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2003-06-16T18:08:00.000+03:00

2003-06-12T10:30:00.000+03:00

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MATRIX ESSAYS I

The problem isn't with human beings or machines: the problem posed by the Matrix trilogy is the problem inherent in instrumental reason, reason applied to the goal of dominating nature and other people. In the Matrix instrumental reason became self-conscious and self-directed so dominated humanity for its own sake, but is a conscious supercomputer really necessary for instrumental reason to take on a mind of its own? Once a system gets big enough and necessary enough, many of the decisions it needs to make for its survival have already been made. This is the impossibility Neo confronted throughout the second film: that all choices have already been made; the most we can do is learn what they mean. In this view, can human beings have any real freedom?

The answer, I suspect, lies in the pervasive religious imagery of both films, religious imagery signifying union with the transcendent through the irrational. It is the irrational that is highlighted in the second film, either Persephone's "irrational" jealousy, or her "irrational" demand for a kiss from Neo before she would turn over the Keymaker, either a Bacchanalia scene that signifies the abandonment of reason if nothing else, Neo's "irrational" choice to save Trinity rather than humanity, or the inhabitants of Zion and their irrational food offerings to Neo, faith in whom is itself seen as irrational by the more practical minded members of Zion.

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2003-06-06T17:01:00.000+03:00
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It may be considered the American way to “put a boot in your ass,” as country singer Toby Keith would say, but we’ve been getting our ass kicked on the techno front for way too long. Sure, Detroit and Chicago made their marks. But that was what? Fifteen years ago? After those cities left the spotlight, American techno started to suck hard.

Now it’s time to go nuclear. We need to build up an arsenal of American producers and labels, and we need to level the world with some of our own homeland jams.

The UK has garage, Cologne and the rest of Germany have minimal techno, there’s French house, and even Finland has its own techno incarnation of the Neptunes in producer Vladislav Delay (AKA Luomo). With all of these influences from abroad, the rare passing-through of an American producer like Kit Clayton or Stewart Walker is worth a bar of gold. Walker, who recently released his album Discord—a split with Geoff White—on Force Inc., knows exactly why Americans aren’t into a sound so sweet. “As techno spread, it picked up a lot of bad aspects: bad drugs, bad music, and bad clothes. Kind of like disco. Shit sticks, but there’s hope we’re at the dawning of a new era.”

James Murphy of great music kingdom DFA Records agrees. “I used to think techno was all C&C Music Factory and shit. It all sounded like music for people with shiny shirts and lots of hair gel. I just hadn’t been hearing all the good stuff.”

The producers and DJs mentioned above are pushing to create scenes and communities in the US. They’re trying to remove the stigma of techno. But it takes a movement, not a couple of names, to change the state of things and to fill the dance floors. Americans need to realize that it’s not all about glow sticks, E, and big pants. Go buy some records, realize the shit’s good, and start making your own jams. Prove to everyone around the world that American techno doesn’t have to suck.

Every two years or so, everyone gets sick of generic music bullshit and gets down to destroying it again. It’s easier to do this now than ever before, what with cheap equipment, access to unlimited materials via the internet and, most importantly, a new wave of rampant boredom. We now have a loose global confederation of blue-skinned nerds sticking up their middle fingers with regards to the criminal status quo of music, and it sounds more fucked-up than ever before. Some might call it a new sub-sub-genre, but ignore them. Fuck easy tag names and fuck commercial marketing schemes. This is a real underground.

All electronic music, not just house, has gotten so boring it’s forced us to learn how to make it ourselves. This isn’t IDM or computer rock or breakcore. This shit goes beyond all those titles—it makes Kid 606 sound like Celine Dion and Aphex sound like Brahms. And you know why? Because anyone with a computer and a few thousand hours to kill can do it.

Says Japan-dwelling Aussie artist Hard Off!: “I mainly scan P2P servers for some song that might represent my mood, and then I cut just the bit from that song that I want.” Hence, pop hits get fractured and distorted beyond recognition over light speed beats, ominous laughter, harmonicas, distorted bass, and any other sound you can dig up. There are no rules to follow.

“Basically, I love making fucked up shit with my computer, but I’m usually too drunk to learn how to really play an instrument,” says Flis, one third of Duran Duran Duran.

Or, as the New York-based END, whose frenetic lounge splatter-core country tunes freak everybody out, adds, “This shit is just like punk rock. At its heart, it’s just a bunch of talentless suburban white boys struggling with three chords while trying to impress some chick they’ve never actually spoken to. But most of us are way too wimpy to put needles through our noses, and we’d lose our pathetic day jobs if we got liberty spikes or facial tattoos.”

All these freaks have found each other via the web. One focal point is Austrian artist Eiterherd’s widerstand.org.

That’s a good place to start, but don’t expect to find palatable mash-ups à la 2 Many DJs. Expect difficulty, frustration, annoyance, and blissful moments of radical discovery.

Also see..
worldwentdown.com

cdatakill.com

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2003-05-30T15:20:00.000+03:00
Make Your Own Dildo!

1 MAKE YOUR OWN DILDO
“Hey you, go fuck yourself,” OK I will, “What?” Oh, I made a latex dildo that is an exact replica of my dick so fucking myself is no probs. Come to think of it, double stuffing my girlfriend and then fucking her while I get a blowjob is also no probs. Oh yeah, and when I’m away; having phone sex with her while she fucks herself with my dick is also no probs. Neither is giving it to ex-girlfriends so they never get over me. That too is no probs. See ya.
Check www.makeyourowndildo.com or call 1 (800) 515-7121

2 iTunes and iPod
Making mix tapes was a great time and everything but when you put on 3LW as a joke it starts getting on your nerves and you have to re-record the whole thing to get rid of it. Making playlists in iTunes however is so fucking fun it’s actually better than listening to music. Like the guy in High Fidelity that likes to re-order his records all the time, you get to put your stuff into categories like, “classic punk, 80s shit, dirty south” and then assemble and re-assemble great mixes. The best is when you have a problem like, “Shit, how am I going to go from my oi set into Gold Chains?” and then you remember, “Oh I’ll just segue it with one of those cockney spoken word things from Garry Johnson.” And if you don’t have it you can go steal it online. It’s fucking limitless.

3 SPAMFIRE
The amount of junk mail in your inbox has more than tripled over the past year and it’s growing exponentially. Depressing no? “No” actually, because no matter how invasive and annoying corporate advertisers get, The People will always be one step ahead (See The VICE Guide to Happiness on p.88). Designed by email genius Michael Herrick, Spamfire is a magical piece of user-friendly software that filters out spam by checking for things like dollar signs, the word diet and website addresses. Before it deletes them, it puts them in a box for you to peruse but once the program gets familiar with your friend list you don’t even have to check the spam box anymore. The best part is the window called “Revenge” wherein you get to “bug the WebBugs” by clogging their website with messages like “You piss me off.”

Check www.matterform.com for the latest version. It’s only for Mac now but the Windows version is almost ready.

4 DISH
The only thing worse than sitting on hold at Time Warner Cable is that horrible recording of a woman’s voice saying, “we’re committed to being the best.” Satellite TV is way cheaper and way more fun. You love it when you get it but after the first month you realize all the rad things you weren’t using like the no-talking radio channels with infinite classical or classic rock (and it says what the songs are) or the info button that tells you about the movie you’re watching or the fucking hard drive it has where you can record your favorite shows the same way Tivo does.

5 MEDICATED GOLD BOND
Unbeknownst to broads, men have some very serious swimsuit area problems of their own. Anal chaffing (caused by moisture and hair wearing down the crack skin until it is as raw as vivisection) is something men only admit to in closed spaces. They fashion toilet paper into “manpons” and wedge it into their crack in a desperate attempt to dry shit out down there. Well fret no more chappies. All you have to do is: 1 wipe your ass with Wet Wipes, 2 dry it thoroughly with toilet paper, 3 lambaste it with Extra Strength Gold Bond, and BOOM you are done. Go wear plastic leather pants to New Mexico and take a four-hour hike in the desert. See? Cured.

6 RIM
We’ve always been pro-ass eating (women don’t shit) but what’s a bad boy gonna do when she’s not there for you? Cheat? Oooh gross, stranger ass. No you’re not going to cheat, you’re going to go buy a nice bottle of ass-flavored water and reminisce. I can’t believe I spelt reminisce right the first try.

7 BOX SETS
After you have about 300 CDs or so they kind of blend into a big blob of music. It seems the more you have the less you have to listen to. And if some poor bastard doesn’t have some exciting text going down the spine you may not notice the fucker for years at a time. That’s why we love box sets so much. We’ve barely listened to the Misfits coffin box set, true, and even in the liner notes for the new New Order box set the band admits they never listen to them either but, and New Order second this emotion, they are so Christmas present cozy nice that you just have to have them. Plus they look great on top of your stereo cabinet.

8 PEANUTS DANCING
Remember that scene where they’re all dancing to that amazing piano riff? How great is that? Everyone is on the dancefloor and everyone is giving 110% (Andrew WK would be proud). You could show that cartoon to someone having a bad trip on acid and they’d dry their tears with their sleeve going, “that’s kind of cool” the way little kids do when you convince them to stop crying by being funny (“don’t tell Mom, don’t tell Mom, hey hey look at me, farty farty poo poo”).

9 Night Glasses
Talk about perpetual optimism. Blue has never been so bluey. The only problem with night glasses (so named because they take the glare out of headlights) is you never want to take them off. The yellow lenses make the whole world look like a beautiful happy place, like E for your eyeballs.

2003-05-20T21:39:00.000+03:00
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2003-05-16T18:18:00.000+03:00
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It's been almost four years since the other infamous duo from Queens dropped their stellar debut album, The War Report. In the meantime, Capone went back to jail and Noreaga released two solo LPs jam packed with thug rhymes and keyboard beats. Classic joints like "N.O.R.E. (Niggas On the Run Eatin')" and "Superthug" boosted him to rap superstar status. Now Capone's free again and the duo have spent two million dollars recording their highly-anticipated sophomore effort, The Reunion. More spine-tingling tales of ghetto warfare and random gun-clapping cuz there's still ain't nothing changed but their limp. It's CNN, back again, what what!

First of all Capone, how did you make the transition from the thug life in Queensbridge to the rap life?

Capone: I went to jail, man.

I bet you've seen some ill shit up in there.

Capone: Yeah I seen some crazy shit. On some homo shit, I seen like a homo orgy, kid. Word, like I walked in the shower and shit, and like four homo niggas, niggas I ain't even know was homo and shit, like regular niggas and two homos just wildin' and shit. I started flippin like "Get me the fuck up outta there," you know what I mean? Crazy shit, you see like four niggas gettin' it on!

And now you're out of jail and out of the hood.

Capone: (singing) "We movin' on up/ To the east side/ The heat and the stove don't work in the kitchen" I don't want to go through that shit no more, you feel me? Why nobody say nothing when the drug dealer nigga get mad paper and move out the hood? Niggas say he's ballin'. The same niggas that's talkin' shit about you movin' out the hood is tryin' to make money talkin' about "Damn, I can't take the hood no more." So I'm gone too. See ya!

Now you're getting fat.
Nore: I don't know, man. Straight up, good livin', fuck it. We was skinny our whole life, you know what I'm sayin'? We got the opportunity to be fat, fuck it let's be fat. I don't even know why they ordered them ice teas. Teabag ice tea is wack, straight up. Yo hold on. (To Capone) What's going on god? You want a piece of shrimp? A piece of fish? Some macaroni? You got to be specific with me. You should get your own fork though, 'Pone, cuz I got a cold.

You're eating right now?

Nore: I'm on the run eatin' baby. Macaroni and cheese, potato salad and some fried fish. You can't smell it through the phone? (To Capone) Yo, get a fork 'Pone! This potato salad's right! Let me get one of them fake-ass ice teas. Shit's still better than water. (To me) You wish you was eating like this right?

No doubt.

I'm 'a email you some food.

Capone-N-Noreaga's The Reunion album is out now on Tommy Boy.

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2003-05-15T17:13:00.000+03:00
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The late ’90s saw cocaine MORE popular than ever. All over New York City there were bars and after-hours devoted solely to providing their patrons with the finest snow money could buy. It was the ideal drug. It went perfectly with booze, you could do it practically anywhere, and $20 easily lasted the whole night.

Then the dealers got greedy. What once turned to oil when you rubbed it between your fingers became so full of Ajax that you’d have to sit down after every bump to deal with the nasal pain. One line meant two days of no appetite and the most Hiroshima-esque hangovers ever recorded in the history of man.

Meanwhile, back at the lab, the neglected weed community was working on better, stronger, cheaper strains in an attempt to get back into the market. Cheesy rap songs and idiot protestors in Dr. Seuss hats had made pot uncool and, according to an NYU poll in May of 1999, marijuana smoking was down 25% from the previous year. The New York slump was blamed on Giuliani (getting thrown in jail for 24 hours for smoking a joint on the street just wasn’t worth it). The rest of the country had plenty of reasons of their own: It made you sleep in all day, dealing with any kind of confrontation was impossible, and it wasn’t portable enough. Then coke got so bad they were forced to reconsider.

“I quit coke because I wasn’t getting any work done,” says New York photographer Nick Benson. “I’d be in bed the whole next day, moaning in pain.” Nick has taken to bringing a one-hit out with him every night and garnishing his booze high with one or two tokes. As he puts it, “I used to pass out or freak out on weed when I was a kid. This time around I’m a lot smarter about it. You don’t have to get so baked is all.”

Jennifer Chadha is a student and waitress in Montreal, Quebec. She was reintroduced to pot after her boyfriend gave her a hit three weeks ago. “It’s great,” she explains cheerily. “The coke I was doing was so shitty it literally gave me some kind of growth on the glands in my neck. Now instead of staying up all night, I come home at a normal hour, have a laughing party with my boyfriend, and go to sleep.”

Once again the people have spoken. While coke dealers priced themselves right out of the market and lowered their quality to carcinogenic proportions, pot dealers kept the same prices (even during massive busts and terrorist attacks) and raised their quality through the roof. The result is a whole new generation of pot lovers. Goodbye, cocaine. It was real. It was fun. But it wasn’t real fun.

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2003-05-14T11:42:00.000+03:00
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Trends in electronic music come and go, but the mercurial bubble and squelch of good old acid has remained a permanent fixture since day one. Ceephax Acid Crew’s self-titled debut album, out this month, is the finest straight-up acid record we’ve heard in years. In the right hands, the sounds generated by a Roland TB303, the best known piece of acid-making equipment, can convey emotion in music as lucidly and affectingly as any traditional instrument. Andy Jenkinson, the Chelmsford-based 24-year-old behind Ceephax AC, is a virtuoso when it comes to acid. He’s also the youngest brother of Tom “Squarepusher” Jenkinson.

Listening to Andy’s music is like taking your mind on a trip to a seaside theme park where the rides are made from marshmallow and the colours are impossibly brilliant. Since most people don’t know about Ceephax yet, even though he’s released grade-A acid for a while now, we asked Andy some questions loosely based around the idea of escapism.

Tell me about your favourite holiday.
Going to Holland when I was eleven springs to mind. I was with my grandparents and cousin Isaac. I fell in love with a girl in the Rotterdam Maritime museum.

And your favourite party?
My eighth birthday party at the Chelmsford Wimpy. I remember my milkshake exploded.

What’s in your head when you make music?
Regal riffs. Arcades. Love in an ice rink. Toxic waste barrels. A snowy town square. Traffic lights changing at night with no traffic.

Have you ever gone skiing?
I’ve never been skiing unfortunately, but I reckon I’d love it. I went to the Beckton Alps in London once, but that was just to look at the view of London. I went ice skating last year. I saw a geezer out of The Bill. I love watching all wintery sports, skiing included. I’ve never seen any in reality though. One of my favourite games on the Commodore 64 is Winter Games by Epyx. It’s beautiful.

Where did you do your fine art degree?
Hull for two years and then London. Hull was wicked for writing music as it had this North Sea vibe that inspired loads of coastal tracks. “Swab Funk” was inspired by a Kingston Communications phone box (a Swab box). Hull has its own telephone company and their phone boxes are cream coloured, not red, in case you were wondering. Somehow I got a 2:1; pretty funny considering I just played my tutors my music every now and again. They must have secretly liked acid.

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2003-05-08T17:34:00.000+03:00
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You may have heard this story before. It’s the one about the country girl who moves to the city and somehow manages to retain her innocence in the face of overwhelming corruption. Only, the story of how Jamaican Dancehall DJ, Warrior Queen, rose up is Little Red Riding Hood in reverse. When this aspiring young gal moved from St Catherine’s, Spanish Town to Kingston she embraced the slackness and became the wolf.

Looking to style herself as a female Bounty Killer, Warrior Queen—who took her name from Xena and then stole the crown —set out to be the loudest and lewdest DJ on the circuit, chatting gun lyrics that would make Ninja Man’s weapon shrink with fear. Having eaten all the opposition at home, she moved to London two years ago in search of fresh meat. She hooked up recently with renegade dancehell producer The Bug, to record the unforgiving “Action Pak” for Rephlex Records, a track that exploits her reputation as a ‘bedroom bully’.

So Warrior Queen, why you look so mad?
Jamaica is ardcore. New York is ardcore. Ere is… differen, unnerstan? If I wanna perform, I have to go where Jamaicans go.

British men are too limp for your liking?
A guy say, ‘If you ever make me your boyfriend, then you will never regret cos inna bed me wicked.’ Unnerstan, he’s braggin about imself. This guy’s talkin’ so much I decide, OK then, I’m gonna see what can work out. Sometimes they use anxiety as an excuse. ‘It was because I wanted it so bad, that’s why I cum so quick. The second will be better.’ But, the second one is even worse than the first! We need our orgasm, yeh. And if that guy doesn’t satisfy you then you will have to tell him the truth.

And how does that go over?
Y’know, he’s in another world. The sex is so sweet, he’s enjoyin imself. And he starts talkin. ‘Ooooh. Warrior Queen, I luv you. I’m with you. Take everything I ave. My cheque book, my credit cards.’ He gives you everything, even his wallet with a load of money. And then, when he realise what he done after, he goes, ‘You crazy. How can I give you this?’ That’s reality.

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2003-05-07T16:34:00.000+03:00

Where’d all the money go? We know it’s still there somewhere, but where’d it go? Economists disagree as to exactly how much of world economy has gone underground, but they do agree on two major points: it is a fuck of a lot, and it’s never been more. Back in the 70s only 3–5 percent of the economy was underground. Today it’s at least twice that ($650 billion). That’s more than three times what America spends on Medicare. The IRS estimates that Americans neglected to report $1.5 trillion last year, and that doesn’t even include motherfucking crime!

The problem keeps snowballing because once one person pulls it off, his neighbor says, “Why shouldn’t I try too?” Why wait in line for a green card when the government is granting random amnesties? Why grow soybeans when you can grow pot for (literally) 70 times the price? Why get harassed as a waitress and have your tips taxed when you can dance in a glass booth for $200 an hour? Everybody’s doing it, and if you don’t want to do it someone will be happy to force you to. And so it goes, until one day, all the money becomes invisible.

• The economies of Kentucky and West Virginia have been so replenished by the weed trade that local sheriffs prevent federal agents from busting growers.

• The Houston Chronicle reported this March on a Galveston, Texas, medical-school supervisor who had made almost $18,000 selling finger- and toenails he purloined from donated cadavers.

• According to a 2001 University of Pennsylvania study, an estimated 325,000 American kids age 17 or younger are either prostitutes or performers in porn.

• Estimates of the total value of America’s marijuana crops fall between $11 billion and $30 billion yearly. Pot has been the biggest cash crop in the US for almost two decades running.

• The American $100 bill is the most popular piece of currency used on the global black market. Today, three-quarters of all Benjamins circulate outside the US.

• 759 million hardcore porn films were rented in the year 2001.

• Migrant workers have a life expectancy of 49 years. The average American male life expectancy is around 73.

• Black-market labor (usually performed by illegal aliens) has lowered the average American wage by 12 percent during the past five years.

• According to a 2000 U.S. government study, more than 100,000 women in 20 states were sold into sexual slavery over the previous two years and authorities prosecuted fewer than 250 cases.

• The art world generated $33 billion globally last year, but an estimated 28 percent more changes hands under the table.

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2003-05-06T18:07:00.000+03:00

This work published in introzine last year. So called urban people called our host clubintro.com and told'em that they're gonna sue us for this artwork. When our host didn't support us we decided to kill that e-zine. Although Urban Bug magazine is graphically disgusting, we enjoy using it and terrorizing it in our artworks :-) More Urban Art is coming.. watch out!

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2003-05-05T18:48:00.000+03:00

San Francisco artist Jo Jackson makes super-super-flat paintings using her favorite material, Holbein acrylic gouache. “I like it because it’s disaster-prone, and also they make the most beautiful colors,” she says.

Nothing looks accidental or out of place in Jo’s paintings, though. They are strong and deliberate, and they burn with hot, hot colors.

This piece was made because Jo was “tripping on the fact that the shape of the main USA landmass has the same negative presence as a silhouette of a fascist eagle or a gun.”

There is also a straight-up sex influence in this work, so don’t worry—it isn’t all cerebral. Jo reports, “I was looking a lot at this 1950s book called Man and Wife. It has all these pictures of sexy but spaced-out and bored people having fake, socially sanctioned sex. From all the positions in the book, this one––where they’re standing and he’s looking at her and she’s looking out into the future––became the only one I could ever draw.”

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2003-05-04T14:56:00.000+03:00

Jesse is a painter and record store guy (go to Shrine on 9th Street) who works out all of his heavy issues about sex in joyous depictions of porn-caliber fucking. “I think about sex a lot and I have a girlfriend, so these are a good way to maintain a monogamous relationship,” he says. “And I guess my stuff is also about me being a prude and having to accept that fucking makes the world go ’round. So I just stare it in the face.”

If you’re a boy who first felt strange stirrings in your lap between, say, 1982 and 1988, you will instantly recognize the vibe of Jesse’s paintings. His primary inspiration is 80s porno mags. “It’s really Freudian,” he opines through a pretty little cloud of pot smoke. “I mean, I’ll never forget peeping at my dad’s stack of porn mags.”

And even though Jesse is admittedly a bit chaste in life, don’t be afraid to tell him how much you like his hardcore objets. As he puts it, “When people like the work, it helps me get over my guilt for making it.”

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2003-05-02T16:07:00.000+03:00

When I was 14 the most fun I ever had was in a car park in Stoke. It was 1991 and hardcore rave fever gripped the nation. Whenever we could, my friends and I would travel to parties—indoors, outdoors; we didn’t care—and proceed to get ripped on poppers and Ecstasy with hundreds of others while soundsystems pumped out Altern-8 and Shut Up And Dance. Even the Prodigy made sense when you had a stick of Vicks rammed up each nostril.

On this occasion, Altern-8 pulled into the car park in a lorry, flung open the back doors and performed a blistering PA. People who’d been waiting an hour in the cold went Radio Rental mental. There’s a legendary recording of that show which has commentary by an awestruck spectator. The best bit is when he goes, “My god, now they’re dancing on the cars! They’re out of control! This is madness! Somebody do something!” We legged it before the police arrived. Then the Criminal Justice Bill came into force and killed the dream.

Mainland Europe missed out on the illicit thrills of acid house. The authorities weren’t that bothered and the parties were better organised. A decade on, however, and a new generation of DJs and producers in middle Europe are bored of going to perfect all-night raves and taking amazing drugs with beautiful French girls. They crave danger and excitement and often wonder what it would be like to snort a line of dodgy beige powder and lose control of their bowels in a muddy field. In short, they want old skool hardcore, back-in-the-day UK style.

Now, thanks to shady Swiss label B Rave, they’ve got the tunes. B Rave allows anonymous big-name techno producers (like, probably, The Hacker) to release brutal dark acid doom anthems with Hoover basslines and almighty breakdowns. With tracks named “Law Unto Myself”, “Rave On Steroids” and “You Know The Fuckin Score” by blokes calling themselves Asylum Seekers, M25 and Max Hardcore, this is fake nostalgia at its misty-eyed finest. These records capture the simple lunatic essence of early-90s rave but sound so much fiercer.

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2003-04-28T12:29:00.000+03:00
September 12, 1995
Dear Diary,

I tripped on acid for the first time last night. Really strange. At first I was really confused and PARANOID, it was really bad. The visuals were insane. Colors all melting and stuff. Then I felt like I was this crazy, intelligent human being. I was looking down on all the crackheads and all the SXE kids because I had the best of both worlds right there in the middle. It’s better than E because E turns you into such a dork. It was good and I liked the mind trip but sometimes I just like to be planted down in reality. I want to turn into the supreme human being that I know I am. I think I can do it.

July 1, 2002
Dear Diary,

And so began the Acid Years. I quickly discovered how much acid sucks. Actually, it wasn’t so quick. I’d say it took 10-------–12 more times of dropping that horrible substance on my tongue for me to actually realize that I didn’t need to take acid ever, ever again. How gay is drug culture, by the way? I mean, Ecstasy, acid—even weed, it’s all pretty dorky. Black-light posters, lava lamps, house music. It’s a suburban marketing scheme and that is the pits! Yesterday, a 32-year-old friend of mine was supposed to meet up with me, but when I called him he was all out-of-sorts because he had taken Ecstasy. Hello? People still do that? I guess so, although I don’t know how anyone over the age of 21 can think being a drooling, suckling, smoking homo would be fun. Me, I’ll just stick to heroin, thank you. No, I’m kidding.

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2003-04-14T12:18:00.000+03:00

So here I am, locked in a cage in an ancient, crumbling dungeon, doomed to spend a decade of my life marching through these murky corridors under the watchful gaze of club wielding cops with bloated guts and beady, piggish pink eyes-- cops that will routinely open my mail, control the food I eat and the clothes I wear, examine my urine for outlaw molecules, and search my rectal cavity to make sure I’m not hiding any forbidden objects.

For companions in these corridors I have a motley crew of social misfits, some like Arlo Guthrie used to say "mother-stabbers and father-rapers," some thieves, bank robbers, muggers and con men, some revolutionary warriors and enemies of the State, and an increasing number like myself who are condemned to this fate because of a fondness for forbidden visionary vegetables.

Yes, I am one of the most despised and despicable of media monsters, that blight of corruption against morality and decency and law ‘n’ order--one who chooses to partake of consciousness-altering flowering herbs and alchemical essences-- a drug user!

Ever since my discovery in the late 1960s of the miraculous and magical mind-manifesting powers of psychedelics, I have continued to occasionally use and enjoy these heretical vegetable products. Further, I have spoken out honestly, in print and from the public stage, about my belief that these products should be legal so that those of us who choose to use them can do so without fear. It has been my opinion that the lungs, stomach, bloodstreams and brains of individual citizens are beyond the legitimate limits of government authority-- and that in a free society, people should be free to grow, prepare, use and exchange whatever vegetable products they like, without interference from the State.

BUSTED

Over the last couple of decades, I have continued to publicly oppose prohibition laws and other forms of social and political authoritarianism. This open activism caused me to come under the surveillance of the "authorities," and it came to pass that I was busted in a sting operation in the city of Syracuse, New York, late in the evening of October 17, 1990.

A "friend" who I had known and trusted for many years had decided to earn some extra income for himself (or, perhaps, exculpate himself from a legal embarrassment of his own) as a paid informant to the Thought Police. He arranged to introduce me to an undercover police agent, who expressed an interest in LSD and asked me if I could find him some.

This wolf in sheep's clothing (a skillful agent who specializes in entrapping drug heretics) wove a web of lies and deceit around me to establish his credibility. He wore his hair long and shaggy; he dressed in old, ragged jeans and motorcycle boots; he affected counter-culture mannerisms of speech and demeanor; he smoked pot with me at my house on a number of occasions. I located some LSD for him, and he came to my house to pick it up. At first he bought a few hits, and then he returned for increasingly larger quantities.

On the final occasion, he had worked his way up to a bundle of ten sheets (each sheet containing 100 doses of LSD in little squares of blotter paper). On this visit, he brought a team of heavily armed police thugs with him. They were waiting at my front door when I opened it to let him out. Suddenly I found myself looking down the barrels of six 45-caliber pistols.

I was thrown to the ground, pummeled, kicked, handcuffed and hauled back into my home for a few hours of interrogation. While two of the thugs "questioned" me (trying to convince me to turn informant so that I could "get off easy"), the rest of the team proceeded to "search" my apartment. They had a great time and did a very thorough job. They ripped up and smashed everything in sight-- pulling books down from the shelves, ripping them apart and heaping them on the floor; demolishing the shelves; tearing paintings from the walls and trampling them; hurling computers and stereo equipment across the room. Records and tapes and files of documents were strewn around like rubble. They confiscated a selection of books and documents to be used as evidence against me. In the course of the search, they found some more sheets of LSD, a small amount of marijuana, some dried mushrooms and a set of scales.

I found myself facing six felony charges and a handful of misdemeanors (including multiple counts of sales, possession with intent to sell and possession of a controlled substance). My court-appointed attorney told me that, since I had a previous drug-related indiscretion on my record, I faced a probable 25-to-life sentence, unless I was willing to switch sides and help prosecute my comrades. I spoke of challenging the charges on constitutional grounds, but I was told that this would virtually guarantee a maximum sentence. Other lawyers I sought advice from concurred, citing the prevailing political climate. (Shortly after I was busted, an undercover cop was killed during a failed cocaine sting-- unfortunately not the cop that nailed me-- and the media was filled with anti-drug hysteria that approached a lynch-mob mentality. The judge assigned to my case was evidently persuaded that my offenses exceeded in seriousness such paltry crimes as mere murder, rape or grand larceny).

After I had cooled my heels in the county jail for three months (in lieu of $50,000 bail), the D.A. evidently realized that I wasn’t going to "cooperate" with the Unholy Inquisition, and I was offered a "plea bargain" in which the original charges against me were dropped and a charge of "conspiracy" was substituted-- a handy, all-purpose charge which can have any meaning they choose to give it. At first, this deal came with a 12-to-life sentence (12 years in prison followed by life on parole), but eventually, as I continued to hold out, they dropped it down to 6-to-12, and I was told that this was the final offer-- I could take it or demand a jury trial and get the maximum 25-to-life sentence. So, swallowing my misgivings, I took the deal.

My experience was not an uncommon one. Recent statistics indicate that there are more than 1.2 million Americans currently incarcerated in jails and prisons, and that something close to 50% of us are locked up for prohibition violations.

BEHIND THE SCENES IN THE "WAR ON DRUGS"

So, here I am; a prisoner-of-war in the "war on drugs."

A look beneath the veneer of propaganda shows that this "drug war" is a deceptive and insidious attack on human freedom, waged by an ultra-rich class of corporate profiteers who have successfully subverted the American political system and are attempting to establish a stranglehold on the entire world-- a "new world order" that will ensure their global economic and political dominance. The drug prohibition laws are one element in their conspiracy, one cog in their machine of global domination.

The "drug war" is the epitome of hypocrisy. The politicians who wage this war against users of non-approved drugs are nearly all addicted to alcohol, tobacco and caffeine, which are among the deadliest drugs ever used by humans.

Tobacco alone causes over 400,000 deaths of Americans annually.

Alcohol is the direct cause of over 125,000 U.S. deaths each year, and it is responsible for many times that number of deaths because of its causal relation with traffic accidents, homicides and domestic violence.

Even caffeine, which is considered relatively innocuous and is loaded into children's candies and soft drinks, causes up to 10,000 U.S. deaths annually.

In comparison, all illegal drugs, including the most harmful, cause less than 5,000 U.S. deaths annually. And the #1 target of the "drug war," marijuana, has never caused a single death in all of history anywhere in the world, despite the fact that it has been more widely used, and more thoroughly studied, than any other mind-altering vegetable product.1

This fact was admitted by Francis L. Young, a D.E.A. administrative law judge, in an official ruling in 1988. He confirmed that there are no known deaths attributable to marijuana use, and stated that marijuana is "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man," and added, "In strict medical terms, marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume."2

Tobacco, besides being more deadly to human health than any other legal or illegal recreational drug, is also one of the most addictive. It is often easier to kick a heroin habit than to stop smoking tobacco. Yet, the U.S. mass media is littered with seductive ads urging consumers to get hooked. These ads are prominently displayed on giant billboards in every major American city, on highways and at concerts and sporting events. They use subliminal techniques to manipulate the minds of the people. And the U.S. government subsidizes tobacco growers at taxpayers’ expense.

SECRET GOVERNMENT DRUG TRAFFICKING

But there is another level of "drug war" hypocrisy that is even more insidious. While the U.S. government has been prosecuting users of illegal drugs, it has been engaging in secret trafficking in heroin and cocaine, with the aid of the CIA, to finance "covert" military operations.

Many veterans returning from Vietnam in the early 1970s described how they had witnessed, or had been forced to participate in, the smuggling of tons of heroin into the U.S. from the Southeast Asian "golden triangle" during Nixon’s "secret" incursions into Laos and Cambodia. The heroin was loaded into sealed coffins supposedly containing the dismembered corpses of American soldiers.3

In the 1980s, the same type of government sponsored drug trafficking occurred with cocaine (and there are indications it continues today). The CIA arranged the importation of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. from Central and South America and the Middle East, to provide covert funding for the Nicaraguan "contra" war. Details of these dealings leaked out during the Iran-Contra congressional hearings, and the story was widely reported by the newspapers of the world-- except in the U.S., where it was totally suppressed.4 The government of Costa Rica identified Oliver North, John Poindexter, and Richard Secord as conspirators in a cocaine trafficking plot, along with CIA operative John Hull, whose Costa Rican ranch was used as a trans-shipment point for drugs and arms.5

This covert government involvement in drug trafficking was designed to serve a dual political purpose.

On the international level, it provides financial support for covert military operations in the Third World, in furtherance of the strategy of "low intensity warfare" in support of U.S.-based multinational corporations.

Domestically, the proliferation of debilitating drugs is used to destabilize the oppressed populations of the inner cities, to counteract potentially revolutionary tendencies, and to provide a pretext for the militarization of domestic law enforcement and the erosion of traditionally protected civil liberties, bringing us a step closer to the monolithic police state that the corporate oligarchs have planned for America and the "new world order."

Heroin flooded the streets of U.S. cities during the late 1960s and early 1970s, plummeting in price, giving Nixon the diversion he needed to veil his major crackdown on dissidents and revolutionaries (including the FBI’s "CoIntelPro" purges and the police assassination attacks on the Black Panther Party, and the frame-up of Timothy Leary on pot charges as he was putting together his campaign for governor of California). Part of this wave of repression was the draconian anti-drug law that was sponsored in New York State by governor Nelson Rockefeller, the Butcher of Attica.

Under the Carter administration, there was a brief, partial thaw in the anti-drug rhetoric, during which some marijuana "decriminalization" bills were being passed by state legislatures, and some research was conducted on marijuana’s many medicinal properties. But with Reagan’s "October surprise" takeover of the federal government, this liberalization abruptly ended. Positive findings about marijuana’s value in medicine were suppressed. Cocaine flooded U.S. cities in unprecedented abundance, dropping rapidly in price. George Bush, former CIA director under president Ford and Reagan’s top anti-drug enforcer, toured the country making speeches about the new menace of "crack" just as it was being introduced into America’s underground markets, as if he were a soap salesman drumming up interest in a new brand of detergent.

THE ANTI-CANNABIS CONSPIRACY

Under Nixon/Ford and Reagan/Bush, the major prohibition enforcement target was the least harmful of all recreational drugs; marijuana. Why this irrational national vendetta against this harmless, healing herb?

The carefully suppressed truth is that the marijuana plant-- cannabis sativa or Indian hemp-- was once a major industrial resource that threatened the monopoly profits of the petrochemical industry and other interrelated corporate interests. Paper, textiles, plastics, paints and varnishes, medicines and thousands of other products were made from hemp. It was also a source of clean burning fuels that are viable alternatives to gasoline and coal.

Technical advances in hemp processing in the 1930s caused a resurgence in the hemp industry that could have triggered a revolutionary shift in the American economy, putting the giant petrochemical-based monopoly corporations out of business and transferring their profits to a "grass-roots" network of independent, agriculturally-based enterprises.6 Hemp products were in the public domain and could not be controlled by exclusive patents; thus they eluded the control of monopoly-based megabusiness conglomerates.

The incestuously interlocked petroleum, chemical, paper, banking and pharmaceutical corporations (DuPont, Hearst, Mellon, GM, Rockefeller, etc.) joined forces in a blatant conspiracy to destroy the hemp industry, which they couldn’t compete with in a free market. Through the control of the nation’s media, they fabricated the "reefer madness" campaign of anti-drug hysteria, and under its influence the fraudulent "Marihuana Tax Act" was pushed through congress with a minimum of debate. Before hemp prohibition began in 1938, marijuana and hashish were widely used and commonly accepted by the U.S. population with no hint of negative effects. Cannabis was listed in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia with over 100 different medical uses, and it was as popular an over-the-counter medicinal ingredient as aspirin and Tylenol are today. "Turkish smoking parlors" were open for business in all major U.S. cities, and hashish smoking concessions were a popular attraction at the Worlds’ Fairs. Hashish candy was sold openly in corner drug stores and through the Sears catalog. Yet, a few years after hemp prohibition began, all traces of cannabis and the hemp industry had vanished from the American media, school curricula, and history books, in one of the most thorough Orwellian cover-ups in modern history.7

PSYCHEDELICS: MIND-MANIFESTING MAGICAL MEDICINES

There is another reason that the State tries fanatically and fruitlessly to keep the people from using marijuana: it gets you high.

Like the other psychedelics, marijuana can expand human consciousness. This is threatening to the State, which bases its power on the ignorance and superstition of the masses.

Drugs like alcohol and tobacco, or heroin and cocaine, are useful to the State: they induce an intoxicated stupor, keep users dumb and gullible, and promote attitudes of competition and aggressiveness. They set up chain reactions of addictive cravings, insuring a steady stream of customers and profits.

Psychedelics, on the other hand, tend to awaken the mind from the hypnotic somnambulism of Amerikan consumer culture. Psychedelics are "anti-brainwashing agents," stimulating users to question the assumptions of the establishment and to break through the indoctrination and conditioning that the State uses to turn us into obedient robot consumer/worker/soldier/housewife/bureaucrats. Psychedelics can widen the horizons of the mind, awakening the creative imagination.

Besides cannabis, the major psychedelics are LSD (made from ergot, a purple fungus that grows on rye, or from the seeds of certain varieties of morning glory flowers), mescaline (from peyote, a cactus native to the deserts of the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico), and psilocybin (from "magic mushrooms"). Each of these has its own unique subtleties of effect, but they all share the same basic characteristics. They expand the scope and complexity of perception, thought, comprehension, and imagination. They amplify the brain’s access to input through all sensory channels. Previously "subconscious" and "unconscious" mental contents are brought into the spotlight of conscious awareness.

These effects were noted by early researchers. Aleister Crowley, a British poet and mystical philosopher who experimented with cannabis and mescaline, described their effects as a "loosening of the girders of the soul" in his 1907 essay, The Psychology of Hashish.8 Aldous Huxley described the effects of mescaline as an opening of "the doors of perception" and wrote that it provided access to "the antipodes of the mind."9

Psychedelics are not "hallucinogens:" this derogatory term is used in State-sponsored anti-drug propaganda, just as all illegal drugs are often included under the blanket term "narcotics"-- including cocaine, which is a powerful stimulant, the opposite of a narcotic.

The alterations of perception caused by psychedelics are not hallucinations in the strict sense of the term. Rather, they are amplifications and magnifications of perceptions and mental functions, analogous to the altered perceptions caused by looking through the lenses of a telescope or a microscope. There are some drugs which are true "hallucinogens" -- i.e., which induce a confusion of the senses in which false perceptions are mistaken for real-- such as the belladonna/jimson weed/henbane family of herbs, sources of the drugs atropine and scopolamine. These drugs are in a distinct class from the psychedelics, as unbiased scientific studies of the subject make clear.

The term "psychedelic" was coined by Dr. Humphrey Osmond in the 1950s. It is derived from the Greek words psyche, soul or mind, and delos, to manifest or make clear; thus, the meaning of the term is "mind-manifesting" or "soul-clarifying." Since the 1960s, the word has entered into popular usage to describe such varied subjects as clothing styles and techniques of musical or artistic expression, but in its original sense it remains the most accurate scientific term for the unique class of consciousness-expanding drugs.

Simply stated, psychedelics affect consciousness by triggering increased amounts of neuro-transmitters to flood the synapses of the brain, thus allowing the brain to process a larger percentage of the information streaming in through the nervous system. The effect is like switching on a bright light in a dimly lit room, or like waking up from a lifelong semi-sleep, to a higher degree of wakefulness than you’ve ever known.

LSD and the other major psychedelics were made illegal in 1966, at a time when they were having a major effect, both in the world of scientific, medical and philosophical research, and in the world of popular culture where they were triggering a worldwide renaissance in music, art, literature and fashion that was affecting human society in innumerable ways.

Research with LSD showed that it had tremendous value as an aid to psychotherapy and in the treatment of alcoholism. LSD therapy was found to provide more permanent recovery from alcohol addiction than any other method, before or since. Other studies showed that a few LSD sessions could cause a major drop in recidivism among prison inmates convicted for violent crimes, and that LSD could ease the fear of death in terminal cancer patients. Yet, despite these and many other positive discoveries, all research with psychedelics was curtailed when prohibition was enacted.

Passage of laws against psychedelics was supported by a proliferation of distorted and fabricated propaganda in the mass media, in a replay of the successful anti-marijuana campaign of the 1930s. Popular myths remain today among the majority of the public that is unaware of the scientific literature on the subject; that LSD causes chromosome damage, for instance-- news stories correcting this fallacy were buried on the back pages of the daily papers and had little effect on the impressions made by the banner headlines that had originally proclaimed the scare stories.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION

Millions of us who sampled the psychedelics in the 1960s experienced profound, life-changing spiritual and philosophical revelations that were of incomparable personal value.

These experiences paralleled discoveries made with the aid of sacramental vegetable products by indigenous peoples from all parts of the world since ancient times-- discoveries that are enshrined in the sacred scriptures and spiritual traditions of many of the world’s religions.

The "legal" prosecution of those of us who freely choose to follow this ancient and honorable spiritual path-- the yoga of light-containing herbs-- is ethically indistinguishable from the medieval persecution of witches and heretics. Whether or not the use of sacramental vegetables meets with the approval of the civil authorities (or anyone else), it is a personal matter that clearly deserves the protection of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which promises that the "free exercise of religion" will not be abridged.

In my own experience, the vistas opened up by LSD and the other psychedelics were among the most interesting and important events of my life. Under the spell of these elixirs of light, I was filled with a sudden, overwhelming reawakening of the quality of consciousness that I remembered experiencing as a young child-- yet with the addition of a mature, fully functioning rational intellect. The fundamental questions of philosophy suddenly emerged from the dusty academic realm and assumed a living immediacy: who am I? what is this reality, this thing we call "life?" how did this universe come to be? And following on the heels of these questions came answers, flooding forth from within me and from everywhere I looked in the world around me. A transcendental understanding flowered in ecstasy; the scales fell from my eyes and the mysteries of nature were revealed like an unsealed book in the light of the awakened gnosis. The insights of Eastern philosophy and Western mysticism, of William Blake and Vincent Van Gogh, were unlocked with a spontaneous revelation of their relevance to the collective inner human condition. I felt renewed, reborn in the purging brilliance of the revelation.

This power lies latent within us, locked in the cells of our bodies, in the molecules of the matter that makes up the matrix of reality, awaiting the chemical keys that will release it into conscious awareness. This is not to say that the use of psychedelics is the only way to release this transcendental understanding. But is certainly is one way-- a way that works.

REPEAL PROHIBITION NOW

Prohibition laws are an encroachment by government into the most sacred areas of individual liberty and personal privacy.

Prohibition enforcement relies on the basest malignancies of human nature, rewarding the treachery and deceit of paid informants and the lies and deceptions of undercover agents, encouraging children to spy on their parents and citizens on their neighbors, turning public life into a miasma of hypocrisy and paranoia.

Already, prohibition is bringing American society closer to a total police state, with mandatory urine testing at our places of employment, police roadblocks on our highways, and the maintenance of detailed secret police files on every citizen.

Thomas Jefferson ("life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness") and Patrick Henry ("give me liberty or give me death") must be squirming and writhing in their graves as they look back on their progeny of two centuries.

I appeal to all who read these words: the use and exchange of visionary vegetable products is not a crime!

Demand an immediate end to all prohibition laws.

Demand that all prisoners of prohibition be freed under a general amnesty, and that reparations be paid for their lost property and disrupted lives.

Organize and act to stop this mad Juggernaut of misguided government, before it succeeds in crushing out the flame of liberty from the face of the Earth!

So mote it be!

To correspond with the author or to reprint this article contact: Dale R. Gowin, #91-B-0209, P.O. Box 500, Elmira, NY 14902, USA.

1These statistics are all reported in The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer (Van Nuys, CA): Queen of Clubs Pub., 1990. [For ordering info, see note 7 below.]

2 Washington Post, 9/7/88 p. 42

3 Documentation of these assertions is given in the books Kiss the Boys Goodbye by Monica Jensen, and The Politics of Heroin by Alfred McCoy. Both of these are available from The Christic Institute, 8773 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90034. Also, see The Bamboo Cage by Migel Clawthorne, published by Leo Cooper in England in 1990.

4 See, for example, the British daily Guardian, 6/22/89: "North Accused of Running Drugs Ring."

5 For further information on the CIA/cocaine connection, see: Cocaine Politics by Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall; Drug Wars by Jonathan Marshall; Out of Control by Leslie Cockburn; Deep Cover by Michael Lavine; and The Bluegrass Conspiracy by Sally Denton. These, and other related items, are available from the Christic Institute (the address is given in note 3 above).

6 See "New Billion Dollar Crop," Popular Mechanics, February 1938 (reprinted in The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer).

7 The history of hemp and documentation of the anti-cannabis conspiracy is spelled out in full detail in The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer (available for $15.00 postpaid, from H.E.M.P. (Help End Marijuana Prohibition), 5632 Van Nuys Blvd., Suite 210, Van Nuys, CA 91401). The following are also good resources on the real marijuana story-- ask for them at your local alternative bookstore or public library: Marijuana: The First 12,000 Years by Ernest A. Able; Reefer Madness by Larry Sloman; The Marijuana Papers; edited by David Solomon; Ganja in Jamaica by Vera Rubin and Lambros Comitas; and for information on the medical uses of marijuana; see: Marijuana Medical Papers, 1839-1972, edited by Tod Mikuria; Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana by Drs. S. Cohen and R. Stillman; and Marijuana as Medicine by Roger Roffman, Ph.D.

8 Originally published in Aleister Crowley’s periodical The Equinox, "The Psychology of Hashish" was reprinted in Roll Away the Stone, an anthology edited by Israel Regardie (Falcon Press).

9 Aldous Huxley’s essays "Heaven and Hell" and "The Doors of Perception" are included in his collection, Moksha: Writings On Psychedelics And The Visionary Experience (N.Y.: Stonehill, 1977).

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2003-04-11T10:57:00.000+03:00

Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys is one of the sickest documentaries you’ll probably never see. Made in 1994, it’s a look inside the world of NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, an organization that purportedly exists as a “political and educational organization” for guys who like their meat real tender. There are no hardcore scenes of man-boy joy in Chicken Hawk, but the stories and fantasies that NAMBLA members relate are jaw-droppingly creepy enough. A pasty-faced Mormon missionary named Leyland Stevenson tells how one time he brought a little friend with him on a camping trip, zipped their sleeping bags together, and ass-fucked the kid the next morning. “No lubrication was required…or desired,” Leyland coos to the camera, grinning wide at his cherished memory.

But Chicken Hawk is not just about shocking stories of lonely adult men who pine for smooth, soft boyflesh. Many of the NAMBLA members profiled don’t seem to have ever actually done anything beyond jerking off to episodes of Webster, yet they are persecuted (by fringe anti-pedophile groups like Straight Kids USA) as violently as convicted child molesters. A nerdy, nervous teacher at Bronx Science High School gets fired just for being a NAMBLA member thanks to one child-safety activist, and Renald Corrazzo, an odd Italian artist, receives cheerful phone calls like “Die of fucking AIDS, you babyfucker. You lowlife son of a cunt-licking whore.”

Remarkably, Chicken Hawk was done as a sophomore project at NYU by Adi Sideman, a former Israeli paratrooper who’s since left the documentary world to head a successful webcasting company. When it was finished, two of his NYU advisors were so appalled that they demanded their names be taken off the credits. (of course, now that the film is getting critical acclaim, one of them shows it as part of his History of the Documentary class.)

Not surprisingly, gays weren’t too happy with Chicken Hawk. Though the documentary features copious interviews with disapproving early-90s gay-rights types (“We’re not with them,” lisps one neatly coiffed dude at a March on Washington that NAMBLA joined), some gay film festivals wouldn’t touch it. Instead, it premiered at the first New York Underground Film Festival in 1994 and made national headlines. Don’t forget, kid sex was a hot topic then, what with the recent scandals of Michael Jackson, Katie Beers, and Polly Klaas clogging news time, not to mention the kinder-core fashions that were all the rage.

Chicken Hawk was released theatrically and on home video, but the companies that put it out eventually went out of business. Sideman moved on to other things, and the film became an obscure rarity.

Today things are pretty much the same. Gary Glitter is gone, but his good pal Pete Townsend is continuing his “research.” Catholic priests are still stingy on the lube and, lo and behold, Michael Jackson has returned to the fray. To celebrate this total lack of progress, Chicken Hawk has returned to the New York Underground Film Festival and will no doubt cause the same outrage it did the first time around. It’s too bad. There are a lot of important lessons this film could teach, but unless it gets rereleased or you catch it at the festival, this is just going to have to stay our little secret.

ED HALTER

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2003-04-10T11:00:00.000+03:00
Canadian Revolution
by Dana Larsen (28 Feb, 2003) From the editor

Within the first weeks of 2003 we saw some pretty dramatic events in the weedy world of marijuana.

In Canada, court cases started piling up which declared that the nation’s pot laws were invalid and unconstitutional! Canadian med-pot patients have been getting their pot back from the police, and the government is talking about formally making pot possession into a simple ticketing offence.

Yet in the US things seem bad for the cannabis culture. The Bush administration continues a massive anti-pot propaganda campaign, the number of pot prisoners is rising, and state ballot initiatives to liberalize drug laws all failed in 2002. Meanwhile, new security measures aimed at shadowy terrorists will ultimately affect pot-people more than almost anyone else.

This issue we present a special look into what’s new in Canada, with most of our Smoke Signals section being devoted to Canadian news. As the gap between Canada’s liberalization and America’s tightening drug war continues to expand, more American tokers will flee across the border to escape pot persecution.

Canada’s traditional role has been to welcome US refugees, whether from slavery, the Vietnam draft, or other persecution. Canada’s liberal attitudes towards pot will have a good effect on our American cousins. An example of this is our magazine – printed and produced in Canada, we sell most of our copies in the US.

In mid-January, just as this issue was going to press, an Alabama teen was sentenced to an astounding 26 years in prison for a first offence of making four minor pot sales to an undercover agent. His tragic case prompted the media to cover some other such Alabama sentences, including a 15 year sentence handed down in December 2002 for possession of a single joint.

With such insanely severe penalties imprisoning their youth, and with tens of thousands more young people armed and ready to kill for oil in Iraq, some might think that pot culture in the USA is doomed. Yet in fact we will see an end to this long international nightmare, and one day soon we will see the smoke from our joints carried away by the sweet winds of freedom.

Dana Larsen
Editor, Cannabis Culture

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2003-04-07T19:15:00.000+03:00

When I was TWELVE, there was this golden moment when I realized The Grateful Dead were not another awesome band with mind-blowing extended jams, far-out mascot skeletons and dancing bears. They were, in fact, shit. The universal symbol for lame stoner doods with extra-large T-shirts and a different hacky- sack for every day of the week. But like the electro and no-wave revivals we’ve all indulged in over the past few years, stoner-bliss has recently made it to round two. The good news is, this time it rules. Most of the new post-psych bands are giving up on old staples like hour-long jams and trippy iconography, but dreamy droner Fursaxa is taking tie-dye, alchemy, and speaking in tongues and clutching them closer to her breast than the first generation ever dreamed of.

Prancing out of Philadelphia, Fursaxa’s human form, Tara Burke, is all about the simplicity of freaking out. As she puts it, “I just play things that sound good to me.” Her Japan-only release, Mandrake (which boasts trails of Jap-psych masters Acid Mothers Temple and was produced by the elf-king himself, Kawabata Makoto), dangles on the edge of some netherworld where every sound has an innate reverb and magic is spelled with a “k.” Fairy voices warble in and out of tune in this sonic forest of chord organs, while gnomes play elbow guitars in secret groves, and all there is to eat is acid tea and mushroom pancakes.

It’s too bad the real world isn’t like this, but Tara says that her milieu is close enough. “Lots of moody lights and the smell of burning herbs—lavender, sage, rosemary—really help me make music.” She’s forgetting one other herb that we know she’s no stranger to. Tara is so high during this interview she sounds like that blonde bassist chick from The Muppet Show.

Tara has played in a colorful spectrum of settings, from the Museum of Contemporary Art in D.C. to sharing bills with bands like Black Dice. She says that while her music may not appeal to either bourgeois art snobs or the noisy punk house at first, there is one divine element that links them all together. “When I listen to Black Dice, for instance, I feel a common thread in our approach to making music—finding beauty in a fucked-up world.”

Mandrake is available from more serious record stores and on obsessive eBay vendors’ lists. A new Fursaxa LPis in the works too.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Five Other Stoner Bands
Animal Collective
These Brooklyn kids have names like “The Deacon” and “Panda Bear,” and they sound like a crazed drum circle, but louder and with other instruments and chant-ing. Magnificent shit. Best record: Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished (released under the name Avey Tare & Panda Bear, but good luck finding that one)

Circle
Finnish group that hovers between Judas Priest-y metal and lush medieval folk stuff. You can laugh at the singer’s trilly little inflections or bonghit out to their heavier, Faust-like drone bits. Best record: Sunrise

Nagisa Ni Te
Hazy progressive music and Nick Drake-influenced folk getting gently strummed by a Japanese hippie (hence you don’t have to worry

about gay lyrics because it’s all in his native tongue). Best record: On the Love Beach

Six Organs of Admittance
This New York-based band is the reason the term “acid folk” was invented. Spacy fingerpicking, majestic electric guitar, and fucking tablas are all over last year’s Dark Noontide. These are the kind of guys who blink a lot when they’re outside in the daytime. Best record: Dark Noontide

No Neck Blues Band
This is a given if you’re into that whole free-rock heavy hippie music vibe, but in case you’re a neophyte, these guys are the bosses of it. Tribal, transcendent, and stronger-willed than you are. Best record: Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones But Names Will Never Hurt Me

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2003-04-07T17:25:00.000+03:00
Here We Go! Let's Smoke it Deep!