(video) (image) Thank you! (image) Very appreciated. (image) Gracias! (image) Eternally grateful. (image) Indebted. (image) Wish you were staying! (image) Missing you already. (image) Much obliged. (image) Seriously, thanks. (image) Praying for you, as always. FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand... more

Thank you!



Very appreciated.



Gracias!



Eternally grateful.



Indebted.



Wish you were staying!



Missing you already.



Much obliged.



Seriously, thanks.



Praying for you, as always.


FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for more from FearTheReaper and read his blog, Stop All Monsters.

Before I get into this months food shenanigans I'd just like to wish all of you a happy new year. It's already Jan 16. Maybe when Obama takes office he can do something about this time flying issue. I am excited and hopeful for the new administration. Obama is taking the job at a time which... more

Before I get into this months food shenanigans I'd just like to wish all of you a happy new year. It's already Jan 16. Maybe when Obama takes office he can do something about this time flying issue. I am excited and hopeful for the new administration. Obama is taking the job at a time which is, at least in my lifetime, the worst I can remember. Imagine if he sets things right? Or at least makes things better? One can hope right?

Another huge personal thing for me this month is the anniversary of the release of my first album Fistful Of Metal in 1984. Twenty-five years. It's hard for me to process that (time flying again). I co-founded this band with Danny Lilker in 1981 so in July it will be twenty-eight years of Anthrax for me. Who does anything for twenty-eight years?? Count the bands that have been around that long and are still making valid records and touring. It's a short list. I would have to say my "career" in heavy metal is my proudest accomplishment. Twenty-eight years of doing what I love. Can't beat that. And the album is coming along great, vocals almost done and it should be blasting your ears in June.

I was going to write an Xmas themed holiday column as I didn't get to before Xmas and over the holidays I was ruminating quite a bit on my life, my career, the holidays etc. and I remembered this event that was holiday related -- albeit Passover holiday related. So lets hearken back to a simpler time circa 1970-71. Time machine on.....

For all accounts and purposes, I shouldn't be the fan that I am of seafood. Even against a myriad number of reasons I find myself having no problem eating a shrimp head or puffer fish or any other strange thing from the sea that "extreme eater" Andrew Zimmern would eat (if I eat Tuna balls do I get my own show too?). I'm a Jew, and it's in my genetic makeup to hide like a Vampire from the sun from shellfish and besides the religious thing, seafood can kill you. Is that reason enough to not eat it? How about the fact that if you saw something that looked like a crab or lobster skittering across your kitchen floor when you turned on the lights you'd do nothing short of napalming the monstrosity.

As a kid my practicing Jewish friends would tell me horror stories about an uncle that died from a bad clam or a neighbor that got gout from a bad piece of fish. I didn't need my hypocritical shrimp cocktail eating at Bar Mitzvahs friends to tell me about the dangers of Oysters, those stories would make national news. "On tonight's nightly news with David Brinkley American troops pull out of Saigon and man that lived next door to somebody that knows Scott Ian in Bayside, Queens died from what was apparently a tainted oyster."

We used to go to my grandfather's house for the Passover holidays. Before my grandparents moved to Florida they lived in Queens as well and my memories of their house are of small dark oppressive rooms and plastic slipcovers. My grandfather was a strict Orthodox Jew and Passover was a long dark day of standing and sitting and standing and sitting and lots of oldies speaking Hebrew and my brother and I doing everything we could to sneak a piece of Matzoh without any of the Passover Nazi's catching us. On one of those long days we arrived at their house early so my parents could help out and my brother and I could suffer even longer than usual. We didn't even get the payoff of the hide the Matzoh game that all of our friends got. If it wasn't in my grandfather's seder book -- it wasn't part of Passover so there was no money exchanging hands.

On that day we got there early I was roaming around the upstairs of the house unattended exploring the mysteries of these people from Poland and Russia and I walked into a bathroom and I noticed that the tub was full of water. As I got closer to the full tub, my curiosity piqued as to why there was an old bathtub filled with water I could hear my grandfather saying, "Such a waste all this water, take a bath anyway!" This bath wasn't for me though as I looked over the edge of the tub to see a fish kind of swimming around in the tub. To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. To this day it's one of the seminal moments of my life. There was a long weird fish alive in my grandfather's bathtub. The eight year old me was extremely excited and I ran downstairs to ask about my grandparent's new pet. "Grandpa, grandpa, there's a fish in the bathtub!" And then to my horror, "Of course there's a fish in the bathtub, it's the pike for the gefilte fish."

In the dim recesses of my brain I can remember standing there confused at this statement. Pike for the gefilte fish? In your gross tub that you bath in upstairs? And then I thought about all the previous times I ate gefilte fish in that house and I think I swooned a bit. Guess who didn't eat the gefilte fish that day. It was hard enough watching everyone at the table shoveling it into their mouths and talking with mouthfuls of bathtub pike. I get gaggy just thinking about it.

You, or actually I would think that a moment like that would put me off fish forever. Tub fish -- yes. Fish from the ocean, lake, stream, river whatever -- no problem. If I could eat one type of food everyday (and afford it) I'd have Nobu Matsuhisa make me breakfast lunch and dinner.

Cheers,
Scott
www.anthrax.com
www.myspace.com/scottian
www.ultimatebet.com/scott-ian/?ubAffilID=73329
www.nonelouder.com


Scott Ian is SuicideGirls' monthly Food Coma columnist. Click HERE for more of his musing on sustenance and libations. He plays guitar for revolutionary metal band Anthrax and also for Pearl.

For those in the temperate climes, welcome to the butthole of winter. It’s cold, it’s gray, and it will sap whatever positivity you might have, if you let it. A friend of mine once told me that the winter is always the hardest time to stay sober. He told me that every time he relapsed, and... more

For those in the temperate climes, welcome to the butthole of winter. It’s cold, it’s gray, and it will sap whatever positivity you might have, if you let it. A friend of mine once told me that the winter is always the hardest time to stay sober. He told me that every time he relapsed, and there were several times, it had been during the winter. Well, with the winter now going strong and thoroughly starting to fuck with me, I can see some evidence of winter being the relapse season.

One of my best friends, we'll call him N, whom I met while in rehab and then lived in the same halfway house with, went back out in a bad, bad way. It started off with the classic “one more time” move. He came back from the usual job search time we were given at the house. We had to be out from 8 a.m. and could return no earlier than 3 p.m. or so. He came back late, when our group had already started, at around 6:30.

It was the day I was leaving the house and everyone said their official "goodbye' to me, but by the time he got there, it was over. I could tell something was up, but I just didn’t want to think he was high. Long story short, he admitted the next day, after my almost talking to the counselor about it, that he had indeed gotten high.

He made his pilgrimage to the West side, scored some bags and a jab, and went to town. He dodged the piss tests and played it cool for the next week. I didn’t hear from him much. He admitted, though perhaps I persuaded him, that the small amount of pleasure was not worth the next week of hassle and almost going back to jail.

Later however, I received a call from my roommate, who had been in rehab with both N and me, telling me that N was in jail. He had been picked up in Chicago at the scene of a head-on collision between his truck and another car. He was both drunk and high. He totaled the truck that he was so proud to have just gotten working again. N now sits in jail, ready for the court to send him to another rehab facility in the city, to start the process all over again.

Another friend of mine, a girl who I had dated briefly after rehab, seemed on the right path. Though she got pregnant by a friend of mine (who ended up being that same roommate I just mentioned, who went to rehab with all of the people thus far mentioned) and things had been rocky, she stayed positive. We even made a pact to quit smoking, which I have thus far kept. But recently, she found out that the baby had died in the womb. This precipitated in a break-up between her and my roommate, then in her relapse.

Though it seems she did it once, she is doing nothing to get back into recovery. Whereas she used to attend meetings all the time, she now pushes that issue aside in conversation. She has commenced to hang out with old friends, who may or may not get high. The situation has a certain stink to it. I attempted to accompany her to a meeting, purposely staying around town later than I normally would before making my hour commute back home. I was politely ditched. But I really was not surprised.

There are more people I know diving back into the icy waters. It’s disheartening, and it’s all new to me, so it’s hard to know what to make of it. I don’t want to get jaded, but I also don’t want to be so naïve and allow these very common occurrences to rip away a piece of me each time they happen. Some might hear this and think, “Why bother? These dumbasses did this to themselves, and in doing it all over again prove themselves to be even dumber –– they deserve what they get”.

Sure, I guess that’s an easy way to go through life without learning to truly care about others. But I have been on that end. I have been confronted, given a chance, and tossed it away to keep getting high. I know that at least for me, it had little to do with smarts, because I did some really clever things to stop myself from getting caught, to keep getting drugs after being monitored, to pass drug tests, etc.

For me it had everything to do with running on autopilot, pursuing only pleasure at the cost of everything else. It wasn’t until I was basically kicked in the balls by everyone around me, and the law, that I realized I couldn’t get a grip on the way I had been operating. But how do I convey the urgency to those around me? How do I get the people I have come to care about to see that they don’t have to give up –– that they can do this? At this point, I’m not sure. I have no answers except this: winter is fucking mean, it’s a time that is even harder for those already depressed and fighting.

I can say all I want that I don’t plan on going down, but that won’t make it so. I’ve heard my fair share of horror stories, and I don’t wish to repeat them. But I was surprised to hear that there is still some hubris out there, still some people who have managed to climb out of the shit, but are continuing to tempt the beast. A fellow in my outpatient therapy class is one such person.

He is, as all of us are, court mandated to be there. He has been sober 5 months, yet done all 12 steps and every weekend goes to the bar with his friends and drinks only water. He admittedly has PTSD and is under the stress of simultaneously finding a job and fighting a court case.

I found it odd that he is willing to walk back into a bar frequently when it was that same kind of place that landed him in his current situation. I asked him how, with so many other uncertainties in his life, he could throw one more uncertainty in the mix. He claimed confidence in himself and said that he was able to control himself. But he could not point out to me what exactly made him not able to control himself merely 5 months ago. It seems that the only thing that changed was having a program. But what match is that for your old friend, Jack Daniels, as he stares you dead in the face when all you want is to forget about your shit day?

I just wonder why one would leave that to chance? Really, it’s just not playing the odds. But that is the type of person that might just beat those odds, and if they do, more power to them. However, I still can’t swallow the idea of throwing yourself into a situation where the thing that tempts you most is constantly in your face. It seems like living the rest of my life is more important than just being able to “hang out” in a bar. I place no importance in that ability, it seems like pure hubris, pride before the fall. Some people need to feel cocky, but to me, it just doesn’t make sense. And I’ve seen it end with relapse too many times to even take this fellow’s claim seriously. Apologies for sounding crass, perhaps I am jaded after all.

So I guess if there’s one thing to take away from this whole rant I’ve just laid out, it’s that whatever us addicts usually do to stay sober, we need to go hardcore at right now. This seems to be the time when people start to drop like flies, and if I as an addict am to be of any help to anyone in need, I must be solid in my recovery. I must stay vigilant and never forget the place from whence I came.

Keep on keeping on, folks. And to steal a quote from the great Kevin Seconds: “Use your head, be aware, give….a….fuck!!!!!”


Disclaimer: This article is written from the point of view of one single addict. It is not intended to give any definitive answers to medical, psychological, or legal issues. Anyone having problems with addiction/alcoholism should contact either their doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, nearest substance abuse treatment center, Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous hotline, or all of the aforementioned. Support can also be found at SG's own Sobriety Group

In less than a week, president elect Barack Obama will be President Obama. Shortly thereafter, he’s promised he’ll be taking his act up to Ottawa for a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. As of now, no date has been set for this meeting, but Reuters is announcing agenda updates regarding... more

In less than a week, president elect Barack Obama will be President Obama. Shortly thereafter, he’s promised he’ll be taking his act up to Ottawa for a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. As of now, no date has been set for this meeting, but Reuters is announcing agenda updates regarding the controversial oil sands issue. Many in Canada have been discussing the president-elect’s upcoming visit. Indeed, it’s the talk of the country if the CBC is to be believed on this one. They’ve even gone so far as to put together a “Canadian playlist” for the President to present to him upon his arrival.

Yeah, weird hey? Of almost equal interest in the Canadian media are the issues that the President –– who campaigned with the promise of “Change” –– will discuss with a Prime Minister who clings to power through a series of parliamentary holding patterns and whose policies over the last three years have mimicked the Bush administrations as far as the minority government’s weak mandate allowed? Where, if any, is the common ground these two share?

An aside here for those who don’t live in Canada: I figure this “minority government” business ought to be explained straight away. An editorial in the recent edition of Canadian Dimension lays it out like this:

Presently, Stephen Harper’s Conservative party does not hold a majority of seats in Parliament, but something like 144 out of 308. Over the last month, he has held on to control of the government by suspending parliament in the middle of an economic crisis. His hold on the country is tenuous, with something like 38% of votes in an election where turnout was lower than 60%. (A previous Newswire post, It's a Leftist Takeover, Canadian Style, broke it down rather well.)

What common ground could they possibly have? Stephen Harper appears like a goofy, yet sinister robot programmed into the body of a Child of the Corn, while Obama appears to be a genuinely decent person, as far as politicians run. Or maybe I’m wrong.

Time will tell –– and Reuters is telling me right now –– that Alberta’s oil sands development, a key part of the outgoing U.S. administration and Prime Minister Harper’s Conservative party’s North American (key word being “American”) “energy security” agenda. Steve admits, frankly, “We've got to do a better job environmentally” in the tar sands.

Harper then goes on to explain, however, that “the development of these things is pretty important, in our judgment, to North American energy security.” If you have heard this fucking guy talk about anything, you'll know this means he doesn’t give a shit about anyone's security but his own; He will continue in any direction that will keep Alberta’s –– and his own –– fortunes flowing. Secondary concerns, such as the environment, are quickly pushed to the side in Harper’s Canada, as proven by his track record for slashing federal funding for environmental organizations and initiatives.

The tar sands development poses serious threats to the environment, as it involves tearing down a boreal forest that covers most of the northern half of the province in order to suck oil, at massive cost in terms of money, fresh water, energy –– not to mention the ecosystem. Northern Alberta is a goddamn mess, plain and simple, and in tearing up the earth, they are wreaking major environmental damage to not only the immediate area, but the entire watershed, which flows northward into the North-West Territories, poisoning the water and food sources of many communities downstream.

Fort Chipewyan is a fucking awful example of what is happening already up there without the additional multi-billion dollar projects planned. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were so concerned, they even scampered northwards to check out the tragic scene this past summer. The dollars invested in developing this dubious source of petroleum are staggering. Fresh water is diverted from rivers and used to steam thick bitumen oil from the soil in a process that takes approximately 4 liters of fresh water to produce 1 liter of bitumen oil. That water is then left to sit in “tailing ponds” close to the Athabasca river, where migratory birds die by the hundreds every spring and fall.

The list of fucked up shit involved when discussing the tar sands is astronomical. Just where Obama will stand on this issue, among others, will certainly set the tone for the relationship his administration will hold with Prime Minister Harper’s (minority) government –– should it last long enough to enjoy a visit from the new president. Will Stephen Harper try to navigate the waves of change and abandon his hard-nosed shit blind backwoods neocon trip for the easy sail? Time will tell, I guess. Nothing to do but sit here and wait on it…

djensen lives and writes in Winnipeg, Manitoba

In the 1920s, Dr. Max Gerson developed the Gerson Therapy, a methodology of boosting the immune system largely led by an organic diet that has been at controversial odds with conventional medicine for decades -- despite a difficult-to-ignore track record of helping people survive cancer and other terminal... more

In the 1920s, Dr. Max Gerson developed the Gerson Therapy, a methodology of boosting the immune system largely led by an organic diet that has been at controversial odds with conventional medicine for decades -- despite a difficult-to-ignore track record of helping people survive cancer and other terminal illnesses.

The Beautiful Truth is a documentary which explores this treatment regimen. It was directed and shot by Steve Kroschel, an accomplished wildlife cinematographer and natural history filmmaker. This is his third film about the Gerson Therapy, but this time his subject hits closer to home; Garret, the 15-year-old boy who serves as the film's central figure, is Kroschel's son.

Garret's research for a home school project leads him to learn about the Gerson Therapy. The film documents his real life quest to learn why the therapy has been systematically suppressed. The camera follows Garret as he meets with those charged with the Gerson Therapy legacy: Charlotte Gerson, daughter of Dr. Max Gerson, and her son Howard Straus, who is Max's official biographer as well as the founder of the Cancer Research Wellness Institute.

Speaking with Howard Straus illuminates not only the people behind and in front of the camera in The Beautiful Truth, but also how we are quick to put our trust into corporations and agencies that might not exactly have the public health as their top priority.

Tamara Palmer: This film is so beautifully shot that the cinematography might draw some people in sooner than the actual health information that's being presented.

Howard Straus: Steve [Kroschel] lives in Alaska, which is cinematography heaven as far as beauty is concerned. He's been doing wildlife and landscape cinematography for many years. He did a lot of the mountain photography in [feature films] Vertical Limit and 7 Years in Tibet and he also worked on Cry Wolf. So he's worked on a lot of beautifully shot films, he's very artistic.

TP: Was that the first project that you know of where he really turned the camera inward and showed something of his own family?

HS: Actually, this is his third Gerson documentary. His first, The Gerson Miracle, won Best Picture at the Beverly Hills Film Festival in 2004.

TP: I guess what I mean to ask is: In The Beautiful Truth, you see him behind the camera and I'd imagine in some of his other work, you don't see him at all?

HS: One does see him, not in the big budget movies but in some of his documentary work. He also specializes in avalanche photography for [science TV program] Nova and for advertisements and sometimes you do see him in front of the camera doing the avalanche work. He's quite a fascinating guy. I call him the Energizer bunny. He never stops moving, which in Alaska is, I think, a requirement, or otherwise you'll freeze solid!

TP: Exactly! So it sounds like his son Garret has a good foundation for being inquisitive and exploratory, then?

HS: Oh yes, and even more so, Steve runs a wildlife ranch and raises everything from wolverines and grizzly bears to caribou and lynx and foxes and so forth and uses them for cinematography. He also runs educational wildlife tours for tourists. Now, you must understand that a caribou doesn't eat the same thing as a wolf or a porcupine or a grizzly bear, so they have to understand the nutritional needs of the animals in order to keep them not only healthy but viable. They're very attuned to nutrition and its connection with health, and that's what led them to the Gerson Therapy in the first place.

TP: So they didn't have somebody in their family who had cancer?

HS: No, it was Steve's mentor, who is known as one of the steadiest hands on a camera in Alaska: Bill Bacon. He's famous in Alaska for a cameraman and used to work for Walt Disney. One day, Steve was expressing his concerns about being alone and being a single father and running this huge operation all by himself and getting on in years. And his friend said, "You know what? You oughta look at this," and he handed him a book by Dr. Max Gerson, my grandfather.

Steve read that and it just jibed with everything he knew about keeping healthy with nutrition. That's when he started to live according to the Gerson Therapy, not to cure cancer or some awful disease, but just to maintain his health at an optimum level. He got such good results that after a couple of years, he just felt impelled, he said, "I want to pay back, I want to somehow bring this information to the world." How does he bring this information to the world? He uses a camera.

TP: He's also using the perspective of his son to make some complex issues easier for normal people viewing the film to be able to digest.

HS: Not just normal people, but even teenagers and younger people who are starting to wake up to these issues. They can identify a little more with Garret than they can with some of these scientists who are talking about nutrition.

TP: To that end, it's also something that could be shown in the classroom as an alternative.

HS: It definitely should be. Kids need to know about this stuff. Everybody needs to know about this stuff. If you believe what the FDA is telling you, you're going to die. They are not out for your health. They are out for the financial health of the pharmaceutical companies and that is evident in just this last week. Are you aware that the FDA reversed its former stance warning pregnant women and infants to stay away from mercury? They reversed that. They turned around and said, "No, no - mercury is perfectly safe." No upper limit for the dosage, with no upper limit!

Now, everybody knows that mercury is the most toxic, non-radioactive metal there is. It's a potent neurotoxin. It used to drive hatters crazy, you know, "Mad as a hatter?" The Mad Hatter was a cultural icon back in the Elizabethan and Victorian days. Because hatters, the people who used to make hats, used to work the mercury into the felt with their fingers, liquid mercury. Therefore, they absorbed huge amounts of it and they went mad and had to be institutionalized. But as far as the FDA is concerned, there's no upper limit for giving mercury to infants.

TP: This is an extreme of what's demonstrated and described in the film, when experiments on amalgam fillings in a tooth are performed so that we can see mercury vapor come off the tooth, and we also learn that dentists are pressured to say that it is safe.

HS: The reason is that it's so incredibly profitable for these companies to make mercury amalgam fillings that they don't want that source of profit to go away. And since they own the FDA, the FDA must do what they tell them. I must tell you this: For 30 years, Congress has been demanding, requiring, mandating, repeatedly requesting the FDA to do safety tests on mercury amalgam fillings. For 30 years, the FDA has been lying, obfuscating, stalling and just not doing it. And so in the last 30 years, the FDA has still not tested according to the Congressional requirement the safety and effectiveness of mercury amalgam fillings.

TP: Is it so low on the list of Congressional priorities that nobody is around to enforce it?

HS: Who is more powerful, the lobbyists for the drug companies or the Congress people? Apparently, it's the lobbyists. And so the Congress people are literally selling out our health and our sanity for campaign contributions. But that's not a surprise, is it?

TP: Well, I hope none of them have mercury in their mouths.

HS: I hope they all do! That's karma, right? The problem is, even if everybody around you has mercury and you don't, the mercury in their mouths is outgassing. When they inhale, they put it into their lungs. When they exhale, they put it out into the air. So when you're in an elevator with 20 people and each of the people has 10 mercury fillings, the air is filling up with mercury vapor whether or not you have fillings. You absorb it anyway.

TP: So I'm powerless no matter what? It's like dying of secondhand smoke?

HS: That's exactly right. And the FDA is telling us don't worry, it's perfectly safe, no upper limit to it. Pretty scary.

TP: Where do we go from here?

HS: Ha ha ha! Where do we go from here? Well, every single one of the substances that we talk about in the film, from aspartame and MSG to the mercury, they're all perfectly legal and perfectly well approved by the FDA to put in our food, and they're lethal. GMOs, there's one for you: Genetically modified organisms. Those are lethal, and the animal tests that have shown them to be carcinogenic and lethal have been suppressed by the GMO manufacturers, who say it's a trade secret. Trade secret? Your trade secret is that you're killing people? I should think they'd want to keep it secret but I should also think that any reasonable government wanting to protect its people should say, "No, you can't keep that information secret. That's killing people."

TP: Even when ingredients are clearly labeled on a package, people still buy it because they're looking increasingly at price and not content.

HS: They're not even looking at the warning labels, are they? Let me ask you something: Do you brush your teeth?

TP: Of course.

HS: Okay, and you brush it with some toothpaste that you get at a supermarket?

TP: Most of the time.

HS: Okay, and you don't think about it more than once. You just go and get what you always get at the supermarket. But if you turn it over and you look at the back of that toothpaste label, it says, "Do not let children under six use this product unsupervised. If you swallow more than you use to brush your teeth, call your doctor or a poison control center immediately." Every single brand of toothpaste you get at the supermarket says that, every single one.

TP: So what's the best toothpaste? Is the best toothpaste no toothpaste?

HS: You'd be almost just as well off brushing your teeth with a dry toothbrush to get the mechanical action of it. All toothpaste foamers are sodium lauryl sulfate, which is an engine degreaser and not something you want in your body, but they all have it in there. And many of them have bicarbonate of soda, baking soda, which itself is sodium and cancer needs sodium to grow. It's amazing, it's like a minefield out there. No matter where you put your foot, no matter where you breathe, or what you drink, eat or anything, they're slowly stealing your health from you. But if you remember that the FDA just said that if you are an infant or pregnant that you can have as much mercury as you can and there's no danger to it, then you must also understand what their declaration of safety for all the other ingredients out there means.

For more information go to TheBeautifulTruthMovie.com.

Patrick McGoohan is dead. I’m sad and you should be too. McGoohan was best known as the writer, creator, executive producer and star of the TV series The Prisoner, the only existentialist spy show. McGoohan had done 54 episodes of Secret Agent (aka Danger Man), a James Bond rip-off and was tired... more

Patrick McGoohan is dead. I’m sad and you should be too.

McGoohan was best known as the writer, creator, executive producer and star of the TV series The Prisoner, the only existentialist spy show. McGoohan had done 54 episodes of Secret Agent (aka Danger Man), a James Bond rip-off and was tired of the same old clichés. So he proposed a follow up series in which an un-named secret agent is kidnapped and imprisoned in what appears to be a luxury resort. Here he is given the designation “Number Six” and alternately tortured, bribed, bullied, hypnotized, drugged and otherwise abused in an attempt to get the priceless information he has stored in his head. The series first aired in England from October, 1967 through February, 1968.

The Prisoner is much more than a spy show. It’s actually an extended metaphor for the way society tries to break down the individual and mold him or her to its own needs and wants. It’s about how most people capitulate but a few brave souls resist. It’s a brilliant thing to behold and if you’ve never seen it, you should go watch all 17 episodes right now.

Originally conceived of as a seven-part serial, the ITC network convinced McGoohan to make ten more episodes so that it could run in America. In the end, the CBS network refused to air an episode it considered to be a metaphor about those resisting being drafted to fight the Vietnam War. In that episode, Number Six is drugged and made to believe he is a cowboy in the old West. But he refuses to carry a gun. We can't have that on American TV!

I was introduced to the series by my first Zen teacher. We used to pop popcorn and watch it on the 7 inch black and white TV in his room every Saturday. The Prisoner was way more Zen than Kung Fu or any other supposedly “Zen” TV series ever managed to be, although McGoohan himself was said to be a rather devoted Christian. It asked probing questions about the nature of the self and reality. Not something you see much on network television.

McGoohan went on to play other roles, most notably in Braveheart where he was King Edward “Longshanks,” as well as several guest turns on the TV series Columbo. Personally I liked him best as the scenery chewing evil scientist in the living-dinosaur-in-Africa epic Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend.

McGoohan was 80 years old and had reportedly been ill for some time, but was said to be preparing for a role in a remake of The Prisoner. I’m so sad I have nothing else to say. But here’s part one of a incredible four-part interview with McGoohan from 1977.

Conservatives have begun their push to pretend as if George Bush was not a horrible president. For them, it is personal. They voted for the guy, so the finger will always be pointed at their stupid heads. This causes them to look intensely at the Bush presidency and try to spin the utter failure into... more

Conservatives have begun their push to pretend as if George Bush was not a horrible president. For them, it is personal. They voted for the guy, so the finger will always be pointed at their stupid heads. This causes them to look intensely at the Bush presidency and try to spin the utter failure into win. It’s actually quite amusing to witness. And it’s working a bit. Bush’s approval ratings have shot up to a spectacular 34% on the back of an increase in Republican approval. A retarded 74% of Republicans now approve of the job Bush has done. Amazing. This week Fred Barnes broke down the awesomeness of Bush in the Weekly Standard.

Yep. The guy who went AWOL during Vietnam has bucket loads full of courage. Bush has never done anything courageous in his life. He is a pampered rich boy who failed his way to the presidency. He is the ultimate example of everything that is wrong with America. Stupidity and arrogance crammed into the body of an old, drunk frat boy.

Barnes then launches into Bush’s “Ten greatest achievements.”

I love how the right wing has turned knowledge and facts into “elite opinion.” It’s a great way to dismiss all facts.

Human: Hey, the Earth's surface is mostly water.

Idiot: Pfffft. According to your “elite opinion.”

Human: No, it's a fact.

Idiot: Nope!

Human: I don’t know what’s happening

Idiot: I win!

The failure to sign Kyoto was the beginning of our downfall with much of the world. It was the ultimate example of the gluttony and selfishness of America. If you don’t believe in global warming, you’re an idiot. There is no reason to even talk to you about it. You are just a fucking moron and should be treated with derision. You are unworthy of debate, or even eye contact.

Not one word in that paragraph is true. Not one word. And we shouldn’t engage them, because then we are playing their ridiculous game.

And, lying is a great way to start out an article about Bush’s achievements.

Why is Bush awesome? Because he’s a war criminal. Seriously, that’s what this asshole just wrote. He’s praising torture and yet, he didn’t put down his pen and punch himself in the face afterwards. I know this because there is a number 3.

Here we go, more breaking of the law as an achievement. This is absolutely amazing. Conservatives may want to explain why they are anti-democracy at this point. The “rebuilding of presidential authority” has led to the destruction of our country. This philosophy is the heart of all our problems. The unitary executive theory is a profound distortion of our system of government and is everything the Founding Fathers were against. But here’s a conservative tool, holding it up as an achievement.

Hell, yes. And two wars in the past two years show how awesome that plan went. At this point, America is seriously damaged due to our relationship with Israel. It is one of the main reasons we are hated in many parts of the world –– and it’s completely unworth it. Religious fanatics like Bush support Israel because of the Bible end game and for no other reason. It’s a book. Get over it.

No Child Left Behind is a massive failure. Teacher after teacher has railed against the law, which forces schools to rely on high-stakes exams to boost scores to get money, instead of on pursuing a broader vision of education. The reason Barnes touts NCLB is because it is a conservative plan to destroy public education. The ultimate goal is to destabilize and defund public schools. So, kudos. And don’t worry about all those kids getting fucked during your “kill the public schools” transition period.

Look, we’re all adults. Can’t we act like it? America is the greatest supporter of brutal regimes in the world. We always have been, we always will be. Like your comments on global warming, when this remark comes out of your mouth, people should laugh at you. You are essentially a word clown. Read a bit about a guy named Musharraf of Pakistan and get back to me.

Um. Bush fucked up so bad on Medicare that Kucinich included it in his articles of impeachment.

But, yeah, other than all that, nice work on Medicare. Like NCLB, Barnes touts this as an “achievement” because it is designed to destroy Medicare from within.

Well, that’s an achievement if you love big business and hate the workingman and the separation of church and state. I can’t really say much about this because I fault Democrats for letting the shocking ideologues into the Supreme Court. Barnes is actually right on this one. They should be proud of their boy here.

First up, thanks for strengthening our relationship with Japan. We were seriously worried about that. But more importantly, if #9 on your list is strengthening relations with our friends, you are a shocking failure.

Hup, ho, hold the fuck up. He had to surge because he FUCKING BLEW IT. The war was run horribly. Look, if I miss the toilet and shit all over the floor, I don’t get credit for cleaning up the shit. So, stop it. It makes you look stupid.

I just missed the toilet and shit all over the floor.


FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. He currently has rather wet and soiled shoes. Check back each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for more from FearTheReaper and read his blog, Stop All Monsters.

(image) I have come across many Top 10 lists predicting what is going to happen in 2009. Top 10 Celebrity Marriages, Top 10 Videos That Changed the Music World, Top 10 Artists, and so on. While these are fun to read, they are rather boring to me as a geek with a somewhat darker outlook on life. So, I... more

I have come across many Top 10 lists predicting what is going to happen in 2009. Top 10 Celebrity Marriages, Top 10 Videos That Changed the Music World, Top 10 Artists, and so on.

While these are fun to read, they are rather boring to me as a geek with a somewhat darker outlook on life. So, I have decided to do my own Top 10 prediction list.

Top-10 Ways Life As We Know it Will End in 2009

Listed below are 10 ways out of many, many conspiracy-like theories on how life as we know it will come to an end. I picked out the ones that appealed to me the most, so let's get started!

#10: Grey Goo

If you are a Trekkie there is no way you can forget the original Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles." Captain Kirk and crew get a distress call from a deep space station that has been over run with Tribbles that replicate and wipe out the space station.

Grey goo runs on that same theory, only instead of Tribbles the grey goo is self-replicating nano-robots that consume the entire planet, and eventually the universe. The only thing left behind will be enormous amounts of nano-robots.

Pros: Kick-ass tiny robots.

Cons: We all die.

#9: Gamma Rays

No, not gramma-rays, gamma rays. A gamma ray burst has the potential to cause mass extinction on our planet.

Let me introduce you to a star named WR 104. This star is nearing it's supernova, which means it's going to blow up real good.

When this happens, WR 104 is lined up perfectly with the Earth to blast it with gamma rays.

Gamma rays can do things like alter DNA, and are highly radioactive. Nuclear blasts usually contain gamma rays and are one of the big reasons nuclear testing in the Earth's atmosphere was halted.

Everything on the planet would be doused with radiation. This could alter or eliminate the lower end of the food chain, in turn affecting the higher end of the food chain. Not to mention all the kick-ass side effects of radiation poisoning like vomiting, internal bleeding, organ failure and radiation sores!

Pros: HULK SMASH!

Cons: We all die.

#8: The Earth Spins Off its Axis

The Earth spins at approximately 1,000 miles per hour and is on a path known as an axis around the sun.

Short story: Meteor impact or very large earthquake throws the Earth off it's axis. Axis changes from going around the sun, to heading into the sun.

Pros: It only takes you minutes to get a tan.

Cons: We all die.

#7: Alien Invasion

We have all seen the alien invasion scenario. Be it parasitic aliens, demonic aliens, or "little green men", this more than likely won't end well.

From all the conspiracy theories that I have read online, aliens more than likely aren't going to be friendly. They may be at first, just to gain our trust, but eventually they will turn on us, and wipe out humanity as we know it, maybe even consuming all the resources on the Earth.

Cue Alien-Human war. Unfortunately we don't have anyone like Will Smith to protect us and the aliens win.

Pros: Finally, proof that life on other planets exists.

Cons: We all die.

#6: Killer Robots

I, Robot, anyone?

We design, create and manufacture them, only for their Artificial intelligence to realize that human intelligence is completely illogical and they turn on us.

Cue Alien Robot-Human war. Unfortunately we don't have anyone like Will Smith to protect us and the aliens robots win.

Pros: Robots to do my bidding (at least for a bit).

Cons: We all die.

#5: The Worldwide Obesity Epidemic

It actually is an epidemic. Obesity is affecting the world in big ways.

How many double cheeseburgers did you hork down while playing World of Warcraft for 24 hours straight?

This one isn't very geeky. But still, sitting here at my computer working or playing for hours straight does very little to burn off calories. The computer is by far the most used technological advancement of the century.

This one might not actually kill off the entire human race, since there are actually those healthy people that go to that place called "outside" every once in a while.

Pros: My WoW Guild is globally ranked!

Cons: We all die.

#4: Black Hole

Who can forget the The Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland?

The easiest way to describe what scientists are doing with this is, they are trying to replicate the Big Bang Theory.

Basically, scientists are slamming shit smaller than we can see with the naked eye, together at 99.999999% of the speed of light to see what happens.

Some theorists are saying that this is going to cause black holes that will grow larger and eventually swallow the Earth.

My theory...shit will slam together, scientists will rejoice, a super long report will be written and it will bore me to sleep.

Pros: The light show just before entering the black hole.

Cons: We all die.

#3: The Sun Will Swallow the Earth

Don't forget Earth's sun is just a star. Eventually all stars expand and explode.

The Sun's temperature is approximately 5778 Kelvins. In non-geek terms that translates to frickin' hot!

Like mentioned above, the Sun will eventually become a supernova. Before it does though, it will expand and consume the Earth. The core of the Sun will collapse and the temperature will increase, like we're all living in Hell, just hotter. The sun will expand, eventually consuming the sky as our oceans boil and evaporate. Don't worry, by this point we will have all been vaporized by the heat. We won't even get to see the pretty explosion.

Some oddball theorists say it's going to happen soon. Two other theorists broke out their calculators and say we still have 7.6 billion years before we have to worry about it.

Pros: No more snow in Ohio! Hooray!

Cons: We all Die.

#2: Megatsunami

Not just a regular old tsunami, a freakin' megatsunami. It is also known as an iminami, which translates to "purification wave".

We are talking a wave that thousands of feet tall consuming everything in its path. Theorists predict that no one would be safe.

The megatsunami would be caused by a meteor impact, super-volcano or enormous land slide. If it hit the Atlantic, it would send a wave so large that it would travel 20 miles inland in the continental United States. The Great Lakes would swell causing mass flooding in the Midwest. Florida would disappear entirely.

The surge of the wave pulling back would create just as much destruction, restructuring North America. Not even Canada's safe!

After the waters receded we would be dealing with mass amounts of death, diseases that we once had control of will make a come-back, a lack of fresh water and numerous other problems that could kill off the entire human race.

Pros: Re-enacting the end scene from Point Break.

Cons: We all die.

and finally.....

#1: Zombie Apocalypse

You all laugh, it only takes one zombie for it to start. It could be the living dead, a rage zombie (think 28 Days Later) or a T-virus zombie. The point is, they are all zombies.

Not only that, the human race as a whole is too sympathetic to fight off zombies. There are too many people that couldn't kill zombified friends and relatives out of sympathy, sadness or shock. Some weak soul out there won't kill a zombie because it was their Nana at one point. leaving Zombie Nana to bite down and continues the spread of zombism.

This is just a warning to everyone to everyone on my Friend's List. We are friends, but if you're a zombie, i am going to bludgeon you or shoot you until you stop moving and are dead. You get no sympathy from me.

Without people (well, live people) to run things like electric grids, water plants and other such necessities, the populace will need to learn to survive on its own. Zombies will eventually start feeding on animals and most food will become inedible to humans. We'll eventually run out of viable food sources, unable to fight off the zombies due to malnutrition.

I just can't see the zombie apocalypse ending in our favor.

Pros: I get to live out my dreams of fighting off zombies.

Cons: We all die.

So there it is, my predictions on how life as we know it will end in 2009. If you have any other ones that you think should be mentioned, feel free to add them!

DevilsReject is well prepared for the Zombie Apacolypse, and wouldn't think twice about popping a cap in Zombie Nana's ass.

After five years of fronting The Cardinals, indie rock darling Ryan Adams will be leaving the New York City rock band in March, as stated on the band's official blog this morning. The troubled singer-songwriter says no drama occurred, but to be "ready for quieter times" as he is struggling... more

After five years of fronting The Cardinals, indie rock darling Ryan Adams will be leaving the New York City rock band in March, as stated on the band's official blog this morning. The troubled singer-songwriter says no drama occurred, but to be "ready for quieter times" as he is struggling with balance and hearing issues. Unfortunately for followers of his blog, 'Foggy', he also claims in the lengthy entry to stop blogging (yet again). However, forthcoming tour dates in Australia and the US will remain as scheduled and Ryan Adams' last show with The Cardinals will take place in Atlanta, Georgia on March 20.

Originally from Jacksonville, North Carolina, Adams was a founding member of alt-country band Whiskeytown at age 20, and released five solo records (Heartbreaker being the most critically acclaimed to date) before joining The Cardinals in 2004. The band's fifth record, Cardinology, came out on Lost Highway Records in October last year, reaching #11 in the US charts, and #27 worldwide, respectively.

With no mention of future music projects, the self-confessed insomniac seems to be heading in a different direction with writing two new books (his debut as an author, Infinity Blues, will be published by Akashic Books in April this year) and recently interning at lifestyle magazine BlackBook.

What Suicide Girls are putting on...and taking off. Naked is only skin-deep, but rock 'n' roll is forever! Check out how SuicideGirls proclaim devotion to their favorite band in style. DIY halter tops and cut-off sleeves rule in this edition of Dirty Laundry. (image) (image) (image) (image)... more

What Suicide Girls are putting on...and taking off.

Naked is only skin-deep, but rock 'n' roll is forever! Check out how SuicideGirls proclaim devotion to their favorite band in style. DIY halter tops and cut-off sleeves rule in this edition of Dirty Laundry.


























Fashion Notes

Top 10 Ubiquitous (But Still OK To Wear) Band T-Shirts
(in no particular order)

1. The Ramones
2. Joy Division
3. The Clash
4. Nirvana
5. Guns n' Roses
6. Sex Pistols
7. Blondie
8. Misfits
9. Rolling Stones
10. The Smiths

Honorary mention: CBGB

***

Top 10 Band T-Shirts WE Think You Should have In Your Wardrobe

1. Joy Division
2. The Cure
3. Siouxie and the Banshees
4. Velvet Underground
5. Skinny Puppy
6. Jane's Addiction
7. Black Flag
8. The Pixies
9. Sonic Youth
10. Bob Dylan

***

Zo's 30-Minute Rock Halter Recipe

1. Lay out the T-shirt on the floor.
2. With sharp scissors, cut off the sleeves and back.
3. Using chalk, draw lines starting where the sleeves used to be, angled toward the neckline
4. Draw a line indicating how low you'd like the neckline to be
5. Cut along the lines
6. Cut 4 12" strips of ribbon/grommet tape/shoe laces, or cut-off T-shirt material
7. Sew or safety pin strips to each side of the neckline and on the sides, just below the bust line
8. Ta-da!


Did we miss your favorite rock 'n' roll image? If so, upload it HERE.

Check back each Wednesday for more Dirty Laundry and let SuicideGirls show you the best way to (un)dress.

A lot of wonderful things happened in 1977: punk exploded, Apple was incorporated, Star Wars was released, transatlantic supersonic flights hit commuter airline schedules, smallpox was officially considered to be eradicated –– and John Oliver was born. 2006 wasn't such a good vintage... more

A lot of wonderful things happened in 1977: punk exploded, Apple was incorporated, Star Wars was released, transatlantic supersonic flights hit commuter airline schedules, smallpox was officially considered to be eradicated –– and John Oliver was born. 2006 wasn't such a good vintage however, one of the few redeeming features being that it was the year the thinking woman's bit of crumpet from The Daily Show first joined Jon Stewart's band of merry not-news men as their Senior British Correspondent, making something that was already truly awesome even more so.

Before washing up on our shores with his freshly minted visa in hand, Oliver apparently spent an inordinate amount of time at school farting (an activity the British have raised to the level of a national sport). He went on to study a language he was already relatively competent in –– English –– at Cambridge University, which afforded him a lot of free time to pursue the hobby that became his career: being funny. He joined the Cambridge Footlights, a hallowed university amateur dramatics/comedy institution which was founded in 1883 and has produced many notable funny people –– both of the peculiar and ha-ha varieties.

Oliver is certainly a funnyman of the ha-ha kind, though he's not without his peculiarities as we found out in this interview, which was conducted via email for his own safety –– did we mention he's the thinking woman's bit of crumpet from The Daily Show? (**We’d like to emphasize that we mean this most sincerely.)

Nicole Powers: You were vice-president of the Cambridge Footlights. Who was the George Bush to your Dick Cheney there?

John Oliver: My George W. Bush was a guy called Richard Ayoade. And just like Cheney, I quietly pulled strings in the background –– whilst insisting that I wasn't part of the executive branch, for complicated legal reasons. Oh, and at one point I accidentally shot him in the face...I forgot about that. And I made him publicly apologize. I suppose now you mention it, the comparisons are almost spooky. Sure, Richard and I had our critics, and by the time we left we had around a 22% approval rating, but I think history will judge our term in office kindly. We started relatively few wars and kept the people of Britain largely safe. They should be carving our faces into a mountainside somewhere.

NP: Do you know what he's doing now?

JO: Richard is in a sit-com in Britain called the IT Crowd. He also directs music videos; he's done a few good ones for a great English band called Arctic Monkeys. Last time I saw him was a few months ago in New York –– he was here to direct a video for Vampire Weekend –– those preppy college kids with the African drums.

NP: Douglas Adams, Clive Anderson, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Peter Cook, Stephen Fry, and Clive James are fellow Cambridge University/Footlights alumni. Apart from being an annoyingly funny smarty-pants, what else do you feel you have in common with these people?

JO: I'm glad you find me 'annoyingly funny'. I've always striven to be both an entertainer and an irritant. I think that's why I feel so at home on The Daily Show. You can always be fairly confident that we're annoying as many people as we're amusing. In terms of what else I have in common with those people –– that is a tough ask. Bearing in mind that those names you mention are some of the most talented people in British comedy history, I think I'm going to have to restrict any comparisons to number of limbs. I definitely have the same number of legs as all but one of those people*. But I think it probably ends there.

* I believe that Stephen Fry has four legs. Although two of them could in fact be arms.

NP: I was going to describe you as "the thinking woman's bit of crumpet from The Daily Show" in my intro. Any objections?

JO: That depends if you're being sarcastic. I would certainly object if you were –– that would be a needlessly hurtful way to pose a question. If you are being sincere [**see note above –– NP], then to be honest I'm not entirely sure how to respond. Physically, I think I'm a bit of an acquired taste –– I'm like oysters; a few people claim they're a delicacy, but most people find the idea of putting one in their mouth disgusting. I think if the 'thinking woman' you mentioned 'thought about' me a bit more, you'd find my crumpet qualification would begin to wane.

NP: Would you advise people that want to be funny to work hard in school like you must have?

JO: Absolutely not. Schools should be used as a platform to make wisecracks at the back of the classroom, nothing more, nothing less. I can't see what other practical purpose they serve. If people want to be funny, they need to develop at an early age the following skill sets –– a healthy lack of respect for authority, a pathological desire to be liked, and an appreciation for the comic potential of breaking wind. You can't risk leaving learning these lessons too late.

NP: Wouldn't they be better off reading comics in maths class?

JO: I wouldn't know. I spent most of my maths classes thinking about the utter futility of the class I was being forced to participate in. That and how much I would like to kiss Amanda Rizzo on the face.

NP: On The Daily Show you boiled the Mumbai situation down to something that was the work "of a group of unbelievable motherfuckers working in tandem with giant arseholes." Aren't most of the world's problems caused by the proliferation of arseholes and motherfuckers? And if you agree with that statement, what's your ultimate solution?

JO: I absolutely do agree with that statement. Assholes and motherfuckers are a huge, and growing problem demographic in modern life. Now on a national level, if you want less assholes and motherfuckers in America, there is a very simple mathematical solution to this –– and that is to open the borders. It's what once made America great –– and it can do it again. That is the answer –– here is my [reasoning]:

Let's look at the facts. In the average country, 13.4 per cent of the adult population are assholes. Complete, and utter assholes. That leaves a fairly respectable 86.6 per cent who are not assholes. Now, it is well known that an asshole is less likely to emigrate than someone who isn't an asshole. So the more immigrants America allows, the further the asshole-to-not-an-asshole balance tips towards the non-assholes. Conversely, those nations wherefrom the non-asshole immigrants are emigrating are left with a higher level of assholes, making those who are not assholes in those countries more likely to want to emigrate. Hence by the process of Inverse Asshole Osmosis, America becomes the least asshole-y country in the world. It will simultaneously make America safer, and the world a far more dangerous place. And isn't that the American dream?

NP: Did you notice I used the English pronunciation and spelling of asshole out of reverence to your country?

JO: I did –– and did you notice that I used the American pronunciation and spelling of 'arsehole' out of a cloying desire to fit in to yours?

NP: As someone bridging the gap between our two cultures, which do you prefer –– arse or ass?

JO: Each has it's own merits. I think the classic English 'arse' is better used for describing disappointing human behavior, and the new-fangled American 'ass' is infinitely superior when used in reference to a particularly striking adult posterior. Here's how you would use them in a sentence:

I hope that clears that little confusion up, and brings our two nations closer together.

NP: Don't the apathetic and terminally stupid play a part in the world's problems? After all they're the ones that allow the motherfuckers and arseholes to get away with their shit?

JO: Good point. Good, foul-mouthed point. And it's hard to defend the apathetic –– especially because they can't be bothered to defend themselves. Although I have to say that I have a soft spot for the terminally stupid. Whether they are accidentally walking into lampposts, filming each other receiving spectacular nut-shots, or watching NASCAR racing –– they are providing much needed slapstick for the world.

NP: After what we've been through these past eight years, do you think America would have been better off if it had remained a colony? There'd have been no prohibition or presidents going by the name of Bush, and they might have had fun things like healthcare and Coronation Street.

JO: As far as I'm concerned –– you still are a colony. I don't recognize the American War of Independence. We never properly signed those divorce papers –– we just drew a penis and two balls at the bottom of the page where the signature was supposed to go. It's the old 'penis-and-two-balls' trick that we played on most of the Empire. India still thinks it's independent too. Check the contract, South Asia.

You're certainly right about prohibition. We would never have allowed that –– British people would die for their right to drink themselves to death. But I wouldn't be so sure about the others -- we've had leaders to rival the worse that you can come up with –– Coronation Street is one of the most depressing programs ever to be broadcast on television, and our interpretation of universal healthcare is looking less and less convincing by the day.

NP: Had George been English, do you think there's any chance he'd have made Prime Minister?

JO: Well, let's look at who he is. He was a vastly over-privileged young man who was born into a dynasty of power and wealth –– he's not a politician; he's aristocracy. He wouldn't be Prime Minister –– he'd be King. In fact, he'd have made a great 12th century English king –– gallivanting around the world on crusades. The only thing he's guilty of is being born 900 years too late, and on the wrong continent. Otherwise, right now, tourists would be taking photographs of his coat of arms carved into an old church roof.

NP: You've said that finding another area where the Bush administration can screw up "is like finding a vein on a failure junkie." They seem to be doing it though, waging a War on Water with a ruling that allows corporations to dump mining waste into streams. What else are you expecting Bush to take a dump on before he leaves office?

JO: Well, it'll be exciting to see what happens in the last few days. I'm guessing there are going to be a lot of pardons flying around, and let's not rule out a 'deadline beating' air strike somewhere. He also seems like the kind of man who is going to steal quite a lot of stationary.

NP: How's the visa situation going?

JO: I hope it's going ok. It's an ongoing, and slightly unsettling, battle to be honest. I tried engraving 'Give me your tired, your poor, and your aspiring comic performers' into the base of the Statue of Liberty, but apparently that's not legally binding.

NP: You wrote and presented the BBC America campaign, which cautions American viewers that, "The following program contains accents you would have heard a lot more if you hadn't thrown our tea into Boston Harbor." Is there anything else you'd like to warn Americans about when it comes to experiencing British culture?

JO: You should always carry a pocket-sized marble statue of Princess Diana around with you, to produce whenever the police stop you and ask to see it. The penalty for not doing so is 20-25 years in prison. That's a pretty handy hint.

NP: Would you like to say a few words in defense of British food and teeth too?

JO: I could, but those words would not stand up in any court of law. British food and dentistry is guilty as charged –– it is almost comically bad.

NP: Multiple Choice Section
Question: The Love Guru?
Answer:

A. Next question
B. Sorry about that.
C. The Love Guru was named The Worst Movie of 2008 by The New York Post. I'm going to stick to my day job –– being funny –– from now on.

JO: I'll go with A. With a little bit of B.

NP: Is there anything I haven't asked you that I should have?

JO: Yes.

NP: If so, what?

JO: You should have asked me what playing card I was thinking of this whole time.

NP: And what would your answer be?

JO: It was the 8 of hearts.



Need more British comedy and crumpet? Tune in to The Bugle. Billed as "a weekly audio newspaper for a visual world," the transatlantic not-news/not-paper podcast displays a healthy disrespect for anything that might be loosely termed "current affairs." Produced in association with The Times (the proper London one –– not any LA or NY-based semi-bankrupt usurper), Oliver records The Bugle with his UK-based writing partner Andy Zaltzman via ISDN. Click HERE for more misinformation.

One of the great things about Obama taking over is we get to watch corrupt, horrible government employees lose their jobs. Take the Pentagon. Last month, the Obama team announced 90 douchebags would not be coming back. They didn’t actually use the term “douchebags,” but let’s... more

One of the great things about Obama taking over is we get to watch corrupt, horrible government employees lose their jobs. Take the Pentagon. Last month, the Obama team announced 90 douchebags would not be coming back. They didn’t actually use the term “douchebags,” but let’s face it, that is an extremely appropriate description.

A fucking email? Holy shit. How much of a complete and total asshole do you have to be to receive a termination email? I think dogs get better treatment. Of course, these people should actually be in jail, so they are getting off easy.

Now, if all was good in the world, we would be able to watch live on video as these people received the news of their future non-employment. But sometimes the world is cruel and we only get a bit of their public crying.
Special assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Jim O’Beirne, was none to pleased at the manner of notification.

I will. You’re a bunch of cunts. You ran a frightfully pathetic war and ruined our military. That’s just a guess.

Um. Yeah. One man’s “politics” is another man’s insane “ideology.” O’Beirne explained it was their adherence to the Bush doctrine that played a part in their termination.

Jimmy, those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Can you give outstanding performances during the worst presidency in the history of our country? Is that possible? Doesn’t that mean your outstanding performance greatly contributed to the epic failure? I think it does. “Hey, I was the treasurer of Death Town,” doesn’t get you much with me. Going full speed doesn’t mean shit if you’re going the wrong way. You can pat yourself on the back for driving 170 miles an hour, but if you ended up in Fresno, it’s still a massive fail.

To see who these people are, we need only look at the now fired Jim O'Beirne. He’s one of the guys who helped turn Iraq into a complete and total fucking mess. Ever heard of the Coalition Provisional Authority? They were the guys who spent their time trying to implement a flat tax in Iraq, while a religious war took hold. They were trying to get the Baghdad Stock Market rolling, while suicide bombers blew up everything in sight.

If there is one book you should read to understand how poorly the war was run in the first year, it’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City. It is a shocking and brutal account of the extreme politicization of the Iraq War. And it was all done at the hands of guys like Jim O’Beirne. Here’s an excerpt from the book.

Yes, abortion. During interviews to determine whether people were qualified to rebuild Iraq. Abortion. Take a moment now to remember what Jimmy said in that email.

This is the guy now complaining like a bitch about how he and others were fired. Welcome to the world of irony, Jimmy. If you asked a qualified government employee with experience in nation building, whether he was for or against Roe v. Wade and then excluded him based on his views on abortion, that was “outstanding performance.” This is exactly what Jim O'Beirne did. Experienced individual after experienced individual were excluded based on their political beliefs. The State Department was completely excluded from post war planning, because they did not adhere to the insane ideological plans of neo cons like Jim O'Beirne.

Today we should celebrate the pain and removal from government service of O’Beirne. He is a shining example of the worst our country has to offer.

That’s why Iraq turned into the epic disaster it is.

And now you're not anywhere. See how that works?

Imperial Life in the Emerald City should be required reading for every American.


FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for more from FearTheReaper and read his blog, Stop All Monsters.

Repo! The Genetic Opera director Darren Bousman (see previous interview), co-writer/musical director Darren Smith, and co-writer/cast member Terrance Zdunich stopped by SG Radio HQ to chat with host Sam Doumit about the film's upcoming 13-city tour, which kicks off tomorrow in Salt Lake City and... more

Repo! The Genetic Opera director Darren Bousman (see previous interview), co-writer/musical director Darren Smith, and co-writer/cast member Terrance Zdunich stopped by SG Radio HQ to chat with host Sam Doumit about the film's upcoming 13-city tour, which kicks off tomorrow in Salt Lake City and culminates in a special star-infused screening in L.A. at Laemmle's Royal Theater on Saturday, January 24th.

The bloodthirsty futuristic rock/horror flick, which you either love or hate (there’s no room for moderation here –– it’s hit more than one “Worst Film” list), first hit screens on limited release late last year, and has since gained a cult Rocky Horror-like following, with Repo-ssessed souls turning up to screenings in full costume with a word-perfect recollection of the musical’s lyrics.

Repo! boasts an unlikely ensemble cast, which includes Anthony Head (Buffy), Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas), Alexa Vega (Spy Kids), Paris Hilton (‘nuff said), Bill Mosely (Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2), Nivek Ogre (Skinny Puppy), and musical/opera diva Sarah Brightman (for whom Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the role of Christine in Phantom of the Opera). The relentless rock/goth/industrial soundtrack features Richard Patrick (Filter), Stephen Perkins (Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros), Daniel Ash and David J. (Bauhaus), and Poe, among others.

For those unable to experience an extreme big screen Repo! assault, the film comes out on DVD and Blue-Ray on January 30th. In the meantime, Bousman gave SuicideGirls this inside scoop on the film’s most notorious cast member.




Here’s the full list of Repo! Road Tour dates:

1/13 (Tuesday) - SALT LAKE CITY UTAH - The Tower Theatre
w/ Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich

1/14 (Wednesday) - INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Indy Keystone
w/ Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich

1/15 (Thursday) - FOXBORO, MA - The Orpheum
w/ Alexa Vega, Terrance Zdunich, Darren Bousman

1/16 (Friday) - New Jersey - The Williams Arts Center
w/ Alexa Vega, Terrance Zdunich, Darren Bousman

1/17 (Saturday) - GREENBELT, MD - The Greenbelt Theatre
w/ Alexa Vega, Terrance Zdunich, Darren Bousman

1/18 (Sunday) - CINCINNATI, OH -The Esquire Theatre
w/ Darren Bousman, Terrance Zdunich

1/20 (Tuesday) - ST. LOUIS, MO - The Landmark Tivoli
w/ Bill Moseley, Darren Bousman, Terrance Zdunich

1/21 (Wednesday) - DENVER, CO - The Landmark Mayan
w/ Bill Moseley, Darren Bousman, Terrance Zdunich

1/22 (Thursday) - JACKSON, MI - The Michigan Theatre
w/ Bill Moseley, Darren Bousman, Terrance

1/23 (Friday) - PHOENIX, AZ - The Chandler Cinema
w/ Bill Moseley, Darren Bousman, Terrance Zdunich

1/24 (Saturday) - LOS ANGELES, CA - Laemmle's Royal Theater
w/ Paris Hilton, Paul Sorvino, Alexa Vega, Bill Moseley, Ogre, Darren Bousman, Terrance Zdunich

For more info on the film, the tour, and the DVD/Blue-Ray release go to Repo-Opera.com.

To listen to a recording of our SG Radio interview with Bousman, Smith, and Zdunich hit the “Podcast” button at Indie1031.com/suicide_girls_radio.php.

Looking over some of the comments to my last piece for Suicide Girls, I think I figured out the root of a lot of the confusion I’ve created here. When I write about religion and the religious point of view, it seems like a lot of readers assume I’m including Buddhism in that category. I don’t. more

Looking over some of the comments to my last piece for Suicide Girls, I think I figured out the root of a lot of the confusion I’ve created here. When I write about religion and the religious point of view, it seems like a lot of readers assume I’m including Buddhism in that category. I don’t. Even though books on Buddhism, including my own, are usually shoved into the back corner in the religion section, Buddhism is something very distinct from religion.

When you say that, people usually respond with, “OK, then Buddhism is a form of spirituality.” Spirituality is seen as something better than religion. It exists outside the constraints of the organized formality of religious institutions. It’s a personal relationship with your spiritual nature.

Which is fine. But Buddhism is not a form of spirituality.

The history of philosophy throughout the world has been a struggle between two basic fundamental systems -- idealism and materialism. Spirituality is a kind of idealism. It takes the view that the spiritual world, the world of ideas, imagination, and mental formations is the true reality. Matter is secondary at best or sometimes even regarded as non-existent. We are spirits trapped inside bodies made of gross matter -- some bodies are a lot more gross than others -- and the way to happiness is to get free of this material world and its miseries. In many Eastern philosophies we are told, “I am not this body. I am the spiritual soul within.” This is not the Buddhist viewpoint. But I’ll get to that in a bit.

Materialism on the other hand sees matter as primary and spirit as either non-existent or, at least, negligible. What we perceive as our soul, we are told, is just the workings of a highly complex biological machine. We’re all just animals. The more radical materialists go on to assert that the only way to be happy is to get as much money, sex, and power as possible. There is no soul. There is no afterlife. There is no God.

Buddha explored both of these ideas and found both of them lacking. He was born a prince and spent the first part of his life dedicated to the practical study of materialism. He had everything he could possibly want -- money, hot babes, power. But they didn’t satisfy him. So he set off to see if happiness could be found in the opposite direction. He dedicated himself to various spiritual practices and achieved their highest goals. He got a massive spiritual high, but in the process he nearly destroyed his body. That wasn’t what he wanted. It wasn’t until he rejected both extremes and found the Middle Way that he began to teach the philosophy that now bears his name.

Buddhism starts from the basic premise that neither materialism nor idealism is correct. The Heart Sutra says, “Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form.” In other words, matter is the immaterial, the immaterial is matter. With apologies to Sting, we are not spirits in the material world. Rather, the experiential, internal, subjective, spiritual side of our day-to-day existence and the hard, external, objective, material world we inhabit are one and the same. This is a very radical idea. Even today, 2500 years after Gotama first put forth this notion, few people can accept it. Even those who call themselves Buddhists all too often believe that it’s a form of spirituality.

While it’s not spirituality, Buddhism is not materialism either. Buddhism is realism. There's a tendency for contemporary people to assume that realism is the same as materialism. When they use the word “reality” it most often refers to the material world as explained to us by science. But that's not what Buddhists mean by "reality." The materialistic point of view is also just a concept.

Now, matter is obviously real. But the trouble is that our understanding of what matter is may not be correct. Most of us believe that matter exists first and because of its existence sense stimulation occurs. Both idealists and materialists tend to conceive it this way. The computer in front of you is made of matter and it’s real. So is your forehead. When you bang your forehead on the computer it hurts. The subjective experience of pain is the result of the objective collision of material forehead with material computer. Buddhist philosophers like Dogen, Nagarjuna and Buddha himself turn this around and place sense stimulation first. Because our senses are stimulated in certain ways, we assume matter exists. It is a completely different way of conceptualizing the world from what we’re used to.

Science happens to be a very good way to look at the material side of reality, so we need to accept science (legit science, anyway). But Dogen, the guy who founded the school of Buddhism in which I study and practice, said that the universe in all directions is just a tiny fragment of reality.

That doesn’t mean that the material world is here and somewhere out in the vastness of space is another even bigger universe made of something else. Dogen was talking about our real day-to-day experience. The material component of our experience forms just one small part of our existence.

Furthermore we never experience mind separate from body or vice-versa. The idea that one side is true while the other is false doesn’t fit our real experience.

We constantly swing back and forth between materialism and idealism. When materialism doesn’t satisfy, we try idealism, when idealism lets us down, we swing back to materialism. As a culture we can see this happening right now. A century ago it seemed like materialism might one day solve all the problems of mankind. But, in spite of the fact that most of the poorest among us enjoy wealth and comfort our ancestors couldn’t have dreamed of, materialism has failed to fulfill many of our most basic needs. So we, as a culture have started to drift back towards spirituality in the hopes that it might solve our troubles and bring us the fulfillment we seek. What we’ve forgotten as a culture is that spirituality already let us down. That’s why we became so materialistic in the fist place.

A lot of people look to Buddhism as a spiritual answer to our materialistic woes. But if Buddhism is just another form of spirituality, it’s as worthless as any other religion. We need something different.

Every other religion, philosophy, addiction or any other method for dealing with what life throws at us that I’ve encountered says, “You feel unfulfilled? OK. Try this. It will fulfill you.” Materialism works for a time. But once you buy something the thrill of buying it is gone and you want to buy something else. Spirituality can give you a great big high. But there’s always a comedown.

Buddhism doesn’t promise to fulfill our desires. Instead it says, “You feel unfulfilled? That’s OK. That’s normal. Everybody feels unfulfilled. You will always feel unfulfilled. There is no problem with feeling unfulfilled. In fact, if you learn to see it the right way, that very lack of fulfillment is the greatest thing you can ever experience.” This is the realistic outlook.

Brad Warner is the author of Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up! and the forthcoming Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff and a MySpace page too.

Plus he also has a spiffy newly revamped YouTube Channel.

If you're in Southern California and you want to try some Zazen for yourself, he has a group that meets every Saturday in Santa Monica.

Buy the new CD by his band Zero Defex at CD Baby now!

Hello, friends. Did you have a good New Year’s? I hope it involved as much missing underwear, mysterious bruising, and filmy residue as mine. I want to tell you about a funny thing that happened to me January 1. Despite more debauchery than one could tickle one’s pickle at, I woke up feeling... more

Hello, friends. Did you have a good New Year’s? I hope it involved as much missing underwear, mysterious bruising, and filmy residue as mine. I want to tell you about a funny thing that happened to me January 1. Despite more debauchery than one could tickle one’s pickle at, I woke up feeling awesome the next day (and by “woke up," I of course mean “stumbled home”). By some sort of divine intervention, I felt neither pukey nor zombified, but giddy, even downright sprightly. It was as if someone had slipped vitamins into my drink. What could it all mean? Was God giving me a get-out-of-jail-free card in the hopes that I’d take it as an easy lesson? I think not. Clearly, God wants me to party even more in 2009. In the immortal words of Angelina Jolie, Quod me nutrit me destruit (“what feeds me destroys me”), only flip that shit backwards. I've heard my calling, and now it's on me to deliver. In that spirit, here are some bands to which I plan to go off hard and often for the next twelve months.

Team Robespierre On Tour

According to a recent MySpace bulletin, Brooklyn’s Team Robespierre are going on tour to some places March 14-26. Details thus far are as vague as your memory the morning after, but one thing is for certain: they want to “have a dirty sleepover” with America. Oft described as “punk dance” rather than “dance punk,” they’re much closer to what you might imagine “dance punk” to be had you never heard the Faint. Someone took drunk, yell-y, ham-fisted punk rockers, gave them electronic drums and keyboards to bang on, and prescribed them some serious mood elevators. This band was meant to play the type of party that walks a fine line between joyous exuberance and full on destructive orgy. Invite them to play your house, and be prepared for them to love it to pieces. “My friends did this,” you will marvel, as you survey all your broken things the next morning. “People who like me.” You definitely have to be in the right mood/state of inebriation to enjoy TR, but luckily, 2009 is your time to shine, so that won't be a problem. Here’s a video for “88th Precinct,” which manages to get me temporarily psyched about all the things in my neighborhood that usually make me want to blow my brains out.




Powers of Telepathe

Let’s pretend for a second that when I say “party,” I actually mean “take drugs.” If you’re more into swaying and twirling than punching and kicking, this might be the band for you. Folks bandy about terms like “gorgeously haunted dream pop” and “UFO trunk rattlers” when trying to describe their unique mix of breathy vocals, electronic beats, and outer space sounds, but I think my (and, coincidentally, their) crazy ex-roommate best summed it up as “nightmare karate music.” My friend and I put them on while smoking a marijuana cigarette the other day, and subsequently shared one of those special, mind-melding glances that renders speech obsolete. Telepathe's Dave Sitek-produced debut full length Dance Mother is due out later this month on IAMSOUND, with one flawless track already available for download at Pitchfork and a few older ones at Rcrdlbl. And lest you think I’m biased by hometown pride, I’ll have you know our relationship was strained at best when I lived next door to core group member Busy Gangnes. It may have had something to do with the fact that I gave her rabbit away without her express permission. (Long story. It’s not as bad as it sounds, but is still pretty bad.) We’re cool now, I think, and/or she’s repressed that entire horrid summer as I’ve tried and failed to do, but I just wanted to emphasize that I have no motivation whatsoever beyond some damn fine music to praise them. Put this in your pipe and smoke it:




The Black Lips

I know I’ve written about them before, but nobody gets down like these guys. On a recent night in Brooklyn, an under-age friend of mine caught a glimpse of their insanity and was inspired to stop going to class so he might better focus on the only worthy goal in life, that of getting money and fucking bitches. They’re taking their dirty SoCo-soaked flower-punk to new heights this year with a new album out on Vice Records (out February 24), as well as an ambitious, insomniac tour that includes dates in the U.S., U.K., and India, during which they'll play several headlining dates of Campus Rock Idols, the indie, Indian version of American Idol(!). When the dust settles after the apocalypse, I predict only these guys, KISS, and cockroaches will remain to fight it out. My money’s on the lips due to Jared Swilley’s magnificent mustache, Cole Alexander’s bone-crushing grille of steel, and their most dastardly of signature moves, the make-out fake out.

Oh, Katrina



Get the Spirit in Ye

This UK group has no major news to report aside from a tour of Germany, though I guess it’s major if you live in Germany, so apologies if I sounded like an asshole just then. Mainly, though, I just discovered them and want to share them with you. Obvious fans of classic British blues-rock acts like Led Zeppelin and The Who, The Duke Spirit do not so much evolve the genre as perfect it. Singer/tambourine player Leila Moss, who bears a striking resemblance, but no relation, to another, more famous but less fresh-faced lady of the same surname, has more than a little Grace Slick in her, which goes well with the music’s more psychedelic elements. I’m putting up this video because it has good sound quality, but to see her really let loose you should hunt down some live footage. Neptune (2008) was a good, polished follow up to Cuts Across the Land (2005), but I hope they move back to a messier sound with their next album, because I think that’s where Moss really shines. Their bluesy, throbbing numbers make me feel like I’m at a mushroom party in the ‘70’s and things are groovy but have yet to get too weird for me to handle.

The Step and the Walk



Because I'm delirious, I will now leave you with this video of my cat, Theodore Brown, who parties harder than all of us put together.