Will the Menstrualcramp run...and flow?

Indiana--Now that the senate blue dog founder Evan Bayh has been outed (the public is apparently slow on the uptake, I noticed long ago) as being roundly conservative, thanks mostly to the health care battle going on in Congress and has announced he won't be running for reelection, some of the Hoosier state's progressives are looking...well, probably in the wrong place. It's a good idea in theory to nominate/draft pop singer John Mellencamp, but I really don't think he's qualified.

Not so long ago, Bayh was a "good guy."

A fellow Hoosier and friend from college put it well on Facebook: "I think he'd just sit there chain-smoking and going "HEY! HEY!" every once in a while. Maybe an occasional harmonica solo." At least he featured Edith Massey of Pink Flamingos fame in one of his videos...but he made-out with her, and let's be honest, that's just wrong.

Will the Indiana GOP (aka NSDAP) drag this part of his past into the political roundhouse theater (a barn, this is Indiana)? The world may never know. At this writ(h)ing, there's no comments on all this high-falutin' talk over whether he's going to run or even flow into a senatorial candidacy by June of this year. Ah, but the left and the right are shitting all over themselves about whether he will or won't (my take is that he won't). (F)Alternet had some really superficial and inarticulate things to say today, somehow drawing a supplement to the writer's paycheck as a result:

So, could Mellencamp perform in the U.S. Senate?

Could he be the right replacement for retiring Senator Evan Bayh, D-Indiana?

Forget the blah-blah-blah about celebrities in politics. We crossed that bridge decades ago.

The question is whether this celebrity makes the right connections with this state.

Mellencamp certainly has the home-state credibility. Few rockers have been so closely associated with a state as Mellencamp with Indiana.

Mellencamp has a history of issue-oriented political engagement that is the rival of any of the Democratic politicians who are being considered as possible Bayh replacements.

And Mellencamp has something else. He has a record of standing up for disenfranchised and disenchanted working-class families in places like his hometown of Seymour, Indiana.

In other words, he's worthy of the consideration that has led to talk of a "Draft John Mellencamp" movement. In fact, he might be just enough of an outlier to energize base votes and to make independent voters look again at the Democratic column. ("Senator Mellencamp?," Alternet, 02.17.2010)

They also mention that John's "friends with Bill Clinton," which to these eyes and ears is roundly wrong-headed on his part if it's true. If Clinton was ever a "friend" of the poor, I'm Abraham Lincoln. He's not going to run. Who would want to after the most recent generation of incumbents left such a titanic mess? Mellencamp prefers the quiet life on his property outside of Bloomington, Indiana, in Seymour. Cross your own bridges, we play euchre in Indiana, m-kay?

But where did this meme begin? Facebook, where else? It sure wasn't poor old Myspace. I have a number of friends on there nay-saying about the social networking site's influence, but this is a good example that they're not entirely correct, but they're probably used to it:

A Facebook group is looking to draft singer John Mellencamp to replace departing Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana.
It's adding fuel to the fire of speculation that he'll launch a bid.

He would join a growing number of Democrats considering a run following Bayh's surprise announcement he will not seek reelection. ("Facebook Page Fuels Mellencamp Senate Speculation," mystateline.com, 02.17.2010)

FB is a good way to get a meme going and that's a real power--so much so that Fox News panicked shortly after noticing the existence of the group and did a spot on Mellencamp being "too left." In a sense, that's pulling-the-strings of the string-pullers, a real tug-of-war to control the narrative, even if accidentally. But will he run? Should be run? I know, all this "blah-blah-blah" over celebrities running, but I was never a conformist, so that meme can go jump in a lake with everyone else, it's not fixing anything. We have covered bridges in Indiana.

And, hey, why not let Fox News have the last word since they usually insist on it?

...Speculation is swirling [around the bowl, or is it 'bowel'?] that the liberal Mellencamp may put down his guitar and run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Evan Bayh. ...

The Democratic state central committee now has until June 30 to pick someone to replace Bayh on the ballot.

U.S. Reps. Baron Hill and Brad Ellsworth are among the other names being floated. But so far, Mellencamp's name is drawing the most attention.

Mellencamp's publicist did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

("Speculation Swirls Around Potential Senate Bid by Rocker John Mellencamp," Foxnews.com, 02.17.2010)

Interestingly, and in character, the online article is significantly more toned down from the bluster and hyperbole of the TV version telecast today on Fox. But really, just because it sounds like a great idea doesn't mean that it is. Take a look at California after several years of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the GOP. At least they used the proper word in all of this, "speculation." I should add that I like his paintings, they're very good. M-kay?

"Fox preemptive strike against Mellencamp: ‘He’s way over there’," Rawstory, 02.17.2010: http://rawstory.com/2010/02/fox-preemptive-strike-mellencamp/

"Senator Mellencamp?", Alternet, 02.17.2010: http://www.alternet.org/news/145714/senator_mellencamp_grassroots_movement_swells_for_rocker_to_run_of_bayh%27s_indiana_seat

"Facebook Page Fuels Mellencamp Senate Speculation," mystateline.com, 02.17.2010: http://mystateline.com/content/fulltext/?cid=138222

The man's site: http://www.mellencamp.com/

"Speculation Swirls Around Potential Senate Bid by Rocker John Mellencamp," Foxnews.com, 02.17.2010: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/17/speculation-swirls-potential-mellencamp-senate-bid/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fpolitics+%2528Text+-+Politics%2529

More "she were suicided" fun at UK site Mathaba

Ed.--It never ends, and what a bunch of scared turds there are out there. She committed suicide. A jackape named "Sarah" points-out that I made an observation last May that Palfrey's suicide notes were legitimate and that some wild speculator named "J.J. Raymond" was completely wrong in his analysis of the handwriting.

As any fool knows--and aren't we all fools these days--handwriting analysis is entirely speculative and not a science but an art. Not that this little man was working from originals at any point, nor is likely to ever do so. He and the "she were suicided" crew have nothing.

Raymond and these morons know this, and they know that that's all they have regarding the death of Jeane Palfrey: speculations, and wild ones with wild leaps of logic found among those with just enough knowledge to be a problem to others. That's right, stupid people who can read a little. Below is my reply to "Sarah," I assume a fake identity of someone without a shred of credibility when it comes to the last year of Deborah Jeane Palfrey.

"The problem with your contention is that I'm saying the suicide notes were not forged, they were real. Therefore--based on my own ten month correspondence with her, my general defense research for her--I say none of you have a clue what you're talking/writing about here in any respect. I could care less about Mr. Raymond's opinions on the matter, or those found in the rest of the comments.

You were not part of the story, I was, and so were others. Ask Larisa Alexandrovna, go ask any of the journalists who interviewed her and they will tell you that she was unbalanced throughout the entire ordeal. That you cannot ascertain the obvious from the whole catastrophe is a mark of how unintelligent and irrational you all are.

Let me make it clear: she killed herself by her own hand. She was offered excellent plea deals that she refused again and again, she put out numerous suicidal cues throughout the affair, she had made similar threats/statements back in 1992, she emailed me, a co-researcher, and noted journalist Jason Leopold (hiding it, presumably) from her then-counsel, and she even expressed it to her civil counsel, Montgomery Blair Sibley. This is why he was removed from the case by her. There is more, and it is coming from me and from others who I assume are writing their own accounts for the record.

But again, I could really care less about the opinions of those who have no idea what they're talking about in this whole story. Why you wish to believe this--and it is a desire, obviously--is a matter of scared little people. Go ahead, believe the world is flat, there is a divine Jesus, there are aliens abducting rednecks (who else would they want to communicate with?), and that everything is under totalitarian rule. Believe the fiction, I don't really care, and neither do most intelligent adults with a clue."

I would also add that pointing-out earlier comments when the news was fresh is the oldest trick in the book on the part of the huckster conspiracy salesperson. Want fries with your book and conspiracy mug? I know, I know: t'was the gub'ment, even before there was one.

That's an arch-conservative argument, incidentally (not-so-incidentally, or coincidentally), part of the redneck problem. Congratulations Sarah, you learned how to cut-and-paste, you're a genius. Mr. Raymond? A funny little man with very little company on this topic.

MONDO NEW YORK (1988) review

What a documentary this could have been! I first saw this in 1989 on home video, right before I was off to college. At the time, it was pretty shocking to these Midwestern eyes, but then, I was 21. There are only a few reasons to watch this at all: Karen Finley, Lydia Lunch's prologue rant, nutsoid artist Joe Coleman, Annie Sprinkle naked, some good poetry, and even some interesting looks at gay culture at that time in NYC.

However, embarrassing segments like the ones with John Sex and Phoebe Legere doing some really dumbass air guitar to a tape of her godawful 80s song called "Marilyn Monroe" sink this film. I've never been to New York City, and I don't see why I should anymore. That city is gone, and those of us who never saw the place never can now. It is gone. At least director Harvey Keith was there to document some of it, he just managed to miss most of the interesting-parts. Somehow, I think that was the fault--once again--of the money people (the Executive producers). Also embarrassing in Mondo New York are the 80s styles and fashions (the haircuts being the worst). There's no real nostalgia here, except for the New York City that is no more. There is no more cultural nexus like Greenwich Village anymore, a place where artists of all mediums can germinate naturally. It's all been cleaned-up and gentrified. Soho is the same.

A friend of mine saw Allen Ginsberg's final walk through Central Park around 1994, and he also witnessed the Village die, succumbing to gentrification. It's gone. So are the scarlet streets (where the whores were), live sex shows, and the glory that was Times Square. It's now the bureaucratic hell that Herman Melville saw it becoming back in the 1850s. The job is now done, and Big business and old money can now stew in its own self-imposed Apocalypse of meaninglessness.

No more grindhouse theaters, no more venues for independent art and music, no more revival houses, nada. Zip. Just a playground for the rich. Record stores? They're almost all gone throughout the nation. Bookstores? Who reads anymore? Some of us, but not many. If there is any nostalgia to be had, it's for a NYC that was once a free-for-all cesspool that was affordable. It was oddly refreshing in its freedom. There are certainly contemporary pockets there where scenes exist, but NYC is no longer the center of American culture, especially since Giuliani and the internet. And that's why Mondo New York isn't relevant today, and merely a so-so social document of some of the weirdness that was once allowed to flourish within the city limits of NYC. That's over.

Watching this, I had to wonder: "Where's Sonic Youth? Where's the Knitting Factory scene, the Jewish jazz scene, the hip-hop, and where's Bill Laswell, John Zorn, the Swans, and the wave of postpunk artists who were doing well at that time?" Where's Keith Haring? Where's Jean Paul Basquiat?

The answer on the music-side: the morons who produced the documentary had cheese-head/coke-head Alan Douglas overseeing the music in the film. Douglas is the guy who gave Al Hendrix $30,000 for the rights to Jimi's music after 1970.

Some rumors have it that he's hopelessly-addicted to cocaine to-this-day, with one story involving a garden-hose... Also, the score is really horrible and was done by Luis Perico Ortiz and Johnny Pacheco. I think a Casio keyboard and those godawful Yamaha DX-7s (digital piano, ugh!) were used, so it sounds incredibly dated and trivializes most of what you see in the documentary. Perhaps this was "to take the edge off" for Midwestern audiences at that time, I don't know, but it's a great case of how not to score a film.

We see cock-fights, a voodoo ritual--creepin' Christ, there's a lot of dead-chickens in this one, that's for sure. We see Joey Arias do a bad impersonation of a woman singing the worst rendition of "A Hard Days Night" that you'll ever hear. We see a junkie shooting-up, possibly for real. We see a Black comedian (the late great Charlie Barnett) make racial jokes to an audience in Washington Park that wouldn't float nowadays! Ann Magnason is pretty funny with her performance art shorts. Probably the best part of this whole mess is Joe Coleman, known for his folk art/iconographic paintings of serial killers and other sundry criminals and nut-jobs. What's great is his performance-art pieces. He comes out as his persona "Professor Mombuzu," and begins a rant that makes a certain sense, and then whips-out two white-mice named "Mushmouf and Pumkin' puss."  Coleman then bites their heads off and flies into a complete rage. But he isn't done yet: once the audience are sufficiently scared and outraged, he pulls-out a fuse from his 19th century gambler's-vest and blows-himself-up! You couldn't do it today after 9/11.

Seeing shots and hearing references to the World Trade Center just makes this a really sad reminder of how things are worse than the 1980s. This is something many of us never would have imagined back then.

The 1980s sucked, and Mondo New York reminds us of this fact, but it also reminds us that things have gotten much worse since then and that a cultural American Spring is badly needed. If this was our Weimar cabaret before the fall, we really suck, folks! Trashy doesn't really do any service to most of this, and why the dopey blonde as the thread that takes us through all these locations and scenes, why the need for a narrative? If you're going to be titillating, go-for-broke. Like the 80s, it's just another half-measure, with no ejaculation at the end. The viscera needs to be serviced on occasion, and the Devil given his due.

So this is Babylon--how boring, how banal and predictable. No Nick Zedd, Bill Laswell, no hip-hop, no Nowave (NO), no Swans, no Diamanda Galas, no Marc Ribot, no Ornette Coleman, no Rockets Redglare, John Zorn, no Al Goldstein, Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca, Jim Jarmusch, no Quentin Crisp, no vice squads and police brutality, almost no street musicians, no Moondog, no real street crazies, no Allen Ginsberg, canned audio for the CBGB's footage, no reflections on the end of the nightclubbing scene after the death of Andy Warhol, the fallout of AIDS, and no Richard Kern. The hookers are on screen all-too-briefly. There's not much of the best of the 80s underground here, which was the real freak show! Where are the sex clubs? There was a subculture where people just went to these underground clubs and fucked each other, even after AIDs. Where are they? After the end of most of this, we got Michael Alig and the club kids. We know how that one ended.

Postscript, 02.09.2013: Appropriating the term "Mondo" couldn't save what is mostly a disastrous plunge into the inane of NYC in the 1980s. Eliot was right that the world ends with a whimper. Were it not for Joe Coleman and Karen Finley, none of this could rise to the level of Jacopeti and Prosperi's original Mondo documentaries, not even close, but it wasn't an entirely wasted effort. We at least get Lydia Lunch at the beginning, the Santeria, but a lot of this is simply embarrassingly stupid and unimportant. Interviewing bums around the Bowery would have been better--and where is the fucking Chelsea?! At least they documented aspects of the gay community, and in the arts. Heavy Metal magazine was doing a better job reporting on the underground there at the time, several years earlier. I could go on forever, and I wasn't even there at the time. Oh well. I blame John Waters.

Killer Kondom (1996) review

Now here's some REAL German crap! But, at least it's original and entertaining. You've heard it, and probably said it: "Germans aren't funny, they have no sense of humor," but it's untrue.

How do I know this? The existence of this film, silly. The Germans like dry humor, and black humor. "Killer Kondom" is a strange creature that stands outside normal social conventions, never mind movie ones. That's it's a gay comedy is only partly-true, as its criticisms of American and Western sexual proprieties comes from a place that can only be called "pansexual." To call it "seedy" is a high compliment!

Most North American men will feel uneasy watching a film that revels in gay subcultures, but it's also just a great social satire that any open-minded adult will enjoy. We should wish to be scandalized in order to grow, and Killer Kondom delivers the unusual in a film noir and horror vein that explodes into the surreal at almost every turn. Virtually every sexual taboo is explored here, so Killer Kondom isn't exactly a date film, heh-heh-heh, but it's a real hoot.

But, if you want to remove uptight, unwanted company, you could do worse than to pop this into the video-player. You have to admire something this funny, yet so equally annoying. Maybe the funniest thing is that the film takes place in New York City, with an all-German cast speaking their native-language. This alone is going to be pretty funny to North Americans and everyone outside of Germany, but that's before you even get to what can only be described as one of the most absurd plot-lines in movie history!

The story itself is pretty simple: male clients of prostitutes are being castrated by penis-eating creatures in a seedy New York Hotel (amazingly, not the Chelsea!). The protagonist--an openly-gay cop who makes Rainer Fassbinder look handsome--has to discover what the attacks are, who originated them, and why. It's quite a trip to the ending, and often hair-raising, especially if you're male. The depiction of American Midwesterners (anthropologically accurate, yet done in German) is hilarious in the prologue with the hayseed father, and a rare treat that's spot-on in its observations!

Like a lot of European cinema, Killer Kondom isn't always easy to follow, but it doesn't matter, you um...just let it flow. As you might expect, it has a standard noirish voiceover narration that I like for its cynicism, and therefore, it has a familiar existentialist quality to it. Inevitably, the story revolves around its camp/noir/horror/comedy structure, involving a very ugly gay Sicilian cop, lots of subplots of his past-relationships (more Fassbinder here!), and lots of baiting-and-chasing of the mutant condoms.

You could say this film sends up several genres simultaneously, sometimes all in one scene! From the hardboiled, gumshoe Hollywood detective film, to John Waters grossout insanity, to some truly bizarre scenarios nobody ever imagined until the creation of Killer Kondom, this film has it all for those who love trash cinema.

A number of the scenes and makeup were designs by Swiss surrealist, H. R. Giger, although several concepts never made it to the final release print. I've seen his sketches, and they were downright Medieval. Too bad, as his concepts were what made this film worth a look. It could have been better, but one assumes there was no money to realize several of his designs, they were very elaborate.

Troma's DVD is just passable, with lousy audio and picture, but it's cheap and fun, just like a one-night-stand. Killer Kondom is a cult classic with a "Get-the-f%*#-outta-here!!!" ending.