This is so funny, it's a koan

Funniest Cartoon Ever

Kliban was a genius

There really isn’t anyone else I’ve found who’s blown my mind, through cartoons, like B Kliban.  He’s like the Robert Anton Wilson of cartoon artists. There’s this one cartoon of a caveman about to throw a rock at the moon, that’s just hilarious to the point of infinite regress. Without a doubt, it’s the funniest thing ever.

WTF is this about? And yet it's hilarious.

Calligraphy by Susan Stuart - LightMotif Productions

Til Human Voices Wake Us

And We Drown

Poetry is not just for pussies. Some of it doesn’t even suck, like this one.

Seriously, I really enjoy TS Eliot. I know he’s kind of the mayonnaise of poetry, I don’t care. I don’t pretend erudition in verse. I know what I learned in high school, and the rest I got from Col. Kurtz.

When Brando read the Hollow Men in Apocalypse Now, I took the next step and read some TS Eliot. I liked it. I like this one in particular. It’s read by … an English gentleman… and it’s the coolest thing ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2khDhfwsoE

Etta and the Dead

12/31/82

Oakland Coliseum

In honor of Miss Etta’s passing, I present you with one of the neatest little surprises I’ve found.

On New Year’s Eve 1982, the Grateful Dead (a pop music combo) played a gig in the land of Bill Graham. Apparently, from the comments I read in myriad (more than you would think) music forums I scoured, these hooligans liberally provided all and sundry with LSD backstage.

So, you get to see a bunch of tripping hippy telepaths, a legendary blues/soul/pop singer, and a righteously tight horn combo play some really nice set. This is the third set of the night for the Dead. Goddamn, you got your money’s worth with that band (until you didn’t. Like Zeppelin).

The audio is excellent stereo, and will fill your headphones delightfully. The video starts just as Etta takes the stage (or thereabouts) but if you want to watch the whole 2 hour plus show, just restart it. You’re empowered. It’s the Coolest Thing Ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5K2wGuCSbQ

I own, and wear, this t-shirt.

“My function is to raise the possibility, ‘Hey, you know, some of this stuff might be bullshit.’” — Robert Anton Wilson

Robert Anton Wilson

Pope, Genius, Awesome

BoingBoing paid homage to one of the most underappreciated pillars of the post everything culture. He is, by far, the most influential person in my life. I just realized this, upon reflection. He showed me that I am the master who makes the grass green, and the map is not the territory.

BoingBoing devoted a whole week to Robert Anton Wilson. You can read every wonderful word of it right here.

Thanks for the image, Mystic Politics

Videodisc. Not Laserdisc, not DVD... video DISC

Jew Vill Ski!

Jew Vill Not Ski! Jew Vill Watch!

I remember watching this when it first aired on HBO, back in the early 80′s. I was living in Bedford, NH and one funny night in 1983 (I looked it up) Buddy Hackett made me laugh my ass off.

He joked about homosexuals, and nazis, and jews…. oh it was wonderful. I now realize that nazis were still relevant in 1983, because those folks (of Hackett’s generation) saw it happen.

A lot of this comedy is pretty hackneyed and dated now, but there are some real gems in this. Buddy Hackett was fucking funny! The most famous anecdote about the Tonight Show, the Johnny Carson days, is the legendary joke Buddy told the Tonight Show audience during a commercial break. When the show came back from break, Johnny, Ed, and the audience were all in hysterics, but the folks would never know what was said.

If you’ve got the 74 minutes to kill, you should watch this. It’s the funniest shit ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuLnknkYetQ

Etta, You Were Amazing

1938-2012

A True Legend

My wife introduced me to the music of Etta James, back in 2000. She always played Etta’s Live from San Francisco CD, in her car when we were out. Over the years I’ve heard a good deal of her catalog, mainly her later career, from 1980 onward… and it’s all amazing.

Etta had been suffering from myriad diseases over the last few years, including dementia (a heartbreak) and leukemia. She lost the struggle today, and is gone. We are the poorer for it.

This song is one Etta wrote back in 1968, and sang constantly thereafter. I’d Rather Be A Blind Girl is soulful, powerful, strong, weak, and everything Etta was. This version if from one of her many appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1989. FYI – John Paul Jones played bass for her at the festival in 1974.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0yLCR-oLb0

It's been awhile

I Can Has Lolcat?

Yes, Virgina, You Can Has

It’s been a long time since the last lolcat. It will probably be a long time before my next one.

I Loved This Game

Break Glasses, Wreck a Laptop, Set Fires

All To Turn A Newspaper Page

This is just fucking great. Remember the beginning of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure? The breakfast machine? It’s like that but better, because it’s clever as hell. Joseph Hersher is the genius behind this contraption. All hail.

Thank you to my antipodean friends at Daily Grail for posting this amazing contraption. It wrecks so much shit just to turn a page. Pure Goldberg. It’s the coolest thing ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOMIBdM6N7Q

Pile it up! Pile it high on the platter!

I like it that the Stones are delving through the archives, and releasing some of the cool stuff they find. Things like the expanded Exile On Main Street, or Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones (1972 concert film) are actually worth the release. They have a vitality that’s their own.

The latest Rolling Stones release, a concert filmed in Texas in 1978,  is also worth buying. It shows a newly clean (of heroin, not so much of coke, booze, and demon weed) Keith Richards, and a not yet burned out Ron Wood, playing most of their best selling album, Some Girls. I always keep two Stones albums on my playlists, Exile and Some Girls. Two entirely different vibes, coke and pepsi… or rather coke and smack. Some Girls in New York in the Studio 54 era, 1970′s.  You can read a nice review of this release by clicking the image above.

The Stones were still incredible in 1978, as you will see here. Beast of Burden is one of my favorite songs ever, ever, ever. That riff is insanely soulful, like Otis Redding, and the energy is high because it’s the 70′s and cocaine wasn’t thought to be addictive so… the show bounces along a bit like the Ramones. That’s a good thing. This is rock and roll, and Mick’s voice is brilliant (there are rumors of of some tasteful use of autotune, but… that’s what it’s fucking for), Keef is back in charge after a few years on the nod, and Ronnie can still demonstrate why he got the cushiest job in rock. Enjoy the coolest thing ever.

PS – For bonus points you can watch a live version of Shattered from this show, and it’s hot! Watch about 30 seconds in, Mick runs back to the drum riser, almost stepping on Ronnie’s joint, which Ronnie then offers to Mick, who declines with a swift shake of the head. Love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj8lRssjN48

Light Waves Photographed. That's a laser beam.

Coolest Thing Ever

MIT’s Media Lab

Let’s hear it for Femtophotography. What it is, is crazy complicated, with lasers and algorithims, and various maths and sciences. What it does is easy. It allows video recording of a nanosecond event, in slow motion. A half trillion frames per second. Yikes. Check out the Camera Culture webpage, and see what else they’ve come up with.

This video is really cool, but there are a couple others that are even cooler, on the MIT page. One of our loyal readers is an MIT person. Perhaps he will steal the contraption so we can take over the world. Perhaps. It’s the coolest thing ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fSqFWcb4rE