Author Archives for Jay Babcock

WHAT TO DO IF YOU SEE REPUBLICANS STEALING THE ELECTION TODAY

We get emails:

Dear Arthur gang,

The NYTimes says some black folks are worried they won’t be able to vote, or their votes won’t be counted.

Meanwhile, Drudge is saying there’s been TV reports of an uptick for gun purchases in Florida in recent days.

What should I do if I see Republicans stealing the election for McCain on Tuesday?

Ronald B. Quirkenstaff
Jacksonville, Florida

Arthur Magazine’s Washington, DC bureau chief Chris Grier replies:

Ron,

Document everything with photos. If they object, inform them in no uncertain terms that the law allows you to photograph anyone doing anything in public without their consent. And if they try to seize yr camera/phone/device, let them know they’ll be arrested for felony theft. Having been a journalist, part of that time in Florida, I can tell you that’s the law. Take a deep breath, sack up, and stand yr ground.

(That also includes law-enforcement, no matter what they tell you. You may photograph them in public, at will. And if they try to seize yr camera? Tell them you’ll swear out an affidavit charging them with malfeasance. And then hit the phonebook for an attorney for a civil suit.)

Then SMS or upload the photos to yr email account, and get in touch with federal prosecutors immediately. For Jacksonville, that’s Thomas Kirwin’s office. You can get an Asst. U.S. Attorney in his office by calling the main office, (850)942-8430 in Tallahassee, or (352)378-0996 in Gainesville, which is closer to you.

(No matter where you live in the U.S., you can find the neaest federal prosecutor’s office here: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/offices/index.html)

Maybe get a $9 pack of T-shirt-iron-on paper at the office-supplies store and print yrself a T-shirt that says “STEALING THE ELECTION? I’M WATCHING YOU.”

All of Florida’s voting machines use a new optical-scan system. That means no more “hanging chads,” which is good, but there is enormous potential for hacking. Florida uses four different machines. One of them is the Premier Election Solutions Accuvote, which notoriously dropped 16,000 votes for Gore in yr state’s own Volusia County. Premier Election Solutions is merely what Diebold’s voting-machine division rebranded itself last year. And Diebold’s chief exec, lest we forget, was a top fund-raiser for George W. Bush.

Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer science professor and technical director of the Information Security Institute, says the source code used in the Diebold “is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts.”

So yes, you have reason to worry. If these machines are in use in yr county, you won’t see evil henchmen scurrying to the Dumpster to dump paper ballots in the trash. If anything goes down, it likely happened already: Some scum-nerd rewrote the source code to dump Democrats’ votes into the big nada. Look for evidence of evil hijinx after the fact — like big discrepancies between exit polling data and reported countywide vote tallies. And then make sure somebody is filing suit, quickly, to seize the machines and pick apart the guts.

Of course, there are other, cruder, possibilities. If gun-wielding Bitters are roaming around keeping longhairs and people of color away from the polls, it’s going to be a horrible shit-show and we’re all gonna hear about it. In that case, google all of Dave Reeves’ tips for heading for the hills/getting the hell out of Dodge until it blows over.

Hang tough, stay safe,
cg

LYNDA BARRY: "From 'loner' to 'glitter-covered ham' in less than an hour."

The Olympian – November 03, 2008

Author Lynda Barry sets visions free
by Molly Gilmore

Cartoonist and writer Lynda Barry, an alumna of The Evergreen State College, will return to Olympia on Wednesday to promote a new book.

Barry, who now lives on a dairy farm near Footeville, Wis., is on tour for “What It Is.” She’s best-known for “Ernie Pook’s Comeek,” which was first published in the Cooper Point Journal in Olympia.

Who was responsible for that? “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening, then editor of the Cooper Point Journal.

In advance of her appearance at Evergreen, Barry agreed to an interview via e-mail. (She refuses to use the phone “unless absolutely necessary.”) She talked about her book, her comics, her days at Evergreen – and her new passion, fighting wind turbines.

Question: Why do you avoid the phone?

Answer: I’ve always gotten a sick feeling when the phone rang, ever since I was a kid. Some of my earliest memories are of being right there when especially horrible news came via the telephone. It’s the first time I remember seeing my parents crying really hard and looking out of control and that scared me pretty badly. So the phone has always seemed like a possible monster to me.

But I loved trying to win radio dial-in contests for tickets to concerts or movies. I won our Thanksgiving turkey five years in a row from the radio station. They’d play a turkey gobble right in the middle of a song, and when you heard it you had to be the fifth caller. Actually, a turkey gobble going off in the middle of a pop song is a good idea any time of year.

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GRANT MORRISON: "Let’s have some ‘fuck you’ positivity!"

From a new interview with Arthur No. 12 cover star GRANT MORRISON, over at Newsarama:

“In today’s world, in today’s media climate designed to foster the fear our leaders like us to feel because it makes us easier to push around… In a world where limp, wimpy men are forced to talk tough and act ‘badass’ even though we all know they’re shitting it inside… In a world where the measure of our moral strength has come to lie in the extremity of the images we’re able to look at and stomach… In a world, I’m reliably told, that’s going to the dogs, the real mischief, the real punk rock rebellion, is a snarling, ‘fuck you’ positivity and optimism. Violent optimism in the face of all evidence to the contrary is the Alpha form of outrage these days. It really freaks people out.
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Nathaniel Mayer RIP

From Sunday, November 2, 2008 Detroit News

Nathaniel Mayer’s tenor voice added spark to blues
by Susan Whitall / Detroit News Music Writer

Detroit music suffered another loss Saturday with the death of Nathaniel Mayer, one of the liveliest singers to come out of the city’s legendary rhythm and blues scene of the ’50s and ’60s.

In his 64 years, Mayer suffered more dramatic ups and downs than most. He was just 18 when he and the Fabulous Twilights scored a Top 40 national hit, “Village of Love,” on Fortune Records, a Detroit label.

Drop the needle and Mayer’s voice erupts in a tenor howl, “Why don’t you come, come to the village of love…” Three minutes of raw excitement, the record is a party immortalized in vinyl and can still be heard on XM Satellite Radio’s ’50s and ’60s channels.

But after “Leave Me Alone” and other follow-up records weren’t as successful, Mayer disappeared into Detroit’s gritty east side and a life of obscure hardship for decades. It didn’t help that Fortune Records’ catalog was never officially released on CD; only bootleg CDs recorded from old records were available.

During his years off the grid, the Detroit Cobras recorded a cover version of “Village of Love” (in the mid-’90’s), but Mayer was unaware of how much he was remembered or admired.

Fans like Detroit music historian S.R. Boland hadn’t forgotten him. Boland, who sometimes sang backup for Mayer, was instrumental in getting the singer to make a comeback, performing at a “Legends” show at the Millennium Theatre in Southfield in 2000.

Immaculate in white tails, thin as a whippet, Mayer gave an explosive performance. His voice was raspier but still a potent, tenor shriek, and the 60-year-old danced like James Brown in his prime, as if his life depended on it. In a way, it did.

In 2004, the national blues record company Fat Possum, which specializes in reviving the careers of blues and R&B greats, released an album, “I Just Want to be Held,” by Mayer.

He also made several acclaimed appearances at the Ponderosa Stomp roots music festival in New Orleans.

It seemed as if finally, Nathaniel Mayer’s story would have a happy ending.

But on April 13, he suffered a series of strokes, forcing the cancellation of his annual appearance at the Ponderosa Stomp.

“Every day is a miracle,” his daughter Bonnie Thompson told The Detroit News in April. “He’s more alert now, and he’s trying to speak, giving people eye contact. He can talk a little bit, but you have to get up real close. He’s trying.”

But after battling complications for months in a Detroit nursing home, his frantic energy stilled, Mayer finally succumbed Saturday.

Several weeks ago, a group of musicians led by his friend and sometime bandmate Jeff Meier announced a fundraiser Nov. 30 for their friend “Nay-dog” at the Northern Lights Lounge on Baltimore in Detroit’s New Center.

The original intent was to get Mayer better rehabilitation care, but the fundraiser will still go on as a tribute, to offset funeral expenses, with Black Merda, Gino Washington, Kenny Martin, Cody Black and others performing.

Mayer was a student at Detroit’s Eastern High School when he first walked into Fortune Records in Detroit.

Fortune was located in a tiny, ramshackle building on Third, but nonetheless had produced a string of hit records by a roster of hillbilly and R&B artists. Most notable were Nolan Strong and the Diablos (“The Wind” and the later “Mind Over Matter”) and Andre Williams (“Bacon Fat” and “Jail Bait.”)

As funky and obscure as Fortune was, its artists were revered; Motown’s Berry Gordy Jr. tried repeatedly to hire Strong away from the Browns, and he did manage to get Williams on his payroll to produce, and groom Motown acts for live performance.

Anyone could come in to Fortune Records and pay Jack and Devora Brown to wax a record, and that’s what Mayer had in mind, until Devora heard his frantic tenor delivery and decided he had hit record potential.

“Village of Love” was successful in part because the Browns licensed it to United Artists, which had national distribution, but when Mayer followed up his hit with “Leave Me Alone” the Browns tried to handle the record on their own, and his career faltered.

Disappointed, Mayer departed Fortune.

Mayer’s other recent recordings include “I Don’t Want No Bald-Headed Woman (Telling Me What to Do),” a single produced by his friend Gino Washington and finally released by Norton Records, and the 2007 album “Why Don’t You Give it to Me,” on Alive [which was enthusiastically reviewed by Julian Cope in Arthur No. 30].

This year the Spanish record company Munster released some of his older recordings as well.

“I think he did feel vindicated,” said Meier, who started out as a fan and ended up in Mayer’s band.

“He enjoyed the last few years of renewed success. Sitting in Detroit without access to a computer for years, it blew his mind to find out there was so much love out there for him.”

Mayer was preceded in death by his mother, father and a sister. He is survived by three sisters, two brothers and many children and grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Nathaniel Mayer Feb. 10, 1944 — Nov. 1, 2008

TONIGHT (SUNDAY): HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS DOC DVD RELEASE PARTY WITH PETER STAMPFEL AND THE ETHER FROLIC MOB

Sunday, November 2 at 8:00PM  
$10 cover
at Jalopy

“The Holy Modal Rounders… Bound to Lose” DVD Release Party
And The Live Debut Of Peter Stampfel and the Ether Frolic Mob

There Will Be a Raffle and Complimentary Sweets Provided by Margaret Palca Bakes!

On October 28th Carnivalesqe Films will release “The Holy Modal Rounders… Bound to Lose” on DVD. In honor of this event Jalopy will host a performance by Peter Stampfel and the Ether Frolic Mob, a rotating band of Peter’s friends.

This show will feature Peter and John Cohen, Annabelle Lee, Jean Scofield, Eli Smith, Hubby Jenkins, Aya Yamamoto and Jane Gilday.

“Ether Frolic refers to the time in the the 19th century when people would inhale ether on stage and carrying on in a manner not common to 19th century behavioral norms. Audience participation was encouraged. Sort of an old-timey Acid Test. Peter also chose Ether Frolic in an ironic sense, because I was given what I later found out was an overdose of ether for a tonsillectomy in Minnesota in 1945. This remains the single most painful and terrifying experience of my life. I knew beforehand that something truly awful was going to happen, but tried to be brave. My last words before they clamped the rubber ether mask on my 6 year old face was, ‘This is the life.'”

Jalopy
315 Columbia Street
Brooklyn, New York 11231
718.395.3214

GRANT MORRISON on religion, holistic consciousness and contact/upgrade with the timeless supermind

From a new interview with Arthur No. 12 cover star GRANT MORRISON, over at Newsarama:

“I think religion per se, is a ghastly blight on the progress of the human species towards the stars. At the same time, it, or something like it, has been an undeniable source of comfort, meaning and hope for the majority of poor bastards who have ever lived on Earth, so I’m not trying to write it off completely. I just wish that more people were educated to a standard where they could understand what religion is and how it works. Yes, it got us through the night for a while, but ultimately, it’s one of those ugly, stupid arse–over–backwards things we could probably do without now, here on the Planet of the Apes.

“Religion is to spirituality what porn is to sex. It’s what the Hollywood 3–act story template is to real creative writing.

“Religion creates a structure which places ‘special,’ privileged people (priests) between ordinary people and the divine, as if there could even be any separation: as if every moment, every thought, every action was not already an expression of dynamic ‘divinity’ at work.

“As I’ve said before, the solid world is just the part of heaven we’re privileged to touch and play with. You don’t need a priest or a holy man to talk to ‘god’ on your behalf–just close your eyes and say hello. ‘god’ is no more, no less, than the sum total of all matter, all energy, all consciousness, as experienced or conceptualized from a timeless perspective where everything ever seems to present all at once. ‘God’ is in everything, all the time and can be found there by looking carefully. The entire universe, including the scary, evil bits, is a thought ‘God’ is thinking, right now.

“As far as I can figure it out from my own reading and my own experience of how the spiritual world works, Jesus was, as they say, way cool: a man who achieved a state of consciousness, which nowadays would get him a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy (in the days of the Emperor Tiberius, he was crucified for his ideas; today he’d be laughed at, mocked or medicated).

“This ‘holistic’ mode of consciousness…announces itself as a heartbreaking connection, a oneness, with everything that exists… There are a ton of meditation techniques which can take you to this place. I don’t see it as anything supernatural or religious, in fact, I think it’s nothing more than a developmental level of human consciousness, like the ability to see perspective – which children of 4 cannot do but children of 6 can.

“Everyone who’s familiar with this upgrade will tell you the same thing: it feels as if ‘alien’ or ‘angelic’ voices – far more intelligent, coherent and kindly than the voices you normally hear in your head – are explaining the structure of time and space and your place in it.

“This identification with a timeless supermind containing and resolving within itself all possible thoughts and contradictions, is what many people, unsurprisingly, mistake for an encounter with ‘God.’ However, given that this totality must logically include and resolve all possible thoughts and concepts, it can also be interpreted as an actual encounter with God, so I’m not here to give anyone a hard time over interpretation.

“Some people have the experience and believe the God of their particular culture has chosen them personally to have a chat with. These people may become born–again Christians, fundamentalist Muslims, devotees of Shiva, or misunderstood lunatics.

“Some ‘contactees’ interpret the voices they hear erroneously as communications from an otherworldly, alien intelligence, hence the proliferation of ‘abduction’ accounts in recent decades, which share most of their basic details with similar accounts, from earlier centuries, of people being taken away by ‘fairies’ or ‘little people.’

“Some, who like to describe themselves as magicians, will recognize the ‘alien’ voice as the ‘Holy Guardian Angel.’

“In timeless, spaceless consciousness, the singular human mind blurs into a direct experience of the totality of all consciousness that has ever been or will ever be. It feels like talking with God but I see that as an aspect of science, not religion.

“As Peter Barnes wrote in ‘The Ruling Class’, ‘I know I must be God because when I pray to Him, I find I’m talking to myself.'”