the natives are restless

I grew up in an Anglophone culture, and I know that
much of Anglo culture is the same around the world
because it's usually propagated by Anglos.

I have come to the decision that there's often something
wrong with Anglos in their behaviour. They're far
too quick to judge people negatively and to fly
off the handle, as a result.

I always thought it was because they had spastic
colons, and emotional/sexual problems,
but there may be another reason.

Now, as I post this, I'm not sure you can paint a
whole nation as having a certain type of gene,
unless this is new epigenetics and a result of
the shitty weather in the UK, but anyway, let's
see.

checkit: Independent
The British are born to be miserable, new research finds
But it could be worse - we could be French
Rose Troup Buchanan Author Biography
Thursday 30 October 2014
“The British do not expect happiness,” claimed
English writer Quentin Crisp – and it appears he
may have been right.
New research from the University of Warwick
has indicated that Britons are genetically programmed
to be grumpy.
The British, French and Americans are all predisposed to be grumpier than nations such as Denmark because they possess a “short form” version of the gene which regulates the amount of serotonin – the chemical which controls happiness – within the brain.
The Danes, who regularly top happiness surveys of nations, enjoy a longer form of the gene, while Britons and Americans, despite equally stable economies and governments, possess a shorter version resulting in a miserable attitude.
However, it could be worse: we could be French.
According to professor Andrew Oswald, who led the research looking at 131 countries, only the French had a shorter form of the gene.
Professor Oswald, who studies applied economics and quantitative social science, claimed many nations’ citizens would still be unhappy were they earning a fortune, living to a ripe old age and basking in the sunshine daily.
“Among the nations we studied, Denmark and the Netherlands appeared to have the lowest percentage of people with the short version of the serotonin gene,” he said to The Times.
He also claimed American individuals descended from Danish or Dutch immigrants were happier as a result of inheriting the longer gene.
The research, for the Economic and Social Research Council’s Festival of Social Sciences, found that genetics was the most important factor – but not the only one.
Happiness leagues generally use indicators such as educational standards, wealth, health, economic progress and job satisfaction alongside the weather, war and political stability.

Capitalism and the Soixante-huitards

I'm developing a theory about how France
morphed from a '68 (year of big youth riots)
society into a cynical Sarkozy-type Gallic
rip-off of Germany, with bankers taking
centre stage.

It seems that the '68 Rebels are as responsible
as anybody else, because they're now in charge.

I'll weave in sources as broad as Private Eye
(the Gods of alt-media) and the Guardian
to explain how this came about, and it
weaves in the Charlie Hebdo debacle, and
this movie from Costa Gavras.

In this scene (sorry for the espagnol) is
where the soixante-huitards get their
comeupance from the banker, at the dinner
table.

more later

Varoufakis as the Euro-killer

Coming soon
a full cultural analysis of this Varoufakis video,
from Germany,
the second by my count after a Dutch one (moron
that later)

Star Trek: Prophets of Bankocracy

As a middling fan of Star Trek,
(meaning I never got dressed up like Trekkies
or said "live long and prosper")
I've read about how Gene Rodenberry, despite
fits and starts and last-minute changes,
produced shows which reframed the
human dynamic, in the most Shakespearean
of theatrical displays.

You have to really look to find the deeper significance
of a given story.
I just finished some research and so I study
everything to death, including my belly-button
lint.

Anyway, one recent show that I saw was called
The Gamesters of Triskelion had this basic scene:

(Firstly, Kirk gets the green chick, as usual)

Unseen (until later) higher beings seek to
capture slaves, training them to compete against
each other (under threat of death) so that the "brains"
could gamble on the result.

higher beings that gamble

[at 39:10 Kirk meets "the bankers", in Davos, one assumes]

That has precisely described the Bankocracy
that we find ourselves in. The government, armies
and police exist to control us, and not control the bankers who
can do whatever they please.
Strangely, the bankers have neutralised the people's
weapons, which I can assume represents this "democracy"
bone that is usually thrown in our direction
every 5 years.

Neo-liberalism,
enforced by governments, is designed to have us
compete to the death (okay, it's a stretch- today,
but there is regular warfare)
while all the while, the bankers gamble on
everything we do, and everything we produce.
Isn't that why banks are stealing pensions, manipulating
every market from oil to macadamia nuts, creating
dark pools, and derivatives? Isn't that why EU banks
are bankrupt?
They gambled, with derivatives, on the shaky debt
that they created out of thin air
-banks create £ through computer printing (CTRL-P) -
to serve the purposes of Germany and France (mainly),
under the guise of the "unifying" Euro, so as
to subjugate the periphery, in more ways than one.

The most brilliant symbolism is saved (perhaps
by serendipity, or accident) for the Enforcer
with the shiny eyes. His name is Galt, the same
as the protagonist of Aynus Rand's book
Atlas Shrugged. Is Rodenbery trying to tell us
that Rand's Galt is actually a rent-seeker and
leach, rather than an industrialist?
I f%^&king sure as hell think so. I know it rings
true.

Now, a brave crew has sprung up in Greece, and
another is getting their wings in Spain (Podemos)
and they will return Earth to the path of
righteousness.


The Star Trek team has morphed into the
Greek government that will boldly go where
no lackey politician has dared go.
Up Merkel and Schauble's fat buttholes.
I think the iron backsides of the FinMin may
cause a problem, however.

In the final analysis, it will be Spock's wise
words, in the guise of Yianis Varoufakis,
the Greek FinMin that will force the
hypnotised peoples of Europe to see that
the Euro is a tool of subjugation and that
we are in a sort of Fourth Reich. If he
does that successfully, then the Euro
confidence game will collapse, without a
Grexit.

the State with an image problem

How is it that there's supposed to be this murderous State
in the Mid East that we're all supposed to be afraid of?

Have we ever seen them? Have they threatened us?
I don't think so. It's like an islamophobia plan gone wrong.

How do you get to set up a state just like that?
I think the planet  has been pretty much carved up
into states, not leaving much dry land available.

And yet these guys found some lebensraum. right.

The last time the map was redrawn was in the early
20th c, by some lady from Cambridge.

I shit you not.

I think the task was then given to a couple of 

aristos, one from UK and one from France, to agree

areas of influence.

They both knew about the oil in the region too. That's
why there's no Kurdistan...yet.

that's Sykes-Picot

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25299553

Now supposedly these newcomers are going to redraw the map.

Couldn't be more f^*ked up than the existing one. Of course

you now have the US salivating hoping to remake the whole

map in its interests, those being whatever Isr wants.

Next image problem. These IS guys are supposed to be so tough

that they behead and kill at will. They're supposed to be so 

bloodthirsty. 

But, tell me whether this long line of pick-ups reminds you of

anything:

does it remind you of this:

a homecoming parade

or this


I rest my case.
IS doesn't even match the homecoming parade from Animal House:

Sargent at arms yelling "faggots, faggots"
"you can get your thumb out of my ass now , Carmine"

Anyway. do you get my point?
It's all too pretty. These IS guys have so much
stuff given to them from the US that they didn't have
to steal anything. You've seen the shiny new Toyotas.

There's a whole segment of us cynical bloggers who
think that the US is behind it all.
Here's a media story to make you think. There's
shock and horror that boys raised in the West,
even those without Muslim heritage would go
down to the ME and fight for the IS.
Well, we bloggers seem to think that have
white twangy English-speakers in the IS ranks
would be a wonderful cover for the American
secret service guys who are prolly orchestrating
the whole thing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/28/western-jihadists-are-being-used-as-cannon-fodder-for-the-isis-leadership_n_5730510.html

All the sob stories of mum and dad crying
"bring my boy back from ISIS."
It just seems like Hollywood casting has
provided some crying parents for a
new type of "reality" show. "Ma and Pa Jihadi"
Something like Ma&Pa Kettle, but with Uzis.

 There's Pa with some brown-lookin people

There's Pa being enticed with virgins from heaven.

"The Bride of ISIS" from the Daily Beast
I couldn't make this stuff up. That's how messed up this is
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/03/the-bride-of-isis-revealed.html

Cue the righteous indignation of Westerners,
accustomed to their own kids raping and pillaging
the ME, on the nightly news.

Now, some Western government, like the UK say they
won't negotiate with terrorists. But what if these
terrorists have oil for sale. Well, that's just business.
Everybody needs a bit of a deal on some barrels, don't
they?

Another side issue is the problems of Turkey in the area.
People are pushing Turkey to cross the border to
Kobani to help the Kurds. Except for two things,
firstly, Turkey would never piss on a Kurd, even if he
was on fire. They're worried of losing a chunk of
their country to the Kurds, if they get out of control,
seeing as the US has de facto allowed for a free
Kurdistan within Iraq.
On the other hand, the Russians seem to be
threatening Turkey with warfare if they cross that
line in the sand.
There's also my visionary plan. I think the US is
actually willing to carve up the map again, making
a Kurdistan out of Iraq, Iran and even Turkey.
Why? Cuz there's oil. cuz the Kurds are wild and
warlike, and the US can always use people like that.

This is not the first time the US would be looking
to solve another British fuckup. There's WW2, for one.
There's also the Cyprus problem. The British left
the island where Greeks were squabbling with the
Turkish minority.
The US wanted to use Turkey as a Cold war listening
post, so was willing to help Turkey carve up Cyprus.
And so it came to be.

Wherever the Brits used to divide and conquer, the US
is sure to have set up a stall.
More on that later.

Lastly, you can't have a State unless you've got
call waiting:

[sorry. couldn't find an operator with a burkah]
so, you want to do business with the State, and you
call their 0800 number and get a mechanised
response:

ISIS hotline: Hello, you have reached the Islamic State. For
beheadings, press 1, for recruitment, press 2. To report
the death of an infidel, press 3 and scream "allahu akbar"
after the tone.

and a passport office:

and bureaucrats:

more later
 

50 shades of making whoopey on a pile of money

I'm not much of a novel reader. I missed the boat on
50 shades of Grey. I did notice how its mention
made chicks all squirmy. i love vulnerability.

Anyway, it turns out this book is about making
love to yourself, with your greed muscle. It's
not about sex as much as about money.
The sex, except for some expletives,
wouldn't shock your grandfather. In fact, it
would put him to sleep.
It just goes to prove my mantra about novels,
they're designed to control minds with just
enough sizzle to keep people from having
their own lives.

see 4:06


Here, the baffler kicks the shit out of 50SoG.
Get the whole piece.

checkit: Baffler
Fifty Shades of Late Capitalism
Heather Havrilesky
[from The Baffler No. 22, 2013]
While we are still recovering from the trauma that finance capital has inflicted on our public world, a late-capitalist fairy tale manages the pain in the more private and intimate reaches of the sexual daydream. In one version of the story, a wide-eyed mermaid cleverly disguises her essential self in order to win the heart of a prince (The Little Mermaid). In another, a hooker with a heart of gold navigates her way to a happy ending by offering some happy endings of her own (Pretty Woman). Or there’s the sassy secretary who shakes her moneymaker all the way to the corner office (Working Girl).
Fifty Shades of Grey follows this long history of class ascendancy via feminine wiles, but does so cleverly disguised as an edgy modern bodice-ripper. Forget that E. L. James’s three-book series captures the intricacies of BDSM about as effectively as a “Whip Me!” Barbie doll decked out in a ball gag, dog collar, and assless leather chaps. Although admirers of the series sometimes credit it with liberating female desire by reimagining pornography for ordinary women (and introducing them to the unmatched thrills of leather riding crops and hard spankings), the story of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey isn’t really about dominance or bondage or even sex or love, despite all the Harlequin Romance–worthy character names. No, what Fifty Shades of Grey offers is an extreme vision of late-capitalist deliverance, the American (wet) dream on performance-enhancing drugs. Just as magazines such as Penthouse, Playboy, Chic, and Oui (speaking of aspirational names) have effectively equated the moment of erotic indulgence with the ultimate consumer release, a totem of the final elevation into amoral privilege, James’s trilogy represents the latest installment in the commodified sex genre. The money shot is just that: the moment when our heroine realizes she’s been ushered into the hallowed realm of the 1 percent, once and for all.
So Brazen
The fantasy life of Fifty Shades certainly isn’t focused on the sublime erotic encounter. The sex becomes hopelessly repetitive sometime around the third or fourth of the novels’ countless, monotonously naughty encounters. Each dalliance begins with the same provocative come-on: the naive college graduate Anastasia and the dashing mogul Christian describe their desire to each other with all of the charmless unpredictability of servers mouthing their prescribed scripts at an Australian-themed steakhouse. Awkward openers (“I think we’ve done enough talking for now,” “Now let’s get you inside and naked”) conjure the raw provocation of “How about a Bloomin’ Onion to get you started?” Even tougher to take are the coy responses (“Oh my!” “Why, Mrs. Grey, you have a dirty, dirty mouth!” “You’re insatiable and so brazen”), repeated with gusto despite a total lack of shock value in evidence. Readerly expectations tick up ever so slightly as Grey issues some bossy commands—Stand here! Undress! Bend over! Spread your legs!—which seem at first blush to foretell a curve in the carnal road. But no such luck. Give or take a blindfold here or a butt plug there, the same hands explore the same places in the same ways with the same results. After the fifteenth or sixteenth time Anastasia and Christian “find [their] release together,” they start to resemble tourists with no short-term memory, repeating the same docented visit to Graceland over and over again, drooling over the claustrophobic upholstered pool room and the mirrored wall and the fourteen-foot-long white leather couch afresh each time. By the third volume in the series, as every word out of Christian’s mouth (“I see you’re very wet, Anastasia”) still triggers an overheated response from his paramour (“Holy shit!”), readers may find themselves hissing, “Mix it up a little, for fuck’s sake!”[have you ever had a chick scream holy shit in the heat of the moment? me neither. that's a guy talking through a female character- Cos67]
What Fifty Shades of Grey offers is an extreme vision of late-capitalist deliverance, the American (wet) dream on performance-enhancing drugs.
But let’s not mistake sex for the main event. The endless manual jimmying and ripped foil packets and escalating rhythms and release-findings are just foreplay for the real climax, in which Anastasia recognizes that she’s destined to abandon her ordinary, middle-class life in favor of the rarefied veal pen of the modern power elite. Until then, like a swooning female contestant on The Bachelor, Anastasia is offered breathtaking helicopter and glider rides, heady spins in luxury sports cars, and windswept passages on swift catamarans. She is made to gasp at Christian’s plush office, with its sandstone desk and white leather chairs and its stunning vista, or his spacious, immaculate penthouse apartment, with its endless rooms filled with pricey furniture. She is treated to Bollinger pink champagne and grilled sea bass. She is offered a brand new wardrobe replete with stylish heels and gorgeous gowns and designer bras. She is lavished with diamond jewelry and flowers and a new luxury car of her own....

when your teacher says the word "cool"

that's when you wrap your arms around
your ears, like an autistic having a fit.

I've just been exorcising those demons
from the past. I think I already had
a story about other aspects of this,
but I'll check.

The thing that really got me was
when our teachers tried to use
music to "connect" with us.
They used tunes that were
5 to 10 years out of date, and
ones that we kids did not go
anywhere near.
I was like most kids, pretty
sensitive to musical heresy,
and this is what we were put
through rather regularly.

The teachers were cleaned up
and nicely dressed, but something
tells me that during Woodstock
they would have been unrecognisable.

So, they gave us a bunch of
Woodstock , like Jonie Mitchell
and some post-Woodstock scary
vaudevillian stuff or cumbaya
stuff from the Hispanic world.

Here they are :
Captain and Tennille


and Paloma Blanca


fyeh. puke.

Rush was copying FM

I used to be a big fan of Rush,
and still am, but I was really
disappointed as a teen by
Rush's Signals album.
That's when music meant something
to me. It doesn't anymore, but
I think I've solved a big mystery.
It's about how bands can take a face plant
when copying other bands.

After the HUUUUGE album called

Moving Pictures

even the video was cool, with the snow and all
at Le Studio, Morin Heights, Quebec
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_Pictures_%28Rush_album%29
How can you even compare this with the screaming
four-bar blues rock crap of that day?

It was both prog rock and yet it 

had a soul, unlike British prog

which was really long winded and technical:

Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes, etc.

vs. Freewill

Anyway, after that big album, I was looking

forward to the next one, only to get a synth album called 

Signals

check this "song":

Subdivisions

[the hydrant symbolises their Signals album]

Cold, passion-less, synth-dominated drudgery.
It's as if somebody abducted their guitarist and
replaced him with C3PO.

Now, with the death of Nash the Slash, I had
 a chance to revisit Nash's old band, FM.
on Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_%28Canadian_band%29

They were a decent synth band with a bit of
creativity. Their Phasors on Stun song was
big for a while. Here it is. 1978


Nash was on the mandolin. Pretty good schtick.

But, back to Rush. I believe that Rush was trying to copy
the feel of this music. As with every copy, you try to
get the essence, but Rush did a really shitty job, IMO.
Clue #1: (wiki) "In June, Ben Mink from the band FM was invited
 to play electric violin on "Losing It" "

Rush had just stopped writing 10-minute songs about Xanadu,
and had become a solid prog rock band, with two astounding
albums, and then the song above broke my heart.
Wiki says:
"The band underwent another radical stylistic transmutation
with the recording of Signals in 1982." Ya, and lost their mojo.

I can't even bring myself to put up New World Man. stinko
The only song that had any guts was Digital Man.
(now that I've read wiki, this song is heavily Police-influenced,
but is at least a decent job.)
-side note: the ___ Man titles. unoriginal. navel-gazing. sexist

It took Rush years to get their Mojo back. witness:

Red Sector A

A good song, but I had long since moved on to Heavy metal.
what can I say. I was 16. I was looking elsewhere for
meaning and passion in music.

Also, check this frenetic song:

Animate 1993

perhaps their best tune

that's my thesis.
I'll do a story later about how this and other bands
all decided, in the early 80s, to f^*k with their
models for success.
The thing I learned was that bands are just humans,
and humans f&*(k a good thing, just because.
I also learned that bands have good songs, and good albums
even, but no one band is consistent. Some bands are best
right out of the box, while others mature.

 some bands journey through some shit and
come back rejuvenated.

my task was to find righteous tunes. no more no less.

On to the next story.

Newsreaders are just brain-dead automatons

this is particular to the US, but most everywhere
because of the fact that the News are decided
by others, and then spun.
But, when somebody wants to lampoon
the newsreader, all he has to do is
give her some idiot stuff to read.

Watch as this newsreader barely slows
down while reading some

cod-Chinese names

Ho Lee Fuk

that doesn't excuse the racism of the 

joker, but it was probably some 

disgruntled staff member in the 

production room.

Nash the Slash can slash no more

I've been very busy the last few months, and
I have missed writing on this blog.

One of the things that happened while I was
busy was the death of a musician that I was
really impressed with as a young man.

NASH the SLASH

Once you get past the mummy tape,

there was something unique about

the guy. 

He wore the disguise because of 

shyness, and because it worked for his fans.

here's a hint of his personality,  

whooping it up 

with none other than Iggy Pop

I think Igg might have been 

under the influence of 

some pills.

They toured  together!
this show must have been on community tv
in Western Canada, maybe Calgary.
They go ape-shit. nuts

you'll see from this next video that he was
into synths and fiddles. Here's one of his original songs:


I'll add more later