June 26th, 2008 by Gnat
How could a corporation possibly think it could get away with such blatant copyright/trademark abuse? Oh, that’s right…they’re assholes.
Devo Suing McDonald’s Over Happy Meal Toy
(Devo photo by Shannon McClean)
June 25th, 2008 by Gnat
A couple of years ago an internet friend reacquainted me with the writings of Carlos Castaneda. I hadn’t thought much about the new age guru Castaneda since lifting one of his books from the public library in about 9th or 10th grade. I didn’t mean to steal it, I think I just checked it out and forgot to return it. Anyways, the little I read of The Power of Silence in high school didn’t leave much of an impression on me at the time. I think I checked it out mainly because I’d heard there were drug references within. Around this time I also read On the Road and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the first books that made me want to squeal with joy: “Drugs, drugs! They’re writing about drugs!”
I’ve since had my fill of drug-related literature (ok, maybe not), anyways that’s not why I took to reading Castaneda again a couple of years ago. Basically I read a few book excerpts sent to me by aforementioned internet friend and the shit blew my mind. Concepts like using the first and second attention and stopping the internal dialogue as a means to experience separate realities fascinated me. CC’s books were originally published as anthropological works, but are now generally agreed upon as fiction. I say if a “Weird Psychology” section existed at the bookstore, Castaneda’s works would help fill the shelves. Click here for a little example of Castaneda’s language and ideas, made manifest through the literary device of his Don Juan character.
Carlos Castaneda was a weird guy: ambitious, short, and bubbling over with charisma. That seems to describe so many of history’s fascinating men, now doesn’t it?! I’ve read varying personal accounts of him — some say he glowed with good vibes and oozed charm while others describe him as morally ambiguous and emotionally sadistic. I think he was a complicated man. He liked to fuck with people’s heads, and was apparently very good at it. So good in fact that he may have inspired several women of his inner circle (the “Witches,” as they were called) to commit suicide upon his death from cancer in 1998.
It’s hard to dig up much solid info on Castaneda because in 1973 he withdrew from public view to shack up with his Witches in a large home in West Los Angeles. Nary a picture exists of him, as he was all about “erasing personal history” and refused to let photos be taken of him after a certain point in his life. The following Salon.com article is the best I’ve found thus far on Castaneda, his shady life and the Witches who may have joined him upon his departure from this earthly plane. Enjoy:
The Dark Legacy of Carlos Castaneda
(one of the few pics that exist of Castaneda)
PS: It’s kind of weird the first time you access the Salon site. Bypass any opening Flash sequences, then click this link again if necessary. It’s a great, juicy article and worth the trouble!
June 23rd, 2008 by Gnat
Alone with your laptop and bored of internet porn? Here are a few swell PDF’s for your perusing pleasure:
June 22nd, 2008 by Gnat
I think I fixed the comments feature, so you all should be able to comment successfully now. Someone please try to leave a comment so I can debug, thanks!
June 20th, 2008 by Gnat
What a quote:
“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”
June 19th, 2008 by Gnat
I LOVED all things Sid and Marty Krofft as a kiddo, so naturally the following clip is one of my faves. “I declare this pizza to be AWESOME!” Effin’ brilliant if you ask me:
June 19th, 2008 by Gnat
I saw the most amazing program on the National Geographic channel last night. It was part of their Taboo series (which is often a bit too gory for even me to stomach), and this particular episode was on taboo jobs. Half the show focused on a company, simply called Crime Scene Cleaners, who do just that. These are the people you call if you are a landlord and some poor soul tops him/herself on your property and isn’t discovered for days, or if one of your loved ones shuffles off his/her mortal coil in an unsightly, unexpected way and you are left to pick up the pieces. Don’t snicker, because each and every one of us could be faced with a situation like this at some point in our lives. Obviously cleaning up after the messy death of a loved one is far too much to bear for most folks. That’s why these professionals exist — they possess the inner strength, tenacity, healthy spiritual foundation and necessary level of detachment to complete some damn horrific tasks. For example, part of last night’s episode showed the attention to detail required by one professional when cleaning and decontaminating the wheels of a subway car, under which someone had hurled himself.
The owner of Crime Scene Cleaners, based out of San Antonio, was interviewed several times during the course of the episode. I was blown away by this man’s almost militant “just do it” attitude. Some might consider his outlook insensitive, but I was impressed by his no-nonsense stance. He commented that humor was one coping mechanism which proved absolutely necessary when working in his field. He also poignantly posed that his company isn’t in the business of cleaning up entities, but just what is left behind of them when they go. See? There’s that healthy spiritual foundation and necessary detachment at work.
I was especially taken by this man’s comment that “cleaning fat Joe up off the couch is a whole different story than cleaning Bambi up off the side of the road.” See, we humans put lots of crap in our bodies that can render us little more than a steaming heap of toxic waste after we die. Yuck. This notion got me to thinking about eating better and living healthier — not only will doing so benefit me while I’m alive, but it may even reduce my carbon footprint upon the planet after I’m gone. Hows about that for living (and dying) “green”?
June 18th, 2008 by Gnat
Jellyfish — brainless, boneless, venomous and sometimes luminous creatures composed of 98% water. WEIRD AS SHIT LOOKING. According to the brilliant (!) Rigorous Intuition blog, jellyfish are creatures so fluid and phantom-like they might be considered “almost entirely not there.” Guess what? These watery, tentacled ghosts are multiplying at a damn scary rate. Due to overfishing and global climate change, jellyfish have begun to reproduce in record numbers in oceans around the planet. I had read about this phenomenon a while back, but an article I read today on the subject brought the mysterious jellyfish back into my consciousness.
I have never been stung by one of these fuckers (knock on wood), but as a youth in the Houston area I knew friends who hadn’t been so lucky while swimming in the tar-infested, lukewarm gulf waters of Galveston. Helpful hint: both meat tenderizer and urine are known to help ease the pain of the scorching rash produced by a jellyfish sting. So if you get stung and don’t have any meat tenderizer handy at the beach, get your buddy to pee on you. No lie.
Because they look so psychedelic, I wish jellyfish were more benevolent entities. I want them to be angelic sea creatures of grace, beauty and mystery. Instead they are much more ominous, their recent proliferation of the planet’s oceans a warning signal of some larger global disaster yet to come. That’s really all I have to say on the subject for now, because the aforementioned RI post concerning these watery beasties has already mined the best jellyfish metaphors. I will, however, leave you with this H.P. Lovecraft quote, also borrowed from Rigorous Intuition:
“Foremost among the living objects were inky, jellyfish monstrosities which flabbily quivered in harmony with the vibrations from the machine. They were present in loathsome profusion, and I saw to my horror that they overlapped…. (Lovecraft, From Beyond)”
Sweet dreams and happy swimming, friends.
June 5th, 2008 by Gnat
If you haven’t seen this vintage Butthole Surfers short film, you’ll either stone or thank me for thrusting the twisted brilliance upon yr virgin eyeballs. Thanks to the miracle of Youtube, Entering Texas is no longer out of circulation. Enjoy:
June 5th, 2008 by Gnat
I’m coming off a string of a few weeks of not feeling great, thus haven’t been posting lately. There has been little more than psychic sewage, it seems, in my brain as of late. But I feel things in my body and brain are now stirring up again, so let’s hope I can shake off the shackles of resistance and write more soon. In the meantime, I thought it would be fruitful and mildly entertaining to post a handful of great links I’ve come across while mining the Internets (mostly while bored/procrastinating at work). Begin:
