Motorcycle ninjas tighten their grip on Florida’s narcotics trade, viciously annihilating anyone who dares move in on their turf. Multi-national martial arts rock band Dragon Sound have had enough, and embark on a roundhouse wreck-wave of crime-crushing justice. When not chasing beach bunnies or performing their hit song “Against the Ninja,” Mark (Tae Kwon Do master/inspirational speaker Y.K. Kim) and the boys are kicking and chopping at the drug world’s smelliest underbelly. It’ll take every ounce of their blood and courage, but Dragon Sound can’t stop until they’ve completely destroyed the dealers, the drunk bikers, the kill-crazy ninjas, the middle-aged thugs, the “stupid cocaine”…and the entire MIAMI CONNECTION!!!
Six years ago today George Carlin, one of the great American comedian/social critics, died of heart failure. It’s often assumed that people mellow with age but Carlin’s life and career is proof that the opposite can be true. Throughout much of the 60s, Carlin’s brand of comedy was good but rather mainstream and not outstanding. During the 70s, he reinvented himself, becoming one of the top counterculture comedians of the era. Carlin continued to make occasional appearances in mainstream film and television (eg. “Outrageous Fortune” and the Bill and Ted films), but from around the late 90s to 2008, his counterculture sensibilities came back with a vengeance. At the time, his later material didn’t seem to resonate with audiences as much as his material from the 70s. It was even more edgy, dark, and pessimistic, probably too much for the aging boomer demographic that previously made up the majority of his fanbase. However, for younger audiences discovering Carlin through the internet his words reflected the reality of the world as effects of increasingly corrupt political and economic systems could no longer be kept hidden by corporate media.
The following clip exemplifies what many people around the world love most about George Carlin and will forever remember him for:
Transcript
But there’s a reason… there’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never, ever, EVER be fixed.
It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got.
Because the owners, the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want:
They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests.
Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!
You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place! It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.
By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don’t give a fuck about you….they don’t give a fuck about you… they don’t give a FUCK about you.
They don’t care about you at all… at all… AT ALL. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Thats what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick thats being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.
It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
America stands at a crossroads. Income inequality, climate change, politics, and so on combine to form one of the greatest challenges in our history. And yet, while I believe we have an opportunity to make progress, I also know that such progress will never happen until Americans come together into a very big circle and talk about it.
This is critical. For real social change to occur, the entire nation must somehow assemble in a gigantic circle and discuss the issues that matter most.
The only question is, how to do it? I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have all the answers. To start, where can we find a big enough venue for the circle? How can we ensure that everyone speaks loud enough to hear each other? Is it better for everyone in the circle to sit or stand? Should the circle include all 314 million Americans or only those of voting age? Will convicts be allowed in? What about those who are deaf or only speak Spanish?
I do know this much, though: We’ll need a lot of space, enough that everyone can have a direct line of sight to whoever’s speaking. We’ll need infrastructure: waypoints stocked with food and water, systems for healing the sick members of the circle and disciplining those who refuse to participate, jackets in case part of the circle has to go through the Rocky Mountains, and T-shirts with American flags on them to build morale and to make the circle look more patriotic.
Of course, I have yet to address the biggest elephant in the room: Where will President Obama be, relative to the circle? Some might assume he should be directly in the center, but it is incumbent upon us as citizens to consider other options, such as having him run around the outside of the circle or fly from place to place in a helicopter. Actually, this could be one of the very first topics we discuss in the giant circle.
Make no mistake: America doesn’t need to be sitting in this big circle sometime next year. America needs to be sitting in a big circle today. America needs to be sitting in it yesterday.
We hold the future in our hands, so let’s not back down now, not while we have all the momentum of history on our side.
I was surprised and saddened to hear the news that counterculture comedian Rik Mayall died in his home in London yesterday. The cause of death hasn’t been released but Scotland Yard reported that it was not believed to be suspicious. Mayall was best known for his memorable roles in cult comedy shows such as “The Young Ones”, “Black Adder”, “The New Statesman” and “Bottom”. In a tribute published by The Guardian yesterday, some of his Young Ones colleagues had this to say about him:
“very, very sad and upset that we’ve lost Rik, who was inspirational, bonkers, and a great life force… a brilliant comedian and someone who made everyone else’s lives more fun. He will be really, really missed”. – Nigel Planer
“Comedy is truly great is when it comes out of nothing, and the greatest of comedians, like Rik, have that rare ability to conjure laugh after laugh, not from endless words, but from a single look or one absurd gesture … It was in his bones. Sweet Rik, much loved – what a loss.” – Alexei Sayle
“There were times when Rik and I were writing together when we almost died laughing. They were some of the most carefree, stupid days I ever had, and I feel privileged to have shared them with him. And now he’s died for real. Without me. Selfish bastard.” – Adrian Edmonson
Not sure exactly when this live performance was recorded, but though it seems to be early in his career it captures the manic energy of some of Mayall’s later roles:
Rik Mayall’s second-to-the-last televised work before his death was as the narrator of the following animation for Channel 4 written and produced by Louis Hudson and Ian Ravenscroft called Don’t Fear Death:
The following is a clip from One By One, an intriguing but difficult to find feature film directed by Diane Jessie Miller and featuring one of Mayall’s final performances:
Ten sentences in to New York Times, columnist Maureen Dowd’s piece about trying marijuana edibles in Colorado (while admittedly cackling out loud), my sense of responsibility as a journalist and cannabis connoisseur kicked in. This was the sentence that triggered it: “I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours.”
Whoah! This is not as it should be, and barely even makes sense. If someone gave you an unknown glass of alcohol and told you to down it sans questions, would you? And when they revealed that it was Everclear while you coughed your lungs out, would you write an editorial about how people should be more clear about telling you what you’re drinking, even if you don’t ask? Dowd expands the conversation beyond her personal observations, and goes on to discuss the epidemic of suicides, murders and emergency room visits prompted by folks misusing edible marijuana treats in states like Colorado and Washington.
From my perspective, before we get into strategies for creating labels for pot edibles – Dowd suggests “maybe a stoned skull and bones?” – let’s start with something a bit more practical.
Here’s my step-by-step guide to eating weed edibles:
1. Don’t buy or eat an edible if it doesn’t clearly state how much THC is inside. If it’s a candy bar, it should be divided into partitions (a la a Hershey bar), and you should do the math to determine the amount of THC is in each partition.
2. If you don’t use weed regularly, start with five mg of THC. If you’re the adventurous type, try 10 mg. But no more. Then wait 30-45 minutes. How do you feel? If you feel groovy, try moving up by five mg increments – waiting a half-hour in between – but do not exceed a total of 15 mg of THC. That’s basically the equivalent of smoking a small joint of middle-grade weed on your own. That should do. 20 mg could get you into Dowd Meltdown territory.
3. If you’re a regular weed user, start with 10 mg of THC. Wait 30-45 minutes. Monitor your stoned-ness, and try moving up by 5-10 mg of THC, but don’t go past 25-30 mg of THC. If you’re approaching 40 mg of THC and you haven’t reached the orbit level you’re used to, you might just have a problem.
At the end of the article, the owner of a pot edible company makes the following observation about why warnings might not solve this weed edible overdose problem: “My kids put rocks and batteries in their mouths.”
Be an adult about edibles. If you know how much chardonnay to drink, figure out how much weed to eat. If you don’t, it’s kind of on you if you end up in the fetal position in your hotel shower.
Activist/comedian Lee Camp, best known for his Moment of Clarity YouTube channel and podcasts (and who follows the fine tradition of stand-up social critics such as George Carlin or Bill Hicks), is host of the new RT program “Redacted Tonight”. Not surprisingly it’s an expert blend of humor and news, and you can watch the entire premier episode here:
“The Cube” (1969), not to be confused with “Cube” the 1997 cult film, was directed by Jim Henson and first aired as part of NBC’s weekly anthology show Experiment in Television. The film’s absurdist plot centers on a man who finds himself trapped in an empty room. However, others are free to enter and leave providing him with a series of puzzling existential encounters.
On our family holiday this summer, we had the great good fortune to be shown around Alcatraz Island by Ranger Craig Glassner — among other things, the Ranger responsible for the excellent documentary about the Occupation by Indians of All Tribes that is screened in the visitor center there. Craig let slip that his favorite Alcatraz movie is Skidoo, the 1968 Otto Preminger wacky stoner comedy with Groucho Marx, Jackie Gleason, Carol Channing, Burgess Meredith, Ted “Lurch” Cassidy, and just about every character actor you’ve ever enjoyed.
It’s an LSD-fuelled romp about a retired hit-man (Jackie Gleason) who voluntarily sends himself to Alcatraz to kill his best friend, who has betrayed the mob-boss of all bosses (played by Groucho Marx, who appears to either be stoned or simply method acting in many of his scenes). Meanwhile, the mobster’s daughter has fallen in with a wandering tribe of hippies who get taken in by her mother, Carol Channing, and end up involved in a jail-break that coincides with a mass dosing of Owsley’s finest LSD for everyone on the prison island.
It’s got trippy dance numbers, silly comedy, hippies, and, well, everything. It’s out on DVD after a long purgatory on the trashheap of history. I just watched it. It is something. It is something else.
After the Crash 