April 22 : The Broken Heart of the American Dream

[O'Blivion]

April 22


Today is EARTH DAY.



On this day in 1978, the One Love Peace Concert
was held at National Heroes Stadium in Kingston,
Jamaica. This concert was held during a political
civil war in Jamaica between opposing parties
Jamaican Labour Party and the People's National
Party. The concert came to its peak during Bob
Marley & The Wailers' performance of "Jamming",
when Marley joined the hands of political rivals
Michael Manley and Edward Seaga.

http://youtu.be/XKp670Yh0E0


Born This Day::

1724 - Immanuel Kant (oh yes he can)




1870 - Vladimir Lenin


1904 - J. Robert Oppenheimer




1891 - Anarchist Nichola Sacco



1922 - Bassist/composer/pimp/activist Charles Mingus

http://youtu.be/TU_RxWXijz0


1923 - Legendary S&M pinup girl Bettie Page

http://youtu.be/va-np-VRD-M



1937 -Jack Nicholson


1946 - often called the New Disney because of his daring use
of a similar moustache, film maker John Waters.

http://youtu.be/VU0yJ3benb4

Died This Day::

On this day in 1994, Richard M. Nixon died.

Of that auspicious occasion, a great American wrote:
"If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral,
his casket would have been launched into one of those
open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south
of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering
dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed
servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.
Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way.
His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

Nixon's spirit will be with us for the rest of our lives--whether
you're me or Bill Clinton or you or Kurt Cobain or Bishop Tutu
or Keith Richards or Amy Fisher or Boris Yeltsin's daughter or
your fiancee's 16-year-old beer-drunk brother with his braided
goatee and his whole life like a thundercloud out in front of him.
This is not a generational thing. You don't even have to know
who Richard Nixon was to be a victim of his ugly, Nazi spirit.

He has poisoned our water forever. Nixon will be remembered
as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But
he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history
will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and de-
grading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the
White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart
of the American Dream. "


A great American

http://youtu.be/f0BdMDhtYfg

[Guest]

Let's not forget Ira Einhorn who was a driving force of the first Earth Day and Master of Ceremonies on that day in Philly, (no matter how much they try to scrub him from history) a psychopath that murdered his girl friend in 1977 and fled to France untried for more then 15 years, now serving a life sentence

[Low D]

The concert came to its peak during Bob Marley & The Wailers' performance of "Jamming", when Marley joined the hands of political rivals Michael Manley and Edward Seaga.

The better part came earlier, when Peter Tosh got up there & said "Don't trust any of them!" (or words to that effect).

[O'Blivion]

The better part came earlier, when Peter Tosh got up there & said "Don't trust any of them!" (or words to that effect).

Seen?

[NewJerseyRich]

Of course most people think Hunter S Thompson was a self serving, junkie, psychopath who shoulda took himself out a few decades earlier but hey "tomato / tomaaato"

[philipchevron]

Of course most people think Hunter S Thompson was a self serving, junkie, psychopath who shoulda took himself out a few decades earlier but hey "tomato / tomaaato"

Nah, "most" people think Gonzo was one of the greatest commentators of his age as well as an outstanding performative reporter who, if anything, was being kind to Dick Nixon in that epitaph.

Those who view him as you do tend to be the people who think Shane MacGowan is a meandering, inarticulate drunk.

[NewJerseyRich]

Of course most people think Hunter S Thompson was a self serving, junkie, psychopath who shoulda took himself out a few decades earlier but hey "tomato / tomaaato"

Nah, "most" people think Gonzo was one of the greatest commentators of his age as well as an outstanding performative reporter who, if anything, was being kind to Dick Nixon in that epitaph.

Those who view him as you do tend to be the people who think Shane MacGowan is a meandering, inarticulate drunk.

Now I wouldn't go that far Mr C! Hardly comprable to Shane, I'm not alone in my opinion, well maybe on this page but really HST had a one hit wonder book, a crappy follow up and then turned the one hit into a god awful movie.

[philipchevron]

Of course most people think Hunter S Thompson was a self serving, junkie, psychopath who shoulda took himself out a few decades earlier but hey "tomato / tomaaato"

Nah, "most" people think Gonzo was one of the greatest commentators of his age as well as an outstanding performative reporter who, if anything, was being kind to Dick Nixon in that epitaph.

Those who view him as you do tend to be the people who think Shane MacGowan is a meandering, inarticulate drunk.

Now I wouldn't go that far Mr C! Hardly comprable to Shane, I'm not alone in my opinion, well maybe on this page but really HST had a one hit wonder book, a crappy follow up and then turned the one hit into a god awful movie.

Judging Hunter by the orthodox standards of career path and personal development he so patently despised is like weighing Brendan Behan against J. K. Rowling. Moreover, Gonzo never got less right the more dissolute he became, he got more right.

[NewJerseyRich]

Of course most people think Hunter S Thompson was a self serving, junkie, psychopath who shoulda took himself out a few decades earlier but hey "tomato / tomaaato"

Nah, "most" people think Gonzo was one of the greatest commentators of his age as well as an outstanding performative reporter who, if anything, was being kind to Dick Nixon in that epitaph.

Those who view him as you do tend to be the people who think Shane MacGowan is a meandering, inarticulate drunk.

Now I wouldn't go that far Mr C! Hardly comprable to Shane, I'm not alone in my opinion, well maybe on this page but really HST had a one hit wonder book, a crappy follow up and then turned the one hit into a god awful movie.

Judging Hunter by the orthodox standards of career path and personal development he so patently despised is like weighing Brendan Behan against J. K. Rowling. Moreover, Gonzo never got less right the more dissolute he became, he got more right.

I don't know if I'd say he got less right. He's the guy who oddly titled project after project "fear and loathing..." hoping against hope to regain the sucess of his only viable hit. I see your point but unfortunately in the end i think we're all judged by the same standard.

[Low D]

Of course most people think Hunter S Thompson was a self serving, junkie, psychopath

Nah, "most" people think Gonzo was one of the greatest commentators of his age as well as an outstanding performative reporter

Just thought i'd point out that neither of these contradicts the other.

[DzM]

Of course most people think Hunter S Thompson was a self serving, junkie, psychopath who shoulda took himself out a few decades earlier but hey "tomato / tomaaato"

"Most" is a mighty big word and is rarely used correctly.

[Sportin' Life]

Of course most people think Hunter S Thompson was a self serving, junkie, psychopath who shoulda took himself out a few decades earlier but hey "tomato / tomaaato"

I definitely think Hunter was a self-serving, junkie, psychopath, who was doing all that could be expected to take himself out a few decades ago. Still the man had amazing writing talent, and all of those things doesn't preclude me thinking he was a definite force of American letters.

Its easy to hurl insults at him, but the insults should at least somewhat match his ability, else you're just outgunned by a psychopath junkie:

"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.

Which is more or less true. For the most part, they are dirty little animals with huge brains and no pulse. Every once in a while, they will toss up a token human like Ed Bradley or Edwin Newman or Hughes Rudd... and there are others, no doubt, like Studs Terkel in Chicago and the twisted Rev. Gene Scott, who works like a sleepless ferret in the maniac bowels of Southern California....

But these are only the exceptions that prove the hideous rule. Mainly we are dealing with a profoundly degenerate world, a living web of foulness, greed and treachery... which is also the biggest real business around and impossible to ignore. You can't get away from TV. It is everywhere. The hog is in the tunnel."

- Generation of Swine

[Clash Cadillac]

Now I wouldn't go that far Mr C! Hardly comprable to Shane, I'm not alone in my opinion, well maybe on this page but really HST had a one hit wonder book, a crappy follow up and then turned the one hit into a god awful movie.

Inferring that Hunter was a "one hit wonder" is just plan ignorant. That is like a Tea Party member claiming Obama is a Muslim based on some soundbite he heard on FOX news.

[philipchevron]

On the matter of the Psychopath: it is, of course, a legitimate medical pathology, not just an easy generic insult to hurl. By coincidence, I was watching, last night, the documentary filmThe Corporation which spends its first 30 minutes or so constructing the case that Corporations, in their behaviour, exactly fit the clinical markers of psychopathy. The film stands this up by pointing out that the genius of The Corporation was to have itself designated, in legal terms, an "individual", thus affording "it" the constitutional safeguards afforded to all other "individuals" in the USA. This is essentially why Corporations have been bleeding us dry with impunity for several decades.

But you see, Hunter already knew that.

[Clash Cadillac]

On the matter of the Psychopath: it is, of course, a legitimate medical pathology, not just an easy generic insult to hurl. By coincidence, I was watching, last night, the documentary filmThe Corporation which spends its first 30 minutes or so constructing the case that Corporations, in their behaviour, exactly fit the clinical markers of psychopathy. The film stands this up by pointing out that the genius of The Corporation was to have itself designated, in legal terms, an "individual", thus affording "it" the constitutional safeguards afforded to all other "individuals" in the USA. This is essentially why Corporations have been bleeding us dry with impunity for several decades.

But you see, Hunter already knew that.

On another thread, I once said that I live in a "Scociopathic" country not a "Capitalistic" one. As the film you watched suggests, maybe I was wrong, as it seems these two definitions are becoming one and he same.