Category Archives for Uncategorized

"AN UTTER CONTEMPT FOR POWER."

More from The Independent…

‘An utter contempt for power’

“I think Thompson has remained a writer of significance because, essentially a satirist, he displayed utter contempt for power – political power, financial power, even showbiz juice,” wrote the novelist Paul Theroux in 2003.

And yesterday, as news of Thompson’s death emerged, this sentiment was echoed by others. “He may have died relatively young but he made up for it in quality if not quantity,” said Paul Krassner, the veteran radical journalist and one of Thompson’s editors.

Fun and insanity: the doctor in his own words

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough. – Opening to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1972, in which HST begins his “savage journey to the heart of the American dream”

We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers … Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls … not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked in a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can … – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

George W Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn’t vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today – and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? – Kingdom of Fear, 2003

At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles – a restless idealism on the one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other – that kept me going. – Paul Kemp, The Rum Diary, 1959, published 1998

The Edge … there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. – Hell’s Angels, 1965

I have learned a few tricks along the way, a few random skills and simple avoidance techniques- but mainly it has been luck, I think, and a keen attention to karma, along with my natural girlish charm. – Last paragraph of Kingdom of Fear, 2003

He shrugged. “Well, we don’t ask for nothin but the truth. Like I say, there’s not much good that you can write about us, but I don’t see where that gives people the right to just make up stuff … all this bullshit, hell, ain’t the truth bad enough for em?” – Hell’s Angels

To hell with Fun. I shit on the chest of Fun. Look what it did to Charles Manson. He had Too much fun – no doubt about that – so they put him away for life. – Kingdom of Fear

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me. – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

O Ghost, O Lost, Lost and Gone, O Ghost, come back again. – Kingdom of Fear

"I piss down the throats of these Nazis."

Hunter Thompson, November 2004:

“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us.

“No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?

“They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

“And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.”

COURTESY T. MOORE!

Steadman reflects — EXPANDED.

Hunter S. Thompson RIP: ‘I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn’t know I could commit suicide at any time’

As his creative collaborator and friend, Ralph Steadman remembers the author Hunter S Thompson, who has shot himself at the age of 67

22 February 2005 The Independent

Hunter said these words to me many years ago: “I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn’t know I could commit suicide at any time.” I knew he meant it. It wasn’t a case of if, but when. He didn’t reckon he would make it beyond 30 anyway, so he lived it all in the fast lane. There was no first, second, third and top gear in the car – just overdrive.

He was in a hurry. “Drive your stake into a darkened heart in a red Mercedes-Benz. The blackness hides a speeding tramp. The savage breast pretends. But never mind the nights, my love, because they never really happened anyway.”

So we wrote in a Beverly Hills house one drunken night. I wrote the stanzas, he wrote the chorus. “Don’t write, Ralph,” he said, “you’ll bring shame on your family.” “Those Weird and Twisted Nights.” That was the song.

On Sunday morning, I had just finished signing the 1,200 title pages for a limited-edition Taschen version of The Curse of LONO, which Hunter had signed so uncharacteristically – obedient and mechanical – over the month of December. I thought that was very strange. He has to be cajoled like a child to do anything like that, so I drew his portrait across the last sheet, glaring out, his two eyes in the two Os of LONO, put the cigarette holder with long Dunhill prodding upwards in his grimacing mouth, signed it with an extra flourish and closed the last of the four boxes. The old bastard! He waited to make sure I had finished the task. Then he signed himself off.

I knew it was too good to be true. Now I will be expected to build the monstrous cannon in Woody Creek, a 100ft-high column of steel tubes, with the big red fist on its top and his ashes placed in a fire bomb in its palm.

“Two thumbs, Ralph! Don’t forget the two thumbs!!” It was the Gonzo fist and he really believes I can do it! Such were his demands as he tipped at his windmills. People were fucking with his beloved Constitution and he was born to banish the geeks who were doing it. In that way he was a real live American. A pioneer, frontiersman, last of the cowboys, even a conservative redneck with a huge and raging mind, taking the easy way out and mythologising himself at the same time.

He spent a lot of his early years of rejection writing; verbatim excerpts from Hemingway, Faulkner and Conrad, trying to imagine what it was like to write some classic text. He could be very persuasive.

As a boy he was hired by the milkman to collect bills outstanding from the citizens of Louisville, Kentucky, but he was shunned by his neighbours and especially the literary establishment in the town, so he had a score to settle. I had only just arrived in America in late April of 1970, and was staying with a friend in the Hamptons to decompress. I got a call from JC Suares, art editor of Scanlan’s Magazine in New York. He said: “How’d ya like to go to the Kentucky Derby with an ex-Hell’s Angel who just shaved his head, and cover the race? His name is Hunter S Thompson and he wants an artist to nail the decadent, depraved faces of the local establishment who meet there. He doesn’t want a photographer. He wants something weird and we’ve seen your work.”

The editor, Don Goddard, had been the New York Times’ foreign editor and he thought I was na?Øve enough to take this on. I was looking for work – so I went. Finding Hunter – or indeed anyone covering the prestigious Kentucky Derby who is not a bona fide registered journalist – was no easy matter, and trying to explain my reasons for being there was even worse, especially as I was under the impression that this was an official trip and I was an accredited press man.

Why shouldn’t I think that? I assumed that Scanlan’s was an established magazine. I had been watching someone chalk racing results on a blackboard while I sipped a beer and I was about to turn and get myself another when a voice like no other I had ever heard cut into my thoughts and sank its teeth into my brain. It was a cross between a slurred karate chop and gritty molasses.

“Um-er, you-er wouldn’t be from England, er, would you-er? An artist maybe-er -what the …!”

I had turned around and two fierce eyes, firmly socketed inside a bullet-shaped head, were staring at a strange growth I was nurturing on the end of my chin. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “They said I was looking for a matted-haired geek with string warts and I guess I’ve found him.”

We took a beer together and sat in the press box. Somehow, he had got our accreditation and we were in. He asked me if I gambled and I said only once, in 1952. I put two shillings on Early Mist to win in the 1953 Grand National. And it did. I picked a horse but didn’t bet and it won so then I picked another, backed it with a dollar, and lost. “That’s why I don’t gamble,” I said.

“I thought you had been picked up,” he replied. “Picked up?” I didn’t quite understand. “Er, yes, the police here are pretty keen. They tend to take an interest in something different. The, er-um, the beard. Not many of them around these parts. Not these days anyway.”

I was beginning to take in the whole of the man’s appearance, and his was a little different too. Certainly not what I was expecting. No time-worn leather, shining with old sump oil. No manic tattoo across a bare upper arm and, strangely, no hint of menace. This man had an impressive head chiselled from one piece of bone and the top part was covered down to his eyes by a floppy brimmed sun-hat. His top half was draped in a loose-fitting hunting jacket of multicoloured patchwork. He wore seersucker blue pants and the whole torso was pivoted on a pair of huge white plimsolls with a fine red trim around the bulkheads. Damn near six foot six inches of solid bone and meat holding a beaten-up leather bag across his knee and a loaded cigarette holder between the arthritic fingers of his other hand.

Arthritis was to plague him all his life, as was the football knee-injury which left him with one leg shorter than the other, but it never truly encumbered his physical rage or his action-packed approach to a deep respect and love of writing – and righteousness.

We found the decadent, depraved faces of Louisville by the end of the first week we spent together. They were staring at us from a mirror in the gents’ toilet on the in-field, where the rest of the riff-raff, who are not eligible to stand in the privileged boxes of the chosen few, spent their time at the races, just like us.

We spent many assignments together, bucking the trend, against the cheats and liars, the bagmen and the cronies; me an alien from the old country and him raging against the coming of the light. “Fuck them, Ralph,” he would say, “we are not like the others.”

Well, he wasn’t anyway, but I was easily led. Before Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas we tried to cover the America’s Cup yacht race in Rhode Island for Scanlan’s (who were just about to go bust and get on to Richard Nixon’s blacklist) from a three-masted schooner. There was a rock band on board for distraction; booze and, for Hunter, whatever he was gobbling at the time. I was seasick and Hunter was fine. I asked him what he was taking and he gave me one. It was psilocybin [magic mushroom], a psychedelic hallucinogen, my first and only drug trip apart from Librium. I was the artist from England so I had a job to do. He handed me two spray-paint canisters. “What do I do with these?”

“You’re the artist, Ralph. Do what you want, but you must do it on the side of one of those multimillion-dollar yachts, moored hardly 50 yards away from where we are.”

“How about fuck the Pope?” I said, now seeing in my mind red snarling dogs attacking a musician singing at a piano dressed as a nun at a shore-bound bar. “Are you a Catholic, Ralph?”

“No,” I replied, “it’s just the first thing that came to mind.”

So that was the plan and we made it to the boats and I stood up in the little dinghy with the spray cans and shook them as one does. They made a clicking sound and alerted a guard. “We must flee, Ralph! There’ll be pigs everywhere. We have failed.” He pulled fiercely on the oars and fell backwards with legs in the air. He righted himself and started rowing again. We made it back to our boat and while I was gabbling insanely, he was writing down all the gibberish that I uttered. I was now a basket case and we had to get back to shore and flee. Hunter shot off two distress flares into the harbour and we hailed a boat just coming in. The flares set fire to one of the boats, causing an emergency fire rescue as we got to dry land. There’s more and I won’t go on, but I guess that was the genesis of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Such a wild game was possible, but it needed all the genius and application of Hunter S Thompson to make it live.

He has done that and he has proved that a redneck Southern gentleman who has the fire in his belly and the indignation in his soul can make it happen. I had the good fortune to meet one of the great originals of American literature. Maybe he is the Mark Twain of the late 20th century. Time will sort the bastard out. I have always known that one day I would know this journey, but yesterday, I did not know that it would be today.

I leave it to others more qualified than me to assess and appraise his monumental literary legacy.

COURTESY JOHN COULTHART

Traumatized soldiers on Ecstasy.

Ecstasy trials for combat stress

David Adam, science correspondent
Thursday February 17, 2005
The Guardian:

American soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares.

The US food and drug administration has given the go-ahead for the soldiers to be included in an experiment to see if MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, can treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

Scientists behind the trial in South Carolina think the feelings of emotional closeness reported by those taking the drug could help the soldiers talk about their experiences to therapists. Several victims of rape and sexual abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder, for whom existing treatments are ineffective, have been given MDMA since the research began last year.

Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist leading the trial, said: “It’s looking very promising. It’s too early to draw any conclusions but in these treatment-resistant people so far the results are encouraging.

“People are able to connect more deeply on an emotional level with the fact they are safe now.”

He is about to advertise for war veterans who fought in the last five years to join the study.

According to the US national centre for post-traumatic stress disorder, up to 30% of combat veterans suffer from the condition at some point in their lives.

Known as shell shock during the first world war and combat fatigue in the second, the condition is characterised by intrusive memories, panic attacks and the avoidance of situations which might force sufferers to relive their wartime experiences.

Dr Mithoefer said the MDMA helped people discuss traumatic situations without triggering anxiety.

“It appears to act as a catalyst to help people move through whatever’s been blocking their success in therapy.”

Continue reading →

Starting in the Middle of the Day, We Can Drink Our Politics Away

Matching Mole
Little Red Record
Columbia (COL 471488-2)
UK 1972

Dave McRae, Grahnd Piahno, electric piano, Hammond Organ; Robert Wyatt, drums, mouth; Phil Miller, guitars; Bill MaCormick, bass; with Brian Eno, synthesizer

Tracklist:
1. Starting in the Middle of the Day, We Can Drink Our Politics Away – 2:31
2. Marchides – 8:25
3. Nan True’s Hole – 3:36
4. Righteous Rhumba – 2:50
5. Brandy as in Benj – 4:24
6. Gloria Gloom – 8:06
7. God Song – 2:59
8. Flora Fidgit – 3:26
9. Smoke Signal – 6:37

From http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/display.php?rev=mm-lrr
Joe:
“The second Matching Mole studio album is generally considered to be the more consistent of the two they released. Also of interest, it was the album that introduced Robert Fripp (producer) to Brian Eno (guest synth player). The first song, “Starting in the Middle of the Day…” shows the craftier moments of the band, with frenetic piano lines from McRae bouncing off of Wyatt’s disguised vocals. “God Song” is a bit of socialist angst from Wyatt, played against a delicate acoustic guitar backdrop from Miller. Although a bit overdone in the lyrics department, at least it doesn’t take itself too seriously and truth be told, it does contain some witty lines. “Nan True’s Hole,” features the catchiest riff on the album (indeed, that’s pretty much all the song is) and a hilarious cameo from Alfreda Benge (Wyatt’s wife), who provides dual voices for a bewildered prostitute and her sheepish, 40-year old customer. “Marchides,” powered by Wyatt’s forceful drumming, seems taken straight from the Soft Machine engine, and will please those fans uncertain of exploring Wyatt’s post-Softs waters. Much of the rest of the album, however, doesn’t particularly stick with me, and mileage will vary for how much you can take of Wyatt’s lyrics. But besides that: da Komrade, da!”

Gary N:
“I’d only had the faint notion that Matching Mole was some kind of Soft Machine spinoff (the name being taken from the French for “Soft Machine”: Machine Molle), but didn’t realize the rest of the impressive genealogy until I stumbled upon this album (and also noticed it was produced by Robert Fripp). I was certainly not disappointed. As has been stated repeatedly elsewhere, this album was a marked change from their debut in that it was more of a band effort than their first release, which was commandeered almost entirely by Wyatt. The difference is… well, less Wyatt, and more instrumental input from everyone, resulting in a nice combination of spacey jazz and groovy jams, with Wyatt sticking to the skins more so than on their first. I actually gained quite an appreciation for his lyrics and voice, which hadn’t made as much an impression on me in Soft Machine, thanks to “God Song”, on which he lends his humorous philosophy to a quiet and somber tune by Phil Miller. For the most part, though, all members of the band shine brightly on this album, and the whole thing has a comfortable loose concept feel to it, applying wit and experimentation throughout with some great composition coupled with jamming by seasoned musicians.

Seance in the sixth fret…

From Perfect Sound Forever:
“It is difficult to describe the music of Exuma. Many times, there is not much in the way of instrumentation; most of the songs are anchored around his singing and acoustic guitar playing. It is undeniably African-influenced, with much exotic percussion, but it is also grounded in Voodoo beliefs found in the West Indies. His guitar playing is solid, but not flashy. He once said in an
interview, “I only know a few chords, but I can stretch them out!” His greatest instrument was his voice. It was a thing of ragged beauty. Neither too high nor low, it compelled and beckoned, sounding as if he had experienced many things in many planes.

On the first album of Exuma (called Exuma, but subtitled “Fire”) you hear a wolf’s howl, acoustic guitar, bongos and bells. Then a gravelly voice sings:

“I came down on a lightning bolt
Nine months in my Mama’s belly.
When I was born, the midwife scream and shout,
I had fire crystals coming out of my mouth
I’m Exuma, I’m the Obeah Man!”

The lyrics get even more colorful after this, if you can believe it. He makes mention of walking with Charon (the ferryman at the River Styx) and Hector Hippolyte (artist and Voodoo priest). The backing vocals are dolorous and chant-like; there are bird calls and the whole affair ends with a sonic boom.

Then, the SECOND song starts up!

This was 1970. The Guess Who were angering certain people with their song, “American Woman”, which some took to be anti-patriotic, so one can only gather what the reaction to this album would have engendered among the same factions.

One track, “Seance in the Sixth Fret,” is exactly that; a seance. While “Black Mass” by Lucifer (Mort Garson) has a simulation of a seance on it, the listener can become detached, as the album is played entirely on synthesizer. This doesn’t feel simulated (there is musical backing, but the words are prose, not poetry), even if no dead people spoke to anyone involved with the record. He calls out the names of three deceased people and there are sound effects; not quite a field recording, nor does it have the feel of an Andy Hardy musical in which Mickey Rooney turns to Judy Garland, and says “Hey, let’s put on a seance!”

The illustrations on the album are also rather odd. An anguished face on the cover, the foldout picture features two white, silhouetted profiles looking in opposite directions, reminiscent of the Greek God Janus, with two wings behind it. The back cover features a butterfly, whose wings feature two sets of eyes, one set eerily reminiscent of the eyes of the anguished face on the front cover!

…

COURTESY JOSEPH M.!

NO ONE PREDICTED A SOFA RIOT AT IKEA.

‘Slowly but steadily, madness descended’

by Mark Oliver
The Guardian Thursday February 10, 2005

At one minute past midnight last night, Ikea’s new flagship store opened in north London, and managers expected that around 2,000 bargain-hunters would quietly file in. The British, after all, have a reputation for being decorous queuers.

But Ikea had not predicted that up to 6,000 people would descend on the new store, in Edmonton, with a stampede to get in resulting in a frightening crush.

Thousands had been lured by bargains Рsome of which were only available until 3am even though a 24-hour opening was planned Рsuch as 500 leather sofas for only £45. Cars were abandoned on the roadside as shoppers attempted to reach the store in time to secure the best offers.

Six people were taken to hospital, including a man in his 20s who was stabbed nearby at around 1.30am. He was said to be in a stable condition, and it was not clear whether the incident was related to the opening.

Continue reading →