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I�m a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm
I�m a runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb
I am a world�s forgotten boy
The one who searches and destroys…Iggy Pop

Pick up Nathaniel Welch’s photographic essay Spring Broke or the sexed up seedy side of Where The Boys Are. Uninhibited impulse meets conspicuous consumption. A place where raunchy rituals, insatiable appetites and hedonistic desires wash up on Florida�s shimmering shores.

In Bushworld, our troops go to war and get killed, but you never see the bodies coming home. In Bushworld, flag-draped remains of the fallen are important to revere and show the nation, but only in political ads hawking the president’s leadership against terror.

A damn good Op-Ed piece from the NYTimes’ Maureen Dowd published last Sunday but worth re-reading.

George W. Bush The War President. From Joe @ The American Leftist.

John Kerry throwing his medals away is a phoney controversy. There is NO controversy, he earned them, they were his to do with as he pleased. Kerry performed a symbolic gesture, symbolizing his disgust with the Vietnam war, to wake up arrogant bureaucrats like Johnson and Nixon. It was an attempt to protest, to stop the slaughter of young men and bring peace. Where was Bush? Getting lit up on booze and bear nuts at the country club. Damn.

How would you feel about a person who thinks it is okay to grab your shirt and use it clean their eyeglasses? That’s how arrogant our President is. During a commercial break on the David Letterman show, producer Maria Pope was on stage and discussing something with Letterman, and while she was standing there in front of Bush, George leaned forward, grabbed the back of her sweater and used it to clean his glasses. Watch Here.

Has America officially Jumped The Shark?!!! What do you think? Should American Idol should be renamed American Midol? Bored with your own Pop Culture obsessed with Japanese Kitsch? Looking for Hello Kitty vibrators, anime rarities or obscure video games from Japan? Find Japanese pop oddities @ J-List, an e-commerce site that offers more than 2,500 products that exemplify Japanese kitsch.

In 1938, the U.S. Government banned Henry Miller�s novel �Tropic of Cancer,� saying it dealt too explicitly with his sexual adventures and challenged models of sexual morality. To further drive the point home, the government went on to ban all of Miller�s works from entering the United States. In 1961, the ban was lifted, but his work continued to be labeled �obscene� by the Citizens for Decent Literature. The FCC should take a page from history: Censorship in America Doesn�t Work, what it does do is turn the forbidden into a salacious savory delight. Take a look at this list of 50 books that were most frequently challenged in schools and public libraries in the United States between 1990 and 1992. Utter the word ‘BANNED’ to a child or young adult and it’s practically a done deal that they’ll attempt to read the book in question. To adults, it’s a guarantee that the title will be talked about for a very long time. More from the Banned Books Site.

In March 2003, students at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools selected Linda de Haan’s and Stern Nijland’s King & King as a finalist for the Zena Sutherland Award. When this news came out, parents were upset to discover the school allowed their kids to read a book that promotes homosexuality.

“In our system, the press has the role of…” Generations of journalists spoke confident sentences like that. The press is a vital check on power. It’s quasi-Constitutional. Bush, head of government, rejects this idea. That theory has gone down, he says. And you guys don’t have that kind of muscle anymore. From PressTHINK.

Tracking the highest prices paid for contemporary artworks, a list of the the most expensive living artists based on a sum paid for a single work of art. Jeff Koons is a surprise coming it at number 2. ArtNEWS.

t’s so very 1970s. It’s out it’s in and those graphics! I’m in love!

Your film might not be Fassbinder, Bergman or Russ Meyer even, but you can cut and splice your way to a sublime cinematic experience using stock footage. Here is the deal on the StockStock Film Festival, pay a nominal entry fee and receive 30 minutes of stock footage that you are expected to transform into an original short masterpiece no longer than three minutes. I know it’s low budget but what the hell do you want anyway?! Sheeeesh!

I put the finishing touches on a few things this week, wrapped up some work, completed major projects that seem to roll on forever. I am more than ready to kick it up a notch or two and get down with my bad self, perhaps it is more than a touch of spring fever! Hell, I deserve it and put in enough work and gym time to warrant some fun, late nights, neon lights and so on and so forth…look out!

Remember Wednesday April 28th is Wed-Rock, a benefit for Freedom to Marry, which is the largest non-profit organization supporting same-sex marriage rights. The event, held April 28 at Crobar, features rock �n� roll, comedy, DJ sets – in other words, a rowdy good time. Sandra Berhhard, Lou Reed, Penny Arcade, Margaret Cho, John Cameron Mitchell, Bob Mould, Sleater Kinney, Le Tigre and other special guests headline the night, which will be hosted by everyone�s favorite emcee Alan Cumming in NY @ Cro-Bar. Organized by Josh Wood and John Cameron Mitchell. Wed-Rock, 8pm, Wed, April 28, at Crobar (530 W 20th St), $40 general admission, $120 VIP, boxofficetickets.com or 800-494- TIXS; limited tickets available at Universal Gear (140 Eighth Ave @ 17th St).

What the FUCK! Remember how at the end of every G.I. Joe Cartoon they would have some short educational segment and it would always end with the line “And Knowing Is Half The Battle”? These clips are dubbed over with new dialogue and even some of the animation is changed and remixed. The result is so hilarious that I almost wet my pants the first time I saw them. Watch the videos closely to catch it all. If you don’t get it, don’t worry. It is meant to be random and goofy. We want to thank Fensler Films for creating these videos. MPG HERE and MPG HERE

A special mention to those tunes which are messing with my mind this week. The fucking addictive track 5 AM Soho by Salt Pervert is a late night brain buzz with the femme fatale vocalist droning on about hangin with the daddies choosey with the floozies and we’re drinking all the boozy exotic dances fancy chances, and all for your spin on the dance floor, un huh! A rare electronic masterpiece from 1978 gets a workover, Black Devil’s Disco Club is fucking amazing, and out Giorgio Moroder’s Moroder! In addition, someone is putting out quite a bit of the early and influential post punk stuff on 12″. You know, this is all the good stuff that was/is getting ripped off by bands like ‘The Rapture’, find Medium Medium’s Hungry So Angry which is so fucking tasty and funky, you won’t be able to sit still.

When your Art is a product that sells a product that becomes art. Check out these 2 future perfect examples of Andy Warhol’s vision;

Absolut … perfume? For Andy Warhol, yes. Back in 1985, the pale prince of pop art confessed to the Swedish vodka’s importer that he preferred a splash of Absolut to anything by Chanel. “He went on to say that he loved the design of the Absolut bottle, and he wanted to paint something,” recounts art curator Marion Kahan. Warhol delivered a dark rendition of the Absolut bottle � and an unlikely art collection was launched. Visionary!

Nearly 40 years after Campbell’s sent a cease-and-desist letter to Andy Warhol, they’re celebrating the pop artist with limited edition soup cans bearing his colorful renditions of the classic tomato soup label. Campbell unveils a special four-pack of Campbell��s tomato soup at Giant Eagle supermarkets. The pack features the Warhol-inspired labels instead of the trademark red and white labels that have adorned the can for more than 100 years. Visionary Again!

It’s my civic duty to race my humble fuel efficient car along side unsuspecting SUV drivers who display the Bush Cheny 04 bumper sticker. I beep the horn to attract their attention then wave my middle finger wildly while slowly yet distinctly mouthing the words F U C K – Y O U. Hey, only 194 days until The Vote is Taken, or How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office or the Anti-Politics Un-Boring Guide To Power.

A Government By The People For the People: WPA Posters 1936-1943, from the Library of Congress. A striking collection of silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. The posters were made possible by one of the first U.S. Government programs to support the arts and were added to the Library’s holdings in the 1940s. Amazing!

Health is back to normal, fully rested, unmarked and unscathed. It is great to be back at the gym kicking ass and building up. With summer right around the corner, I stepped on the workout peddle, ready to pop this baby into overdrive. Looking to mix it up a bit? Outside Magazine has a toolbox of sorts. Illustrated strength moves for peak performance, from core training and flexibility building to explosive power drills. Ramp up your fitness plan with these six workouts, guaranteed to get you buff�and ready.

The well groomed professional look not working, a clean cut all american style letting you down? Perhaps it’s a close shave that’s cock blocking those suitors. Let yourself go for awhile and relax, studies have shown that 4 out of 5 men surveyed prefer it rough, real rough. Trust me, I know! Stop shaving now, butch it up a bit with some facial hair. Don’t worry, you can still retain that extensive grooming routine of cleansers, elixirs, serums and moisturizes, just don’t let anyone know about it. The key is to look tough with a scruffy mug that says, yea, I’m just dripping with testosterone! Make grunting and growling part of a daily routine, puff up your chest and stomp around, these subtle shifts in behavior are actually signals to other mondo man apes that you’re part of their playful tribe. The transformation is easy and takes little or no time at all, before you know it, you’ll be attracting a bevy of barnyard beasts, from dirty daddy piggy to sexy super stallion. The new look is NO look, work it all fucked up and dirty. Go ahead pull on it, don’t be shy now, loosen that tie and unbutton that dress shirt a bit, shave your head not your eyebrows! Drop it all down a notch or two, put your leather bag away and go urban commando, rail against the corporate HOMO-genization of gay culture and boycott shows like Queer Eye. Watch wrestling instead, it’s a whole lot gayer and sexier anyway. I know what your thinking, this is all a low brow attempt at getting some dick, low bro my ass, it’s so low it’s underground, it’s brilliant, we could rule the world, now get it in gear!

Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find… Walt Whitman
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A week at Cascades has done me a world of good and I’m back on the road to recovery. The Chicken Pox have cleared completely, despite a bit of residual fatigue, I’m shooting for 100% after this weekend. The antibiotics sure do a number on the digestive system, but I’m not doing a cleanse, no way, no how. A big thank you to all my buds out there for the get well messages, they were much appreciated, cheered beyond belief.

I am dying to hit the gym, stretch, lift a bit, the new issue of Outside Magazine has some excellent articles in the May 2004 issue. Sensible core training and new workout tips from some of the best coaches and athletic trainers in the country stressing basic moves, and cross training to get you jacked for summer.

Lolita cupcake reading, love dance of the mechanical animals. I know girls like you, put your thinking cap on, 50 lashes with a wet noodle, this will go down on your permanent record. I need to just put the Maggie Estep books down, okay, put them down, alright, I will, I’ve read em all, I’m done, I got it, I inhaled it in, I snorted it, shot it, drank it and downed all the words. I’m done digging. Whew! Loved it all, baked a cake, it’s a surprise, a very happy surprise a very SNAPPY surprise. Indeed. Whew! Fuck me, I’m dangerous!

The case for attribution. Hello! Larry (Holy Titclamps) sent me the photo of the rather forlorn bunny-boy- dirty highways always excite me. Mr. Ei (not his real name) wrote in to tell me that the image is from the film ‘Gummo’, which I have since ordered on DVD and cannot wait to view.

“Did you ever hear anyone say ‘that work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me’?” Joseph Henry Jackson, American Journalist, 1894-1946

The Jefferson Muzzles were announced last week and it’s a stellar line up per usual. Announced on or near April 13 — the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson — the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech and press and, at the same time, foster an appreciation for those tenets of the First Amendment. Because the importance and value of free expression extend far beyond the First Amendment’s limit on government censorship, acts of private censorship are not spared consideration for the dubious honor. From the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.

I fucking love Pleix Films. A virtual community of digital artists based in Paris. 3D artists, musicians and graphic designers. Perfect pixels.

Good sounds from the likes of a Two Lone Swordsmen, that’s DJ Andrew Wetherall and Keith Tenniswood (Radioactive Man). Their new release is titled, The Double Gone Chapel and is filled with seedy murky sounds that I have a feeling will be on heavy rotation this long hot summer. I’m not too against ‘Ambulance Ltd‘ either in fact, I am damn taken with em’ and it’s just makes me feel all gooshy and wet, sexy and fucked up, all testosterone and night.

Calling all occupants of interplanetary white labels, Tiga’s 12″ ‘Pleasure From The Bass’ revisits the bass line of Michael Jackson’s ‘Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough’ as Charles Schilling’s ‘Spin It Right’ is so like OMD’s ‘This is Helena’ from the Dazzle Ship album. Why do I know this?

After thinking of Nietzsche for so long, and concentrating on nothing but, It came as a shock and a surprise to find Hedbige’s book ‘Subculture: The Meaning of Style’. Never read it, but I think I had it in the back of my brain listed for an eventual go round. Hedbige examines postwar, music-centred, white working-class subcultures, from teddy boys to mods and rockers to skinheads and punks. It’s a decent look at punk as a social and cultural phenomenon, chock full of interesting and thought provoking commentary that has me thinking about organization, my site, artistic communities, style, substance, culture, lack of culture, and so on and so forth, not that I know where I am going with this, but…I do know…

NY Fringe Fest Roars Back
It’s not fusion it’s infusion of Art & Advertising
Odd Macho Man In For Paper Rock Scissors?

I thought I had swimmer’s ear until a bump appeared on my head that refused to vanish. Really, it wasn’t so much a bump as a bleb, of which the doctor promptly diagnosed as a pox, Chicken Pox, of which I now have many. Lovely, just deal and don’t itch, I won’t. In response to recent e-mail’s, I do not have anal warts, I am not the Chicken Lady from Kids in the Hall and I am not submerged in a pink bath of Calamine Lotion watching repeats of the Patty Duke Show. I am healing, feeling much better thanks to some medicine, a few liters of bottled water, an order of chinese food that I tried to send away, hardy har har, and so much love. Fuck I hate being sick when the sun is shining, this is Spring, renewal, Easter, Passover, rebirth whatever and whichever you might celebrate. Even though Mercury has gone retrograde, push the feeling on…or dive into my grab bag of goodies, otherwise known as – out the door with a logical sequence…

Bits and Pieces or Dots and Loops-Mini Warhol Action? Yes, Vacuum sunk deep into a perspex blister pack with silver backing (a reference to the silver walls of the Factory) this pack contains: Andy Warhol Kubrick (a 2.5 inch Andy Warhol figure), Bearhol (a 2.5 inch Andy Warhol bear figure), Sam (a 2 inch figure based on Andy’s Lithograph “25 Cats named Sam and one Blue Pussy”), Vinyl Banana (a 5 inch banana based on a Warhol silkscreen print and album cover!), (Thanks Josh!)

I love the kisses urinals that Virgin Atlantic are placing in their ‘man-lounge’ at JFK airport, this is certainly a ‘Whimsy-Loo’(Thank you most favorite NY Lawyer). Best not to get hooked on, the Fishing Lure Toilet Seat! If you’re up for it, Toilets of the World, well everybody asks about the facilities so…

I desperately need a segue-way here but I can’t find one, so I’ll jump right in.

the jism hasn’t yet dried on their lips but
they already run again to the train station luring in their clients
with their blue-eyed pimpliness and blond homelessness
for 15 bucks you can come into their mouth and for 30 do whatever you want with them
isn’t that right Prague you bitch?!…Prague Holiday
From SS: Superhuman Supertexts by Slava Mogutin

Slava Mogutin focuses on the themes of desire and isolation while letting his point-and-shoot and disposable cameras range over diverse subject matter. Whether they capture anonymous figures in our built landscapes, scenes of bondage, role-play and domination, uncontrived still-lifes, or intimate moments with friends, his photographs consistently evoke the tensions between attachment and loneliness, speed and distance, ecstasy and despair.

It’s about longing for love, but not in some sentimental way,” says Mogutin. “It’s about love in different shapes and forms; it’s about an overwhelming sense of alienation in both our corporate post-apocalyptic world as a whole and the urban gay subculture in particular.

Using mainly point-and-shoot and disposable cameras, Mogutin creates a gallery of intimate portraits of archetypical masculine characters. Russian wrestlers and military cadets, German skinheads and football hooligans, Danish skateboarders, Dutch sneaker boys and Californian buddy boxers are among the lost boys found in this colorful study of fetishes and obsessions of the so-called youth culture.

Slava’s Poetry on Asian Punk Boy.

Everyone thought they wanted to kill off rock music, but their experimentation yielded some incredibly inventive songs, while pioneering electronic pop. I ordered up this soon to be released DVD on the Sheffield music scene 1977-1982 featuring the Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Heaven 17, Pulp and many others, and you thought I was taking the course The History and Practice of Electronic Dance Music at UCLA as part of their ‘survey of groove-based electrified dance music … Emphasis on interaction of technology, musical structures, psychoactive drugs, and club cultures to induce altered states of musical consciousness; sign up now.

The competition between Fox and CNN is fierce, frankly I watch CNN because I would like to get the news from an actual journalist, not bloated rhetoric from actors who are trying to look semi-alive behind a teleprompter. The Ratings Mirage or Why Fox has higher ratings–when CNN has more viewers?

I love This American Life, the hard to define public radio broadcast from WBEZ Chicago. It’s a bunch of stories–some are documentaries, some are fiction, some are something else. Each week they choose a theme and invite different writers and performers to contribute items on the theme. This doesn’t sound like something you’d want to listen to on the radio–but it’s great. In the early days of the show, in frustration, they’d sometimes tell public radio program directors that it’s basically just like Car Talk. Except just one guy hosting. And no cars. Which is pretty damn close to the truth, check it out, and check out the Cruelty of Children show in the staff favorites section, the David Sedaris story is hilarious.

I have chickenpox…blahhhhka!

“We try our best to avoid it, but boredom has its benefits. Today, it’s a lost art form….We’re terrified of boredom and simultaneously sunk up to our knees in it, a generation running as hard and frantically as we can to avoid a condition we increasingly regard as inevitable. I heard you could die of boredom, goes a mordant line in a Neena Beeber play, but I guess not.”(SFGate) It might however get you national attention, if you are the son of Orange County Chairman Rich Crotty after being featured on David Letterman’s “Late Show” yawning, twisting his head and falling asleep at a rally for President George W. Bush! (Photos/Video)

A big thank you to the folks at Things Magazine for a nod. They must have discovered that I am addicted to their site! It truly is an astonishinly brilliant site chock full of wonderful items and really gutsy in it’s approach to a broad range of topics. Thingsmagazine.print is a twice-yearly magazine originally founded in 1994 by a group of writers and historians based at the Victoria & Albert Museum/Royal College of Art in the belief that objects can open up new ways of understanding the world. Now an independent magazine, things has gone on to build a formidable reputation as the home of the best new writing � essays, reviews, short stories and poems � about objects and their meanings. Thingsmagazine.net is our website, comprising of a weblog (newthings/things magazine), photography galleries, archives and regular on-line articles.

Come on Milhouse, there’s no such thing as a soul! It’s just something they mad up to scare kids, like the Boogie Man, or Michael Jackson.…Bart Simpson

A friend in Sheffield sent me a copy of Hardcore Zen-Punk Rock Monster Movies and The Truth About Reality. Penned by former Akron local, Brad Warner, this read deftly connects Punk Rock, Eastern Philosophy, Ultraman, Klaus Nomi, The Cramps and Spirituality. This book is a fistful of pop culture dynamite mixing enlightenment with laughter. Wagner liberally tosses pop media into the Zen spin cycle mixing the useless with the profound and coming up with one hell of a brilliant read! Local Akron punk whores might remember Mr. Warner as the bass player for 0dfx, he now lives in Japan where he makes B-Grade Monster Movies.

Experience pleasurable terror and confront colossal ruins and bottomless chasms, question whether fear is inherent in abandoned architecture and landscape or is it a function of isolation and our own mortality that we fear most? Photographica -> much like the urban exploration of Infiltration.org or places you’re not supposed to go. Henk van Rensbergen’s Abandoned-places documents the beautiful desolation of industry and urbanism. Next, ride along with Elena on her Kawasaki and tour Chernobyl, via (Things Magazine) or the destruction of the future.

By pointing readers to the Web’s newest and best bits, Web logs offer a way to cut through online clutter. But now that there are millions of blogs, what was once a solution to the information glut has started to become part of the problem. So perhaps inevitably, sites and services have popped up that add another level to the information food chain by digesting the Web digests. The latest such site, Kinja, is scheduled to open to the public today at www.kinja.com. The site automatically compiles digests of blogs covering subject areas like politics and baseball. Short excerpts from the blogs are included, with links to the complete entries on the individual blog sites. After signing up for a free account with Kinja, users can enter the addresses of their favorite blogs and generate a digest – a customized blog of blogs (more from the NYTimes)

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown aside with great force.…Dorothy Parker

When you say a man writes badly, you are trying to hurt him, observes Clive James. When you say it in words better than his, you have succeeded. That�s criticism – Critical Condition, reading, writing and reviewing, an old schooler looks back.

What Was She Thinking – Notes On a Scandal, is Zoe Heller’s story of two inappropriate obsessions-one a consummated affair between a high school teacher and her student, the other a secret passion harbored by a dowdy spinster. A complex psychological portrait, satirical, funny, dark and poignant. It’s passages like the following that draw you into this wicked page-turner;

The first time I saw him undress, you know what I thought of? Fresh garden vegetables wrapped in a clean white hankie. Mushrooms fresh from the soil. No, really. He was edible. He washed his hair every night. Imagine! It was limp with cleanness. The vanity of adolescence probably. Or no-perhaps the anxiety of it. His body was a new toy still: He hadn’t learned to treat it with the indifferent neglect of adults.

Miss Kitten serves up a slightly fresh spring (February) mix and in the process covers’Me & My Rhythm Box’ from the film, Liquid Sky.

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
�
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy…William Blake

I remember the moment that your face blossomed into the sweetest happiness I had ever seen. That was the moment I was narcotically yours, the disco ball bathing your broad shoulders in light as you drew me in all fire and sweat, hooking your fingers into my belt loops. We danced in that slow way that boys dance, our t-shirts hanging from our belts like athletes leaving the practice field, the band of your underwear sticking out slightly from your jeans. Your eyes were dark, our faces radiant and grinning, flushed from the heat, rocking our torso’s in unison, lost in the music. Your hand moved to the small of my back lifting upward to draw an imaginary line between my shoulder blades to rest squarely on the back of my shaved head. For a long time you stared deep into my eyes, holding me locked into you, leaning in to kiss me ever so slightly on my neck, I could feel the heat of your exhale and relief. You were more than a face I met at a discotheque that summer, for me you were the central symbol on which my world would come to rest upon for a very long time. You were also my shadow, the contrast to my light, an innermost mystery, my reaction and transformation. You so wanted simplicity, all things certain, smooth, defined, your denial created an emptiness when I needed conviction. The taboo gave me clarity, my opus to work on in the meantime, in silence until I find for myself, not the meaning of life itself but continued hunger, thirst, the repeated, to quote Joe Campbell, experience of being alive, which I hope will someday amount to something and someplace.