WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Cleaning Out My Inbox

While visiting Brazil, Arnold displays his deep respect for local mores and customs. Quicktime Video  via del.icio.us/tag/video

Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing. via Hemaworstje

Dance moves circa 1974, via an Isley Brother's Soul Train Line. Mpg video via del.icio.us/tag/video

The ever photogenic Laura Bush. Thanks Rebecca!

Cool remix of toy instruments. via growabrain

Forget Judith Miller. What's Jayson Blair been up to? Thanks, Steinski!

Covert cameras for every use. Don't miss: 1  |  2  |  3  | Thanks again, Steinski!

Relive your (my) 7th grade drug education class! Pretty pictures | Junkie Comics. via Hemaworstje, Ethan Persoff

Using cartoon technology to teach kids to kill themselves. Iranian suicide bombing cartoon. (streaming windowsmedia video clip, via del.icio.us/tag/propaganda

In case you missed it, here's that Japanese TV game show clip of the kids with the pork chops strapped to their heads. Oh, and there's a big lizard, too: Google video, via boingboing

If World War Two had been an online game. via fazed

The infamous CIA sabotage manual from the early eighties. via flickr

Gallery of Luis Bunuel film posters.

Mary Lou (above) by Bryce (click on her!)  B/W Photos (below) from PhotoEye Galleries:

Criswell Predicts MP3

For your listening and sampling pleasure, here's a 44-minute-long MP3 of the legendary Criswell predicting what he predicts best - the future, which is where you and I will spend the rest of our lives. I know that some of you will write off Criswell as another Ed Wood boy toy, but listen to the predictions he makes here, and you will be astounded by his accuracy. Among Criswell's 1970 predictions that have come to pass:

• The political rise of the American south
• The red versus blue state culture wars
• Genital piercing and ornamentation
• Jennifer Beals and the leg-warmer epidemic
• The great caf-tunic contagion of 2005
• The backlash against liberal Hollywood entertainers
• Homosexual Cities and the Contented Discontents!

And that's just in the first few minutes of this MP3! Eventually, the great Criswell predicts the end of the world for August 18, 1999, which, unless I'm seriously mistaken, also came to pass.

Use Celery

The latest piece of shameless propaganda from
the National Celery Board: .mov video file

This Week in Sex: Random Acts of Smut

New sex poll says Americans Bulgarians Indians South Africans Kiwis Aussies Malaysians Singaporeans Canadians Chinese college students Greeks have sex. Or not.

You're fired. Scooter Libby's dirty thriller The Apprentice is being reissued, but the good parts are already dog-eared here.

Really Cool Adult Movie Posters of the 60s and 70s, when X-rated meant something, and that something was way less graphic and way more graphically interesting than any beer ad today. P.S. Who knew the Inkspots had a porn career?

Remember your gay hankie codes? If you need to brush up, they're here.

In my world, farting is mostly funny, rarely sexy. Further confirmation we do not live in my world.

"Some penises I have known": a sculpture for sale on eBay. My epic novel Some Dicks I Have Known is still in progress, but you can option it.

"What's next? Sambo ham sandwiches and Ku Klux Klan juice?" said the Rev. Paul Scott, a  leader in the national boycott campaign against rapper Nelly's energy drink Pimp Juice. With all due respect, I think the Reverend was over-reacting--there's about as much chance of a Sambo sandwich as there is a rapper named Nelly hitting the charts. Word is that Pimp Juice "tastes like a mixture of semen and urine," appropriately packaged in can that suggests exactly that. It's been around since 2003 and is available internationally, but I've never seen it here in Brooklyn, which makes me think the target market is suburban ravers. (It glows in the dark.)

Aluminum Helmets Found To Aid Fed's Access To Brains

Sensible people have long accepted that the best way to prevent the government men from sending secret signals into your brain is by protecting your cranium with an aluminum hat. But now, four researchers at MIT have looked into the matter and have found that wearing an aluminum hat actually enhances the government's ability to access your brain's electrical system, by amplifying key frequencies which are reserved for government use.

The only sane conclusion is that the aluminum-hat theory was actually promulgated by the government itself! This means that the aluminum hats worn so prominently by Joachim Phoenix in the movie Signs amount to government-funded product placement. Article and research here. Thanks, listener Kevin!

The Family Guy's FCC Song

Last Sunday night's episode of The Family Guy was all about the FCC's (now dormant) language crackdown. It included a brief song and dance number about our favorite regulatory agency. Here's the MP3 of the song, and here's a link to the streaming video of it, via devilducky.

War Plan - Available for Only $15,000,000

Attention all government and military professionals:  Are you stumped by what to do about this pesky Iraq situation?  Do you really want to get this Mission Accomplished?  Uncertain about what to do in any future military endeavors?  The solution is here in this war plan auction on Ebay, available for the low low price of $15,000,000!   The auction ended November 5th, but since the reserve wasn't met, you could probably still snap it up by contacting the seller directly.

As described:  "This is a war plan (tactic) to aid the U.S.A. in protecting it`s (sic) vital interests... it will be shared only on a need to know basis, the winning bidder probably will NOT get to know the strategy... Chances are first come, first served, you better buy it before it`s gone. This offer void where prohibited by law.  Sold as-is, where-is, no warranty expressed or implied, since this offer involves the sale of information that cannott (sic) be disclosed, or inspected before purchase, buyer accepts full responsibility if you are NOT satisfied, NO refunds... if I slip, and disclose the strategy by mistake, it still has value, and buyer is still required to pay..."

Click here to see full auction description.

Who Really Cares...

...about correct grammar, spelling and punctuation?  As someone who has pursued a career as a proofreader and copy editor for almost 20 years, I consider myself part of that withering breed of cranks who do care, but are at the same time aware we're fighting a losing battle.

The publishing and news media industries, for the most part, do not pay their editors a living wage (it's more of a live-at-home wage), and why should they, with all the chuckleheads out there nursing Jimmy Olsen dreams?  As a result, newspapers, magazines, Web pages and even books in print are riddled with typos, misused punctuation and poorly written sentences.  Just look at this doozy (pictured) I found on CNN.com a while back—sentences like this are commonplace on CNN, MSN and other Web media outlets.

If you want to make a living wage as an editor, you'll most likely need to go to work for THE MAN, in one of several "evil" corporate industries such as law, finance, pharmaceuticals or healthcare.  These industries don't generally care about correctness, either.  They care only inasmuch as it affects their bottom line, i.e., if something in print isn't as it should be, they could be fined, be sued, or even (gasp!) lose an important client.  (Don't even get me started on Continuing Medical Education, a wholly corporate-funded scam, and the subject of another blog post for another time.)

So who really cares?  Lynne Truss does.  Truss expanded her well-received BBC Radio 4 series, Cutting a Dash, into the best selling book Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.  Anyone with even the slightest reverence for correct punctuation usage and grammar will find this a laugh-out-loud read.  To demonstrate the strength of her convictions, upon the opening of the film Two Weeks Notice, Ms. Truss went to Leicester Square with a six-inch apostrophe mounted on a stick, holding it strategically aloft so that, for a time at least, "Weeks" carried its proper possessive.

Most passersby told Truss to "get a life."  The sting of this comment, in this context, has been felt at one time or another by all intrusive, stickler-types like myself.  My own wife, bless her, has weathered years of my "pronunciation tips," and never once told me to "get a life."  But just try telling someone to "get a life" as they blab on about last night's NFL spectacle, the "tribal council" on Survivor, or Lindsay Lohan's drunken escapades.  These things, apparently, are more legitimate stuff of which to make up a life than our glorious and complex written language.

Secos e Molhados, Next Big Thing for '73

By anybody's standard, 700,000 records sold is a huge success.  By Brazilian standards, that's just incalculably enormous.  32 years ago, the Sao Paolo band Secos e Molhados ("Dry & Wet Goods") sold 700,000 copies of their eponymous debut record (shown, left), and still nobody outside Brazil knows who they were - not even WFMU.  Let's start knowing.

Secos e Molhados "Sangue Latino" and "O Vira" (wmv movie, 18M)

The most important thing you can do for yourself today is watch this video, which ends on the frame you see to your right  Go do that, then come back and I'll tell you more about them.

When I first heard the debut Secos & Molhados album, I endured several months of confusion trying to figure out who's the woman singing, and why isn't she on the album cover?  Well sir, "she" is Ney Matogrosso, and he is indeed on the cover.  No, he doesn't sound like a feminine guy, and he's not singing falsetto - he sings like a girl!!  And it's totally beautiful, and these songs are mostly achingly sweet.  The confusion lingered as I got hung up on the disconnect between the sound of the songs and the look of the total freaks who, it seems, are performing them.  And then along came Wolmar.  He's my fave dealer of Brazilian esoterica at the annual WFMU Record Fair, and he actually had some video footage - lots of it.  And now the pieces are coming together.  Go listen to some songs:

O Patrão nosso de cada dia (realaudio link)
O Vira (realaudio link)
Rosa de Hiroshima (realaudio link)

Jump the flip if you're interested in a little bit of history on the band (which is remarkably scarce in English).

Audible Hiss

Came across this great site which made my heart and ears ache for my bygone days as a cassette enthusiast. It's an alphabetical photo montage of... keeee-rist... seemingly every make and model of blank cassette manufactured from then 'til now, and given that they're all the exact same shape and size, the sheer diversity of design is pretty head spinning. Gazing down the list, my eyes fell on a few that even reminded me of old tapes from my personal collection that either bit the dust eons ago, never made it out from under the seat of my '81 VW Rabbit, got left at parties, were simply tossed to make way for other obsessions, or perhaps still lurk in some dark corner of my apartment, waiting to be uncovered and reprimanded for wasting precious storage space.

For example, this little jobby here was a bit of an industry standard of the late 80s. But it's also the exact make and model of the corny mixtape I made the year before I finished high school and was subsequently carted around from punk rock shows in Trenton, to parties of older friends who'd trotted off to art school in the city, to secret skateboard spots in Pennsylvania, and then back again several thousand times over. I know this tape still resides in a bag of crap in my closet and is sun-bleached and warbled from years and years of abuse. The tracklisting is way too embarrassing to include here, but I will admit that it includes a plainly retarded segueway from the Jesus & Mary Chain into 7 Seconds. (Links to Real Audio.)

This one here had a Buzzcocks (Real Audio) mix that someone made for me. Or maybe it was just a dub from a vinyl copy of "Singles Going Steady", which probably gave the above mixtape some fierce competition for play in the boombox at some point or another. Sadly, side two of this tape featured a dub of Joni Mitchell's "Blue" album, (stop laughing) which is a great example of the classic mis-step of tape making, especially when precious boombox battery power is at risk: Don't put something you're only in the mood to hear once a year on the flipside of something you consider part of your daily personal hygiene. To this day, I can not listen to the Buzzcocks without fashioning my hair into a tidy bun and pretending to be a librarian 45 minutes later.

Purchased at Topp's Appliances in East Brunswick, NJ for the explicit purpose of making a mixtape for the pasty-faced punky maiden I was madly in love with during senior year of high school. This tape was twice as expensive as the garden variety Maxell/TDK models in regular circulation at the time, but I figured it was important to spend a little cash on the lady. She was obsessed with Depeche Mode, (Real Audio) whom I pretended to like for a little while in the hopes of earning her sympathy. Instead, after graciously accepting the mixtape from me just prior to Christmas break, she never again spoke to or made eye contact with me, having been obviously disturbed by something on the tape. (Note to current teenagers attempting to win hearts of pasty-faced punky maidens by making them mixtapes: Reconsider the inclusion of any lengthy Hubert Selby spoken word pieces as "dramatic" conclusion to side one. Though fashionable at one time, this is now widely regarded as a fiercely stupid idea.)

The Hits of 1966, With a Lisp (MP3s)

A few weeks ago, I posted 21 versions of They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Ha, including one by Teddy and Darrel. Little did I know that the WFMU library included the entire Teddy and Darrel LP, These are The Hits, You Silly Savage, which I post here in its entirety. I found these on a collection called Queer To The Core. The original album came out in 1966, and featured Teddy and Darrel lisping and swishing their way through the hits of the day:

I'm Hungry  |  Wild Thing  |  Gary Ghoul Boy  |  Little Red Riding Hood  | 

The Hollywood Agent  |  These Boots Are Made For Walking  | 

Strangers In The Night  |  Say There  |  Hanky Panky  |

Hollywood Swings  |  They Took You Away, I'm Glad, I'm Glad  | 

Hold On, I'm Coming

Seats to Fill at the FCC

It looks like the Bush administration may soon allow the FCC to get busy with their tremendous backlog of work on controversial topics... W. is expected to announce his nominations for the 2 open seats on the commission: one of which was created following Chairman Michael Powell's resignation earlier this year  (Kevin Martin, then a commission member, moved on up, leaving an empty seat), and the other is from Michael Copps' 5-year-term coming to an end.

FYI: The commission is made up of 2 democrats (Copps and Adelstein), 2 republicans (Abernathy, whose term will end pretty soon and does not seek renomination, and the empty seat), and a hood ornament (Martin, a republican).

Bush is expected to renominate Democrat Michael Copps, a man so uptight that he's issued separate statements detailing his personal dissent from indecency cases that the commission as a whole had dismissed. Deborah Tate, Director of the Tennessee Regulatory Authority, is rumored to be W's pick for the empty republican seat on the commission. However, conservative lip-zipper Ted Stevens is ever so eager to come up with his own FCC nominee that he can force down the administration's throat.

A fast confirmation of both appointees might give Chairman Martin a short window of time (before Abernathy's departure) to use the commission's republican majority to his advantage: possibly making headway on controversial issues that the politically split FCC could not tackle. Might we see indecency revisited during this period? The Senate Commerce Committee has already scheduled a forum on broadcast decency...

Me and Takeshi Down By The Schoolyard

Here's a video I stumbled across which seems to show Japanese schoolkids engaging in freestyling, cheerleading and consuming a large unidentified piece of meat. Get past the annoying editing, and there's plenty here to ponder, not the least of which is: why does the spasmodic catholic school girl always seem to get the better of the shirtless mohawk sporting suspender guy? Video here. (wmv file for download).  via  hemeworstje

More Record Fair Recap

Bronwyn and Miss Amanda have already written Record Fair round-ups, but here are a few more pictures of the fun and mayhem from this past weekend. 

Early Friday morning.  An empty Metropolitan Pavilion awaits the arrival of hundreds of record dealers, who are lining up outside on 19th Street, waiting until noon, when they can start bringing thousands and thousands of obscuro records and CDs.  The two fellows in the far right picture were at the front of the line.  They arrived at 6am to secure their place!

The night before, the Pavilion had hosted a fancy-schmancy benefit dinner where a motorcycle autographed by former Police-frontman Sting had been auctioned off.  When we arrived early Friday morning, the motorcycle was still there, and some of the volunteers and I  took turns sitting on it, including lovely volunteer Mary, who you see here.  The Stinger-cycle was just the first of many brushes with fame during the Fair.  Other reported celebrity sightings at the Fair this year included actors Benicio Del Toro and Rosie Perez, musicians Carlos D (Interpol) and Tom Verlaine (Television), and comedians Rachel Dratch, Jeffrey Ross, and Horatio Sanz, who showed extremely good taste in choosing a "Where Dead Air Lives" t-shirt to purchase from the WFMU Swag table.

Sonic Reducer, Used By Cruiser

A while back Station Manager Ken posted the saga of an Army Sergeant stationed in Iraq who contacted us for some Happy Flowers music to use against the Iraqis in what seems to be a fairly open campaign of sonic weaponry. The first time I heard of such a thing was when grating rock was used against the Koresh compound in the Waco standoff (which wasn't that effective, seeing that the cult was probably used to its own guru was making his own bad music), and again in Panama where apparently squealing pig sounds were piped towards a holed-up Noreiga. During Summer 2004's Republican National Convention in New York, it was again speculated by the media that an actual, specifically-constructed sonic weaponry device of a non-lethal, but pain-inflicting frequency would be employed should the demonstrators get out of hand. When grinning pirates shot rocket launchers at the passenger liner Seaborn Spirit this weekend off the coast of Somalia, it was reported that the cruise ship merely gunned the gas and sped away. But today, CNN reports that the crew actually employed an onboard LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) to use as a repellant. I'm glad it worked, but it just seems a bit sad and a little bit odd that we're at a time in history where pleasure ships have these things actually on board.  But thankfully the well trained crew (pictured above) were able to employ it, most likely having it handy in case Charo tried to stow away again.

WFMU's Political Endorsement

Polling places in NJ are still open for a few hours, and we'd like to remind Garden State residents that the race for Governor is far from over. If you're feeling frustrated with the top 2 candidates after being inundated with televised smear campaigns, NJ Weedman just might be the breath of fresh air this state has been wheezing for.

Some of our other favorite crackpot candidates:

Bernie Goetz for NYC Public Advocate. The irony: he shot 4 young African American men on a subway car in 1984. They allegedly "threatened" him, and Bernie was charged with assault and attempted murder, but escaped all charges save weapons possession. (via Monica)

Jimmy McMillan for Mayor of NYC. Representing the Rent Is Too Damn High party.

Tino Rozzo for NJ Governor. Running on the Socialist Party USA ticket, he plans to hypnotize the entire state with his formidable mustache. (via Scott)

Wes Bell for NJ Governor. Check out those credentials! (via Scott)

Helpless Man Femdom Art

Femdom Art - Drawings of little men with their heads stuck in the cracks of big bottomed ladies. (nsfw)

Indecency Complaints Up Again, Briefly

O, what a swarthy, smutty summer we endured... The FCC just released its quarterly report (PDF) from the Complaint Dept, and the numbers indicate that July 2005 was the most scandalous month on record since January of 2004. Surprised? Me, too. I mean, I feel like I must have missed out on some party.

The Super Bowl nipple mishap that rang-in 2004 inspired 138,652 Americans (95% of whom were affiliated with the Parents Television Council, or PTC) to file complaints with the FCC. Since then, the numbers of broadcast indecency complaints have drastically decreased; numbers of complaints leveled off around the 2,000 mark for most months... Until July hit, that is. The network TV broadcast of the Live 8 concert prompted a whopping 23,547 folks (PTC members represented the overwhelming majority of these people) to tattle on ABC for airing an unedited live performance of "Who Are You" by The Who. The classic tune contains the questionable lyrics, who the fuck are you, which has aired countless times over the radio, unobjectionably unedited, for years and years.

The good news is that in the subsequent months of Q3 2005, indecency complaints were back to low numbers and the American people, exhibiting normal levels of apathy, have let up. We hope that this issue continues to fizzle out before lawmakers attempt to pass some ugly legislation...

Lawsuits against Sony for sneaky DRM, and refuted denials from malware author

Lawsuits, incompetence, and denial: Some news in the case of Sony's music CD's installing nasty hidden software on people's computers. (Prior articles: Sony CD's caught... & Sony releases PR "patch"...)

Declan McCullagh writes in CNET about a class action lawsuit being prepared against Sony, and the possible reverse lawsuit that could occur from Sony against those who dare to remove the malware from their own machines:

Now the lawyers are taking aim, too. Robert Green, a partner at the San Francisco firm of Green Welling, says he's readying a class action lawsuit against Sony.
[...] In a bizarre twist, though, it's not only Sony that could be facing a legal migraine. So could anyone who tries to rid their computer of Sony's hidden anticopying program. That's because of Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bans the "circumvention" of anticopying technology.

An Italian group (ALCEI: Electronic Frontiers Italy, which is the "Association for the Freedom in the Interactive Communication Electronic" using a bad translating program) is pursuing a suit against Sony. (Here's the suit announcement, badly translated from Italian.)

Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals receives a response from First 4 Internet, author of Sony's DRM malware, denying all wrongdoing.  Russinovich refutes all their denials:

[...] Their claim that the communication is "one way" from Sony's web site is false, however, since Sony can make a record of each time their player is used to play a CD, which CD is played, and what computer is playing the CD.
[...] Sony's patch is dangerous because the way that it removes the cloak could crash Windows.
[...] Besides demonstrating the ineptitude of the First 4 Internet programmers, this flaw highlights my message that rootkits create reliability risks in addition to security risks.
[...] The comment does not explain why Sony won't simply make the uninstaller available as a freely accessible download like they do the patch, nor why users have to submit two requests for the uninstaller and then wait for further instructions to be emailed (I still have not received the uninstaller). The only motivation I can see for this is that Sony hopes you'll give up somewhere in the process and leave their DRM software on your system.
[...] Instead of admitting fault for installing a rootkit and installing it without proper disclosure, both Sony and First 4 Internet claim innocence. By not coming clean they are making clear to any potential customers that they are not only technically incompetent, but also dishonest.

UPDATE: Sony's Deteriorating DRM Mess: One Month Later (Dec. 1, 2005)

Please help DMBQ and Michelle Cable

We're all extremely sad to hear the news of the tragic van accident that befell DMBQ Friday, injuring the band, tour manager/friend to WFMU Michelle Cable, and taking the life of drummer Mana "China" Nishiura. The accident happened as they were on their way to their Brooklyn show; they were scheduled to appear at WFMU's Record Fair Saturday. Please take the time to read the missive below, feel free to link and forward, and help if you can, thank you. -Brian

On Friday afternoon, the Japanese based band DMBQ and Michelle Cable of Panache Magazine were involved in a horrible car accident, while driving to Brooklyn to play a show that night. Mana "China" Nishiura, DMB & Shonen Knife's drummer, did not survive the accident. She was a great talent and will be missed dearly.

Michelle Cable of Panache Magazine and Booking, who had been managing DMBQ's tour, had to undergo emergency surgery on her head and is expecting a 6 month recovery period. The rest of the band remains hospitalized but are expected to be released soon. We mourn the loss of China and our hearts go out to DMBQ, Michelle, and their families.

With the help of Jen (Shellshag/Starcleaner), a paypal account has been set up to benefit our friends in DMBQ and Michelle Cable to help pay for medical expenses.

Please forward and post this information as much as you can.

Donations can be made to DMBQ and Michelle Cable by paypalling them at  dmbqpanache@lovepumpunited.com or by sending checks to:

Lovepump United
PO BOX 3241
Poughkeepsie, NY 12603

Wealthy Geek Pays $20 Million to Wear Cartoon Helmet in Outer Space

Daisuke Enomoto (aka Dice-K) will soon become the fourth space tourist of all time, paying $20 Million to the extra-terrestrial travel agency Space Adventures for the privilege of spending ten fun-filled days in the International Space Station. Enomoto dreams not only of gazing down at the earth from the heavens, but to do so decked out in the costume of Char Aznable, his favorite character from the popular anime series Gundam. Enomoto is already entertaining bids from Japanese companies to build him a working red space suit based on the blond-haired, blue-eyed Char Aznable, whose name is derived from Charles Aznavour, but who is better known in the anime universe as The Red Comet.

While wearing his cartoon helmet and space epaulets, Enomoto will also be trying to convince the various ETs he encounters that he is friend, not foe. So the costume had better be good. Here is Enomoto's SETI at home page. Don't you wish you had $20 million to follow your dreams, too? Article here.

UPDATE: Listener Nick send us Char's theme song, Hori Kouichiro's Char ga Kuru (MP3)

Record Related MP3s

As a way of thanking everybody who came to the WFMU record fair this weekend, and also in an effor to engender cross-format peace and understanding, here are a few record-related MP3s:

John Lennon - Tower Records Ad
John does a great job as a guest DJ on Los Angeles station KHJ as he hawks Tower Records.

Althea and the Memories - Worst Record Ever Made
Kim Fowley pulled some pre-pubescent fans into the studio for the backing squeals.

Akaten - Suite USA Record Company
Atsushi Tsuyama (Acid Mothers Temple) and Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins) provide a muscial recitation of the major record labels.

Vernon Oxford - Turn The Record Over

Tom Tall - Stack of Records

Playmates - While The Record Goes Around

Moose Jackson - Big Ten Inch Record

Dinah Washington - Record Ban Blues

Bob and Ray - Columbia Phonograph Spot

That Boy Jumpy Sure Can Dance

Hello, Everybody—Nice seeing you again.

The WFMU Record Fair this past weekend was the most fun ever. Everyone had been waiting a year for it, and folks were ready. There were great live acts, and bizarre entertainment in the AV Lounge, and album cover modification procedures, and dancing, and food—and, of course, tons of vinyl, CDs, and stuff. So much stuff. Usually I can’t even buy anything at the Record Fair, because when I’m confronted by that much recorded material the acquisitive part of my brain overloads and shuts down. I walk up and down every aisle, and then I leave. But this year I was on a mission to find a recording that featured washtub bass, and I want to thank that one dealer who came down $5 on the price so I’d have enough money left to get home. But still … there was a lot of stuff.

I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have a lot of stuff, huge accumulations of pop-cultural detritus: comic books, plastic toys, baseball cards, books, records, CDs, 8-track tapes, shoes, hats, teapots, watches, fountain pens, videos, art, little bits of metal picked up off the street, shopping bags, postcards—anything—everything—all of it at once. I never thought of myself or my friends as being participants in the great American consumer economy, but when I look at our itty-bitty living spaces stuffed full of crap, I have to reconsider.

I think there are various categories of stuff, or that stuff is acquired for several different reasons. There are things that are useful, but I think most stuff is not acquired to be used. One very nice wristwatch is a useful thing, but 37 assorted wacky watches hanging from nails on the wall constitutes stuff. People who collect things may take solitary pleasure from their collection: a philatelist can sit down and leaf through his stamp album and enjoy the collection. But stuff often seems to require an audience. The thing I enjoyed most about my collection of jackalope postcards was the reaction of people who appreciated the humorous aspects of anybody having a jackalope postcard collection in the first place.

"A phone that gives you access to your belief wherever you are..."

Niche marketing heaven: Ilkone offers the world's first and only Islamic cell phone, a mobile phone for Muslims that "...gives you access to your belief wherever you are."  Equipped with a 5-times-a-day prayer alarm reminder and a GPS-enabled compass, users can now easily find the direction of Mecca. Phone includes the complete Holy Quran (with approved translation by Al-Azhar), and accesses the voices of Azan of Mecca, Madina and Cairo from anywhere in the world, as well as appropriate designs on the casing and screen.

Bellydancers & Harem Girls!

Bellydancers and Harem Girls -- A Historical/Cheesecake Gallery

...a fantastic archive of historical bellydance photos- from nudie postcards to Hollywood starlets. My favorite is this spellbinding swollen siren.

The Prelinger Collection at Archive.org has a corpulent collection of old stripper film reels.

And while we're at it, we can't leave out The Metal Goddess Bellydancers who gyrate to the sounds of Ozzy and Twisted Sister. Oggle at their videos!

Meanwhile, Back at the Secret Lair of the Confirmed Bachelor...

Thanks so very much to listener Coye who sent me the link to SuperDickery.com, a growing collection of covers and snippets of pages from the golden age of comic books (mostly the 40s, 50s and 60s), that can obviously be looked at very differently today. SuperDickery.com's main gallery page is here (pick your old-fashioned vice), but of interest is the "Seduction of the Innocent" section, which milks that good old reliable in super hero comics: homosexual overtones, for everything it's worth and then some (examples left and right - click to enlarge). Even the most naive and optimistic among us cannot deny that by today's standards these examples are shocking. Intentional or not? Have a look and you'll agree it's hard to tell exactly. Were these earnest attempts at wholesome comic art in their day, seen only now as value-corrupting, amoral sleaze because of our society's increasingly jaded addiction to lurid sensation? Or were these old comics cruel pranks created by sick perverts with malformed brains who secretly knew exactly what they were drawing? Far be it from me to reveal their true identity. I suppose in a day when you couldn't view women's ankles, guys had to get their thrills the old fashioned way: by drawing Robin "unintentionally" giving a bank robber a rim job while tackling him from behind. Kind of makes you wonder how Mike Diana's Boiled Angel will be looked at decades from now.