"Congress Unlikely to Block Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia"

Washington D.C.--Thanks Democratic incumbents (more like recumbents, or "prone"), and thanks for reminding us all why most of you are going to be gone after the next couple election-cycles. We can all feel safer now, knowing that our "leaders" are selling smart bombs to the nation that supports radical Islamic terrorists more than any other, our beloved Saudis. Won't it be nice to see smart bombs crashing into the New York City skyline soon? And how is Jerry Bruckenheimer (Schmidt, his name is my name too) going to top that? Will there ever be a "Top Gun" sequel...aww, now you had to bring up Randall "Duke" Cunningham again. Right, someone has to. And while we're at it, why not bring up Shirlington Limousine, its CEO Christopher D. Baker, Mitchell Wade, and Brent Wilkes? The time has come to open the records of Shirlington Limo, Congress, it's overdue.

"I'll sell my soul to the Devil," an observation...

Washington D.C.--Why is it that Republican politicians have to beg-the-question so much?

Garbo (SAIC) Talks

SITE METER--They're back, and from two separate geographical locations. Who is Justin Cox, and what's his connection to SAIC. Thanks IAG!

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AND...

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IAG (Independent Adviser Group) Visits J-7 Over Investor Qualms at SAIC?

SITE METER--"The Independent Advisers Group (IAG) is dedicated to providing investment professionals with premier fee-based investment platforms. IAG provides advisers with the tools and resources necessary to partner with clients and work toward common objectives such as creating, growing and protecting wealth." That's what you get on the home page of IAG, and it appears that SAIC is a client who has some concerns over what gets published on this site about them.

They should be, and there's more-to-come in the intervening months. In case you don't know, Ret. Col. Ronald Roughead is found in the phone records of "DC Madam" (called that by the media) Deborah Jeane Palfrey in late-2005. It's a certainty that he was--and likely still is--employed by the ninth largest defense contractor in the United States. What's also likely is that he's been lobbying for them. One has to question whether most (or any) of it has been "aboveboard."

IAG: http://www.iag.com/Default.aspx

On SAIC and Ronald Roughead's presence in the phone records
of Pamela Martin & Associates: http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2007/08/pax-americanus-ii-why-man-at-703-836.html#links
http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2007/07/703-836-0522-ronald-roughead_16.html#links

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Mr. "Bridge to Nowhere": Is the Fix on for Senator Ted Stevens?

Washington D.C./Anchorage, Alaska--Is this investigation ever going to conclude? Right, wait until the elections are over, the usual MO. Since the first summer 2006 raids on his home and the homes of six other Alaskan state and congressional representatives, we haven't seen much. Sure, there was another one this July, but that was five-months-ago. Shouldn't we just have another one for good measure, just for the hell-of-it? It's a safe bet Stevens will be breaking-the-law when the feds come barging in. There have already been trials for the Alaskan state reps, but what about Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Dan Young? Either you have something, you don't, or you're just sitting on it.

The Sunlight Foundation has a good page on Bill Allen, former CEO of VECO involved in the investigations of Stevens and Young, he's been dragged into court to testify in some of the Alaskan state representative trials and we should be seeing more of him for future ones...but when? What's the holdup? Ted Stevens and Dan Young are not men, but then, hardly anyone in Congress is a genuine adult. The real question is whether the Bush administration is attempting to put the brakes on further actions in the investigations of Stevens and Young (and Vitter, and Hastert, and Delay, and Foley, and Doolittle, and Lewis, and on-and-on...). It seems many Democrats have also willingly sold their souls to the highest-bidder (take note Barbara Boxer, your employer is Boeing). Please allow me to introduce myself...

"I'll Sell My Soul to the Devil...", The Washington Post, 11.12.20007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/11/AR2007111101585.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2007111200534

Sunlight Foundation on Bill Allen (a panoply of articles and context): http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/taxonomy/term/1009

Tears of a Clown: Bush Reminisces on Auschwitz

"God bless Israel, [signed] George Bush."

Jerusalem, Palestine--This visit by President George W. Bush to Israel's Holocaust memorial had a peculiar ring of familiarity to it. During Ronald Reagan's second term-of-office, he visited a German war dead cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany in 1985. It was one of those embarrassing moments as an American that one would equate with Bush, not Reagan. That's because people tend to forget how much of a clown Reagan was. Even we, the public, had advance warning that there were Waffen-SS soldiers buried at the bone yard, but Reagan went anyway. It was truly an appalling moment to be American. How is this the same you're asking? The lack of any sense of irony in the president, naturally.

Purportedly, Bush was teary-eyed today in his hour-long visit to the memorial to the Shoah and its "Hall of Remembrance." This was all easily written-off as another silly ass PR photo junket (wrapped inside an junket, inside an enigma of an administration). This wasn't enough for George W. Bush, oh no, because genuine brutish stupidity has no sense of irony, and therefore parades itself to anyone and everyone it can. Amazingly, and in-character, President George W. Bush decided that he wanted to spread the message of vengeance once again, but with a curiously garbled irrationality only he can muster: "We should have bombed it [Auschwitz]." Would it have worked? This wasn't clear from the president's incoherent message. "Bomb Auschwitz?" I thought. "Wouldn't that have killed the inmates?" There I went again, using logic.

Not being a total idiot (mostly a dry-drunk), Bush had connections that allowed the peculiarly American words to be voiced (in Hebrew) by the chairman of the memorial, Avner Shalev in an anecdote about the president and his Secretary of State, Ms. Rice having a discussion on the subject on the Air Force One flight to Jerusalem. These folks understand vengeance well, old testament style-and-all. Yet, there's a problem with the president's logic--there's an absence of it. A number of Israeli holocaust scholars have some quibbles with the president's readin'-n'-learnin' on history:

[Noted Israeli holocaust scholar Tom] Segev said the question of a bombing was not so clear cut, noting that it wasn't certain the United States had the ability to carry out such an operation. In a response to a request that U.S. forces bomb Auschwitz and the rail lines, John J. McCloy, Roosevelt's assistant secretary of war, laid out the U.S. rationale for inaction. "Such an operation could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations elsewhere and would in any case be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not be warrant use of our resources," he wrote in an Aug. 14, 1944, letter. (AP, 01.11.2008, http://enews.earthlink.net/article/int?guid=20080111/4786f7d0_3ca6_1552620080111649273848)

And so there's the "Bush II" doctrine on foreign policy when you have a problem to deal with--bomb em.' Worry about the results later. How does any of this make him different from all other U.S. presidents? Hardly at all. Bill Clinton bombed Iraq (causing the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result) and the Balkans repeatedly for most of his time in office. Reagan bombed Panama, Grenada, Libya, etc. . They like things that go "boom" alongside brown people, it's a presidential thing--you wouldn't understand.

In other words, George W. Bush was convinced that bombing Auschwitz was such a good idea, he had it related to the chairman to deliver to the Israeli and world press. He is likely to have insisted on it as a good idea to harp on, that he "cares" about people, especially when they're of strategic interest to the State Department, even if they've been dead for 63 years. Hey, it's worked for the right-wingers in Israel. Yet, it's very likely that bombing Auschwitz (never mind all the other death camps) not only wouldn't have worked, but that tens-of-thousands of Jewish refugees and inmates of the camp would have been killed in the process. Oh yeah, and several thousand Soviet P.O.W.s, European Gypsies, homosexuals, women, children, interned Poles and German dissidents and leftists, and-on-and-on. In other words, not only weren't the logistics there to pull-it-off correctly during WWII, but it was even money that the end result would have been a human rights catastrophe resembling Iraq. Why does it seem to me that nobody will be able to convince Bush otherwise?

Bush isn't not alone, however, and the most extremist voices on this issue, naturally, emanate from American Jewish scholars. One can only imagine why, they being in-league with similar extremists in Israel who hold the same views on maintaining the status quo in Palestine. What we have here is a tweaking of the iconography, the final days of "yeah, but the holocaust" to justify inhuman policies towards Palestinians. The saddest part is that these extremists are in-the-minority in Israel and the United States, they just have big mouths and hijacked the bully pulpit of the Shoah decades ago. Nothing of any lasting value will emerge from this "Middle East Peace tour," nothing at all. The client state will mouth what its master wishes to hear (for now), but sometimes it wags its owner. If the president wasn't pathological, he might have shed a few tears over the bodies of his own victims...but that would require a sense of irony.

Lucio Fulci's The Eroticist (1972) review

Cardinal Maravigli: "You can make the presidential palace a brothel as far as I'm concerned, just do it once you're president!"

Most movie fans cringe when they hear the name Lucio Fulci. They think of rotting zombies and guts spilling everywhere in a lake of gore and putrescence. Fulci made around 58 individual motion pictures from 1959 to 1991, and it's only in the final quarter of this body of work that he made the horror films he's known for throughout the world. But what about the earlier ones? Few ever made it out of Italy at the time.

What's surprising--or not considering one's take on comedy and horror--is that the great majority of Fulci's output were comedies. He also directed a number of spaghetti westerns, a Jack London story (White Fang with Franco Nero, and some of the best giallos ever lensed like A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, The Manhattan Ripper, and Don't Torture a Duckling.

The truth is, there were many sides to Lucio Fulci.

"The Eroticist" is one of those movies whose images never leave you, which is quite an achievement for a social and political satire wrapped in a sexual farce! But it's not that difficult in the hands of such a skilled director as Fulci and the flesh parade of Laura Antonelli, Anita Stringdberg, the handsome and hilarious Lando Buzzanco (as the senator), Agostina Belli, and a gaggle of nunsploitation sex-pots. It doesn't need to be repeated that the 1970s were that "decade of violence" in Italy, but the Eroticist is a good reminder of how absurd and explosive Italian politics were at that time.

Fulci created this story and co-wrote the screenplay with two other writers, Alessandro Continenza and Ottavio Jemma. Making this film in Italy in 1972 took guts, something Fulci had plenty of, he was unflappable. The Eroticist is a film that's both blasphemous and sexually redemptive besides being a very pointed political satire. You don't have to be familiar with Italian politics to understand it.

The story is fairly simple: an Italian Christian Democrat (as in Germany, the party the fascists joined after the war) senator named Gianni Puppis (the square-jawed Lando Buzzanco) is heading for the "highest office in the land," the presidency of Italy. Puppis has been so caught-up in his rise in politics that he's never had sex--and yet he's still Italian. This being a slam on Italian politics and politics in general, viewers might think that senator Puppis might seem demonically possessed as part of this delicious sexual farce, but he's not, and that's what makes this a movie that speaks loudly to our own scandal-ridden era or any other modern era. Hypocrisy is universal.

Senator Puppis is, simply-put, just a very horny man in a profession that doesn't allow for it. His only alternative is to head towards life, leaving the old one behind. This is something he struggles with, and the results are uproariously funny. Fulci even patterned Buzzanco's appearance after a real Christian Democrat senator!

Yet, the senator isn't possessed by anything unnatural--we find--it's just that he needs to get laid. He begins by subconsciously engaging in some grabb-ass at public events he has to preside over! On one occasion, he grabs the ass of the president of India! Enter Fulci's favorite target: the Vatican. For anyone even mildly acquainted with Italian politics, one knows that the Church is that constant irritant blocking as much progress as possible and that they still meddle in the elections and the ways of life and government of a nation.

Whenever you see a zombie in a later Lucio Fulci horror, it's a reference to the "dead hand" of the Church, the Italian curse. Fulci--to his credit--hated the Vatican as most reasonable people do, and they get special treatment here. Puppis is the Vatican's and the Sicilian Mafia's man. The Vatican is represented by Cardinal Maravigli (played by American actor Lionel Stander, the guy with the croaky-voice from tv's 'Hart to Hart'--he was also in Polanski's forgotten "Cul-de-Sac" and Spielberg's "1941").

And so, we get one sexual escapade after another, a kind of "what's he going to do next?" comedy. Will the senator be able to control himself? Will his handler, Cardinal Maravigli be able to watch him and keep him out of trouble until after Puppis has won the presidential elections? Sending Puppis to a convent filled with German nuns doesn't work--he has sex with all 21 of them, and why not? Far from being the sexless "fag" that his political rivals thought he was, il senatore is making up for lost time in a big way. Embarrassing? Si! Better for the body and the body politic? Si!

There are so many hilarious and embarrassing moments of sexual humor here, and as usual, the photography and composition are as luscious as they are in even the goriest of Fulci's work. Will senator Puppis win the presidential election, or will he decide to be a normal man with a normal and healthy sex life? He cannot have both. Fulci seems to be saying that one cannot truly live when one focuses their life purely on the pursuit of power and influence. Sinning, then, is normal and human, a better path.

Regardless of religious repression, the forces of life prevail. The Eroticist also says a lot about why we think our politicians shouldn't have a good sex life (considering how they behave, it could be a torture that is earned ), but attitudes towards this have changed substantially in Europe, and certainly in France. Still, the Church has its undying influence...

CREEEPY CRAWLIES ARE OUT AGAIN...

Fort Meade, Maryland--In case you don't know who "Steve Skinner" is, do a word search of his name and the murdered Assistant US Attorney Jonathan P. Luna...

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Straits of Hormuz Equals Gulf of Tonkin

The Persian Gulf--Today, we learned that the Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened, it's official, and that it was a lie told by President Johnson, the State Department of that time, and that criminal who incredibly still goes by the name Robert McNamara (an ancient ancestor of Donald Rumsfeld, he was Sec. of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson). They lied then in 1964, and they're lying now about the same stupid scenario: that we were fired-on in the Straits of Hormuz. It's a lie, and even if it's true, we've provoked it before in that area. We don't belong there, and our presence there is to cause the kind of incident that would spark a war with Iran. Like Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction," it is a lie--a fiction, for money. It really is that simple.

"Boy Glues Hand to Bed to Avoid School"

Mexico City, Mexico--I think we can all relate to this one. School is the run-up for how shitty work is going to be. But imagine school in Mexico City--I can't. Little Diego had so much fun being free and having the time to actually live that he didn't want to go back...ever. I can see my younger brother doing this, and Diego is our soul mate, a good kid. He knows the majority of what he's being taught is sky high bullshit stacked on bullshit. Good kid, much smarter than the adults. There you go.

On Diego, my man: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/str?guid=20080108/47830350_3ca6_1552620080108-1133845373

West Memphis 3 Update: Terry Wayne Hobbs vs. John Mark Byers?

West Memphis, Arkansas--In a case that has had as many twists-and-turns as the aftermath of WWII, there is another bizarre development: John Mark Byers is alleged to have come out for the innocence of the West Memphis 3. At this time, it's impossible to corroborate as Byers is alleged to be claiming that he's been doing "undercover work" towards whether another step-father might have been involved in the murders of the three eight-year-olds back in 1993--Terry Wayne Hobbs.

[John] Mark Byers has recently come out in favor of the innocence of those in prison. He has said he has helped perform undercover work, making tapes of his conversations with Terry Hobbs. He has made some remarkable allegations about Hobbs past. The supporting evidence for these allegations have yet to appear. (http://www.jivepuppi.com/Terry_Hobbs.html, November 15th, 2007)

What's interesting is that there have been suspicions that Byers did in fact do "undercover" informant work for the West Memphis Police Department prior to the murders of his own step-son and the other two children. It's likely that the informant work was related to drug interdiction, as West Memphis is a well known corridor for the flow of illegal drugs through that part of Arkansas. It should be noted that Hobbs's and Byers' step-sons suffered some of the most brutal mutilations and violence to their bodies. This includes what could be a bite-mark (or the lashing from a belt-buckle) on his face. Christopher Byers, step-son of John Mark Byers, suffered mutilation of the genitals.

Is Byers innocent? So far, DNA-evidence found at the scene has not fully exonerated the man, now purported to reside outside of Millington, Tennessee. Some of the results of the DNA testing are still unknown, but one of the hairs found on the bodies of the children in a a shoestring ligature (binding) has a positive ID: Terry Wayne Hobbs. John Mark Byers and Terry Wayne Hobbs--what's common to these men? That's answered easily: both were step-parents, and both were involved in patterns of criminal violence, breaking-and-entering, and heavy drug-use. They also show signs of being abusive in their homes and with the children of others. Both Hobbs and Byers also came from strictly religious and economically comfortable backgrounds. They did not grow-up poor as the West Memphis 3 had. Then, there is the mysterious David Jacoby:

THOMAS FEDOR, FORENSIC EXPERT: None of the defendants could have been the source of that hair. None of the victims could have been the source of either hair. None of the DNA evidence from the crime scene connects any of the defendants to the scene of the crime.

MATTINGLY: So, who could the hairs belong to? A defense petition in federal court says the DNA from one hair is consistent with that of Terry Hobbs. Hobbs is the former stepfather of victim Steve Branch.

(on camera): Mr. Hobbs, do you feel like that the attorneys are accusing you of this crime?

ROSS SAMPSON, HOBBS'S ATTORNEY: The answer to that would be no.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Hobbs agreed to go in front of our cameras while his attorney did the talking. And through most of my questions, Hobbs remained silent.

(on camera) Is it possible, Mr. Hobbs, that that was your hair?

SAMPSON: Sure. It was his son, Stephen Branch, who was murdered, and he's had to deal with this for the last 15 years.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Defense attorneys say a second hair found at the scene is consistent with the DNA of Hobbs's friend, David Jacoby, and that the two were together in the hours before and after the victims disappeared.

Jacoby did not return our calls, but he did volunteer DNA samples to the defense. Authorities say they stand by the old convictions. West Memphis police have no plans to question anyone. ... (CNN transcipt, November 8th, 2007, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/08/cnr.01.html)

And what of David Jacoby? What is his background? Who is he? His hair sample was found at the site where the bodies of the three murdered children were found, located on a tree stump. This is a relatively new name, and it should be noted here that Hobbs and Jacoby--both friends supporting each other's alibis on that day--have all generally remained out of the spotlight of this whole affair, ever since 1993. Hobbs in-particular has gone out of his way to avoid interviews until recently, while Jacoby has been relatively unknown to the general public until 2007.

While the cops try to get their stories straight and lose more evidence in their custody, a real move towards exoneration of the West Memphis 3 is building. It is long-overdue.

On November 18th of 2007, Pamela Hobbs was arrested for domestic abuse of her sister, Sheila Muse. Drug abuse is the suspected reason for her behavior, a trait she shares with her ex-husband (as well as problems with drugs). Her own daughter aided her in the beating of Muse.

In an about-face, Pamela Hobbs is now siding with the calls for a new trial for the West Memphis 3. Still, there's the nagging question: what's John Mark Byers up to? Whatever it is, it appears that the real murderers of Steven Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers are growing restless. Everyone has to confess to their transgressions, and it's just a matter of when. When is coming soon.

Want Cheney Impeached? Sign Here, Please!

http://wexlerwantshearings.com/

Happy Holidays from J-7!

Best wishes to all, especially all of you at the DOJ! Drink a lot of egg nog! And try to stay off those roads, they're dangerous this time of year. Also: don't fire off a lot of guns like my neighbors in the back yard, someone might think there's a local uprising.

1980s Nostalgia

Forget it kids, you didn't miss anything. Nothing. Well, really bad fashion and hearing El Debarge in heavy-rotation, but the movies were better overall. Yep, besides the underground culture, there were at least real indie films back then. Otherwise, it was as boring and annoying as today...OK, not quite as annoying as today, but extremely close. Same shit, different decade. Ahhhh, you'll see as you get older. You'll see.

Syphilis Returns to Europe in a Big, Sexy Way

The European Union--The wires are reporting that syphilis has returned to Europe in a major way. This comes to us at an interesting moment: an old friend in the Czech Republic recently sent me a slide show of the world's record for most-times having sex with different partners in one day. The winner? Poland's Klaudia Figuera (she's Polish?!) at 646 times in 7 hours. Ahem.

They say that a Spanish sailor named Martin Alonzo Pinzon contracted the disease on one of the earliest-jaunts into the Caribbean by an expedition of Christopher Columbus, spreading it once back in Europe--or is it the other way around? There's no proof whatsoever that it was 'the admiral' himself who spread the contagion. But back to the navigator Pinzon (pilot of the Pinta):

Spanish navigator and companion of Columbus on his first voyage to the New World, born at Palos de Moguer, 1441; died there at the convent of La Rábida, 1493. Sprung from a family of seamen, he became a hardy sailor and skillful pilot. According to Parkman and other historians, he sailed under Cousin, a navigator from Dieppe, to the eastern coast of Africa, whence they were carried far to the south-west. They there discovered an unknown land and a mighty river. Returning to Spain, Pinzón became acquainted with Columbus through Fray Juan Perez de Marchina, prior of the convent of La Rábida, and became an enthusiastic promoter of the scheme of the great navigator. (http://www.pinson.net/pinzon/ )

And what of Pinzon's east African journey? Could he have contracted syphilis there before embarking with Columbus to the Caribbean--or did he contract a bug that mutated with indigenous bacterial-strains found in the Americas? Most of the studies surrounding the origins and the early spread of syphilis focus on the New World and Europe. Why not take a look at Africa? Probably because medical and archaeological researchers took a narrow view of things, then realizing their careers were hanging-in-the-balance. The controversy still rages-on, just as it has for 500 years. English ethnologist W.M. Bollaert wrote in 1864:

In 1500 we find syphilis called in Scotland pokes and Spanyie pockis; but it was generally denominated the French disease. Ital­ians, Germans, and English spoke of it as the disease of Naples. The Dutch, Flemings, Portuguese, and Moors as the Spanish malady; and the Spaniards to this day call it Galico or French disease ; but we never hear it quoted as the American disease. Gonorrhoea was in full vigour in London in 1430, and known as clap or brenning, and its existence spoken of a century earlier, in the time of Richard II.

There can be no doubt that syphilis existed extensively at Naples, and was brought into Western Europe with the return of Charles VIII from that country in May 1495. I may here observe that when Co­lumbus returned to Europe from the New World in May 1493, there is no allusion at that date that syphilis was brought from America. When Sir. R. Alcock was asked by a friend of mine as to the exist­ence of syphilis in Japan, he said it was known as the Portuguese disease [Ed.-Some of the first real navigators in Europe before Columbus, and the first to Japan.], and was common there.

(http://www.logoi.com/health/syphilis/syphilis_2.html)

Imagine: it only took seven years to spread syphilis throughout Europe through her port cities! And so, we come back to present-day Europe where everything old is new again. As anyone could predict, the main group carrying syphilis is the male population, particularly in gay men. Hint: it might be a good idea not to have sex with several-dozen partners, with much of it being unprotected. Just a suggestion. But does that even matter? People lie, and not just in bed, they lie about who they've been with and how many lovers they've had. Sorry, there's no cure for lying except free will and logic.

Nietzsche contracted syphilis the first time he had sex with a prostitute, proving once again that there is no inherent meaning to anything outside of the human mind. One could conclude that a lot of the spread is due to the fall of Soviet-domination in Central Europe, the subsequent opening of borders under the EU, and how perverted the French and Germans are, the filthy buggers. They don't call it the 'French disease' for nothing. Thank Henry Ford and Rudolf Diesel, and all the other sundry inventors for creating modern transportation, the real culprits here (and those bastards at Mercedes Benz). They must be shagging in the trams these days.

Some Sexual Food for Thought, December 2004: http://www.eurosurveillance.org/em/v09n12/0912-222.asp

Ken Russell Extravaganza!

"I have two more breakthrough films on the stocks – Porn-Again Christian and A Chink in the Curtains. Each one lasts just one minute, including credits." --Ken Russell, December 14th, 2007.

Russellmania--That wonderful enfant terrible of cinema has been writing an often hilarious and always thoughtful column for The Times. Ken Russell also has a new film entitled 'A Kitten for Hitler,' and it's free, online for all you deadbeats: http://www.comedybox.tv/index.aspx . Ken gives a bit of a synopsis at Comedy Box when he states that:

This story concerns Lenny, a naive little Jewish boy from Brooklyn, who reasons that Hitler wouldn’t be so bad if he were treated like a human being instead of a monster. Accordingly, he risks life and limb to cross war-torn Europe to deliver to "Uncle Adolf" a placatory Christmas present in the shape of a cuddly kitten [Ed.-I think we should try this with the president, don't you?]. Moved to tears, the Führer hands him a swastika-shaped bagel from the Christmas tree, whereupon Lenny pulls up his shirt, revealing an almost identical birthmark. What happens next I leave to your imagination– likewise the moving payoff.

Here's to extremely bad taste done on-the-cheap!And this is just one of a few other films of Ken's that are available, free, and online to all you cheap bastards out there.

Ken's newest article at The Times (UK): http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article3074343.ece

The Red Bat Phone to God

God's Area Code--How long ago was it since the president said he spoke with God? Where does the Red Bat phone (TM) fit into the Christian cosmology? How stupid is the stupidest American, and how many times did they vote for George W. Bush and the GOP? The interesting thing about the contention "I talked to God," is that it's completely bat-shit crazy. Now I get the connection to Christian cosmology. Yes, tens-of-thousands of human beings were tortured and murdered during the Inquisition so that priests could fondle their congregation's children while Bishops look the other way. While Moveon.org has their 100th cocktail party while Iraqi children burn in the streets of their cities, and while the president has his 659,359th drink while the current Rome burns, we'll be here. Who's "we"? The people who think anyone who claims to have spoken with God (YHWH, the evil desert god once known as "Moloch") is completely out of their fucking minds. If Jesus had known where things were heading after his death...well, he did figure-it-out: "Father, why have you forsaken me?" Exactly.

Some Surprises in-store for orthodox Christians:

1.) The punchline after your death will be eternal rest like everyone else.
2.) The final realization that if there is a God, it doesn't care about your bank account.
3.) That they're not God either.
4.) That every penny they gave was wasted.
5.) That because they are so profoundly egotistical they cannot accept the inevitability of death.
6.) The fact that Jesus was a man, that he died, and that he's not coming back anytime soon.
7.) That Jesus is now carbonized-dust, somewhere in Palestine.
8.) That nearly all of them are so stupid they don't understand metaphor and have misinterpreted the New Testament for almost 2,000 years.
9.) That they really don't believe in the New Testament, are descended from pagans, and are still essentially pagan barbarians who merely possess high-technology.
10.) That the real book they worship by is the Old Testament.
11.) That they are boorish and bothersome.
12.) That--as they've always suspected--absolutely nobody in their right mind would want to spend eternity with them, regardless of the reward.
13.) That Jesus would feel the same about most all of this and insult them (as he did the disciples) just as I'm doing right now.

Good Times: LA, 1988 (short story excerpt)

That was a truly crazy summer: my brother's friend Joe had moved to Los Angeles to do--what else?--conquer the world of music with his electric guitar. He almost did, and even played on some of Eazy-E's earliest demos. There were other gigs. After only being in L.A. for a year, Joe had gained something new...a roaring methamphetamine habit. Going from a girth of 200 lbs., he had dropped to a startling 140.

He would literally play guitar for days-on-end, and in a very short time he was a virtuoso. Joe could play Hendrix as though Jimi was actually in the room (down to the chime-like tone), and he and my brother had been the only two long-hairs at our High School during the 80s. For those who don't know, it wasn't exactly a good move, people not only wanted to forget the sixties at that time, but heaped scorn on anyone with hair past their shoulders as being a "faggot."My brother's nickname was 'Ozzy,' for obvious reasons.

But it didn't take looking odd to gain that special attention. One day I was walking to another class at Alexander Hamilton High and was stopped cold by one of the kids who was beaten (but not enough) regularly by his parents. It was 1983:

"Hey, Janowitz! Do you like rap?!" Of course, it was my duty as a Caucasian to say "no," so I said "yes." My response was rewarded with a punch and a feeble attempt at a trip-up. That was normal, and the same people would then be seen yucking-it-up to Sugar Hill Gang at the local skating rink, not having any understanding of the irony--or even of irony itself.

Where was I? Oh yeah, it was 1988, and my brother was chasing a "friend" to L.A. . Solid. The trip wasn't exactly what my brother had-in-mind. Joe had degenerated into a slobbering drug-addict, but there was some fun to be had running around the city. Most of it involved selling clothes for drugs, but we won't dwell on that. When my brother came back (did he ever, really?), we almost had to call in a cult deprogrammer and were unsure this was the same guy. Well, he must have been fairly sober while he was there: they went to the Whisky Au-Go-Go to see Guns-N'-Roses. It's not what you think, not at all.

They'd been out that hot summer night on Sunset strip, bar-hopping and being chased by the L.A.P.D. for having long-hair when they hit the Whisky. A really awful sound of poorly-played rock-n'-roll was wafting out of the place, they were drunk, so a collision with somebody was inevitable. After many drinks, my brother had finally had it with the band. So had Joe, and he egged my brother on to "do it." What was "it"? He grabbed his empty bottle of Heineken and threw it blindly at the guitarist in the Ritchie Blackmore warlock hat, yelling, "You fucking suck, stop playing you fucking assholes!"

"Bggg-gank!!" was the sound of the bottle crashing against the fretboard of Slash's weathered Les Paul Custom. That was it, it was time to run, and they did. Little did my brother know at the time that Axl Rose was from West Lafayette, Indiana. For those who don't know, it's a very dirty and depressing place. Maybe it was mean to do what they did, but sometimes things go that way. Besides, they were right. Guns-N'-Roses sucked, they always sucked, and will always suck. It's non-negotiable.

Press Attempts Clumsy Smear of Sex Pistols' John Lydon

"We weren't paid the first time out. We intend to be this time." --John Lydon, 2007.

Sacramento, California--'They only did it for the money,' states the mainstream press line on the 1996 and 2007 Sex Pistols reunion. So, where's the story here? Correct, there isn't one. What exactly is wrong with the artists--the actual authors and performers of the music--making money off of their hard work and their talent? Because all the middle men, music industry hacks and shills, crooked lawyers, and all the rest of the leeches that cluster to popular artists, aren't making all of the money.

Rocker JOHN LYDON only agreed to reunite the SEX PISTOLS for comeback tours in 1996 and 2007 to make money. The God Save The Queen singer admits he had no artistic reasons to reform the iconic punk band, just financial ones. He says, "I think that the word reunion... it just implies, 'Oh, they're back for the money.' Yeah, well, hello! Of course we're back for the money. And what is the shame in that?

(World Entertainment News Network December 17, 2007, http://enews.earthlink.net/article/ent?guid=20071217/47660250_8c0_2240200712171284136004 )

And be sure to CAPITALIZE the names of your TARGETS, it implies that they're BAD PEOPLE. And so, the aforementioned middle men from the dying music industry nudge their allies in the press who feel the same about it anyway--artists like the Sex Pistols need to shut-up and act like everyone else: as employees with few rights. Sorry, the Pistols aren't about to do that, not ever.

Here's to the Sex Pistols and John Lydon, may they bathe in those greenbacks as they always should have, rather than scum like Malcolm Maclaren or that corn-toothed idiot-thief Richard Branson. May Branson die in a balloon crash, the twit. Never trust a hippie capitalist. The only reason any of these kind of turds will be remembered at all is because of their association with the greatness of the Sex Pistols and all the other musicians and artists that they ripped-off over-the-years.

Time to let the music industry finish itself off. It appears they're doing all of the work, for all of us, the real music lovers. When you accept the rules of your natural adversaries, you've already lost. This round: Johnny Rotten-1, Press-0. Now, if we can just get a PiL reunion going--whoops! No money in that one!

Philip K. Dick android head still missing, with "No Plans to Rebuild You"

The People's Republic of China--It's out there somewhere, but it appears someone, somewhere, still has the head of the Philip K. Dick android. Hanson robotics still has the body, which is weird. The whole scenario is weird, like a PKD story.

Let's face it: it's probably in China, right now, and a whole factory is manufacturing PKD androids by-the-thousands (with lead-paint). That would be kinda cool--minus the lead-paint.

The androids could help lead a revolution there, then liberate the citizens of the United States of America from the corporations and the politicians. Somehow, I think artificial-intelligence will evolve to this point, where it starts telling us to be more human to each other. But then, I was always a fan of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), and I believe we need someone bigger than us to make us behave, some kind of non-human force. Nature (global warming) will have to do for now.

The droid has been missing since February of 2006, though "stolen" is a more appropriate term. If it's not in China, one could imagine some intelligence entity (not aliens) from nearly anywhere--even here--that wanted the technology...and maybe even some much needed enlightenment.

Remember: the head was created by a consortium of A.I. specialists, and there were over 2 million words from Dick's writings, many of them unpublished pieces from his legendary "Exegesis" and even some correspondence. If you want a good summary of what the Exegesis was, imagine a genius trying to explain the nature of reality in abstract terms. It's a sprawling document that was never finished by its author, but he gave it a good try!

I recently had the good fortune of correspondence with Hanson Robotics and asked them if they had either found the head or were going to construct another--bad news. "No" to both, the head is still missing and they have no plans to build another anytime soon. It's understandable considering how much the original cost to create it was and the fact that someone, somewhere, might attempt to steal a new one.

But why just steal this particular android's head? As far as anyone can tell, nobody ever grabbed the Albert Einstein whenever it was in-transit on a North American flyover.

Hi Matt,

Thank you for the email.The PKD head is still unaccounted for.
We do not have any plans at this time to reconstruct another.

Best regards, Matt Fisher
Hanson Robotics

At least we have lots of footage and photos of the original android, but imagine being able to converse with a simulacrum of someone who wrote about them? Friends and family of the late writer were consulted extensively to contribute what Dick's countenance and mannerisms were like when he was alive, and they've attested to the accuracy of the droid.

And why not a John Lennon, or an Adolf Hitler, Leonardo DaVinci, Aristotle (not Onasis), Socrates, Julius Caesar or George Orwell? Mark Twain would be a wonderful android, or even Sigmund Freud. But imagine being able to ask Philip K. Dick a question. We could have had a taste of that before February of 2006. Now what could be a better gift to Philip K. Dick fans--and the human race--to give the head back?

To whomever stole it--we want it back now. Don't be a dick-head. Elect an android to Congress, because machines don't lie! Speaking of that, they should build a Richard Cheney model, it would be more human.

http://www.hansonrobotics.com/