Though I don’t watch much television lately, I recently discovered an excellent series that I feel duty-bound to share with readers. It’s a British production called “Utopia” (2013) and is one of the few shows I’ve seen to consistently tackle topics such as geopolitics, man-made pandemics, political blackmail, assassination and the surveillance state with a sense of intelligence and realism (though with a twist of dark humor). It’s an amalgamation of parapolitical topics strung together by a fictionalized narrative, similar to the best X-Files episodes but more sophisticated and pessimistic to keep up with the times. Props to YouTube member John Alves for uploading most of season 1 (except episode 3, for some reason) which you can find on his channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvfxyfr-cNDcVMI0RKeydxg
This is the trailer for Utopia season 2 which will air in July on Britain’s Channel 4 (and hopefully will also be on YouTube shortly after):
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.
“Like Stars on Earth” (2007), directed and produced by Aamir Khan is a critically acclaimed Bollywood film that has done much to raise awareness of the struggles of children with dyslexia. The film’s plot revolves around eight year old Ishaan, whose vivid imagination and difficulty with words and numbers cause him to get failing grades. His parents eventually send him to boarding school where a new art teacher recognizes Ishaan’s cognitive differences and devises strategies to help him succeed. Like Stars on Earth is notable for its inspiring storyline, great soundtrack and standout performances by Darsheel Safary as Ishaan and Aamir Khan as art teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh.
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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:
“Paprika” (2006) was the final feature-length anime masterpiece directed by Satoshi Kon, who died a few years later at age 46 of pancreatic cancer. Paprika is seemingly influenced by the novels of Philip K. Dick and films of Terry Gilliam, with a plot involving a radical psychotherapy treatment using a technology which allows one to view and interact with other people’s dreams. When a mysterious culprit steals the technology and uses it to cause the deaths of two scientists, it’s up to a determined detective and Paprika, a dream world avatar, to solve the mystery and prevent a chaotic merging of dreams and reality.
After the Crash 