A Modest Proposal....

Given that both American political parties, and perhaps capitalism itself is utterly discredited, perhaps it is time to move towards a new type of political thinking, or in this case reviving and fine tuning one from the past that went a bit off the rails. The SPK (Socialist Patients Collective or sozialistschen Patienten kollektiven in it's native German language) is the only political party that ever made sense to me.

The SPK members were mental patients recruited from the Psychiatric Neurological Clinic of Heidelberg University by Dr. Wolfgang Huber who politicized them and sent them out to fight the good fight. They soon joined forces with the Red Army Faction (better known as the Baader-Meinhof Group) and became known as the nut wing of that movement.

A bit of background for the unfamiliar, the Baader-Meinhof group were a hardcore

left wing political action group with a fairly incomprehensible philosophy (big deal,

isn't all political thought incomprehensible to a reasonable human?) formed in West Germany in 1970 by Andreas Baader (pictured above with his brains splattered across the floor of his prison cell), Gudren Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, Holger Meins (who would die after a long hunger strike in prison), Jan-Carl Raspe, and would soon include a respected German journalist Ulrike Meinhof among it's dozens of members. They took to the streets, targeting ex-Nazis and representatives of American imperialism in an orgy of arson, murder and kidnapping. They would make world headlines by hijacking a jet (in collaboration with PLO), bombing American military bases in Germany and the murder and kidnapping of many West German industrialists who had been Nazis in WWII. More on the Baader-Meinhof group can be found here.

Dr. Huber's theory was that the pressures and hypocrisy inherent in capitalist society is enough to make a sane person nuts. How'd you think I got this way? I was the smartest kid in my school until sixth grade when I was proclaimed a delinquent by teachers and school administration, and I've had to live on the borders of society ever since. Huber was onto something, something we need to look into and fine tune into a real workable political theory.

The SPK itself didn't work out too good. On April 24, 1975 SPK members seized the German embassy in Stockholm, Sweden and demanded the release of RAF/SPK members imprisoned in Germany. They made a mess of the action, one members blew his own leg off mishandling a bomb and the police were soon in control of the ground floor of the embassy. A blood bath ensued. The SPK might not have accomplished anything but you gotta love their moxie.

It's not just mental patients who need an organized political action group like the SPK but anyone with medical problems (meaning all of us as some time in their lives).

As one who carries an incurable and life threatening liver disease (hepatitis c) I can attest to the corruption and incompetence of the medical establishment. Dealing with doctors who refuse to diagnose, hospitals staffed by morons and insurance companies run by thieves and liars is enough to send anyone into a blind rage. After eighteen months of mis-diagnoses and apathy I've been told there's little that can be done for my condition. But I should come back every six weeks for more testing so they can keep billing me and my insurance company (which tries to deny every claim). Had I never gone to a doctor at all, nothing in my life would have been any different. Except I'd have many thousands of dollars lying around that now lines their pockets. I'm left to sit and wait for my liver to rot, and ponder my revenge.....

The Hound Saves Capitalism!

As the House Of Non-Representatives leans towards passing the 700 billion dollar Wall Street bail out, now swollen to nearly 900 with all the extra pork that had to go into buying off the Reagan ideologues and the Democrats who understandably don't trust the bankers, we ask ourselves, what kind of idiot would trust these greedy pigs with all that money? They are obviously going to take a huge chunk of that cheese and line their own pockets. These are the same creeps that got us in this mess.

There is another way, it took me five minutes of thinking to come up with it. Here's my economic bail out plan. Take the 700 billion and whack it up between all 250 million American citizens, that gives each person roughly $4,100. Each person must sign a promissory note to keep the money in a savings account for at least six months.

That gives the banks a huge influx of cash and some time to get themselves solvent.

That will be followed by most people taking the money and buying shit with it, money that will be directly injected into the economy, like a good fix of smack. Because as Americans that's what we are programed from birth to do-- buy shit. This will provide cash for retailers, jobs, etc. Western capitalism is saved. You're welcome.

The above photo is of Mr. Samuels Tire Re-Capping place on St. Claude Ave in New Orleans (pre-Katrina), also where we shot Andre Williams' Bait & Switch (Norton)

album cover.

As a soundtrack to the above rant may I suggest this little nugget from Jerry Lee Lewis & the Nashville Teens captured live (and on a thousand prellies) at Hamburg's Star Club circa 1963: Money.

Also, pertaining to yesterday's Jerry Lewis post, here's the x-rated out take of the radio spot for The Caddy courtesy of the ever indispensable Brian Redman. Haven't you always wanted to hear both Jerry Lewis and  Dean Martin say cocksucker?  

The King Of Comedy

Jerry Lewis is an amazing guy. Anyone who has seen the original version of the Nutty Professor can attest to that. I won't make any French jokes here, I've always been treated well in France.  Check out this phone conversation taped by Mr. Lewis himself (here). Some asshole politician is trying to get Lewis to recognize one of his campaign

contributors from the stage that night, he thinks he has Lewis' assistant on the phone but it's obviously Jerry himself.  A more hateful and hysterical six minutes would be hard to find.

There's also the x-rated reading of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin's radio spot for the Caddy, I can't pinpoint it on any old aircheck but it's somewhere on either of these pages (these are radio shows I did w/Nitro Nick Tosches as special guest, I think the first one is more likely to have the Caddy on it, unfortunately it's bleeped for airplay, try here or  here).  I love the way he pronounces grease ball.

My favorite story about Jerry Lewis concerns a film that was never finished called The Day The Clown That Cried.  Lewis (who also wrote and was set to direct) was to play a clown who led the little children in a Nazi concentration camp happily to their deaths in the gas chambers. After several days of filming the financing fell through and the set was shut down. Lewis tried for years to finish the film and had the negative of the existing footage in a steamer trunk that he never let out of his sight. I once saw him at a book signing to promote Jerry Lewis In Person and a flunky was struggling with the trunk following Lewis and his entourage. I'd like to have a go at  making that film today with Michael Jackson in the clown role. Somebody get Scott Rudin on the phone.

ADDENDUM: A good bio of the historical John Joel Glanton, scalp  hunter and prairie rouge, can be found here. William Goetzman has an entire website devoted to

Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession including audio and some of Chamberlain's artwork (this all relates to the post concerning Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian posted in September).

Turner Classic Movies and why I never leave the house....

Turner Classic Movies will be showing Godard's Contempt featuring Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang (pictured above w/snazzy monacle) on Oct 5th @ 2 AM EST, set your Tivo (or as my cable company calls it DVR). They'll also be showing a Todd Browning triple feature of Mark Of The Vampire/Freaks/Devil Doll on Halloween which is a bit of a disappointment as they're the easiest Browning films to see. Last year they showed the silent versions of West Of Zanzibar (which William Cohn remade in 1932 as Kongo with Walter Huston in the Lon Chaney role as Phroso "Dead Legs", perhaps the most chilling character in film history, TCM is showing Kongo Mon, Oct 20th @ 6 AM EST). and the Unholy Three (remade in 1930 as a talkie by Jack Conway, it was Lon Chaney's only speaking role). Mr. Browning is pictured above second from the right (it's from a snapshot the wife found). Browning started out as a carny and entered the world of film through his old Louisville pal D.W. Griffith serving as the assistant director on Intolerance. Browning directed sixty two films (found here). He was also a writer, producer, actor, and sport. He made his last film in 1939 and was shunned by the industry until his death in '62. Another oddball TCM double feature coming up is Tim Carey's The World's Greatest Sinner followed by Frank Zappa's 200 Motels (starring Ringo Starr as Zappa) which I haven't seen since I saw it at Ft. Lauderdale's seven screen Thunderbird Drive In in 1971. They're running on Friday, Oct. 24, starting @ 2 AM EST. The Carey flick is truly unique, I lack the words to do it justice. Zappa and the Mothers recorded the theme song as Baby Ray & the Ferns and it was issued on Donna (a Del-Fi subsidiary), it's easily his best record. You can hear it here. The flip side is called How's Your Bird. Both tunes feature Zappa's best Johnny Guitar Watson impersonations. On Oct. 30 @ 1- PM EST they're showing Freddie Francis' Torture Garden with Jack Palance, Burgess Meredith and Peter Cushing. Hoo-boy, that's a good one. Too bad they're not following it with Edmund Goulding's Nightmare Alley, although that Tyronne Power classic (produced by George Jessel, who also owned the exclusive U.S. rights to the Scopitone machine) seems to be shown weekly on the Fox Movie Channel. If you can find William Lindsey Gresham's original novel it's even better than the movie. A few updates. A few days after my post concerning Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian a curious item arrived in the mail. A Reader's Guide To Blood Meridian by Shane Schimpf. It's basically a set of footnotes for a proposed annotated volume of Blood Meridian which of course Mr. McCarthy vetoed. It's quite interesting and there's a few bibliographical sources that were new to me. I'm currently on the hunt for the fall 1962 issue of The Smoke Signal which features an article called "John Joel Glanton, Lord Of The Scalp Range". Anybody out there have a copy they can xerox for me? The only problem with A Reader's Guide.... is that it seems Mr. Schimpf doesn't speak Spanish, and many of McCarthy's sources were from Spanish documents that have never been translated into English. Que lo hace incompleto. Para decir lo menos. The bass player in the Ike Chalmers video clip is Matt Fiveash. He claims he met me and I was talking in a Bostonian accent and pretending to be from Boston. That doesn't sound like me and I don't remember it. Matt, there's photos of me in the Aug. Kelly Keller postings and on Eric Ambel's Knucklehead NYC site if you want to check. I'm still looking for a copy of a Hound WFMU air check from May '96 with Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain as special guests and will trade something nice it.

A Thought For The Day From Woody Guthrie

Just got back from a week in Nova Scotia, a couple of days in Halifax and the rest deep in the woods. I like Canada, it's like the white parts of the U.S. if Jimmy Carter was still president. Didn't find too many records (a Soul Stirrers album I didn't have, a Sister Rosetta Tharpe LP, and a copy of Jackie Wilson's Baby Workout LP to replace the one I traded away a couple of months ago), but our rent a car soon grew a huge library of cheap used books. I returned to find NYC (and much of the world for that matter) teetering on the edge of economic collapse. I predicted this all two years ago, ask my wife. How is it a brain dead deadbeat like me knew this and the people who run everything didn't? Not a good sign, not at all. We can safely say the worst people are running everything. It's hard not to feel a touch of schadenfreude seeing these Wall Street morons walking around with their tails between their legs. Which brings us to my favorite Woody Guthrie song. Let's face it, New York worked better when the Mafia ran things. As one old timer told me-- "Frank Costello was the best mayor this town ever had". I concur. I'll try and post more tomorrow or Thursday of this week. And on a more interesting subject.

Ike Rocks The House

This is little Ike Chalmers, the coolest kid I've seen in my life. His parents are Jon Chalmers (Church Keys, Sato & Johnny) and Masayo (Plungers, Sato & Johnny). If there was ever a natural it's this little duffer. Playing behind him are Jon Chalmers and Dave Lindsay (of Ff and Purple Wizard, not visible) on guitars, Doug Dellefemine on drums, I don't know the bass players name. It was shot at the Bill Pietsch memorial at Freddie's Bar in Brooklyn, Sep. 21, 2008.

Lost Crusaders: Wasted On Broken Wind....

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.