2007 Can Kiss My Ass

Today is the last day of what almost everyone I talk to agrees was a shitty year. Congressional Democrats flopped like a third rate palooka, while Republicans continued their spectacular display of hypocrisy. Stoopid words were added to the English Language while stoopider ones were removed. Some good music got released; also, some shitty music. And some good musicians did some stoopid things, while some old musicians reclaimed their thrones for good or ill. The housing market took a dive, along with the rest of the economy, but don’t worry, folks, it’s still not a recession. (Whew!) Well, as Randy Newman observed, “The end of an empire is messy at best, and this one’s ending like all the rest.”

Happy New Year.

Drunken Santa

UPDATE: Happy birthday to Shane MacGowan. Here's "Fairytale of New York," starring Matt Dillon as a cop.

Happy Zappadan!

This is from a show called "The Cutting Edge." (Oddly enough, on a show called "The Cutting Edge," you are evidently not allowed to use the word "masturbation." ) BTW, I realize BDM is dangerously close to becoming a music blog.

So sue me.

[Swiped from Blue Gal by way of C&L]

Greg Kot's Top Ten Albums of 2007

In case you never heard of him, Greg Kot is the Chicago Tribune's pop music critic. He is also half of the duo -- with Chicago Sun-Times music critic, Jim DeRogatis -- that brings us the weekly public radio gem known as Sound Opinions.

Cheap Trick & John Lennon -- I'm Losing You

Rick Nielson and Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick join Tony Levin to back John Lennon on this song. This was the original version of this song -- one of several recorded with this lineup for Double Fantasy -- but rumor has it that Yoko thought it was too hard rock so Lennon re-recorded the songs with different musicians. Frequent Cheap Trick collaborator, Jack Douglas was at the controls.

From Red Ice Creations:

Scientists on Acid: The Story Behind “Changing Images of Man”
From: skilluminati.com

Sometimes it can take months for the meaning of a sentence to really sink in. It's been months since we got a PDF copy of the legendary "Changing Images of Man" document from Stanford Research Institute, and having read it through several times I feel safe saying the book exceeded my expectations. However, unpacking all the information -- especially in terms of its connections with contemporary events, then and now -- has proven to be a much larger, longer task. Consider the "alternative methodology" behind the project itself:

First, we attempted to identify and assess the plausibility of a truly vast number of future possibilities for society. We next followed a method of analysis that determined which sequences of possible futures (that is, which "alternate future histories") appeared to be the most plausible in light of human history and to most usefully serve the needs of policy research and development. Lastly, we derived a variety of policy implications, some of which dealt with how best to continue this type of inquiry.

Without the context, without knowing these people and how they work and what they talked about, it's difficult to really decipher a paragraph as apparently clear as that one. What was the "method of analysis" in the second step? They never say, but take note of the term they use in quotes: "alternate future histories."

Let me quote from Jim Keith's excellent book Mind Control, World Control, from Chapter 12, which discusses the spread of LSD and the role of OSS/CIA agent Al Hubbard:

One associate of Hubbard's was New World Order theorist Willis Harman at the Stanford Research Institute. SRI had earlier recieved grants from the US Army to research chemical incapacitants. When visited by a representative of the underground press at SRI, Harman told the man, "There's a war going on between your side and mine. And my side is not going to lose."

For the record, that "representative of the underground press" was Michael Rossman of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Anyways, according to Keith, Willis Harman hired Al Hubbard in 1968 as a "Special Investigative Agent." It's worth noting that according to Todd Brendan Fahey's classic article on Hubbard, The Original Captain Trips, Hubbard was (at least officially) hired as a security guard. It was Fahey's article that abruptly came back to me today, especially the following lines:

Hubbard was specifically assigned to the Alternative Futures Project, which performed future-oriented strategic planning for corporations and government agencies. Harman and Hubbard shared a goal "to provide the [LSD] experience to political and intellectual leaders around the world." Harman acknowledges that "Al's job was to run the special sessions for us."

Well, Boy Howdy. Of course, this is decades ago, and juxtaposed quotes are proof of nothing. But there's that weird term again, this time slightly different: "the Alternative Futures Project." When you look for a formal program by that name, you're led not to the Stanford Research Institute, but the University of Illinois, where Charles Osgood and Stuart Umpleby wrote a report entitled "A Computer-based Exploration of Alternative Futures for Mankind 2000." The report was included in the book Mankind 2000, which is full of rather disturbing quotes like this one:

"In the organization of a civilization of the future we anticipate that the individualistically-oriented man will become an anachronism. Indeed, he will be viewed as a threat to the group organization as well as to his fellow man. Hence, as stated, he in all likelihood will have few individual expectations. While such a picture may not be pleasant to comtemplate, when viewed with our present orientation and value judgement, we would be amiss to deal with unrealistic imagries that would blind us to future reality."

This kind of stuff could almost be comic relief. After all, a computer program about the future had a lot of time and money invested in it, and when they ran the program, it said the future would be a lot like a computer program. If you're not familiar with the phrase garbage in, garbage out, now is a good time to get familiar. What keeps this material from being funny is the line that comes right after the quote above, which sounds more or less exactly like the conclusion of Changing Images of Man:

The new world of the closed, automatic system will necessitate a radical change in the political, technologic, and social thinking. All too often, however, we remain bound by the conventional tenets and wisdom of past generations. The cyber-cultural revolution is changing all this.

The Alternative Futures project at the University of Illinois was funded by the same people who paid for SRI's work: the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Kettering was big on "the vision thing" during the 60s and 70s -- they were looking everywhere to get an edge on futurism, putting a lot of money in very "out there" places

....and for what it's worth, the folks at SRI were very much out there. "Changing Images" co-author O.W. Markley left behind a very curious paper entitled "Visionary Futures" that outlines some other SRI "alternative methodologies" -- including "channeled material in the book Seth Speaks, by Jane Roberts (1972)." This is the same SRI who employed top Scientologists, Hal Puthoff and Ingo Swann, to develop their Remote Viewing program. That doesn't mean they're jackasses or something -- it means that SRI gets paid, very well, for being very much out there. It's what people depend on them for, then and now.

Channeled material, after all, is mainstream today. (Witness the bestseller success of the "Conversations with God" series.) Everyone gets weird -- hell, tomorrow we'll take a look at Zbigniew Brzezinski's hippie youth, just to prove it. Don't think for a second just because these people are gobbling LSD means they're down for the cause -- or even remotely sympathetic. Anyone exploring Changing Images of Man should bear Willis Harman's words in mind:

"There's a war going on between your side and mine. And my side is not going to lose."

So did Al Hubbard run LSD visionary sessions for the SRI staff involved with Changing Images of Man? I have no idea, only clues -- after all, Hubbard was hired the same year that the Changing Images project started: 1968. Until further documentation comes out -- or someone feels like speaking up -- there's no way of knowing.

For Further DiggingTake a look at the Erowid "Characters" page -- a valuable name base of psychedelic history. We also provide a PDF photoscan of "Changing Images of Man" for interested researchers: (30 mb PDF File) - (Visit the original article at skilluminati.com to download the pdf.)

Rush in Rio

TUNNG -- Bullets

Here's Your Hat & Coat -- What's Your Hurry?

According to a new study conducted at the request of the Canadian government, peer-to-peer file sharing actually increases record sales. Researchers found that for every CD downloaded, the guilty parties purchase o.44 CDs.

What, then, accounts for the sharp decline in CD sales over the last seven years? Well, in this interview with the hosts of Sound Opinions (it's show #104), the study's co-author, Birgitte Andersen, speculates that it is a semantic argument. Music sales, she suggests, haven't declined, CD sales have. Many music consumers (god, I hate that word) are downloading music legitimately from sites like Itunes, rather than purchasing them the old fashioned way at record shops. Large labels foolishly devoted to an obsolete business model are cleverly manipulating the wording in order to blame teh interwebs for their own shortsightedness. Sony, Virgin, Warner Bros., Capitol, et al. are pining hopelessly for the old days of radio stations and retailers during an era of satellite radio, online podcasting and self-produced releases. Moreover, the sharp improvement in home recording technology combined with online distribution strategies has resulted in an epidemic of tiny, ultra-indie labels that don't register on the RIAA's radar. While it's true that things are bad for the aforementioned recording industry behemoths, things are great for the many, many niche labels that have emerged over the last decade or so.

Labels like this. And this. And this.

Like turn-of-the-century carriage makers who couldn't adapt to the changing times, big labels are actually trying to outlaw a new technology that they failed to anticipate, and there's only one thing for us to say:

Buh-bye, dickhead.

I Will Let You Know When I Am Not Terrified Anymore

A Positive Outlook Is Overrated
by Barbara Held
Listen Now [5 min 32 sec] add to playlist

Barbara Held is a professor of psychology and social studies at Bowdoin College, and the author of Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching. Trained as a clinical psychologist, she practiced therapy for many years. Held lives with her husband on the coast of Maine.

“I believe that there is no one right way to cope with all the pain of living. ... If we are prevented from coping in our own way, be it 'positive' or 'negative,' we function less well.”

All Things Considered, October 22, 2007 · Many Americans insist that everyone have a positive attitude, even when the going gets rough. From the self-help bookshelves to the Complaint-Free World Movement, the power of positive thinking is touted now more than ever as the way to be happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.
The problem is that this demand for good cheer brings with it a one-two punch for those of us who cannot cope in that way: First you feel bad about whatever's getting you down, then you feel guilty or defective if you can't smile and look on the bright side. And I'm not even sure there always is a bright side to look on.
I believe that there is no one right way to cope with all of the pain of living. As an academic psychologist, I know that people have different temperaments, and if we are prevented from coping in our own way, be it "positive" or "negative," we function less well.
As a psychotherapist, I know that sometimes a lot of what people need when faced with adversity is permission to feel crummy for a while, to realize that feeling bad is not automatically the same as being mentally ill. Some of my one-session "cures" have come from reminding people that life can be difficult, and it's OK if we're not happy all of the time.
This last point first became apparent to me in 1986. I came down with the flu accompanied by searing headaches that lasted for weeks afterward. Eventually a neurologist told me that a strain of flu that winter had left many people with viral meningitis. He reassured me that I would make a full recovery, but I was left traumatized by the weeks of undiagnosed pain. I really thought I had a brain tumor or schizophrenia. Being a psychologist didn't help; I was an emotional wreck.
Fortunately it happened that my next-door neighbor was a brilliant psychiatrist, Aldo Llorente from Cuba. I asked him, "Aldo, am I a schizophrenic?"
"Professor," he pronounced, "you are a mess, but you are not a mentally ill mess. You are just terrified."
I told Aldo that two of my friends insisted that I cheer up. I tried to be cheerful for a week, but that only increased my distress. Aldo told me, "You say to them: 'Friends, I would like to be more cheerful, but right now I am too terrified to be cheerful. So I will let you know when I am not terrified anymore.'"
The moment I delivered Aldo's message, I felt better. Aldo had made it OK for me to cope in my own way, to recover at my own pace, to be my own mess of a self. That is when I began to realize that I had been tyrannized by the idea that everyone must always have a positive attitude.
Having flourished in my own authentically kvetchy way, I believe that we would be better off if we let everyone be themselves — positive, negative or even somewhere in-between.

Independently produced for All Things Considered by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.