Zappa and censorship

In England censorship arguments sound a bit like: “If don't want to see that kind of thing. Don't look at it” followed by shoulder shrugging and reaffirmation of our lack of social skills by tactfully digressing to weather talk. When we do this we just agree with what the other person said. In fact as I type it is pretty sunny outside. But I digress.

Unlike the fusty brits, Americans do things much more flamboyantly. If they’re not shooting at British soldiers they’re raining frogs down at those less intelligent, and less god fearing than them. Don’t like what someone has to say? Then make them stop! The Parents Music Resource Center, which included prominent senator’s wives as members, was one such institution hell bent on censorship in the mid 80s. It presumed that the decline in nuclear families meant that children sought out other influences and thus were greatly susceptible to corruption by these forces. When I say forces I’m not talking about nonce-men and Mormons; think more rock music and black culture.

In between giving people a right ticking off, they tried to censor, ban and change the musician’s naughty ways. Fuck you I wont do what you tell me? Actually you will! Er... because after our RIAA lobbying you swears-people have a little Parent Advisory sticker on you, like a gluey gipsy curse.

The PMRC were widely criticized by those citing First Amendment, and other equally boring retorts. Getting to the sunny point… one such critic was Grand-Master Zappa who sent loads of industry bods long anti-censorship letters. Like Paris Hilton, this is now spreading across the net like thrush in a brothel. So be the first to read what the maestro said. Oh and the PMRC had a sticker but on Zappa's Jazz from Hell - an instrumental album. Why? It contained the song title G Spot Tornado.

Click here to go to Flikr with scans of the full letter.

EDIT: Talking of censorship, I’ve been recently informed that the £22 000 a year Kings Bruton boarding school in Somerset blocks my website. It could be because I’m rude – but maybe its because I’m the wrong end of the class scale. My house isn’t even worth £22k, come to think of it I don’t even have a house let alone a castle. I’ll never know the real reason. Look out for my redeeming posts on Hockey sticks, wax jackets and bucked teeth. You posh twats.

tags ( zappa | music | censorship )

Let’s Sexy English!

As far as I can tell this is a Japanese instructional video that teaches English phrases for sexing foreigners. It teaches the randy Japanese key words like pussy, blow job and dick. Although I’m not so sure what use cockpit would be. If you can speak Japanese and want a laugh, or would just like to see small girls in uniforms talk dreadful dirty English have a watch!

Click this link to see the video full screen.

Rude Minerals

Thanks to a myspace member, I've been reminded of the US town Cummington, which reminded me of a discovery I made a while ago. As a man of science, I was once doing some hardcore research and came across the silicate mineral Magnesium Iron Silicate Hydroxide or (Mg, Fe)₇Si₈O₂₂(OH)₂ to us chemists. Of course no mineral chemist talks in such baffling nonsense - we only do that at parties when non scientists are about. Instead minerals are usually named by their discoverer. This silicate mineral was named after its place of origin, Cummington. And the result... cummingtonite.

Oh joy of joy! Another reason to laugh at science. Obviously there's been a mineral discovered by a Mr. Wales called Welshite too. Have a good day.

Ooo look a link for Cummintonite facts!

9/11 without Osama

I don’t know what to think about this. Loose Change (2nd revision) is an alternative documentary on the 9/11 attacks. Using a hypothesis of 9/11 being an inside job it explores inconsistencies between the official 9/11 report, media footage and reports at the time, and intersperses this with other evidence. I don’t want to review this as a film. It is leagues ahead of Fahrenheit 911’s content – a film which also aimed to provoke with one-sided arguments. Stylistically very minimal, with just a voiceover, quotations complementing the footage, it still runs to an hour and a half of freaky, conspiratorial arguments. But I can only discuss its documentary intent and not its content per se.

Alternative versions of the events on and surrounding the attacks are rife on the internet, in left press and in scientific peer-reviewed journals. In fact it is common for traumatic far-reaching events to harbour contrary theories – as individuals try to understand the motives surrounding it. These are normally pejoratively termed conspiracy theories – a moniker which the authors often disregard as prejudicial - and may not be wholeheartedly justified here. Critics of conspiracy theories point out they suffer from major flaws in logic and deduction – and unfortunately Loose Change has some of these flaws. Its investigative approach is that it starts with a premise and go on to research if it is true. This is a logical error fallacy known as conformational bias. An error in logic in which more weight is placed on information which confirms our hypothesis than which refutes it. It is easy, by ignoring even tiny flaws, to prove anything to be true. No weight seems to be given to counter arguments which are also rife on the internet – and as such I doubt its method and its neutrality.

The content is very disturbing. Even if 10% of it is true it’s premise makes me sicker than any horror I’ve seen in the last few years. As a film it is exceptionally effective in its delivery. Some of its more controversial evidence argues that the towers were demolished by a controlled explosion, gold reserves were moved out of the WTC (i.e. Wall Street knew), commercial airliners weren’t used in the attacks, and the mobile phone calls from the hijacked planes were bogus. When its not a playing the conspiracy card its criticising the 9/11 report. Using simple well established facts it notes that the 9/11 Commission began investigating 411 days after the attacks with a budget of $15 million. The attack on Pearl Harbour and JFK assassination began after 9 and 7 days respectively. As for money allocated to the 9/11 commission, $50 million was set aside for the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia, and $40 million was set aside to investigate Bill Clinton’s lying about his indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky. Remember this, then it all starts to sound a little odd...

Excellent medium, excellent message

The Indian branch of marketing company Grey Worldwide (Trikaya Grey Advertising) produced these stunning stickers for Childcare, India – an organisation which aims to help more than 20 Million Indian Children who beg on the streets each day. The message and use of medium is awesome – and I approve of the graffito/guerilla tactics used to deliver. The PUSH sticker reads: Push him out of begging and not out of your way. The effort earned Trikaya Grey a bronze award at the Asia Pacific Ad Festival. Congrats to them.

Not quite 5 plus... unless its out of six

Survival Style 5+
directed by: Gen Sekiguchi
120 min, 35 mm, Japanese and English, w English subtitles

I stumbled across this a little while ago and never watched it. After watching it, I’m stumbling for ways to describe it. Think vignette films, like Happiness or Coffee and Cigarettes. Mix this with mindblowing Japanese pop-culture décor. Make the dialogue obtuse. Add Tadanobu Asano (infamously known for playing Kakihara from Ichi the killer) and Vinnie Jones. Then pray that things get very very weird. But don’t worry – its supposed to be a straight-up comedy.

Sometimes in the surreal, the beauty comes from the face-value. The need not to explain nor understand – just accept what is going on. This is something at which the film excels with its unusual subjects. A worker wins tickets to a kitsch hypnotist called Viva Friends. The bipolar assassin (Jones) kills the hypnotist on stage just as the worker is hypnotised to be a bird. An advertising exec keep on thinking up warped and (remember this is Japanese too – crazy means just that). A man repeatedly kills his wife, only to find her alive again, often with added powers (missile arms for one). A gang of burglars, whilst breaking and entering, deal with suppressed homosexual feelings for each other.

Some of the sketches have an inconsequential relationtionship with another, much like those of Amorres Perros. All of them are abstract in notion but each plays linearly, to a seemingly natural conclusion. This film doesn’t try and disorientate or confuse the viewer with more twists and abstractions that the start. All the disorientating, vibrant, effervescent madness seems normal by the time it peaks with Cake’s cover of “I will Survive.” You don’t feel cheated and confused by some avant-nonsense – just laughing and entertained and something that in the end was just a great, but odd, film.

4/5

April Gonzo

The UK’s Saturday papers pandering to the gullible was disappointing. The Guardian topped last years “Prince Charles has been appointed the Countryside Tsar” by claiming Coldplay’s Chris Martin has turned Tory and released a song in praise of David Cameron (cheers Mark for pointing it out) - link. This piece which so concerned the Labour party, according to the Guardian affiliated Observer, memos were passed out on how to deal with this crisis. The Independent explored Sylvia Plath’s secret love affair with Chuck Berry - much in line with its surreal 2004 piece on how Brian Eno had made an electro version of the Archers theme tune for Radio 4.

Quirkyness and originality were absent from the other papers. The Daily Mail limply claimed that Cherie Blair wants the door of Number 10 Downing Street painted red. The Times reported on the new Chip and Sing technology – enter pin and belt out My Way... oh…. ha ha. And the Sun, with an unusual lack of panache, reported that penguins have been spotted in the Thames - yaaaaaaaawn.

I guess a Media studies graduate, while flipping burgers, would tell me that I have to contextualise what I’m saying. For Daily Mail readers, repainting the door to Downing Street is probably nothing short of heretical sacrilege – something done by atheists, working-class tradesmen… and blacks. Whereas for the Sun, whose content is dubious at best, Penguins in the Thames could be the most plausible sounding article in the whole tit and sport soaked paper. More people will believe it than the Guardian article - making it much more effective. I remember my Sun-reading friend Jeff telling me how the Police were training Hawks fitted with speed cameras, and how stupid it was, after reading the 2004 hoax. Sorry mate – didn’t have the heart to tell you at the time.

The most kudos has to go to Canada’s Calgary Herald, which reviewed Brokeback Mountain: The Game… and gave it a perfect score. I wonder if its a joystick waggler like Daily Thomson's Olympics back in the days of Amstrads and 8-bit...