“It’s hard to get a guy offa Wall street!” (-Johnny Thunders)
“We need more people to understand class consciousness. This means that we come to an understanding that the real “war” is the 1% ruling class against the 99% of us- the poor and working class!!!” (-Jory Micah)
“Just as they did during the Iraq War, America’s jingoistic press outlets bear a major responsibility for this unnecessary war that has ravaged Ukraine and killed some 315,000 Ukrainians. Rather than seeking to contextualize events properly for their readers, the U.S. media systematically deceived Americans about the causes and course of the war while faithfully parroting the Neocon propaganda narrative.” (-Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
“In the days we thought would never end, we’d never hesitate to help a friend, we had important messages to send and we knew we’d win but then, we didn’t…” (-Paul K. & The Weathermen)
Clinton was an imperialist. Bush Jr. was an imperialist. Obama was an imperialist. Trump was an imperialist. Biden is an imperialist. See a pattern? The US is run by sociopathic imperialists.” (-Danny Haiphong)
“Some will say this is a slippery slope but it’s a full-on avalanche. This is literally the ruling elite imprisoning those who don’t repeat their propaganda.” (-Lee Camp)
“People who’ve escaped psychologically abusive relationships tend to have a much better understanding of propaganda than people who haven’t, and tend to have a lot more sympathy for the victims of propaganda brainwashing.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“In a culture so divided it’s revolutionary just to talk and listen to people who think differently than you without judgement.
It’s not our fault we have ALL been programmed and propagandized our entire lives.” (-Jory Micah)
“The case against Julian Assange is intended to curtail free speech, criminalise journalism & frighten any future whistleblowers & publishers.” (- Karen Percy)
Am I just paranoid? It seems a recent political tactic in order to discredit a person/candidate/politician is to have someone on the “other side” vocalize support for them. It’s as if “they” are counting on an entire sector of the population rejecting said person based on that.” (-Human Bean)
We lived in a sucky, racist as fuck, tank plant town where the only businesses were jails, hospitals, graveyards and churches and three busy streets packed with cars racing to the fastfood drive throughs and bars anthe mall. I was a pedestrian which made me a slow moving target for getting hassled by stump dump football players and hometown karate bad guys and gun toting redneck males with Napoleonic stature issues, even some horrible adults who’d been watching Tipper Gore bleat on about the dangers of Darling Nikki and McDonna and Dee Snider and WASP on the Phil Donahue show, before he got kicked off the airwaves for being anti war. MSNBC made more money from selling wars than they did from Phil Donahue interviewing scolding spinster temperance league Karens from Washington elitist circles who were demanding their hubbies do more to control the thoughts of the peasants by censoring the media, which they certainly have accomplished in the thirty some years since. We had limited access to big city record stores-maybe twice a year we’d pile in a rusty car and make a pilgrimage to the college town main drag that had 5 glorious record stores and a pretty ace comicbook shop back in those days plus a really fab goth boutique that even hired midwestern goth hero Ronald Koal to sell us greasy hoodlum nobodies all our Bauhaus and Sisters Of Mercy postcards and t shirts and Creepers and spiky belts. We did not all have cable yet, so you’d spend Sundays with whatever friend whoses mom allowed guests on a schoolnight and stay up watching 120 Minutes on MTV. We had Creem magazine and beer and that was really all we thought we needed in life. A pair of peacock earrings and some mirrored sunglasses.
I guess I always loved the junk shop glam bands because they reminded me of when my own merry bands of post-punk weirdos were all still struttin’ down the boardwalk in our raggle taggle feathers and sequins, a stylist free spectacle rocky horror show to behold, all cheap as fuck, but tarted up to the max-one guy looked like Dee Snider in makeup, one looked like a chick, me in my best Pete Burns kabuki and fishnets and platform shoes and foot and a half high severely Aqua Netted Steve Stevens hair, a guitarist who looked like the Love Reaction, a cowboy heartthrob Marlboro Man on bass guitar, a skinhead drummer in perfectly immaculate and well ironed and polished creepers and braces, flight jacket and wifebeater and dogatgs and rolledup jeans uniform–we were some ragtag ruffians, somebody once said a cross between Turbonegro and the Village People. My first band was called Harlot and I remember reading about the Harlots of 42nd Street and Eric Emerson and the Magic Tramps in some early Blondie bio I checked out of the public library as a young teen-probably the one by Lester Bangs, but I’m not positive. Anyhows, I’ve always been on the look out for some Harlots relic and just found out Sundazed records has an unearthed album available!
It is pretty rad when your handsome and gigantic adult son and his girlfriend rent a car and stop by to visit with the old man down the road at his hermit adobe retreat far away from society in the desolate remote reigions of a deadend desert ghost planet on their way back to my olde Kin-tucky Home after seeing a big goth show in Vegas. The wildly improbable thing is how my beloved son ended up dating a post punk enthusiast who shares my love of many old eighties synth punk bands, etc., etc. They were both so smart and lovely, such good company, we had a dabba doo time and sang old songs by the fire-food and barbeque, Mexican beer and a fireworks display and my beautiful son entertained the guests with his circus performer fire twirling, he runs regional burningman parties so he has some expertise and background in safety and building stuff-even installed an A/C into my garage art hideout. What fun. I hope we get a chance to do it again someday. One of my best nights in decades, for sure. Now it has been a bit painful to adjust back to the gruelling responsibilities of parenting and paying bills and taking on more side hustles involving moving and hauling and cherry picking through mountains of old stuff and sometimes finding something with some slight resell value. Meanwhile, I resumed my age old campaign to summon back some of the last few surviving members of my crash and burn glam gangs-I am asking you once more to help once more get the Songs On Tape, but they gotta want it as much as I do, so I’ve also reached out to some locals who were supposed to perform at my spontaneous soiree in the prodigial son’s honor, but came down with the Covid and had to cancel last minute, when they get better, maybe we’ll commence the mssion to save rocknroll for the generations to come, some of whom are being fooled with all that fucking awful Agenda Muzak being assempby line produced by industry sickos who work for the WEF-every genre and platform gets corrupted, disrupted, infiltarted and weaponized by the billionaires-you notice that, yet? Or are you still clinging stubbornly to your trains on time coincidence theories? Either way, like Carlin said, it ain’t gonna get better cause the Eye In The Sky Owners don’t want a critical thinking, healthy population. They want to consolidate even more power and control over even more aspects of our lives with the facial recognition tech rollouts and robodogs and fascist laws against protest and free speech. The squad and all the gutless, awful fake progressives are even calling for get this…MORE CENSORSHIP. All they have to run on now is “Orange Man Bad” and repating over and over how RFK Jr. is a Conspiarcy Theorist. That’s it-they are all Republikkkan warhawks promoting a lockstep Gates Reset fascist police state, so I don’t get baffled by their vacant feelgoodist justice tweets-I pay attention to how they vote and they all vote however the Davos donor class bad guys instructs them to.
“They Don’t Care About Us” is how Michal put it, but I believe it’s much worse than that. I believe they actively target anyone who is not an active particpant in promoting their agenda which they’ve told us over and over again is a cashless society, depopulation, and one government to rule them all. So yeah, I see all this goin’ on but still snatch some blissful moments of birdsong and communing with loved ones and raging against the dying of the light. I hope you do, too. Nothing they say on tv is really real. Russiagate was a scam, so was 9/11. On and on…Sometimes all that makes me happy is a bottle and the Jesus & Mary Chain on LOUD.
“Why is it supposed to be irrational for Trump to say he want to the dying to stop in Ukraine? Chickenhawk liberals have gone absolutely mad. And remember, these hypocrites are the first ones talking about gun violence. Folks, you cannot understand a piece of legislation called the “Assad Anti-Normalization Act” that threatens “governments considering normalization with the Syria through an anti-imperialism lens only. This legislation is an example of the “psychopathology” of white supremacy. Today we salute mothers but we must also remember in the U.S. African/Black working class women have infant & maternal death rates double that of whites, that democrats played games with Child Tax Credit that sent 6 million children back to poverty. We celebrate this day by recommitting ourselves to the struggle for reproductive justice as human rights & the struggle to end the barbaric capitalist system that produces these contradictions.
Democrats kill child tax credit, funneled billions into expanded policing, pushing for armed intervention into Haiti that will result in thousands of deaths, and indict Black activists for opposing war in Ukraine. Both parties uphold white power. Israel is engaged in the wholesale slaughter of Palestinians without a peep of protest from the Biden administration.” (-Ajamu Baraka)
“Nuland is on a recording picking Ukraine’s new Gov’t before the 2014 coup
US then assists in the coup and installs an anti-Russia Gov’t Graham and McCain in Ukraine promise them help going on the offensive against Russia, after a signed Peace Agreement
The US provoked this war. If Russia helped overthrow the Gov’t of Mexico, replaced it with a Gov’t that hates America, who started shelling their American speaking population and then Russia armed Mexico, how long would it take for the US to go to war?
Russia waited and tried to negotiate for 8 years. Too many Americans deep down believe that our country is the “Good guy”, and if their Party had complete control things would be better.” (-Black In The Empire) “
I’ve been alive 33 years. In all of them, the living standards of ordinary people stagnated or declined. Over the same period, the US has been at war and as many as seven for the last decade. But sure, keep blaming Russia and/or China for the US’s problems.” (-Danny Haiphong)
“They want to divide The People in every way imaginable. Race, nationality, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, job, and any kind of political ideation. They segment us, douse us in identity politics, then direct us to hate other “teams.” “Your neighbor is your enemy! The government that lied to you about Trump-Russia collusion is the same government that is lying you about what is happening in Ukraine.
It is the same government that lied to you about JFK, RFK, MLK, Vietnam, 9/11, Iraqi WMD, COVID & J6.
We are the nation being propagandized. What is truly scary is that there is no one in establishment Western politics calling for any form of de-escalation or even caution.
“We can shoot down Russia’s missiles!” is now our rallying cry.
Anyone suggesting that a nuclear war cannot be won is a kook, a traitor, or both.” (-Primo Radical)
“The Black community would be a lot better off going back and listening to what MLK, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton who the Establishment murdered had to say than Obama, Kamala, and Clyburn who the Establishmet rewarded are saying now.. Never underestimate the level of evil of a Gov’t that is capable of killing their own President to keep a war going. For those that are confused, that’s the United States.
The Democrat and Republican Party don’t work for you, no matter who wins, you lose. Let’s keep pretending the US Gov’t cares about Ukraine so they can keep taking our money and giving it to their donors. The United States is not a democracy. The DNC that created Super Delegates, got caught rigging the 2016 Primary, said in court they can pick their candidate, does all it can to keep 3rd Parties off ballots, spent 7 years saying Trump didn’t really win and now won’t allow Primary Debates is gonna save democracy? Some tried to tell you Biden is a lying, corrupt, racist from the beginning, not because we’re Republicans or Trumpers, but because that’s what his decades long record proves, but a combo of Trump Derangement Syndrome and cultish devotion to a Party won’t let you be objective. None of the world leaders the US Gov’t describes as evil dictators or authoritarians are responsible for the deaths of more innocent civilians than our own Presidents. Our Gov’t lied to us about what was really happening in Afghanistan under Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden, but on the bright side at least it was bipartisan. Is there a limit to the amount of wars in a row our Gov’t can get us involved in, get caught lying about to get our support, and spend our money on, before Americans wake up? 51 former Intellegence Agents decided to lie and write a letter calling Hunter’s laptop Russian disinformation
Current Intelligence Agents lied about Russia putting bounties on our troops heads, accusing Trump of doing nothing about it. All before the election. Strange…Whether it be getting caught rigging primaries, working with the FBI to overturn an election with Russiagate or with Intelligence Agencies to get 51 agents to lie by calling the Hunter laptop “Russian disinformation”
Democrats are the biggest threat to our make believe democracy. Been trying to tell these Liberals that Hillary isn’t some kind of genius or psychic.
She predicted Russiagate because she is the one who helped create it. Maybe the country with the world’s largest prison population shouldn’t be trying to preach to the world about Freedom. The US illegally occupies Syria, funds Israel an apartheid State, and provided weapons for a genocide in Yemen, while preaching to the world about sovereignty, freedom, democracy and human rights at the same time.
Most of the world has figured out how full of crap we are now. China isn’t trying to force their system and beliefs on other countries, the United States is. Russia and Cuba helped African countries free themselves, and the United States was still labeling Mandela a terrorist until 2008. f you are of use to the United States you’re a “Freedom Fighter”, if you are fighting against US interests you are a “Terrorist”, and sometimes the same group can be labeled terrorists one day and freedom fighters the next. It’s gonna be an interesting Primary watching the DNC talk about saving democracy while trying to deny their voters a debate and force Biden down their throats at the same time.The US armed the Saudis for decades contributing to the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and a genocide and the same Americans posting the Ukrainian flag didn’t give a shit.
Excuse me for calling you all a bunch of fakes, brainwashed by our Gov’t propaganda. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that the people the Establishment hates most are those with a big enough audience to matter that have appeal to both sides, because the rulers need you to pick a side so we stay divided and they can maintain control. If MLK was alive he’d be called a Putin puppet, if Malcolm X was alive he’d be attacked for telling the truth about Biden and if Fred Hampton was still here he’d be accused of forming a Red/Brown alliance for trying to unite the working class. It’s funny watching the Democrats and media act like the Biden family being called corrupt is some new crazy accusation that couldn’t be true, when they know better.. Everything they say negative about Trump is true about Biden but somehow the media seems to have never found out. I’m not afraid to face the wrath of my people and white liberals to tell the truths that other races know they will be attacked for saying and I’m not blinded by American propaganda enough to convince myself that what this country did to Black people doesn’t mean anything” (-Black In The Empire)
“Republicans: CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA CHINA.
Democrats: RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA. Reality: US Oligarchs are destroying the planet.” (-Danny Haiphong)
CENSORSHIP STILL SUCKS! NAZIS STILL SUCK! THE NWO IS NOT YOUR WOKEY-WOKE McSCIENTIFIC TRANSFRIENDLY SPACE SAVIORS FOR FEMINISM! THEY ARE THE ONE PERCENT!
Vietnam -> Gulf of Tonkin Desert Storm -> Babies thrown out of incubators Libya -> Soldiers given Viagra to commit rape Iraq War -> WMD’s Syria -> chemical weapons on their people Afghanistan -> 4 Admins said we’re winning Ukraine -> unprovoked” (-Black In The Empire)
“The hate that liberals have for conservatives and the hate that conservatives have for liberals are just corrupted forms of the anger that the working class instinctively feels about their exploitation.
The elite simply distill and redirect workers’ rage back onto other workers. Republicans are typically only skeptical & suspicious of US intelligence agencies when a Democrat is in the White House (Biden, Obama, Clinton).
Democrats are typically only skeptical & suspicious of US intelligence agencies when a Republican is in the White House (Bush, Nixon). Isn’t it weird how all the “democratic” good guy nations are also the ones with long histories of imperialism & colonialism, and all of the “authoritarian” bad guy nations are the ones who have been invaded by the good guys over & over again? By religiously supporting a party, Americans also end up supporting abuses of power that they previously would have objected to.
Again, the best example of this is just looking at what the rhetoric of both parties was during the Bush years vs what it is now. Completely opposite. This is, in itself, indicative of a psyop on the American people — one that incompasses not just political parties, but also major news media, and now controlled-opposition “alternative” media as well.” (-Primo Radical)
“I completely lost faith in the Democratic party… Furthermore, when I look back on their track record over the past decade, I realize that what I believe is good governance, is not how they govern. They have become everything I abhor.” (- Robert Malone)
The problem, as is so often the case, is that mainstream westerners making the assumption that “If that’s what was happening, we would have heard about it in the news.” Not understanding that their news media is designed to advance the interests of the powerful, not report news. The Israel/Palestine issue isn’t complicated or hard to understand, there’s just a widespread assumption among mainstream westerners that it can’t possibly be as simple as it looks because the mainstream information sphere is distorted to obfuscate what’s obvious at first glance.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
Lockheed Martin is a love org. Liberalism in a nutshell.” (-David Swanson)
WE LOVE VICIOUS KITTEN
KEVIN K – BROKEN 💀 Album Release show ! live via Austria’s Endless Summer radio show on Freirad – Kevin K interview plus cool tunage – grab a beer or coffee and tune in ! www.freirad.at
Losing proposition Quitting school and going to work And never going fishing Water all around Never learn how to swim now
If being alone’s a crime I’m serving forever Being strong’s your kind Then I need help here with this feather
If being afraid is a crime we hang side by side At the swingin’ party down the line At the swingin’ party down the line” (-Replacements)
“Before the election 51 intelligence agents signed a letter saying Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation, Biden on the debate stage said nobody believes it was real except Trump. Big Tech blocked it, MSM said it was fake. If you worry about election interference, it’s here.” (-Black In The Empire)
““Dismantling the war machine, and the war economies that fuel it, is one of the most important things we can do to meaningfully address climate change before it’s too late.” (-Teddy Ogborn; CODE PINK FOR PEACE)
“If your “non-aggression principle” doesn’t address the coercive systems which force workers to sell their labor at minimal prices to pay rent to land hoarders who artificially inflate housing costs, then it’s not a non-aggression principle, it’s a selective aggression principle. In our fucked up civilization “individualism” increasingly means having the freedom to express your uniqueness by choosing between hundreds of makes and models of automobile while thinking the exact same thoughts as everyone else about America, capitalism, and foreign policy….Anyone who spends a lot of energy trying to control your narratives about yourself is trying to control you. They’re trying to imprison you in a psychological cage of their making. It’s important to extract their tentacles from your mind by any means necessary.
If you start paying attention to this you’ll find that it’s not just individuals who try to manipulate your understanding of yourself, but institutions as well. Advertisers, propagandists, religious leaders — they’re all telling you who you are in various ways all the time:
“You don’t matter.”
“You’re defective.”
“You don’t look right.”
“You’re here to work.”
“You’re here to consume.”
“You must obey.”
“You’re worthless unless you’re successful, and success means X, Y and Z.”
“You’re not intelligent enough to make up your mind about this subject for yourself.”
We’re smashed with toxic messages like this all our lives. Maturity is extracting all the narratives about you that were put into your mind by others so that you can become your own author. It takes work, because a lot of those narratives got in there a long time ago and now sit unnoticed in our subconscious, pulling our strings from behind the scenes.
The worst thing you can do is let someone else be the author of your story. Especially when the kinds of people most keen to do that are those who don’t have your best interests at heart. Generally speaking, the people most eager to author your story for you will be the ones least qualified to do so.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
was permanently suspended for joking about the brutal violence U.S. empire metes out around the world. His comment on the suspension: “Change Blinken to Putin and change Palestinians to Ukrainians and it gets boosted by Twitter instead of censored.”” (-Dan Cohen)
“Biden is freeing a turkey while continuing to torture a journalist. #FreeAssange” (-CODE PINK FOR PEACE)
“or those people so concerned about Ukraine, do you ever wonder why that is your priority and not what is being done to the people in Yemen and the Palestinians who have suffered for much longer, have much higher death counts and whose suffering is funded by our country? Their News isn’t there to inform, their job is to tell you what to think. Americans worked harder to deny the Nazis in Ukraine, than the Nazis in Ukraine did. Who is making money off of this war?
If you aren’t asking yourself that question, you’ll be a sucker forever. I have no interest in giving up my freedoms and willingly handing them over to the same people that have done nothing but lie and steal from us to transfer trillions of dollars to themselves.” (-Black In The Empire) “
How to not get Iraqed in Ukraine: Turn off the lapdogs who scam us into war after war. Turn on the watchdogs who got #Russiagate right:
& more. As one of Russiagate’s targets, I was hauled in for a 3-year Senate Intel Cmte investigation based on the “Russian asset” smear. The Senate report found zero evidence for that BS. And of course there’s been zero correction from corporate media. Just another political hit job. Russiagate conspiracy theory is dying & none too soon. Russiagate was the 1st step to manufacture consent for war w Russia, peddled by the same MIC tools now drumming up #UkraineCrisis. Screw warmongers pushing us to the brink. Pass the mic to the folks who got #Russiagate right!” (-Dr. Jill Stein)
“They said Nelson Mandela was a member of a Hate Group
Malcolm X and Muhammed Ali were members of a Hate Group Fred Hampton and Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) were members of a Hate Group Kyrie now in a Hate Group I guess challenging white power is the definition of Hate. Hell MLK was a Christian and they still killed him
All you Trumpers can get offended, but white power considers you a Hate Group too. The United States invades countries totally unprovoked all the time, they just have an obedient enough media to convince us that there is a good reason. There is no NATO, G20, or UN
It’s just the United States giving orders.” (-Black In The Empire)
“Naming your war machinery after the Indigenous tribes your government genocided is the modern-day equivalent of wearing the skulls of your enemies on your war horse.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
A local dude who’s always been a dick to my wife, I guess because like all the old men here in this deadend town, he has a crush on her and no social skills, so the best he can do is like pull the girl’s pigtails, but he suddenly became all civil and humble, of so lovey dovey and uncharacteristically polite yesterday, shyly mumbling something about how, “nobody likes me”, you know, fishing for sympathy of some kind from her, and it turned out, he’d been hospitalized and they put a stint in his heart. I keep noticing how in this grotesque last stages of capitalism, ratrace horrorshow, most Murkkkans can only ever find it in themselves to try ‘n’ be even halfway decent to their fellow man, when they are either on death’s door, or a loved one of theirs died unexpectedly, they usually have like a moment of humanity, humility and self awareness, before resuming the usual non stop bragging and backstabbing and mercenary, only ever out for themselves gluttony, greediness, and territorial pissings. I myself, am in conflict-I’m lonely like an old Roy Orbison song, but I can’t stand fucking people cause everytime I go around any of them, they just wanna rob and steal and hit on my old lady and suck us dry. They just all became flesh eating zombies. Sometime around 1995. Some dastardly shit went down and I saw all my former associates change.You know, maybe part of my nagging, grueling, seasonal depression and infinite despair isn’t just being caused by my estrangement from my kids and former friends and forever flames but also because I am going through a period of semi forced sobriety which is always hard for someone with my particular cocktail of afflictions, but I remembered this morning also, that I am probably not getting enough JESUS & MARY CHAIN lately, and that’s important to my sense of overall serenity and wellbeing and stability. Ever since I was a bighaired, gloomy, runaway sleazy street urchin at about fifteen, moping and smoking and always trying to hustle up some beers in the gutter of St Mark’s and Second Avenue, shoplifting postcards to send home to my unrequited love way back in the green honky suburbs, I been in love with the songs of the Jesus & Mary Chain, not just the formula, not just the black leather, or crazy moptop hair, but the fucking songs man, such timeless melodies and the lyrics are beyond compare really, maybe I just have a similar type of personality to those guys or whatever but all their lyrics sing straight into the deepest heart of me. I’m an even sadder soul if I aint remembering all the strength and courage and comfort and consolation, affirmation and hallelujuh motherfuckery I still get from those grumpy geezers! Mostly they probably just remind me of you. Sometimes I think I really need some more champagne, a firepit, and a big ole ghetto blaster like way back in the old daze when it was me and you and her and him, and Dave Andra and them.
“If Joe Biden was my dad, I’d smoke crack too.” (-Just A. Thought on twitter-censorverse)
“Why Americans aren’t out in the streets rallying against their government for funding mansions for Zelensky, enriching the defense industry, giving weapons to Nazis, and engaging in the largest money laundering scheme, while there’s a homeless epidemic is beyond me.” (-Fiorella Isabel)
“Liberal corporate journalists sit online all day, roaming in packs, spewing the most vicious insults against those they dislike.
But the minute someone criticizes them, they scream “harassment.” Why would think think people won’t see, or would accept, this double standard?” (-Glenn Greenwald)
Some nights I have vivid dreams that I’m back at the dive bar where my doomed old gang and I were the artists in residence for a number of years. Or at my first hometown purple apartment. Or yellow bandhouse in the country. They’re mostly all gone now. The places and the faces. Just names now, memories. Like Jim Carroll sang, “I miss ’em! They Died!”
“People who spent many years spreading imperialist propaganda on Syria & viciously attacking those who refused to do the same are now silent on – or justify – the US’ ongoing occupation & devastating sanctions. They feigned concern for the Syrian people & have callously moved on.” (-Louis Allday)
“Class, please now turn to section 1.4 of Herman and Chomsky’s propaganda model in ‘Manufacturing Consent’: ‘Flak and the Enforcers: The Fourth Filter’. All academic and media dissidents are targeted. The idea is to discourage others from citing, reading them.” (-Media Lens)
“PSA to the people of the United States:
Forget about Russia and China. These countries will pursue their own path whether you like it or not. Your country is governed by sociopathic warmongers and profiteers who don’t give a damn about you.” (-Danny Haiphong)
‘This system is designed to keep us divided by using 2 political parties preaching different social ideologies while they are all working for the rulers who are robbing us
As long as you think being loyal to your team and giving them power will change something, we’re trapped. I don’t care how pissed my people get The reality is that I thought Reagan was the worse thing that could happen to Black people in my lifetime, but then Bill Clinton got elected and we worshiped him while he and people like his buddy Biden went to work destroying our families. I don’t vote Dem or GOP Time for Black people to stop guaranteeing votes to Dems, who only talk about voting rights because we vote for them, and haven’t done right by us for a half century, even worse some things they make us fear about the GOP, they turned around and did to us. I watched the Democrats convince Black people that Trump was the biggest anti-Black President in History, keeping in mind that over 20% of our Presidents owned slaves Then convince us that the architect of Black mass incarceration was the answer to racism I’ve seen it all now. They haven’t told us the truth about a war yet, but maybe this time, right?” (-Black In The Empire)
I had to go retreive a ladder to climb up on the roof and investigate a stench coming from the pipes, and my old lady ended up being the one to get up there in the end, I just held the ladder, but first we had to go get a second ladder, that was taller than the initial one we got from a nearrby cowboy’s place, while he is in another city receiving chemo treatments, it always gives me the memento mori blues when I have to go over there cause he’s got his tools, his drills and hammers, all his books, musical instruments, compuers and keyboards where he makes his music, his hats, all his cars and stuff just sitting there waiting for him. I really hope he makes it back-he’s got a real cool pad, kindof like a gypsy encampment, I love it over there in spite of the vague gloom. Everybody’s getting older, ya know I’m about to turn 53 in less than a month, ya know I might as well be fifteen though cause aside from all the fear and responsibility, the crazy white beard growing outta my face, I’m still him. Same kid who just stepped on the Grayhound with his Walkman and Charlie Sexton and fucking Dream Academy and Cult and Thompson Twins cassettes. Ever hear ole Charlie cover the Replacements? That’s my whole adolescenece right there. Makes me wanna walk the long and perilous two miles to the gas station and get some beer and cigarettes, ya know? Light a fire in the yard. Listen to “Beats So Lonely” all night and Chris Isaak’s “Two Hearts” and probably some Beasts Of Bourbon, Gun Club. Rowland S. Howard. “Those stars in the sky…”
My second hand Mr. Coffee coffeemaker left behind by some former tenant looks nice n fancy, but it’s been leaking all over the kitchen curtain and clusterfuck of electronics, so I made the risky decision to use my wife’s K-Pods again this morning rather than risk another wet coffee spill catastrophe, our judgy landlord is coming to inspect the faulty water heater today before agreeing to pay the licensed outta town contractor to show up, as we already got another highpriced handyman toolbox guy guy coming to fix the sewage stench in the bathroom pipes next week, and we still got the problem of the blown down fence. We are grateful she has agreed to let us live here, truly deeply grateful, but I never feel like rich people really know what it’s like to never, ever have any real sense of housing security, the poors are always waiting for ya know some kinda heavy safe or piano to fall on top of us, cause we aint got no say, no money to throw at the problems, we’re just supposed to grovel and hope for the best, and I never been that good at appeasing the fancy cosmos-especially cause everything is always always all about their whims and desires, they have their moodswings, we got zero stability. I wake up with a certain measure of terror each day because of all the poverty related stress and parenting anxieties. The holidays are a hardship if you’re parenting, there aint many worry free hours in this life anymore. Somenights I’ll dream that I’m hanging out with a blackeyed old bassist, or the Fleshtones, or the Stones or the Time-I think it’s the cheap gummy melatonin I’ve been taking to help me sleep through all the loud adolescent hollerings we got from the ripoff “clearance” aisle at Wal Mart, but the dreams are good. I thought I was gonna be writing with Jam & Lewis in last night’s dream, I brought my lyric notebook, but they wanted me to sing some shit they already wrote with like too heavy for me clanging rap beats. But then they brought in Dez Dickerson to play guitar and I was like, I’ll find a way to make this new wave! I was askin’ em to make it sound more like Andre Cymone’s “Surviving In The Eighties.” Somebody told me they got a book by Dez, I dunno if I ever seen one, I never even got to hear anything by the Modernaires except for their ten second song in the film.
Ex Sisters Of Mercy and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry members, originally known as the Sisterhood, Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams and company were somehow real big in the late eighties 120 Minutes era, probably played by MTV more often than even Peter Murphy. I suspect they had an even bigger following in the UK as I seem to remember them having like colored pinups in the imported heavy metal magazines we sold at Mind Dust Music a used leftovers record store, kinda like a glorifid garage sale with a shrink wrap machine in the basment, way deep in the sticks. I seem to remember some English tabloid controversy with ex Nightmares In Wax/Dead Or Alive dude, Hussey arguing with the DARK EMPEROR OF ALL GOTH, Andrew Eltrich over their name. They toured with the Cult and even like, Whitesnake and Led Zeppelin lovin’ stoner trash heavy metal kids in hicktowns in the Murkkkan flyover country seemed to like ’em well enough. They kept going through an ever changing revolving door of various players-members of Ghost Dance and All About Eve and the Waterboys and Fairport Convention, filtered steadily through their ranks, leaving some scuzzy, chainsmoking, used record store clerks wondering how one goes about paying for a band to record and tour and attract a non stop calvacade of shithot sidemen, as I kept running into the wall, always crashing in the same car, rocknroll wise. As soon as I’d lead another fighting unit to the brink of victory, they’d always mutiny and take some of the songs, all the connections and hard won buzz, and all the credit. I remember listening to “Severina” alot when I was dating my former goth girlfriend Steffani. Her mom preferred Kenny Rogers. Me, too, probably, at least that “I Just dropped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In” song. Whenever I hear “The Gambler” at the grocery store I think her mom Etta is saying hi to me. The Mission were nowhere near as cool as Sisters Of Mercy, or even Dead Or Alive, if you ask me, they were just so-so, ho-hum, kinda generic really-the Alarm without the singalong anthems. Even with primitive drum machines, Sisters Of Mercy just rocked a lot harder. I thought summa their stuff sounded a bit like a more brooding, plodding, gloomy U2. They got the guitarist from Spear Of Destiny and covered the Osmonds Crazy Horses at some point which was kinda cool.
Listening to them on a cold morning in autumn 2022, in the shadows of a post pandemic, still clamped-down, controlled information, kidnapped and murdered journalists, enhanced interrogation Gitmo celebrity torturer, fascist authoritarian, tech surveillance billionaire, New World Order type of dystopian world, I think to myself, “we probably liked their big hats, mostly.” Same with Fields Of Nephillim. A couple of my pentegram drawing, Motley Crue loving, River’s Edge druggy buds who were into the slightly more evil side of goth all seemed to prefer the Fields Of Nephillim. I had gone to some real fanatical, strict, abusively fear based, religious indoctrination camps, so while I never really subscribed to their uptight theology, I also was never as ginned up as many of my peers about the hellfire clubs, serial killer fixating, Ricky Kasso imitating, and debbil worshipping.Even decades before the rich people in the Pacific Northwest ALL started forming their travelling wildwest show fisteen piece cosplay ever slightly so goth jugbands and spaghetti western yeehaw orchestras with all the ruffly saloon skirts and mustache wax, I was always into the Straight To Hell spaghetti Westen vibes.I grew up in Kentucky on the floor in front of the black n white tv watching old Roy Rogers King of the cowboys movies with my grandmother. My favorite film is probably “Tombstone”. Again, I mostly just liked the hats, but I was trying so hard to find a willing and able, committed lineup for my own graveyard loitering punk band. Kids came and went, ya know? One day, a dude has a foot high mohawk, a nosering, is copying Ogre from Skinny Puppy and talking about how to program the Sears catalog toy Synsonic drum machine that sadly sounds NOTHING like our beloved Jesus & Mary Chain, and the very next day, he decides if he’s not the Only Star on the Scene, he’s quitting punk rock and going into real estate. We had so much of that in the early years. Kids would quit cause they found a girlfriend willing to have sex with them and later reemerge as mod scooter owning Paul Weller skas or Minor Threat straight edgers or whatever. A guy would say he was interested in maybe managing my band, but then I’d findout he just wanted to show me all the sixties Aquarian oversized velvet paisley suits he had tailor made back when his father died and he inherited the tool and dye business and blew all the money on bluegrass vinyl and velvet clothes. If I showed you Polaroids of any of my bands from that era, ya know if you squint, we looked a whole lot like the Mission UK or Nephillims, but I soon found out the hardest way, that without adequate funding, some kinda sugar daddy income stream, it is impossible to keep a band together for very long. Dudes always wanna feel like they are “Getting Somewhere”. Sometimes, cats would come along who looked perfecta and could already play and you’d think, “ah yeah, alright, at last”, but they’d knock up some trailer chick and get guilt tripped into the army or something. This one’s a junkie, that one’s a crackhead in love with your girlfriend. One kid I knew was like BORN for it, born to be a star, he had it. Maybe not anymore, but back then he still did. But alas, he took another path entirely, joined the straight world, that just flatout broke my heart. Happened AGAIN whjen the hometown heavy metal heart throb guitar punk gave up the GBH t shirt and leather jacket and joined the marines! I kept losing all these guys to med school, the townie police force, the military, or real estate!!! I’d meet another guy who’d say he was a producer, have me over to his place, he’d record my songs and then start COVERING them, without me. Him singing my songs. WTF?!
Other former bandmates would tell me we have to change with the times, they wanted to imitate the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, or play math metal, or industrial/techno, or buzzkill gloomy grunge, or basball cap spaz punk, or suck up to the cocaine pocketed, suave acting, douchey fratboy rich people who owned the local studio, I did not like those creeps at all. I hated their cornball garbage bands and was not impressed their rich parents bought them businesses and music industry careers. I was accused of being a punk purist cause none of that shit seemed authentic to me, at all. Even if the joiners of the adult world kept scoffing about my notions of realness and integrity and truth and soul, ’cause bands I like from Bowie to Sputnik were all about artificiality and exploitation, and fast buck wig wearing, and non stop trend hopping, but what the bandwagon chasers did not seem to understand about me, was that I had more in common with Dirty Degville, Pete Burns, Steve Strange and Boy George than I ever, ever, ever would with Eddie Vedder or Chris Cornell or Thurston Moore or the Beastie Boys. Batcave glam ala Flesh For Lulu and Lords Of The New Church was authenticty to me, my vibe, the frequency I communicated in. I did not care to follow trends, most usally being top down dictated, by an ever merging media monopoly mafia. I hated all that stuff other people said they liked, from Warped Fest fake punk to Nighttime sit-com lifestyle programming unreality tv, to all that miserable post grunge radio shlock, like Creed and Nickelback and the fucking Foo Fighters. No thanks, man. Some other guy said he was gonna sign my band but only wanted to get near my ex girlfriend, that became a frequent pattern for awhile. One cat offered to give me five percent of my own personal original compositions if I’d cut my real songwriting partners out of the deal and let him claim part authorship of songs he just covered or recorded new arrangements of, and he’d keep like 95% of the publishing. I setup an ASCAP account for fifty dollars which is a lotta money for me, when a dude was promising me he’d get my songs placed in movies and commercials, but it was all just a copyright robbery scam and I am grateful I had the spidey senses to not sign anything. I’m not a business lawyer and ya know you can not negotiate with plaigirists, they’re gonna file paperwork to steal your shit with or without your permission. It gets depressing, everytime I venture out of my hole, those music business predators will find away to burn me some more. They’re like City Hall with leather jackets. The school board with mimosas and Tuesday night DJ jobs. Growing up, I’d just get crushed by the juvenile authorities and admin in the pockets of rich sports moms, everytime-they were just there to elevate the rich kids and punish the poor. They were always behind the scenes deciding who would get the sports car, big gold trophies and corner office and pretty blonde homecoming queen, and who would get the corporal punishment paddlings, curfews, after school detentions, and cold on a cement slab solitary confinement. The shifty paperwork pencil pushing office people and pilledout bed ridden telephone tree sports moms decided all our fates-who would be the winners and who would be the losers. I memorized that Marc Anthony speech for my theater class, but like always, the monosyllabic quarterback was allowed to mumble his way through it instead. His dad owns a factory. That was the way of the world and I was seeing it more and more with all too vivid clarity, in a crash course, upclose and personal way, everyday when I turned 25 and some Richie Riches were suddenly coming for both of my ex girlfriends. They deployed every dirty trick-the blacklistings, the smears, the in crowd clique shunning and cancelling, the bouncer bruiser sidewalk beatdowns. Any length, to protect their turf and power trip, paid for celebrity, mom sez I’m the winner status. In winner takes all capitalism, if somebody fucks you over, and they know you know they fucked you over, they just rationalize you are flawed or defective and somehow deserved it. No apology is forthcoming if they have more power than you do. They double down on fucking you over rather than ever admitting wrong. All that most conventional, school indoctrinated, sports oriented Murkkkans give a fuck about is, Winning and that means iron fist controlling their enviornement even if it involves lying, stealing, or cheating to have and to hold that status. They wanna be the girl with the Most Cake and tell themselves they are beyond fake. Mom’s Favorite. They’ll have entire empires they lord over and tell some dude on the street with nothing to “check his privilege”, that’s how batshit think tank controlled this modern day faux woke narrative has become. Preppie privileged trendy rich people fucking just suck so bad and always will, even and especially if they try to hijack some pop culture shit like Hunter S. Thompson or Garage Rock or the Clash. Those are just brand logos to them-they never listened to the words or got the message. So I can’t argue with the fraud squad scenester squares. I aint no debate team scholarship winner. I never learned how to stand up for myself at least not against the office pricks. I don’t know how to keep a cool head and poker face and leverage lies and power against weaker people, like the shameless tie guys behind the desks. What was sad is how my wife had gotten her hopes up that I was finally being discovered, but nope, it was the same old annual false hope users and capitalist ripoff schemers bullshit song n dance, takers taking, bloodsuckers sucking. It’s what they do. Eventually, it was just me and the AC/DC guy and he was no good at programming drum machines or paying rent, and neither was I. Later, it was just me and the girlfriend, kinda like Lux & Ivy, or Nik & Mrs. Fiend. We had some potential sidemen with big hats coming around kinda auditioning, but they kept integrating everything we talked about into their Primary Gentrified Hipster Empire Brand. Now it’s just me, trying to get the grumpy teenager to help me download the Audacity software program.
“Trump & Biden are major war criminals because they conspired with their neocon advisers to commit international aggression. That’s the worst war crime it’s possible to commit, and both parties are leading us straight toward WW3 today.” (-Geoffrey M. Young)
“Weed the manipulators out of your life by noticing who spends a lot of energy trying to influence the way you think about them, about others, and about yourself. The latter are the most dangerous. People who try to manipulate your ideas about yourself are your enemy. Cut ’em out.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“…Cuba continues to follow its difficult and heroic path based on Fidel’s ideas…keeps developing, defending its interests with dignity & implementing reforms despite unprecedented external pressure…” (-Russian upper house chairperson Valentina Matviyenko)
Man I had another crazy music dream last night. I was at a show-Ozzy, Chris Holmes from WASP, Buck Cherry and Lita Ford. Now in real life, I aint been to a show in years and years. I asked Lita how much for her latest cd and she said, “Two year’s of my life’s work will cost you $25”. I was having fun with Lita in the dream-we were sortof partying. I had no money to buy her merch. with-even in the dream world I’m still empty pocketed. Cold morning, my second hand coffee maker’s been leaking all over our kitchen curtains and stuff so I’m mooching Kerig posh coffee offa my sleeping old lady.
Exile in Traumaville. In my little life, it was really weeks and weeks and weeks ago, I had somebody from my own inner circle kinda doing a lotta yelling of unkind things at me, it was like over a month ago, and I still have not really processed it, or gotten over it, man, I guess it just makes me feel real lousy, cause it reminds me of all the bad shit from the long gone past, just another fuckedup echo of how I never fit in with this society and never really wanted to, but that kinda adversely affected all my relationships with everybody who was dying to join the in crowd and be popular in the capitalist ratrace world. Ultimately, it just makes me wanna go somewhere alone and chain smoke, or maybe have a nice big bottle of something relaxing and passout. Escape this fuckedup, mean spirited, competitive control freakery power trip kinda backstab culture for awhile. I used to call people and talk on the phone whenever I started to feel, ya know, disconnected, misunderstood, unappreciated or undervalued or alone. Things are different, now, I can’t seem to really honestly relate to that many people. It’s all like that old movie, “THEY LIVE!” I-phone zombies walkin’ around reciting shit they were programmed to say, either from TikTok (millenials, etc) or MSNBC (boomers, middle class landlords). They all belligerently interrupt you with their dutifully memorized and predictable tv slogans.
It’s really kinda too cold out to wanna go for a dangerous walk through all the desert town snarly unleashed pitbulls and four packs of druggy teens and rightwing gun nuts of meth land, where I live now. My sister in law was visiting a sick relative in the midwest and her and her friend were heldup at gunpoint by some rightwing fucking crackpot with a big truck, just last week. She was begging him for their lives. That’s how crazy this country is. Besides fucking around on the internet and caregiving, babysitting really, I got nothin’ goin’ on here. I foolishly tried to call a faraway relative yesterday, got just got stuck talking to her retiree, tcable drunken know it all blowhard, poor listener, interrupting spouse, he mostly brags about his fame and fortune, and then he complains about Russia. This has been going on for years now. “Russia, Russia, Russia”, I was glad to get off the phone but now I’m back to fucking around on the internet, or sitting silently, smokefree and sober in a chair. You can imagine my excitement!
“Our Gov’t has been arming Nazis for 8 years, and the ADL is after Kyrie and Kanye. Considering the fact that the Russians lost the most fighting Nazis, I guess it’s not surprising that they are the only ones still fighting Nazism, but it is kinda crazy to watch the rest of Europe arming them.” (-Black In The Empire)
“The richest 1% have already blown their fair share of the 1.5°C carbon budget six times over. They are literally devouring our planet.” (-Jason Hickel)
“If capitalism was really about “voluntary transactions” capitalists wouldn’t work constantly to crush unions and destroy the labor movement.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“Every single one of these black mayors sold black people out to real estate developers and the prison industrial complex
The black misleadership class is the biggest threat to black lives.” (-Revolutionary Blackout Network)
“If it weren’t for Obama we never would have heard the Corn Pop story or have to live with the nincompoop who felt the need to tell it.” (-Margaret Kimbereley)
“Happy birthday, Joe Biden! There’s a lot to celebrate these days, and I couldn’t be more grateful that America has you sitting behind the desk.” (-Barack Obama)
“From baby-eating Germans in 1914 to Viagra-fuelled Russians, the lies of war are as old as war itself. Trust nothing you read, see or hear that is not independently sourced and attempts to cover both sides.” (-John Pilger)
HEY SHITLIB! BLACK IN THE EMPIRE HAS SOMETHING TO SAY!
Our system has created a society of people worshiping and defending politicians with all their souls like they are members of their families or close friends, instead of like employees who work for us I hate to break the news, you don’t know them and they don’t care about you. Repping the color Blue and the letter “D” doesn’t make a politician less corrupt, it just means you have to lie harder to convince people that you care. What makes anybody think that after decades of working to create their multi-trillion dollar scam of a system that they are just gonna let a bunch of average citizens go into a booth and vote their power away? If the people in power don’t fear you, they probably control you. Once you realize that both Parties are ultimately working together things clear up pretty quick. Everybody knew the Hunter laptop was real except for BlueAnon. If you want the main people who interfered in the 2020 election, it was the Intelligence Agencies, Media, Big Tech and the FBI.” (-Black In The Empire)
“Today’s mistrust in Governments, Politicians and the media stems from corruption and blatant lies. They attack free speech because they fear an uprising. Defending free speech is essential for us because if they don’t fear the masses they will be emboldened and even more extreme.” (-Kim Dotcom)
Some dudes my guitar player was friends with in the eighties had these seemingly unlimited allowances for cigarettes and beer and records and smut magazines and poppers from the adult book store. Even though they were much older than I was, eight to ten years older, their overindulgent and protective elderly parents blamed all their mental illnesses and dabblings with the occult and drug use and girl problems on me cause I had black eye makeup and Aqua Net piled high haystack hair. One of the records that really captured us for a minute that they had in their gigantic collection that I got to play real loud on their awesomely big major seventies/eighties thundering speakers old fashioned stereo was that striking pink Avengers album. Something about penelope houston’s version of “Paint It Black” would really catch all us black t shirted outcast teenagers who had no other place to go, so we’d all end up congregating in the unfinished back wreckroom of this seemingly normal ranch style house, kinda like a Brady Bunch sortof place in baketball hoop and fire station suburbia. I dunno why I kept going over there when the parents were blaming me for being a bad influence on their precious Funtleroys who were actually the ones paying to buy me beer and ciagarettes and then becoming fixated by all my little girlfriends from back in those days-those dudes still fixate on all my former death rock female companions thirty sevn years later, but like I said, I really had nowhere else to go. Something ’bout Penelope screamin’ “we’re the ones” felt real empowering to us singled out, smalltown scapegoat punks. We were the blamehounds but we were also the ones leading the charge, breakin’ outta the box, taking all the punches for the lames who only followed, who made believe they were punk by association, or by what they purchased with the mama money. One of the brothers at least tried to be creative, the other one just kinda sat on the couch and told his mom how he was cooler than I was. She always agreed.
Well, my brothers and sisters and friends of the revolution, my Dear Comrade Laur tells me I already got twenty columns piled up in the pipeline now so you won’t read these words for about five and a half months from the morning I type this on 11/23/2022, that is if the HONKY DEATH MACHINE aint blown up the planet by then. You know what I always, say, get down with it, get funky. “If we put our shoes on and leave right now, we can be there before last call!” STAY WILD STAY FREE! FIGHT ALL FASCISTS FOREVER! STAY RIGHTEOUS! ON THE SIDE WITH THE PEACENIKS AND THE PAUPERS AND THE ANGELS AND THE CLASH! WE LOVE YOU! Your pal, The Last Of The Last Of The Last Of The Last, I’m Only Here To Help!
“It’s just a matter of time before only the extremely docile, pro-authoritarian bootlickers are allowed to live.”
(-John Dissed)
“I’m just a Black Dude raising 2 men living in a poor neighborhood that only winds up with one Party that wants to pretend that race doesn’t matter at all, and the other that doesn’t care about my community that uses race for everything just to get votes. I don’t vote for them.” (-Black In The Empire)
“Tucker is right. Our empire was more than just genocide. There was slavery, plundering, occupation and much more.” (-Richard Medhurst)
“The dark power of royalty. In 1971, the Chagos Islanders were expelled by the British to make way for a US base. This was made possible by a meeting of the Queen’s Privy Councillors (advisers) and approved in person by the Queen. Using the same power, Blair invaded Iraq in 2003.” (-John Pilger)
George William Bush acknowledged under oath — as part of a deposition in a lawsuit brought by a nonprofit group seeking records on Bush’s past — that he was the junior officer on a three- to four-man watch shift at CIA headquarters between September 1963 and February 1964, which was on duty when Kennedy was shot. “I do not recognize the contents of the memorandum as information furnished to me orally or otherwise during the time I was at the CIA,” he said. “In fact, during my time at the CIA, I did not receive any oral communications from any government agency of any nature whatsoever. I did not receive any information relating to the Kennedy assassination during my time at the CIA from the FBI. Based on the above, it is my conclusion that I am not the Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency referred to in the memorandum.” . . .
“Ken Starr should be remembered for having been Epstein’s defense attorney and for being a huge limited hangout investigator of Clinton era corruption. He may have “uncovered” the affair w Lewinsky, but he buried most of their worst crimes.” (-Whitney Webb)
Which is probably another obligatory illuminati reference which is seemingly required in exchange for any pop star presence in the controlled media, all their secret society eye-conography was all over our poor Prince, but I am always dazzled by how prolific Billy & Steve remain and their output is usually pretty above and beyond the songwriting of not just the greasy kid model manikins but also, most of the old timers in their sixty something age group. I love Billy n Steve, and in my family, we pretty much celebrate their discography every day. It is rare that a day slips by without me blasting something by Billy Idol or Generation X. Yeah I know the controlled media and entire muzak industry are monopolized and weaponized by shady forces, but a song by Billy & Steve can still inspire you to wanna rage against the evil machine. The way that pop stars and mainstream journalists are manipulated and tightly owned by the deep state or ruling class or whatever you wanna call it, that’s kinda how it is for us serfs who own no land, we end up having to slave for rich people who pretend to be our charitable, benevolent patrons, but are really trying to just keep us on the plantation as their on call indentured servants. It is madness. Somedays it feels like leaving this disintegrating old trailer amidst so many mentally ill old people who steal our cats and shit before winter hits might be a fool’s errand cause we could go from outta the frying pan and into the fire. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide in Gropey Joe’s “Nothing Will Change” Murkkka except for ya know the mega-hyper-inflation and escalating wars of the military industrial complex Rand Corporation profiteers. This ep will be old news by the time this column posts but the songs will still be fab. So here, my comrades-enjoy yourself!
“And current phase of the war that started in 2014 – begin on Feb 16-17 not Feb 24 when the 150K Ukrainian army begin probing all along the contact line in preparation for its’ ground attack, documented by OCSE monitors that anyone can verify if you think this is disinformation!” (-Ajamu Baraka)
“If 4000 Twitter employees have broad access to the personal and geolocation data of users, as Twitter’s ex-head of security – a former US intel agent – says, they’re presumably able to read your DMs and leak them as well.” (-Max Blumenthal)
“The U.S. lost in Afghanistan. The U.S. is losing its own New Cold War with Russia and China. U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, now more than ever.” (-Danny Haiphong)
“Wow, all of these pro Ukrainian accounts follow each other and they are all located in Langley, Va. Just a coincidence I’m sure. No doubt the trustworthy fact checkers at
Twitter are all over these bots.” (-Garland Nixon)
“Those who tell you to move to Russia when you criticize the foreign policy of the western empire are the same people pushing for internet censorship and the silencing of unauthorized media and demanding retractions from any western outlet that forgets to parrot the official line.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
MODERN MUSIC FOR OLD NEW WAVERS AND ELDERLY GOTHS LIKE ME
“In 2017, I attended a trans liberation rally held by the Cuban National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX). Thousands poured into the streets of Havana to celebrate the social gains of the revolution. Not one person protested for social conservatism or conservative patriotism.” (-Danny Haiphong)
This song always makes me think of my first true love. I used to bicycle mile and miles and miles out to her house on my ridiculous, gray house-painted girl’s bike, only to have other boys from the neighborhood coming to her door to see her the whole time I was reading Smiths and Depeche Mode lyrics with her on the couch. Her mom and awful, grumpy, blowhard stepfather naturally hated me on sight. Her older sister, Beth the college music older new wave girl liked me, though. Prior to my finally becoming so traumatized by sports team beatings at the roller rink and juvenile authority scapegoat shit and finally taking the midnight Grayhound outta town, it was all very sweet and innocent between me and that girl. Pretty In Pink, Some Kindof Wonderful, times Dawson’s Creek and the Joshua Tree.
“You are repressed But you’re remarkably dressed Is it real?
And you’re always busy Really busy Busy, busy Oh, hairdresser on fire All around Sloane Square And you’re just so busy Busy, busy Busy scissors Oh, hairdresser on fire All of the day.
Was a client, over-cautious He made you nervous And when he said “I’m gonna sue you” Oh, I really felt for you …mmm…
So can you squeeze me Into an empty page of your diary; And supernaturally change me? Change me, change
Oh, here in London “Home of the brash, outrageous and free” You are repressed But you’re remarkably dressed Is it real? And you’re always busy Really busy Busy clippers Oh, hairdresser on fire All around Sloane Square And you’re just too busy To see me Busy clippers Oh, hairdresser on fire All of the day…” (-MOZ)
Yeah I know all the sensitive college attending, Netflix watching, Trader Joe faux wokes are still mad at him for this or that, he’s sorta been cancelled, like Chappelle and Rogan and RFK Jr, and blacklisted by the shitty labels, but so what, he has a great band, an unrivalled body of work, millions of fans, and he wrote some of my favorite songs of all time. You’re just so busy, busy, busy…
“This campaign stands in solidarity with the railroad workers, nurses, UPS employees, teachers and all other workers and their families on strike or preparing to go on strike. #WhichSideAreYouOn#Union#Strike#Solidarity” (-Matt Hoh For Senate)
“Solidarity to the railroad workers who are set to go on strike this Friday because they are being denied time off to go to the doctor when they are sick. #RailroadStrike” (-Ryan Knight)
“The railroad company management is likely counting on public resentment towards the workers for supply chain issues that will arise from the strike. Let’s be sure to remind people that it’s management, not the workers that are making store shelves empty again.” (-Ezak177)
Seems so crazy, this here life, esp. in times such as these, when the twisted billionaire sociopaths with all the consolidated tech power and bioweapons and media control all seem to only love wars, famine and disease, suffering and genocide and quiet weapon mass murder, and want to see many more of us become homeless, get sick, and croak cause they’re some Evil Squid Game secret society motherfuckers. So many of our childhood friends and heroes are already dead as fuck. Prince, Bowie, Timo Kaltio, Darrel Bath-ya know? Now, the great Morris Day has announced his imminent retirement from solo records and “Last call” tour. Me, of course, I always wanted the Original 7, the real TIME to make another record, but Jesse always splits first-he plays with D’Angelo nowadays. Jam & Lewis made it big producing for Janet and stuff. Jellybean and Monte Moir sometimes still tour with Morris. It’s been said that Prince originally had Alexander O’Neal in mind to portray the character he envisioned fronting the Time, who was to be a pimpolicious gigolo based on his own father, Prince Rogers Nelson. Alexander wanted too much dough upfront so Champagne and Grand Central drummer Morris got the gig-he and Prince recorded the Time debut together and the rest is history. They found Jesse playing some roadhosue biker bar, valet/mirror man/all around entertainer, Jerome Benton is Time bassist Terry Lewis’ brother. Morris was a big influence on my whole generation ya know with the yellow limo and Stacy Adams. Even Snoop will say he was a big influence. If the “Last Call” tour comes anywhere near me, I’ll probably be in the frontrow doing the Walk, the Bird and you know-that obie-obie-oh dance. Two dudes from the downtown high school named the Cloyd brothers were like the first in my town to get the Stacy Adams, back in the day. I’m wearing a pair right now. Yase! I wish all those cats from the Time all good things always.
“Repeating Russian talking points” just means criticizing US foreign policy. That’s literally always all it ever means. The argument is that because Russia criticizes the foreign policy of the US-centralized power alliance, you never should. Which is self-evidently very moronic.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“Let’s forget the US gov has admitted they’re lying about what’s going on in Ukraine because they say it’s justified when in an information war. Let’s forget that a US-funded committee in Ukraine has called anyone reporting the truth about the war an “information terrorist” Shouldn’t it matter to everyone – no matter where you stand – that we now have evidence the US & UK stopped a peace deal between Ukraine & Russia back in April of this year? This god awful war could’ve been over months ago if the US/UK had not kept it going. Let’s forget that Biden/Congress have sent over $50 Billion of weapons & aid to an army that is at least partially n@zis. Let’s forget that even US propaganda outlets CBS & CNN have admitted 70% of those weapons are sold on the black market & don’t get to the frontlines.Let’s forget the fact that the sanctions against Russia have backfired & are destroying the lives of average Americans. Let’s forget that documents reveal the US & NATO have been planning to plunder Ukraine for years” (-Lee Camp)
“Function of the CIA: 1. Run secret wars 2. Disseminate propaganda to influence people’s minds That’s not hyperbole. That’s from the Former Operations Director of the CIA. Think about this next time you buy the narratives that are crafted to control you.” (-Ryan Knight)
“Tucker Carlson said that the British were a kind and benign colonizer despite killing millions of people and leaving India impoverished and illiterate during its brutal occupation.” (-Danny Haiphong)
“Queen Elizabeth II owns the largest clear cut diamond in the world Known as ‘The Great Star of Africa’ the 530 carats gem was mined in South Africa back in 1905. It was stolen from South Africa. It has an estimated worth of $400 million.” (-Afrika Archives on Twitter)
“Today is Leonard Peltier’s 78th Birthday. He is serving a 47th year of prison, all of which constitutes cruel, unusual and unjust imprisonment. It is now your responsibility Potus Biden to #FreeLeonardPeltier. Unconditionally. Now” (-Gloria La Riva)
“Biden is asking for $47 billion in pandemic relief. Totally unrelated, Biden has sent about $40 billion to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Zelensky has put Ukraine up for sale on the NYSE. Get your piece before the best bits are gone!” (-Eleanor Goldfield)
ONE MORE AND I GOTTA GO…
Unreal. A worker for one of our sometime employers has the Big C, so what do ya think the for profit hospital did? Stuck a Covid patient in his room. Took a picture of a big raccoon on my front porch last night. Preparing to transition outta this rundown ole trailer in time for winter. Doing a lotta “odd jobs” lately. Relatives with worrisome health problems and an estranged loved one is AWOL/MIA. Tough times in Gropey Joe Biden’s crazy inflation, Unreality TV Land. Borrowed employer’s expensive car, supposed to go to big busy crime ridden city to see kid’s doctor later today. He needs his meds reevaluated. Filled with dread and worry. That vroom vroom beep beep beep in my ears is the sound of fuckedup fuckin’ gentrification-the bigass earth moving machines are back to flatten always more of the local wildlife habitat to clear way for big development. Somebody stole one of our cats. If you got any kind of trauma in your nervous system, it is hard to wake up to all the horrifying bullshit that surrounds us each day, especially with all the smiley faced pilled out fatso upperclass people forever nodding along with the pig-media lies and acting like, “everything is GGGRRREAT!” Like motherfuckin Tony The Motherfuckin’ Tiger! I got all these people from my long gone past who cover all my old songs and act like their trading on my material or attempting to monetize my songs is somehow supposed to be doing me some kinda flattery favor, but what they’re really doing is just gloating about having the ability to pay professional musicians to perform my songs in fancy recording studios. I used to know and collaborate with summa those people decades ago and they’ve almost all been in the position to help advance my interests as owners of recording studios and shit, but no. Never done anything to promote my cause or interest, only to kinda pillage and plunder my tunes. They all have this subtle way of diminishing me as some kinda Kari Chrome “phrase turner” or “street poet” AS IF I aint a songwriting frontman underground actionman. They all just some ruthless pay to play people trying to steal my gig, my suitcase, my face and space, ya know? It’s pretty crazy, really. So many people who detest both me and my dangerous former sideman, all fuckin’ still wanna perform our material and it makes no sense at all, cause so many of these karaoke coverband people are such yuppie gotmine capitalists, and all our songs are about poor people topics. Exile and exclusion, heartaches, abandonment, goin’ without essentials half the time, and the people’s struggles. I can get hungup on all this old bullshit and dwell for days on end, but am trying to keep my mind free and clear enough to write new songs and forget about all these old name dropping backstabbers and big city groupie wannabe VIPs. I gotta go dig around for a light jacket in the garage so I’m not profiled by the bureaucrats and administrators I gotta go fuck with outta town today-you know-ya gotta cover up your bad tattoos. Silly wabbit, tattoos are for gentrified rich hipster fakes. All I got on my frontpage right now is alot of hassles and to do lists of endless backs of the poor laboring, loved ones in medical crisis and always more insults, ripoffs and exploitation. It really gets me down as Chrissie Hynde sings on “Pack It Up!” “You guys are the pits of the world!’
“Maybe a few people having more money than the rest of society while over 30 million people live in poverty isn’t the ultimate sytem.” (-Black In The Empire)
“People defend capitalism on the grounds that it creates abundance, and in a sense they’re right: capitalism is an effective way to drive up production and consumption. The problem is there’s no wisdom guiding it, so the world is being choked with garbage while people go hungry.
Haves exploiting the labor of have-nots will indeed get the gears of industry creating lots of stuff. But now we’re creating too much stuff, so much that it’s killing our biosphere, even as vast inequalities remain and far too many go without the basic necessities in life. The “invisible hand” of the free market is worshipped as a sentient deity who always knows what’s best, but in reality it’s completely bereft of wisdom and intelligence and cannot move in harmony with the real needs of the real world. It’s a mindless force that is driving us to disaster.
This isn’t a problem you can just ignore. You can’t keep waxing on about how much stuff capitalism has been able to create while that stuff is destroying our ecosystem and making this planet uninhabitable. It’s a problem that urgently needs solving, and capitalism can’t solve it.
Capitalism offers no solution to the problems of ecocide and inequality. As long as exploitation remains profitable, exploitation will remain. As long as ecocide remains profitable, ecocide will continue. Human behavior cannot remain driven by profit.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
Heard from a dude I was real close to a long, long time ago. We’ve grown miles and miles apart in every way, but I could hear his old self underneath all the hoopla and clamor and big city ways. We used to make songs together, most of it was of an experimental/improvisational nature back then in the early days, but we always had a million laughs. We got together again years later and still complimented each other creatively but by then he had achieved a certain level of celebrity and I was frowned upon by his celebrity entrouge so it fizzled out again before you got to hear the many good songs we wrote together. Shame.
“Gosh that Pentagon-commissioned 2019 Rand Corp paper on how to break Russia is just chock full of convenient coincidences.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“In 2019, the Rand Corp., the brain of US militarism, published a report with nearly six pages on how the US could stoke conflict in the Caucasus — esp. between Armenia and Azerbaijan — to help weaken Russia’s influence. Last night, Azerbaijan invaded Armenia. When does it stop?” (-Pawel Wargan)
“You can go ahead and mourn the queen all you want but don’t pretend like the longest-reigning monarch is some innocent granny and has nothing to do with all the fucked up shit Britain did all over the world.” (-Richard Medhurst)
“Cuba exports doctors while the US exports war. It’s beyond time to pressure Biden to drop this outrageous terrorist designation as well as end the criminal blockade once & for all. Stop punishing this small country for charting its own path. Let Cuba live!” (-Abby Martin)
“It’s literally impossible to be an aggressive critic of US foreign policy with a sizeable audience and not be accused of repeating Russian taking points. Literally every single high-profile person who does so gets accused of Kremlin loyalty, without a single, solitary exception.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“The United States will soon drop out of the Top 50 nations in terms of life expectancy. Every country above us has a public option for health insurance of a publicly funded healthcare system. Not some. Not most. Every single one.” (-John Green)
“$67 Billion to the weapons manufacturers in the guise of “Ukraine” yet Los Angeles looks like this…” (-Garland Nixon)
“While some Western countries call for peace, the Pentagon has signed a $182-million deal with an American arms manufacturer to produce advanced surface-to-air missile systems for the Ukrainian military IN LATE 2024. Guess they plan to continue this war?” (-Fiorella Isabel)
“For those saying we should be magnanimous about the passing of the queen, a reminder that the queen inserted herself into the lives of Indigenous people here multiple times. She wasn’t a bystander to the effects of colonisation and colonialism, she was an architect of it. Demanding Indigenous people be respectful about the passing of someone who intentionally made our lives worse is outrageous. It’s worth considering what she *could* have done – and didn’t – to effect change.At so many times across the 20th century, she could have intervened and reset the relationship between Indigenous people and ‘the crown’, because she had more than ceremonial power to do so. She did nothing.” (-Indigenous X)
“The United States is waging a proxy war in Ukraine in large part to demolish Europe’s economy. A weak Europe artificially inflates the dollar and further cements their subservience to the New Cold War on Russia and China.” (-Danny Haiphong)
“If we lived in a democracy then we would have open political debates where the people would get to hear from multiple candidates from across the political spectrum, but instead we live in an oligarchy so the people only get to hear from the two parties who serve the ruling class.” (-Ryan Knight)
“And current phase of the war that started in 2014 – begin on Feb 16-17 not Feb 24 when the 150K Ukrainian army begin probing all along the contact line in preparation for its’ ground attack, documented by OCSE monitors that anyone can verify if you think this is disinformation!” (-Ajamu Baraka)
“If 4000 Twitter employees have broad access to the personal and geolocation data of users, as Twitter’s ex-head of security – a former US intel agent – says, they’re presumably able to read your DMs and leak them as well.” (-Max Blumenthal)
“The U.S. lost in Afghanistan. The U.S. is losing its own New Cold War with Russia and China. U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, now more than ever.” (-Danny Haiphong)
“Wow, all of these pro Ukrainian accounts follow each other and they are all located in Langley, Va. Just a coincidence I’m sure. No doubt the trustworthy fact checkers at
Twitter are all over these bots.” (-Garland Nixon)
“Those who tell you to move to Russia when you criticize the foreign policy of the western empire are the same people pushing for internet censorship and the silencing of unauthorised media and demanding retractions from any western outlet that forgets to parrot the official line.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“Let’s take a step back & think about this. Let’s forget that the US & NATO helped create the war in Ukraine by breaking promises not to expand NATO. Let’s forget the US perpetrated the 2014 coup in Ukraine. Let’s forget many top US officials have admitted this is a proxy war.” (-Lee Camp)
“The Establishment voted for Biden before a ballot was counted.” (-Black In The Empire)
“Can the media please stop calling this guy an “environmentalist”? He’s a Malthusian masquerading as an environmentalist (and he’s not the only one)” (-Whitney Webb)
“The Story is old, I know, but still it goes on…” (-The Smiths)
“We’re not allowed to know who’s calling what shots behind the veils of secrecy. All we’re allowed to see is our governments continually advancing the same imperial policies over and over again regardless of who’s in office. They never let us see who’s actually making those calls.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“The Democratic Party rehabilitated George W. Bush. The Democratic Party rehabilitated Dick Cheney. The Democratic Party rehabilitated the FBI and the CIA. The Democratic Party has used Trump as an excuse to bury the anti-war movement after Obama killed it.” (-Danny Haiphong)
“The US regime continues to show its blatant neocolonialist practices, ordering sovereign countries in Africa not to trade with Russia. Imagine being this arrogant. The US empire truly thinks the entire world is its property.” (-Benjamin Norton)
“Starting when it investigated Trump for a fictitious conspiracy with Russia, the FBI has given media outlets a lot of free content, and profit. I don’t understand why FBI brass don’t just cut out the middle man and launch their own news network.” (-Aaron Mate)
“Your US tax dollars are paying to flood Europe with heavy weapons and one of America’s top networks regrets investigating the issue. With special apologies to Raytheon and the Ghost of Kiev. Look how desperate neocons are to enforce silence on the Ukrainian military’s copious crimes, including dumping petal mines on Donetsk civilians Zero attempt to debunk our entirely factual report on the many opposition activists kidnapped and/or murdered under Zelensky’s watch Many Americans were upset that $90 million of their money was spent on Pelosi’s reckless junket to Taiwan, which deliberately escalated conflict with China and accelerated the process of unification, but consider this: that’s $90 million that won’t be spent on Ukrainian neo-Nazis.” (-Max Blumenthal)
TRAGEDY! TEENAGE HEAD WERE ONE OF MY TOP 5 CANADIAN BANDS! (RIP)
MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF PEOPLE BELIEVE DICK CHENEY HELPED FIX THE BUSH SELECTION, BUILT GITMO, HIRED BLACKWATER REGIME CHANGE MERCENARIES, AND STARTED ENDLESS WAR BASED ON LIES AND FALSE FLAGS, HE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES HIS DAUGHTER SAYS TRUMP IS BAD!
“Following a coordinated freakout by the Ukraine lobby, CBS self-censors a report stating the obvious. Amnesty International has also issued a bizarre half-apology for issuing a single report (out of 40+) on well-documented abuses of civilians by the Ukrainian army.” (-Max Blumenthal)
President Barack Obama weaponized the Espionage Act to prosecute those who provided classified information to the press. The Obama White House, whose assault on civil liberties was worse than those of the Bush administration, used the 1917 Act, designed to prosecute spies, against eight people who leaked information to the media including — Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake,Chelsea Manning,Jeffrey Sterling and John Kiriakou, who spent two-and-a-half years in prison for exposing the routine torture of suspects held in black sites.
Also under The Espionage Act, Joshua Schulte, a former CIA software engineer, was convicted on July 13 of the so-called Vault 7 leak, published by WikiLeaks in 2017, which revealed how the C.I.A. hacked Apple and Android smartphones and turned internet-connected televisions into listening devices. He faces up to 80 years in prison. Assange — although he is a publisher and not a U.S. citizen, and WikiLeaks is not a U.S.-based publication, was indicted by the Trump administration under the Act
Obama used the Espionage Act against those who provided information to the media more than all previous administrations combined.
My first imaginary band consisted of me, and about four other middle school heavy metal hoodlums I met in the special needs behavioral classroom named Deke, Dustin, his older brother “Don’t Fuck With…” Danny who was like my main protector back then; J.R. who was also sometimes known as “The Rat”-not because he snitched on anybody but he had one of those halfassed Joe Dirt mustaches and wore a satin jacket from Spencer Gifts in the mall with the RATT logo on the back of it, him n Deke were inseparable chainsmoker metalheads, like Bill N Ted-twin Spicolis talking about the Michael Schenker Group and Gary Moore, Carlos Cavazo and Warren Dimartini. They were both like deedle deedle guitar heroes in training. I was mostly into like Adam Ant, Culture Club, Prince and Duran Duran who they thought were gay, and I wore glasses which were a real no-no in the Future Villain Bands of young Amurkkka. Also, Deke probably wanted a better looking blonde haired guy with a Robert Plant or Bruce Dickinson vocal range. There was some older guy in town like that, I think he wanted to join like, the older rich kid dickhead bully cover band who played like KISS and Zeppelin and stuff, I think they were called Attack? Anyways, it was us, and sometimes, a kid in a Member’s Only jacket named Chris, who was the school psychiatrist’s son but his dad refused to buy him drums, Dustin was forbidden from hanging out with me or Dekan and used to have to change his clothes on the bus-he wanted to wear rebellious spiked bracelets and checkered Vans and parachute pants and black concert t shirts like the rest of us, but was forced to wear the preppie pink Izods that were the unofficial school uniform at the rich white suburbia school we went to. Mostly we walked around on the dirt trails, went to Music Land to look at records, loitered in front of the arcade, smoked Marlboros, sneered a lot. Dekan impressed everybody with learning “Eruption” and “Crazy Train” before the older rich and popular kids did. We played covers mostly, like “Livin’ After Midnight” and “Round And Round” and “Aint Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” out there at the Ross family, ranch style home when the parents were gone. Oh yeah, then we brought in Dave, cause Dustin and Dan were not allowed to come around that often and always got in some kinda trouble if they did. Dan had to sneak his guitar out of the house, he ran a stolen BMX chop shop in my basement. Those guys came from these strict military families that wanted them to hunt, and gave ’em guns and crossbows, but did not like them making music, cutting and pasting together homemade xerox art, anti-school fanzines with grotesque caricatures of admin and coaches and wrestling team dickheads, or painting crazy logos on t shirts. I wore feather earrings, string ties, homemade punk shirts, painted on jeans, was always like crazy gluing broken bits of mirror onto my suitjacket lapels, you know like an even lower budget Duckie from “Pretty In Pink”. Total new wave loser with the paisley suspenders and old man dress shoes. You probably already heard the one about how I told the army recruiter my career goal was the become the male Patti Smith. You shoulda seen the horror and dismay on the faces of the army guys when they saw my big Pegasus Trapper Keeper overflowing with pinups from Smash Hits magazine of Iggy and Ziggy and Flesh for Lulu and Pete Burns and Marilyn and Boy George and all that New Romantic Blitz Club & Batcave shit. I was always being after school detained, paddled, Saturday Schooled, or suspended, or having to get pink notes signed by my parents for dress code infractions, it was really the eyeliner they were mostly just nuts over. You know that’s when I discovered “Scary Monsters & Super Creeps” and “Hunky Dory” and “Ziggy Stardust” and had less and less patience for those fucking authoritarians who worked so hard to belittle me and mock all my creative endeavors and hassle me all the time. I got in trouble for drawing Flesh for Lulu and Cure logos in my textbooks, they sent me to bible school, detention all, juvenile probation, diversion, curfews, special extra dresscodes, haircuts, the whole nightmare, just Dr. Phil’d me for years on fucking end. When I got contacts, that’s when it ALL CHANGED. Girls. More than a couple, more than a few. Girls galore. Deke looked like a cross between Billy Idol and Colin from GBH, as we got older-his mom gave him some kinda flash sports car and he started dating a goth chick named Diane, who’s only friend was my goth girlfriend, Steffani. We were already drifting apart. They were almost all recruited into the military at 18. We never even got anything really off the ground, but that was where it all starts, guys in jean jackets with little Billy Idol and Van Halen and Guns N Roses and Hanoi Rocks buttons and black leather jackets hanging around each other, listening to Ozzy and Van Halen and saying they’re a band.
Me and Dave stuck together and eventually found some other guys. First we got this popular kid who was older-him and me were like the town’s token new wavers-but he was a star for being a DJ and was really good looking, whereas I was like a punching bag for being strange and really not so good looking. That guy showed up at my apartment one day with a scarf on and a Dogs D’Amour record and a big bottle of Jack Daniels and he was in. He loved INXS and Duran Duran and Prince and Circus Of Power and Mother Love Bone and played with us for about a year and a half, but then he left the band to play with all these guitar teacher, mainstream Journey type guys, who had real equipment, and he became the singer of Who’s Drivin’, a lame top 40 cover band that played at a pizza place called Parrason’s in the mall. So we had to find a replacement for him. The unlikely next bassist was sortof a jock, but not really, he played sports but did not have the same dumbfuck sensibility the others did-he hung around some guys who weren’t really rednecks and weren’t really jocks, they were like the John Goodman character on that sit-com, LARGE men who drank beer and played poker. Bowling team type of personalities. He became our bassplayer. We drank a lot of beer together and I got him into the Deadboys and Iggy. Kid from Catholic school marching band came in on drums, an older guy from a nearby town was the second guitar player and he knew all about old music so we started sponging up all kindsa diverse new influences from his elaborate closet filled with records. Bands we’d never heard of back then, like Theater Of Hate and The Fast. I had become obsessed with Hanoi Rocks and Generation X by then. Those characters really imprinted on my damaged teen psyche. I kinda never got over any of ’em. Some of ’em are dead now, it’s really heartbreaking.
MORE ON DEADEND BANDS IN NOWHERE TOWNS
I had these metalhead friends named Ron n Kelly, they were troubled youth. They were both really into horror movies, combat boots, dead cats, serial killers, the occult, anything offensive or shocking to squares and prudes. Remember that cat from “Bloom County” comic strips-Bill the Cat? We all used to draw him on our school folders and shit. We used to ride around in Kelly’s shitty hatchback car with all the stupid bumper stickers on the back, playing WASP, really loud. I remember them liking Dangerous Toys and Alice Cooper, too. They were super psyched when they got a copy of that old Charles Manson record, “Lie” from a record store in Columbus. You know those really dumb looking, whole forearm spiked leather bracelets some death rockers used to wear? That was Kelly, and the River’s Edge trailer park vermin obligatory army surplus coat with heavy metal pins on it and pentagrams drawn with black sharpie that reeked of cigarettes and reefer from across the street. Ron was a bit more sensitive cause his mom was gone, he was a painter, painted big portraits, my mom still has one he did of me in a graveyard. Ron also got a guitar and dyed his hair black like ours and attempted to join one of our many punkroll garage ruckus beer bands. We were both really into that first L.A. Guns record back then and I remember very vividly jamming to “One More Reason” and “Electric Gypsy” with him up in my infamous purple apartment while drinking 12 packs of Budweiser, back in the day. We had a big poster of the Hendrix experience in one room, a big poster of Bowie‘s “Aladdin Sane” in the other, a vintage mirror with pink flamingos from my grandmother’s basement that sadly got broken, a zebra print chair, a stinky couch and a boombox and a record player. We also had that first White Zombie lp borrowed from a grumpy older dude down the hall. They were a little bit like Beavis and Butthead, like Kelly always sorta picked on Ron, and for some reason, Ron being a sweet natured, good egg, he just kinda took it. I think Kelly later ended up goin’ out with my witchy death rock girlfriend for awhile. He eventually had a mohawk after graduation and a pet rat and was actually pretty fuckin’ radical for that town, back then. Poor Ron, he got better and better as an artist and guitarist, but like so many of our blue collar brothers raised by one parent in the deadend Midwest, he was fed into the military by the system. He was one of the few who joined the army who did not seem to regret it, he learned some technical photography skills and now, he has his own thriving adult-world, commercial photography business with his wife, God bless him.
Penelope Spheeris mighta intended her “Decline” movies as cautionary tales, but when me and my friends watched them, it just made us wanna relocate to Hollywood. We could all identify with Guns N Roses and Faster Pussycat, esp. “Out To Get Me, they were just like us. Burntout little Hanoi Rocks fans. We were all a little bit punk and a little bit metal, there really was no punk scene where we came from, just some misfit kids who liked Suicidal Tendencies and The Dils and New Order and those first two Motley Crue records. I don’t know what happened to Kelly but it usually went bad for anybody who stayed in that town. Several of my teenage new wave friends killed themselves, or were murdered there. The town screws really went out of their way to bootcamp and humiliate me until I had no real choice but to flee that part of the country-they just never let up, once they get you on their list. It was the anti-rock PMRC era, and the rich suburbanite sports moms were hysterical about my corrupting, corrosive new wave influence upon their lily-white children. I gave everybody books and records and shit. At least one friend who made in big in straight society has said I was a crucial part of that. When I stupidly returned to that part of the country years later, it was the same exact shit, all over again. You can not change that fortunate son ruling class sports hierarchy in the flyover states. The Kendoll rich boys in their big white mama mansions will always be above the law celebrities, and the working-class weirdos will always be targets of the screws. Of course, the ones who got the hall pass from the ruling class, or who were assimilated into the corrupt sham never even wanna know the truth of how things are for their “uneducated” or “dysfunctional” former peers, but I saw how that injustice system broke more than a few of my allies. The ones who weren’t herded into the marines or married into wealth went through a never ending gauntlet of multi-generational alcoholism and depression, factory life hell, probation, piss tests, DUI’s, 12 steps, psych ward, holy roller churches, back to the assembly line, sixteen hour days, meltdowns, pressure, judgement, evictions, crackpipe, freakout, suicide. Of what survivors remain, I’m not really in touch with any of ’em. I think a couple might still have some kinda Louie Louie Wild Thing Animal House garage band. None of ’em seem at all activated or radicalized. Probably one or two of ’em say they Dislike Trump, that’s as punk as they get, but are conspicuously silent when Biden does all the exact same shit, caging kids, sucking up to Israel and the Saudis, drug war, gutting social safety nets and just blaming it on rotating villains. Censoring the internet, escalating the warpig provocations. I’m still anti war, anti racist, anti fascist, pro free speech, pro working class, pro creativity, pro human rights. I get a sad pang inside when I think about my lost lads who are dead now.
They were basically hounded into the grave by the same system everybody pretends is so fair and peachy keen, s’long as they get to keep their own special-class privileges.
I know the college safespace shitlibs cancelled Dr. Seuss, like they do everything in their cloistered elitist shitlib feelings, special preference gentrification world, but he got it all right on the money with the Starbellied Sneetches. The same exact people who retroactively disapproved his racist WW2 era cartoons, they are all jumpin’ up n down like drunk Buckeyes fans cheering for Zelensky, blaming all their personal shit and inflation on “RUSSIANS!” The Republikkkans been similarly trained to Blame China. They keep saying China took our money or China took our jobs, when in fact, Wall Street stuffed shirts gleefully sent all the manufacturing to Chinese sweat shops and Murkkka never even paid ’em what they are owed, so now the Murkkkans want war on everybody-even their own people Twitter cop accused of pre crime or Wrongthink. All madness, all the time, and Israel wants to steal Iran. End the wars. Rich people suck.
I’m on a different schedule than my family so I’m probably spending too many hours alone everyday which always kinda causes me to drift back into the past since any kind of groovy future was stolen by the billionaires and neo-cons. Had a friend named Mike Mindless, he sadly is dead (RIP) but anyways he was really into alot of the same stuff as me-Misfits, Deadboys, NY Dolls, Mexican wrestling and comic books and thrift store retro black velvet painting type garbage and like Godzilla flea market subculture. He was also kindof a progressive activist, maybe not as radical leftist as I was, but he understood how we were all being played by the good cop/bad cop bullshit culture war duopoly. Mike had so many good stories about kinda roadieing for the Deadboys and shit. He had a band called The Skulls and my older guitarplayer, BAM, friend used to buy all the $1 vinyl from the cutout bins and we played that record to death and also, “Keeping Up With The Joneses” and the Little Kings. Man, the eighties had such a cool underground scene, you know? NYC was still like a bombed out Mad Max counterculture anarchist paradise! You could just hangout in the park all day and meet cool people. Hollywood had that whole goth and cowpunk scene with The Gun Club and Horseheads and we used to read all those punk magazines from the coasts and dream of relocating there and signing to Slash records. Many of my local pals from that horrible town were less hated and maligned than I was, like a couple of my friends had brothers who were jocks, or mainstream popular status quo catholic school girlfriends, or just fit in, more than I did because they did not wear black leather pants or makeup and shit. It took them longer to wanna leave that place. We did road trips whenever we could in these rundown, unreliable vehicles we bought cheap from Little Ceasers delivery guys from small farm towns who all went to this mechanic trade school. Also, one of my heavy metal girlfriends, the female bassist of a Metallica covers band, her mom’s boyfriend ran the speed parts shop. I remember when we got that Smack cassette from an Indianapolis record store. That really was a major moment that totally electrified me. That singer and that sound, was at once urgent and haunting-kinda goth, kinda glam, little bit punk and as Viv on “The Young Ones” jacket said, “very metal”. I knew that was what I wanted to do. Like I said, summa my collaborators were more orthodox, one guy was into like, the Chili Peppers, one guy was into Minor Threat and Fugazi. I think my best pal Dave was still really into Steve Vai and just discovering that first Peter Murphy record, “Love Hysteria”, which we all thought was pretty fantastic. The older geezer down the hall was digging Big Black and the Amphetamine records bands. All I knew was I wanted to get the fuck outta that place. Groups of older jocks would follow me outta the mall, ya know, and knock the Icee outta my hand, knock me on the pavement, “fag! fag!” It was old hat by then, I’d been sorta traumatized by these same suburban assholes since the fourth grade. I was really getting sick of it. Some of those other guys liked to talk about being some kinda hooligan street gang tough guys, but some of ’em RAN anytime they saw my usual wouldbe assailants. Anytime I set foot out in the public eye, these brainless karate kid fuckers in the rising sun muscle shirts and big boofy Bon Jovi hair would stop their Transmaros and get out to chase me around or insult or assault or otherwise slander, smear and intimidate me, it was becoming real psychologically torturous, but my more popular friends with like the pretty relatives and shit, just did not get it, the desiore I had to escape, cause they weren’t really sharing the same experience. I hated those fratboys. I did not want to win their acceptance or learn how to fit in with them, which was the main diff between me and summa my former bandmates. I wanted to runaway to California and meet The Ringling Sisters. I wrote letters to people I found in the classifieds of “Maximum Rocknroll” and “Flipside” magazine. I had a lotta pen pals from outta state-we’d write each other pained letters about our outcast status as weirdo punks from nowhere places, all us no ones making crazy xerox art and trading heartfelt compilation tapes. “Psychocandy” was a real big influence. Then, “Darklands” came out and made us want to write better songs that were more introspective and melodic instead of just loud fast complaining about the juvenile authorities, dummy sports people, Reagan, the malls, and Tipper Gore.
JOHN DISSED
If you aint already hip to his stuff, you need to checkout this guy, John Dissed, he’s sort of a modern day Billy Bragg.
“Zelensky’s immaturity & fascist tendencies are once again on display with his irrational call for stigmatizing all Russians. But this is the morality of the “collective West.” (-Ajamu Baraka)
“If Trump broke the law then he should face the consequences but I am so tired of one man being a bigger story than the corrupt capitalist system that we live under which puts the endless greed of corporations and billionaires over the basic needs of the people and planet.” (-Ryan Knight)
“Westerners think they are free because they can criticize their president or PM, when a small amount of research quickly reveals that those officials aren’t the ones calling the shots on any issue of importance. Westerners aren’t even allowed to know who their real government is.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“There’s no Russian imperialism. There’s no Chinese imperialism. There is only ONE imperialism and it’s led by the United States.” (-Danny Haiphong)
t all just keeps vanishing! Wish I had some whiskey! (RIP)
LOW LIFE
Yeah you know, me and all my friends liked The Smiths and The Cure and Echo and Sisters Of Mercy and all that stuff, but FOR YEARS, this New Order record was such a big part of our teen subculture, it would be difficult to overstate it’s importance, ya know when they threw me into that cold cement solitary confinement closet at J.D.C., it was playing in my mind from start to finish. When I was alone at various older people’s apartments in NYC running up phone bills and eternally missing and mooning and swooning over some beautiful blonde first crush Smiths chick, this was always playing in the background and in our hearts. “Oh how I cannot bear the thought of you…” I’m sentimental about all those kids and all that music.
“Westerners say “In that tyrannical regime over there they’re not even allowed to criticize their government!” Okay, but at least they’re allowed to know who their government IS. They get to know who’s calling the shots in their country. In that sense they’re freer than you are.” (-Cait Johnstone)
JOHNNY THUNDERS MEMORIAL, ENTER THE WORLD FAMOUS MISTER RATBOY
I met Ratboy at the Thunders memorial and we became fast friends, we even had a band for a minute and a half, in some low rent rehearsal space in alphabet city he played, I sang, his Piss Factory ex wife played bass and so did a French guy I think and a drummer who may have been from The Lunachicks. Then he got Chris Barry and I went back to Boston and did the Imitations who became The Bastards. Jim Rinn just found some old basement demotapes of me and The Bastards from back then that were shocking to hear after so many years have passed. But Yeah, both Motorcycle Boy and Pillbox had a huge impact on me and all my closest friends. I loved everything about both of those bands. I learned so much from Chris Barry and Ratboy, they will always have a special place in my heart.
Another band I was really into were The Nymphs, it felt like Inger Lorre was a real kindred spirit, we were both into the same kinda vibes. And hats. and feathers.
Veglam 