Crazy Evel is dead! Long live Evel!

Evel strapped into the X-1 Skycyle prior to his Snake River debacle

Evel Knievel passed away yesterday at the age of 69.

Even if you didn't buy into his particular brand of insanity (he set a world record for breaking 40 bones during the course of his career) you had to admire the man's ambition and stick-to-itivness; for instance, his attempt to leap the freaking Snake River on a rocket-powered motorcycle when he could barely walk without crutches. Yikes.

Rest in peace, Rocket Man.



current-events

This loathsome campaign

The Parade of Fools

If, for some bizarre reason bordering on insanity, your pay grade or your corporate affiliation you were forced to watch the Republican presidential debate from St Petersburg, Florida last night, well, I pity you and pray for your swift recovery.

The collection of batshit crazy fucks on display on that stage defies probability as well as the power of words to describe adequately the unclean crapper that the Republican Party has become, but there they were anyway.

I won't waste your time repeating the filth that they were spouting, but I do want to pass along something from the only borderline sane old white man on that stage that night: John McCain.

Objecting to some rather bizarre assertions by Gov Mitt Romney about Mitt's non-position on torture, McCain emerged from his stupor long enough to blurt out some rather heart-felt words on the subject, to wit:

"Then I am astonished that you would think such a -- such a torture would be inflicted on anyone in our -- who we are held captive and anyone could believe that that's not torture. It's in violation of the Geneva Convention. It's in violation of existing law. And, governor, let me tell you, if we're going to get the high ground in this world and we're going to be the America that we have cherished and loved for more than 200 years, we're not going to torture people. We're not going to do what Pol Pot did. We're not going to do what's being done to Burmese monks as we speak.

"I suggest that you talk to retired military officers and active duty military officers like Colin Powell and others, and how in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted by Americans on people who are held in our custody is absolutely beyond me."

Regardless, nobody but nobody in any campaign is talking about shit like this or this from our oil buddies.


current-events

Love, Insanity & Hope on the Internet

How many personalities does this guy have?

George Partington: Where do you get your faith in the public and in democracy?

Chris Locke: I'm a little wary of invoking democracy maybe, but I guess that's what it is. I think that through this medium more than anything else has enabled me to connect with people. As I was saying a few minutes ago, here's EGR, this zine where I am screaming and yelling and being as nuts as I can and people are sharing with me stuff about children dying and divorces and heartbreak and joy and elation. I've had more connection with people at a human level through this medium. I just wouldn't have connected to the world in the same way. You bang around your hometown, you run into people, it's all kind of anonymous.

Something else gets surfaced in a certain kind of exchange over networks. You can look at the American public from one point of view and say, "God, they are so stupid. All these people, they're fucking sheep." And then something happens like 9-11 and some amazing heart and intelligence surfaces out of that same group of people. I think it is suppressed by broadcast. I think broadcast has been a self-fulfilling prophecy of people are sheep, if you don't tell them what to do they are not gonna....In other words, the experiment of democracy, which is few hundred years old, is still very much an experiment and it wasn't fully trusted by the founders which is why we have an electoral college for instance. It is largely not trusted. We are so far from democracy in this country. It is run by focus groups and lobbyists.

GP: That's how I feel. It would be nice if it (democracy) were tried.

CL: It would be nice if somebody tried it. And it is dangerous because... ya know power and control and command and all those things would be up for grabs. I understand the terror. On the other hand, what we've got is an oligarchy where nobody knows who is making what decisions for what reasons, and it's all in the background in closed rooms with money changing hands. I think people are capable of incredible stupidity, but at the same time there is intelligence, there's heart, there's something in people that longs for expression and connection.

GP: Well if you're honest with yourself, you know you can be pretty stupid too. You have potential for everything in there.

CL: Right. Yeah. But I think on both sides of the spectrum...we can see incredible evil from people, which we've seen recently. But there is something else. That good thing, the potential that human beings have for interest and caring and love and connection and enthusiasm. All those kinds of human qualities are not valued by corporations that value the world in terms of how much profit can we make off it.

And because they have had, up until now, control of the passes, control of what Marx called the means of communication, they could make human values appear to be trivial or non-existent. And the network is resurfacing those values in a way that corporations and the financial world cannot control. And it represents a huge challenge because, well how are we going to lock that back in and leverage that to the betterment to the brand. Well I think it is increasingly obvious to the market that that kind of manipulation is not only cynical but it is approaching...there are companies now saying now that we've all wept over terrorist events...your way of fighting terrorism is to buy a Taurus. Well that is beyond cynical. And it might have been missed in previous times. It is not gonna be missed this time around. I think people talk about that stuff and say, "Jesus Christ, this is really beyond sleazy."


Excerpted from an interview with Chris Locke, AKA "Rageboy." Said author is presently engaged in grinding out a caustic blog/book/screed attempting to get a grip on the present sad state of American culture and thought control at his entertaining, enlightening and frequently infuriating blog, Mystic Bourgeoisie.

current-events