mr. Kim standing before an assembled group of military men. The Times of London niftily analyzes shadow angles and the background with the zeal of a moon landing debunker. Something is obviously rotten in more than just Denmark and the photo is a piss poor attempt at subterfuge to be sure. Though like that stolen gnome kind of funny.

You may wonder in a place so lost in time where does one find digital tricksters. As Guy Delisle showed, in his great graphic novel Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea, these guys are an animation superpower. So maybe a crafty Simpsons cartoonist snuck a pirated Photoshop 2.0 into "The Land of the Morning Calm." All said, the machinations of North Korea are wildly obtuse. Just where in the hell is KIm Kim Jong Il is anybody's guess. And if he's dead or incapacitated who's the ruling force striding the darkened hallways of the Grand People's Cultural Palace? Could it be the other mysteriously missing world leader, Scottish musician Gerry Rafferty is lending a hand?

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you

All I Want For Christmas

Political Life Imitating Art

All the post-election elation reminds me of a classic coming of age movie from an earlier decade. The innocence of Another State of Mind's aspirations was infectious to a generation of musicians in the 80's and served for the rise of alternative music as mainstream. Small bands of like minded kids giving completely of themselves, whether artistically or politically, has some resonance in Obama's hopeful hoards of young people working for change in the stagnant American political landscape.



Another State of Mind is a rollicking DIY trip down memory lane and an intriguing snapshot of the early years before punk scenes were choked with poseurs drowning in tattoos. Fashion, then as now, was always job one however. Message negated by messengers. So I'm praying we don't start seeing tattoos and mohawks on Obama's cabinet members, for if that's the case, I fear all hope will be lost once again. Change is for the inside and clearly TBD for the USA.

Part 2 A great slam dancing lesson at the 17 minute mark
Part 3 Youth Brigade, Social Distortion and New York City
Part 4 Ian MacKaye explains Straight Edge and Minor Threat plays

Flash Back Bonus: NYC Hardcore on the Donahue Show 4 years later

Wild In The Streets: Here, There & Everywhere

There & Everywhere else: Fort Greene-Brooklyn, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, Boulder, New Brunswick, Oakland, Philadelphia, Gainesville, Los Angeles, Boston, Manhattan, Portland, Atlanta, Cambridge, Madison, Richmond, Baltimore, Santa Cruz, and Washington DC.

From the New York Times:
So Hip and So Loud, and Stirring Up Williamsburg
-OR-
How Gavin McInnes Remade Williamsburg in His Own Image