77SILICONSTRIP - ONLINE RPG - Setting and characters in search of a storyboard artist/Photoshopper/Flash-Head

I was reclining in the lounge of the dental lab of Ashraf Bessada, ("This is not a clinic! You must, please, to be here on time, dammit!") for three hours, yesterday, reading whatever magazine they had laying about I found interesting in-between rounds of bee-stinger syringes filling my face flush to the gills with "Nova Kane" (see Fun Fact Five (copyright LUXXXCORP, 2006, below), tooth-drilling that rattled my brain-pan and feeling the most sweet, close and tender emotions for the asst. who felt challenged by the Dr. to do the packing and coiling perfectly. Unfortunately, she nailed me. That left hook way up in my incisor was the only "out-of-control, lizard brain-stem reaction that bent my body like a bow" moment of excruciating pain I felt during the entire session. Since we shared, what was for me, an unforgettable moment, I'm considering asking her to accompany me somewhere, date-like, but only after my divorce clears the courts. I'll be seeing a lot of her, anyway, what with all the work I need done. [FUN FACT FIVE: "Nova Kane" is the super-heroine/girlfriend of E-Man/ex-exotic dancer Charlton comic book character auteured by Joe Staton circa. 1973 - 1975 with an assist from Steve "Spider-Man, Dr. Strange, Ayn Rand" Ditko, and a young upstart working on his chops named Byrne. {see ROG 2000, Mike Mauser: Private Dick}] ..and I thought of this: If I were to rewrite one of my old term papers as a graphic novel it mat look a li'l sumpin' lack 'iss 'eyah:

I ran this through my Psychotronic Translator and it still came out as gibberish. *shrug*

Try the "insane babble" setting.

Nothing.

Might want to check your BS detector settings, I think they're out of calibration.


I think I'll de- and then re-construct a new "77 Silicon Strip" online comic book.

Setting and characters in search of a storyboard artist/PhotoshopWizard/Flash-Head

Setting:


Present day: Way off North of the Seychelle Islands in the South Pacific there is an island paradise awaiting you. Port Alfred rests in back of the hidden cove where sweetness and light reign o'er the land. Until I moved in. I brought some of my fun friends and acquaintances with me. Here, let me introduce you to the...

Supporting Characters:


E-Pro & Turbo:
Fast computer twins. see: X-Files > William "Just Plain Bill" Gibson's cyberpunk episode. Except they look like those twin sister/models from American Idol & Maxim > One's skill is exponential. The other's? Logrythmic! (We're waiting for the next upgrade. SSHHHH! Don't tell them.) Real power to sway men's minds, if you know what I mean. And a lot more women than you'd, probably, think. Someone should run a check. Where's our Kinsey? (ed. note: I, myself, am about a 2.) Ans. Maybe 10 years or more ago there was a hot statistician on the lecture circuit humping her two books. Whatever happened to her? It's liked she dropped off the face of the earth. {FUN FACT 1: E-PRO is, actually, the title of a Beck hit.}

Prof. Kunstler-Kinsey:
Should I go here with all the sex baggage? M or F? What's the nickname? {FUN FACT 2: Counselor Kunstler = Bigfoot ACLU lawyer/prof. big-shot. Will I need him if I go here? People get more pissed over sex than violence. I can't see it from their POV. GrahdznjiiveKinsey = Egghead statistician with a sex bent. Free Love, too. Lead to "The Harrad Experiment" and so forth.}

Prof. Sigue:
Typical Mad Scientist with crazy ideas about cloning. Except when you consider his personal and historical contexts. You see, as a child, he was left and forgotten in a certain Baltic country's "Sanitarium" for political prisoners, circa 1964. His entire family were arrested for treason due to his father's snide & spitting remarks, vis-a-vis the Man, "Iron Grahdznjiive" < (ed. note: I'll finesse that, later, but it'll stay mostly consonants. When you say it your face should look as if you're trying to hold back a sneeze. Yeah, that's it. His name sounds like a multi-syllablablic sneeze.) There, at Bsrjyurui #2, he was taken in hand by an odd offshoot of a long-dead Order of Benedictine nuns that inhabited an ancient convent therein on the grounds. The horrors. You have no idea. At age 16 he was given the boot and with his COBOL certification, enrolled in...yeah, you guessed it, Miskatonic U. (Eastern Europe Campus), or, as we sneeringly call it, A & M, (Agricultural & Mechanical) Dropped out of sight one semester before graduating. (Not really a Professor) Has insomnia and a tendency to tweak when he gets the Yip-Yips. Member: Fraternal Order of Odd Fellows {FUN FACT 2.5: Sigue Sigue Sputnik (means Burning/Crashing Satellite in Russian slang) is a one-hit wonder with "F-111 Love Song"} Punch: Sigue's guinea pig/henchman in red. No back-story for him. Dead Man Walking. Moving on to...Ok. Ok. He's, possibly, gay and has an expired Musicians Union Guild Card in his wallet. He's done a lot of weddings. Maybe yours. {FUN FACT 2.75: There is, in reality, nothing funny about death.} Meredith: Punch's battered wife. She's too afraid to do much of anything. The only character that has our deepest sympathies. Truly a seriously bad situation no levity will ever be brought to. {FUN FACT 2.75: Nothing funny here either move along now.} Guero: Che Gueverra-type/Arab-in-the-street, a real gangsta, regal, but with a bit of pimpery about him, though, and that's unfortunate. A cream-puff inside - aching to trust someone in order to love them/her. Or...is it something else? Drives a diesal van. Both Prof.'s go-to guy. Helps the poor by paying them off with money in exchange for their gratiude and minor adulation. "Virtue has it's own rewards...and all that sh!t" (laughs), A, potentially, quite menacing character. You would be much better off not coming onto this guy's radar. Member: OG (Original Gangster): One 10 Killaz, Honorary OG: White Fence, see: Ice-T in Johnny Mnemonic or that guy from Black Flag with some make-up and appliances. {FUN FACT 2.85 Guero is another Beck hit, as well as referencing the first two lines of lyrics from Bowie's "Panic In Detroit"} Archie: One Word - Cheney, Dick - City Councilman/Church Elder, bankrolls his partner, Guero, in the electronic pirating game, 3rd degree, 10th level (blue) Mason. This guy's kinda iffy. Smooth as silk but don't trust 'im. Trying to shut down Prof. Kunstler-Kinsey's unethical and immoral, if not illegal, network operations in the exurbs. Mostly web-based and porn-related. {FUN FACT 2.95 Definitely not Riverdale Archie.} And lurking, always lurking, in the background, just out of sight, always watching, judging you are: Dump: Gulf War II veteren suffering from HEAP, Hueristic Energy Algorythim (Positive), He's like a troll that lives down by the riverside Wal-Mart parking lot in a tricked-out Winnebago, called "The Enterprise". He's like the bodyguard in "My Bodyguard." All the lights aren't on upstairs in his head, though. The Veteren's Admin. suggested he try some SSSSS, (Super Secret Silver Soldier Serum) for his headaches. Ooops. Sorry. No. You can't sue us. We're the goddam gub'ment, fer chrissake. Now, look, stop all this crying. You're embarressing me. Snap out of it, man. Look, we have something for you in Iraq we'd like you to...Where do you think you're going? Hey! Come back here! Security! Member: Veterens of Foreign Wars, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Columbia CD Club {FUN FACT 2.99: Dump is based on The Heap And The Thing.} TOKA: a TIKI spirit, (Secret ID > Big Hawaiian named Kelvin) He dosen't say a word the entire run but you can tell by the look drawn on his face..you can, actually, discern the wheels turning in his head and what his thoughts are. You could say he wears his heart on his sleeve. Another creme-puff who looks like he could snap your neck like a pencil. see; Beach Party... Whatever, I'm thinking more "Spirited Away" {FUN FACT 3: Tiki art is so five minutes ago} {FUN FACT 3.5: That's right. We were all wrong. God is actually Gods and they live on islands in the South Seas. So what? Wouldn't you if you were a God? The entire world agrees! Tahiti is Paradise or Heaven on Earth. I, however, personally, must disagree. Check out the Seychelle Islands. That's where we find:

Silicon Surfer:
(no "The" in front.) Espiritu Huevo Machina - nicknamed, a la Shatner, "KKKHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAANNN" (Secret ID > Big Filipino surfer named AMP but everyone teases and calls him Tiki and that's terrible. He hates that like Benny Siegal hated the nickname Bugsy. Let's just say he won't kill you if you call him that.) see: TOKA: JUNGLE KING from Dell Comics (minus the caveman attire) and any tubular Pacific coastline. {FUN FACTS FOUR would make a nice title for something referencing Fact Sheet Five or Fax Sheet Five. Now that's alliteration.}

(Toka & Tiki are like unto opposite ends of a magnet. One keeps the forces of ennui at bay. The other parties too much. Guess which one.)
{FUN FACT 4.2: Sorry. I 'm reordering more now. Care to get on the waiting list?}

"Crazy Uncle" Sam:
The American spirit as portrayed by James Montgomery Flagg. {FUN FACT 4.4 There's one at every wedding.}

Mr. Atomic Bomb:
Just what it says. {FUN FACT 4.6 Nothing funny here, either, move along now.}

Pradip:
Tech support in Bangalore, Mumbai and ? I'll give him a much longer name, later, after we ask the important question, "How is the weather, there, in India? Read > Simpsons {FUN FACTS FIVE is a cool name, too.}

Holly Camfield
is/are clones A - E, Wife, Mother, Secretary, Nurse, Airline Stewardess - Good for gratuitus GGA/BGA pin-ups, (Good/Bad Girl Art) Y'know, that whole Madonna, whore dichotomy problem men have. {FUN FACT 6: Sorry. All out. I 'm reordering more now. Care to get on the waiting list?}

Pachinko & D'Onofree
are in heat. That's what we call it, anyway. They're mutated, (not mutant, I don't want to step on any toes) clones. We leave them alone, for now, in their tanks. One up in the attic and the other down in the basement. Can't be too careful around those two when they're in heat. You have no idea. They're well taken care of, though, and will be back in action around ish #3 or 4. (Laughin' Louie Luxxcorp) {Thank God for our shipping and handling infrastructure, just-in-time supply and distribution networks and especially, God love 'em, our fabulous trucking industry because FUN FACTS ARE BACK AND YOU CAN ONLY GET 'EM HERE! FUN FACT 7: This hideous creepiness was inspired by...Lovecraft,...(I wonder if he matriculated into hell.)...brought to you by...The Pilgrims, bless their wretched souls.}

Ochiltree Jark
Dump's drinkin' and smokin' buddy/sidekick. A crime-scene clean-up creep from the Jersey Pine Barrows with too many secrets. What are they? Should you care? {FUN FACT 8: These guys make a ton of money with their virtual monopoly of each municipality's police business. They can charge, almost, whatever they want. Who else is the city going to get to clean up these unfortunate messes? HAZMAT? They've got bigger problems to deal with.} Marvel should bring Peter Lorre back from the dead? He'd be perfect. Who is our generation's Peter Lorre? Paul Reubens a.k.a. Pee-Wee Herman? They broke the mold when they made Peter Lorre. Him and Rondo Hatton. Is that banjo kid from "Deliverance" still around? He'd be grown up by now, right? Is Eminem available? He's got that blank psycho stare down pat. Check his schedule. {FUN FACT 8.5: Rondo Hatton was a born and raised Tampan. That's where I am, now. Tampa. What were you thinking? Well, there's also that unfortunate incident involving Pee-Wee in nearby Sarasota. I'll leave it there.}

EGG:
ElectroGlandularGermination - (More scientific gibberish explaining the phenomonon of interstitial "Easter Egg" manifestations > They really do look like Easter eggs, only smaller. They randomly phase in and out of existence and if you catch one and hold it for a while it's like winning the Cosmic Lottery, superpower-wise. It's how people start their own Superhero franchises. It hurts like hell for months and you live in pain for most of the rest of your life but it's worth it, right? RIGHT? FUN FACT 9:(Hmmm. Sounds kinda dodgey. Better bring in Dewey, Cheatham & Howe on this. And lose these DUMB FUN FACTS. It's costing to much. Get me some FAKE FACTS, instead.)

Mulchrome Ditweiller
(Suave lawyer - swims with sharks - will take any case and a lot of your money)

Nyland Ashpital
(Asshole Office Manager, Lead accountant for Prof. Kunstler-Kinsey, a complete jerk, you know the type, but he gets the job done, dammit, we need him. He keeps things running smoothly.)

"Poke-Nose" Hohoff
(Sleazy paparazzi - he delivers the dirt and gets assaulted every now and again. He has a nose like a toy squash from it being broken so often. Complete strangers have been known to walk up to him and punch him, always going right for that mangled turnip of a nose. He's got the money, so, why doesn't he just get it fixed? Maybe he did and it was a botched op. Maybe he's proud of it. Yeah, that's it, it's his avatar and stationary logo, "Sniffin' 'Em Out For Over 20 Years". One of these times he'll go too far and we'll find him strung-up from the lamp post across from Mann's Chinese Theater, gutted.)

Judge Fishkins Dollerhide
(Eccentric, to say the least. (He's not a Judge, anymore.) If your standing before him, don't say anything. I mean it, just keep your yap shut. That's one of the things the lawyers are there for.)

Pfaf Hufnagel
(Prof. Kunstler-Kinsey's Kooky Kook - He's Norwegian. No one understands a word he speaks. see: Chef Lars from Sesame St.)

Hutchcock McDolphus
(Scottish clan hooligan and his crew of miscreant thugs and malcontented goons. Arsenal or Manchester United? No one understands a word they speak, either.)

Mr. Czescziczki
(Squeaky and obsequious little cretin. Can be infuriatingly patronizing, too.)

They'll have dialogue like: "...or I'll be forced to open up "The Big Book of Maladicta" on your sorry, stinkin'...(and then proceed to unleash such a stream of invective that you can, actually, see it hanging there, in the air, like black vapors."
Real noir.

Or the Anti-Hero sez: "..or I'll be forced to unleash the power of the world's mightiest weapon of mass destruction: The 5th amendment. Or is it the 1st? I always forget. And this weapons software I got...What do you run? Yeah. I had to upgrade. I couldn't...Hey! Come back here! You're under arrest! Goddam Microsoft. How do I get these lasers to work? PRAAAADIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP?"
Funny 'cause it's true.

Exposition might be like: She had a pair of 38's tracking me through the entire keying sequence. She also had a nullifying reagent in each hand, ready to splash me with it if I didn't do it right the first time. Funny, sexy and noir. Seasoned with a dash of scientific gibberish. The reagent could be in beakers of milk if the typist is an alien composed not from a carbon base, like all living life on Earth, but from a hydrochloric acid base. It'd be a warm, radiating, bubbling, farting, burping, emitting mess typing away on your keyboard, dripping acidic ichor all over it.

Another setting: The static-filled sky looked like a TV monitor turned to a dead channel as it pissed rain all over downtown.
(That's pure Bill Gibson!)

Every panel should be a one-shot story in itself. This enabled the Golden Age comics to tell big stories in eight pages; whereas today's comics the identical story would take eight issues. No phone conversations or staring contests for two pages. This isn't TV. There's no way in hell comics will ever compete with TV. Hell, most of those Flash MacroMedia's are more interesting to kids, these days, than comics. So why try? We're doomed anyway, right, us comic book collectors? Because cinematic-style panelature is interestingly innovative, that's why. Besides, storyboards are the basis of it all, in the end. Film and TV try to copy the storyboard as closely as possible. Panelature + Framology = The Seen, edited Master Version 2.0.
(I must be insane.)

Each issue we'll take a random walk down Storybook Lane, find the the bar at sexpit@77siliconstip and throw five darts at a list of things on the wall. (We could program a random event generator with this list but darts are more dangerous.) Then we'll proceed with the evening's fun-filled festivities. Whatever gets skewered on the list gets hammered out in the the story treatment. I'll jam it in there and make it fit even if I have to...I don't know what. What are ya drinkin? Hey, bartender. Hey, man. Looky-heah. How many shots of Tequilla will it take to kill me? Ok, bring 'em here, then take two back. OK?...Sangria, Gran Marinier and pineapple juice? Ok, sounds good, make it a big pitcher. What are you getting? Are you getting shots? Yeah, smart-ass, I mean B-12 vaccinations. We'll check into a clinic, later.

>
Here's the list:
Abominable Snowman/Bigfoot/Yeti
Amazon Women
Animals
Apes/Gorillas
Author Adaptations (ex. Poe)
"Bad Girl Art"
Baths/Showers
Billiards/Pool Games
Black People
Black Heroes
Bondage
Breaking the 4th Wall
Car/Drag Racing
Cheerleaders
Chess
Christmas
Circus/Carnival
Crossovers
Cross-dressing
Decapitation
Devil/Satan
Dinosaurs
Dismemberment
Dolls
Dragons
Drugs
Errors
Female Heroes
Frankenstein
"Good Girl Art"
Golf
Graveyards
Halloween
Homage/Parody/Plagerism
Horses
Indians
Jack the Ripper
Last Things
Lesbians
Lingerie
Mermaids
Monsters
Mummies
Music Stars
Mythology
Nudity
Out of Character
Pirates
Politically Incorrect
RCMP/Mounties
Religion
Robots
Music Stars
Santa Claus
Slavery/Slaves
Space/SF/Rockets
Spanking
Sports
Swimsuits
TV
Time Machine/Travel
Titanic
Torture
UFO/Flying Saucers
Vampires
Voodoo
Wars
Werewolf
Whipping
Witches/Witchcraft
Zombies

This is, actually, a list developed by Doug Sulipa (Comic World) of actively collected comic book art & story themes. I call it the "STUKAS OVER BEDROCK COMIC MARKETPLACE REPORT" because I like the name of that seminal L. A. punk band of the Eighties.

Could be another "Thriller" by DC if I continue to fill up these blank white spaces on my computer with, ALMOST, anything I care to focus on. Nice fit for Vertigo or DC's version of Statix. Or not. I need a sympathetic editor. Or a collaborater to get me over the times when I'm not properly motivated.

I still haven't even considered who and what is the protagonist as well as the romantic interest or the any of the three "Versus'", i. e. Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man and Man, vs. Self. I don't want to pick a hero from this Rogues Gallery. Maybe an anti-hero but there's definitly not much to work with, Real-American-Hero-wise, yet. I've gotta figure in a moderate Arab somewhere. No need to demonize them. Dosen't help, that's for sure. Besides, terrorists are cliche. Hand them their hats and go in the opposite direction of Frank Miller, who's all set to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear when comics were a tool of war propoganda to enflame the hearts of young men and boys and harden them so that the killing would be easier on their conscience. It's not killing terrorists I have a problem with: it's using too big a brush, say, a paint roller, when a Dipson # 4 would suffice, to incorrectly paint a picture that includes moderate Arabs, (which, I assume, are like Nixon's "Silent Majority") with terrorists. It's hard. Sure, lay waste to the terrorists, but how about what's more important: a leg up for the Mods. Don't kick 'em while they're down.

ebay Auction Fish Bait - After seven days out in the sun it attract scores of bidders, (or, sticking with the analogy, flies) who didn't realize they had a craving, I mean a real need, I could fill.

What do pinups, girl reporters, wimmin’s libbers and riot grrrlz have in common? A nice lot of different Silver or Bronze Age, (1960's &1970's) DC & Charlton romance comic books. The DC romance comics of late sixties and early seventies had absolutely gorgeous art and the stories were sophisticated and very mod in their reflection of the new morality of the times: inter-racial love and unwed mothers, as well as thinly-guised allusions to prostitution and lesbianism. The Charlton romance comics of the same era were probably the absolute worst comics ever produced. Each issue gave the impression that, after having blown the entire monthly budget on a beautiful cover, the editors parceled out the interior pages for peanuts to very talented high school student relatives of the staff. On top of the bad art, Charlton used mechanical lettering, which contributed chilliness to their pages. Sudsy soaps with torrid titles like “Love Thy Neighbor” and “The Hippy and the Cop” promised more than they delivered. With dismal stories and hideous art, Charltons truly are undiscovered gems if you like oddball weirdo comics. In romance comics prior to 1965 the most a woman could aspire to was the position of nurse, private secretary or model. And they always gave it up anyway to get married and become housewives. The entire country had changed drastically by the mid-sixties and romance comics tried to keep up with the change and failed miserably. Although our heroines moved up in the world; they evolved from working-class waitresses and housewives into college students, airline stewardesses, rock stars and models the stories remained mostly the same …. some fetching, lush-lipped heroine, tear in her eye, agonizing over - something - a lost love, a lost job, parents who just don’t understand, sexist pig boyfriends, back-stabbin’b!tches. Some of these comics got pretty sordid or as sordid as they were allowed to exist in those days. Cheating, underage sex, wild parties, bad crowds: these topics were still somewhat taboo at that time. Often the art featured classic “good girl” art featuring “headlights,” spanking panels, slapping panels, shower scenes, negligee panels, etc. An even seemier story appears in … from the ….issue of … Interesting "generation gap" comics emerged as the publishers tried to appeal to mid-to-late teenage girls The writers wanted to be "with it" but in many cases just didn't know quite how. Unfortunately, in a desperate attempt to be hip, the stories read as though they were written by clueless 45 year old men. Which they were. The results are unintentionally hilarious. Embarrassingly pseudo-hip dialogue such as…I can’t pick just one. On every page someone says something incredibly strange. It’s all…simply…too…much. You’ll be beside yourself saying, “Did I just read that correctly? I can’t believe I’m reading this. Is this how it really was? They couldn’t have actually done, said or wore those things. It’s all just so…alien. And they thought it was cool.” Haircuts, fashion and slang in these comics captures that tasteless late-1960’s to mid-1970s era of groovy hippies and hot disco music. These types of comics are the source of the generic “pop art” look seen today on hundreds of campy T-shirts, cups, greeting cards, kitchen magnets and Roy Lichtenstein’s Ban-Day dot oil paintings. A virtual treasure trove of clip art. Real corny period pieces. A sociology student could write a thesis and a fashion student could find inspiration. The rest of us are ROTFL. These books are still unresearched in the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide for the most part.Joe Gill, who wrote most of Charlton’s romance comics, says he always felt a responsibility to keep the stories clean and moral. “I knew what I was writing was being read by young, impressionable people…and I didn’t want to corrupt them. You know, virtue has its own rewards…(laughs) and all that s-t. Television changed all the values of the (subsequent) generations…enormously. They found out about sex and drugs. It was pretty sordid. And these harmless little comics had no place in their lives.” The books were looked at with the same derision as Harlequin books and TV soap operas. Gill remembers that, “I worked for Stan Lee way back when and as assignments were getting rarer he offered me some romance assignments - and I wouldn’t do them. I thought they were sissy stuff. I’d rather go work on the docks.” Later, of course, with a family to feed, Gill changed his mind and while at Charlton went on to become probably the most prolific romance-comics writer of all time.

I'll be in Orlando, Sunday, under a bridge, y'know, like a TROLL, w/a brown paper bag of $50K. All you have to do is take it from me.

Gonna rise to the occasion or pussy-foot around?

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.

The many friendly New York citizens (Latin Kings) are just waiting for my arrival!

Where can I go beat up "The Dingbats of Danger St." or that gang that likes to prank the poor, miserable THING or those Boy Commando thugs Captain America recruited.

Dirty South? "I get my "OH!" face on when I go to OH!-Town" "OH!" OH!" At least I've got that going for me.

(to the tune of "Volare'") OOOOOOOOOOOORLAAAAANDO! OH- WO- OH- OH!

(Poor Kitty. Of course she had to fall in love with a gay man. That's what I call "Loading On The Problems the Marvel Max Way", TOO THE ULTIMATE EXTREME, BABY. She's all like: "You BECAME gay after you came back from the dead, right, Peter? You weren't gay before that, right? RIGHT? OH, COLOSSUS! THE SHAME & HUMILATION OF IT ALL! I CAN NEVER SHOW MY FACE AT PROFESSOR XAVIER'S SCHOOL FOR GIFTED CHILDREN AGAIN." (She should stick w/her toy dragon, Lockheed.) Poor Kitty Foyle...er....I mean PRYDE, KITTY PRYDE. What's she called? SHADOWCAT? It may describe her superpower but it's still a dumb name, IMHO. I always thought Peter Rasputin's sister, Illyana, would turn out a little queer, (or, maybe, just odd or eccentric, what with being raised in Hell for years by demons and all. Gay person's argument pro-gaiety: "I can hold two opposing thoughts in my head at the same time. I, also, am more than one gender. I am large."

> NEWSFLASH: NATION SWEPT AWAY WITH ODD "SPORT" OF GAY CURLING: SUCCESS OF BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN CLEARS THE WAY FOR QUEER COMIC BOOK COMEBACK: ODDBALL, WEIRDO CELEBRATION TURNS TO RIOTS: PEOPLE ON THE STREET ARE WONDERING: "COLOSSUS FROM THE X-MEN IS GAY? ARE YOU SURE HE'S NOT JUST BI?": PANIC ENSUES: INSTITUTION FALL: "THE END IS NIGH": (Five minutes later it appears as a blurb in the SO FIVE MINUTES AGO column)>>> FUN FACT: Stan "The Man" Lee sez: (ed. note: I paraphrase.) "The first full-blown characterization of a gay man was that piece of fluffy British beefcake from Sgt. Fury. His lisp (lips?) branded him so. Similar to today's metrosexual but for the a lisp. It is a dead giveaway. He was a Howling Commando on loan from the S.A.S., or something. Except he was an upper-crust Brit and was allowed his eccentricities. More like an undercover brother from another...country." (ed. note: Just havin' a go with you. That's the way Brits put it. Or, at least, "The Entertainer" does/did. In my next hellish roundelet of auctions you'll be treated to the INITIAL FIRST EDITION COLLECTORS ITEM LIMITED EDITION PROMO E-PASS of EMO LOVE 2000)

SURPRISE! EASTER EGG CODE-MYSTERY TREASURE CHEST AUCTION - YOU'LL LOVE OUR MONEY-BACK "GUERE-ON-TEE" (GUARANTEE) WORLDWIDE: A NAME YOU CAN TRUST - LUX

"If we reform intellectual property laws to recognize the realities of the 21st century, we will have no choice but to legalize armed robbery and abolish all private property!"

For LUXXXCORP, the kind of mass hedonism that emerged during the 1970s shattered his belief in working-class innocence. “My art was not for mass anything."

He became completely disillusioned, for the sub-proletariat was drawn into the consumers' society and was unable to resist mass-hedonism.

Later, when asked what challenges came up by competing in the midst of the mass-hedonism of Las Vegas or the Seychelle Islands he, excitedly, answered, "I rocked the house." He seem quite cheerful, at times. The reference to that unfortunate incident in the Seychelle Islands seemed to, actually, perk him up a bit.

In Britain, this weekend, was the almost-annual mudbath of mass hedonism, self-abuse and oddness known as the Glastonbury Festival. As per usual, LUXXXCORP was a no-show.

"Excising faith would open the flood gates to mass hedonism.", said the bulbous head filling the wall-to-wall-TV panel.

Those Floridians. Now they've gone and elevated the good life into an art form that stops just short of mass hedonism. Lord knows where the natives go on their holidays!

Mass hedonism, (abandonment to sun, sea, sex and drugs) is the hidden link between the concentration camp and the Club Med.

Why is the Media falling all over themselves attempting to bail Ms. Gunning out of jail as though she were a human rights victim rather than a casualty of mass hedonism? ... She's a victim of the Media rather than a casualty of mass hedonism. Because sex sells and taking your clothes off doesn't merit a jail sentence. Then why are our broadcasters still putting out programs extolling and exploiting such debauchery? ... Most of you asked for it in many, many, many, many different ways that are kept a secret from you.

In some ways Amsterdam, with its heccic oscillacion between mass piery and mass hedonism, is odd.

There was also a display of mass hedonism, (at least in the area I was standing in) that left this married fellow gasping for breath a few times. Good times!

China does not accept homosexuality, mass hedonism, multiculturalism and of these three, mass hedonism has done more to do away with China's culture.

It's colossal arenas of violent entertainment exhibiting mass hedonism were all maintained by the ruthless media machine.

Historians are divided over why the internet failed to transform turn-of-the century American propriety into mass hedonism.

The hippies were right but they did not last because their's was the first event of mass hedonism in the media age. The idea spread rapidly across the globe.

What we're seeing is the progressive entrance of consumers who are the sons of the “cleansing revolution.” This could clear the way for the mass hedonism of the future.

Take notes, heathens. The first wave of Plague, mass hedonism, is being opposed by those seemingly well inside the Plague's recent structures.

Mass consumption and heterogeneity bring with it mass hedonism for the residents of big cities.

Along the Atlantic coast, which you guys might call 'the West' - the culture is characterised by the breakdown of the extended family, tradition, mass hedonism, materialism and the Cult of Narcissis.

Welcome to social libertarianism. Consenting adults is a line one might draw. The point is that the slippery slope, 'slouching towards gomorrah', crowd don't have a leg to stand on re: their "predictions" that adopting such a standard will lead to state recognition.

One has to supplement a slippery slope worry with actual evidence that the trend is moving in the direction you worry about. "From my perspective all reasonable morality is being tossed out the window -- now anything goes" is not adequate. That's just playing the part of social reactionary to changing norms. Pity it's little more than handwaving, since you're so skilled at it.

"Do as you will; this shall be the whole of the law." -- Aleister Crowley

And then there's the variant which is the one and only commandment for Wiccans: "If it hurt none, do as ye will." Not sure why I know these things, as an agnostic on my bad days and a Jeffersonian deist on my good ones, but there you go. And as a libertarian, who probably won't get much love here, I have to say the Wiccan rule would be a great way to run a society.

....the difference is that torture is broadly recognized as outside social sanction here, and is punished. Not enough, no; not in every instance where it ought to be, no. But contrast with the Dutch rush to depravity. I'll take things here, thanks. And I live in San Francisco.

Well first, here's hoping we can all avoid debating the incendiary "for those wishing to pretend that a homosexual coupling constitutes marriage" -- just once it would be nice, I think, if the bait was left on the hook -- and focus on the whomping good time they're having in the Netherlands.

Or, I suppose, if civil union statutes guarantee a similar 'open door' here.

re: Declining, falling and fattening From a survey taken a couple of years ago on toddlers' feeding habits:
* Soda is being served to infants as young as seven months.
* One-third of 19- to 24-month-old toddlers are not eating a single fruit in a day, and one-fifth are not eating any vegetables.
* French fries are the most commonly consumed vegetable for toddlers by 15 months of age.
* By 19 to 24 months, most toddlers consume sweets, desserts, or salty snacks at least once a day.

http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/nutrition/infantfeeding.asp

Some nutritionists reackon that these kids will be the first generation in the US to fall short of their (non-gay, monogamous) parents in terms of life expectancy.I think that is much more worrying than gay couples getting some legal rights.

I'd add the following things to look for:
* 128 channels on the television 24 hours a day.
* What I percieve to be a lack of willingness to assume personal responsibility on the part of both parents and kids. I suppose, coupled with a growth in the welfare state. While I think there's causality there, I couldn't prove it.
* "Wussification" My parents grew up playing with rusty razors, broken glass and rabid dogs. I grew up playing with metal bats, hardballs, and ...'Gasp!'...rode a bike without a helmet. Let a kid play with a cap gun today and child protective services gets involved.

Those are the things I'm watching. Hard to measure and nearly impossible to determine the impact but I'm watching it anyway.

I think the above are all far more corrosive to society than mass hedonism. I'm only 24 and I already think kids are spoiled. 12 year olds want an iPod because their friends have them and they look cool -- they don't even have any music! I mean kids will be kids, and kids always bug their parents for more. But I agree hugely, between the ridiculous junk food, TV, and the "wussification", how can you expect anyone to grow up without a sense of entitlement?

What would Mark Twain think :)

As far as the welfare state: considering that the decline of parenting over the last 25 years has coincided wiht the decline of the welfare state.. and the preceding 2 generations, (IMO much tougher,) were raised in a time of a much stronger welfare state.. well maybe your feeling for causality is more based on a dislike for the welfare state than any particular relationship.

How can you expect anyone to grow up without a sense of entitlement? Well the word "no" works as well as reminding your children that your parental contract obligates you [the parents] to stick your nose into their business. It really isn't that difficult.

Well, become an agent of change when you have children. They certainly will appreciate it.

The parenting decline began in the 1960's, I think 1968 is pretty much the inflection point for most indicators.

Could it be that the post 1970 social disaster you describe might have other causes? The rise of mass media? Accelerating social mobility? The rat race?

I pity kids on the "wussification" front. As I've said here before we roamed the neighbourhood like a pack of wild dogs and learnt many lessons through it.

Still, when peak oil hits and we're all living off of whatever you caught cooked on an open fire and civilisation collapses all around us and we have to walk everywhere because there won't even be any buses... well, then I'll be one up on the young uns :)

The biggest societal change I've seen in my lifetime is the number of families with both parents working full time jobs outside the home. At first it was a choice brought about by liberalised social values and a better economy. Now it's no choice. Competiton from 2 salary families means that if you con't have 2 salaries you can't afford a house to live in.

I am very interested to see how this creche raised generation will be compared to my parent raised one. I could imagine good and bad influences, so it will be interesing.

The other big change that I will watch is the increased availablity of hard core pornography to children.

(Weird, also, that on the day the full Abu Ghraib record is finally released, over admin objections, a three-way in the Netherlands spurs the 'decay of Western civ' remark.)

Re: the decline and fall So, is the Netherlands really more socially disfunctional than the US? Higher infant mortality? Shorter life expectancy? Higher poverty rate? Higher illitteracy rate? Higher teen pregnancy rate? Higher abortion rate? Higher STD rate? Higher divorce rate? More prone to infectious diseases? [insert your favored criteria here]?

The numbers for every one of the categories you list are in Norway's favor. Indeed, the numbers for each category is better in any and all European countries than in the USA. The Western countries with more relaxed views on sex, sex education, birthcontrol, etc, ALL have lower teen pregnancy rates, lower STD rates, and lower abortion rates than the USA. The literacy rate is higher, the life expectancy is higher, the infant mortality rate is lower in all the Western countries than in the USA. The Puritanical, repressed, sex-is-dirty-and-best-ignored policies of the USA act objectively counter to their supposed benefits. The attitude makes EVERYTHING relating to sex worse than any other Western country. It objectively is a failure. It would be best to emulate our Western European superiors so we can enjoy the benefits that accrue (higher numbers for each and every category in your list). I meant "Netherlands". Nonetheless, ALL of Europe has more liberal views on sex than the USA and their numbers, across the board, are higher than the USA's.

Given their relative homogeneity, their small populations and areas, realtive wealth and the pervasiveness of Lutherainism, it would be amazing if they did have significant problems... Name a large country, say 30 million or more with some population diversity, that does not have problems similar to ours.
* That is changing and they will soon have problems -- just like us :)

I have deliberately not looked up the numbers, so I don't know which ones the US comes out better and which ones favor the Netherlands. But let's set the criteria before drawing conclusions.

Anthropologists tell us that neolithic society was once matrilinear (that is, name and property were inherited through the mother); this in an age when women ruled tribes and villages, and men were migratory hunter-gatherers. Because males were often absent, marriages were frequently polyandrous, a pattern repeated in later societies where men were often away (the Celtic and some native American, for example, or more recently, the Tibetan). The inhabitants of ancient Europe were thus far more inclined to continue to grant their women certain freedoms (serial divorce and remarriage, among others) long after the Bronze Age patriarchial revolution made women into virtual slaves of men elsewhere. This is attested to in the written records of the ancient Norse and Welsh. In Semitic nations, as well as Asian, polygamy was the norm, and in many places continues to be so even today. The Hebrew Bible chronicles the process by which that tradition was banned among the Jews, and the astonishing Judeo-Christian notion that men should not only abjure polygamy but be sexually faithful to a single wife for a lifetime was so utterly revolutionary that Islam could be viewed simply as a cultural counter-coup to restore a cherished status quo. And this, of course, is what Senator Santorum and others are really talking about when they publicly deplore the gate opening to legal polygamy in the West; the socializing of Sharia, the crack in the door that may create an appealing alternate lifestyle for addled American teens. We have already had some evidence of that among the followers of a 100% homegrown American religion, as witness the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping and subsequent Stockholm-syndrome polygamous 'marriage'.

Because of course, there are two distinct flavors of polygamy in the West--the formal, which is illegal, and the timeless and informal, which is universal and all around us, seemingly the result of a strong biological imperative in the male. This need to 'start over in midlife' is particularly amplified by the longer lifespan of modern man. The French have even codified the state of 'concubinage' (a concept lifted whole from Confucian China), where the rights of a mistress' children are, to some degree, protected by law. And that, of course, is the whole basis of monogamy in a nutshell: to guarantee the rights of primogeniture. This is why the ancient Greeks and Romans instituted it and enforced it with such vigor, even while they took their pleasure with slaves (or each others' sons. Sex between two grown men was termed 'pathic' and considered a disgusting vice). With polygamy, inheritance becomes a murky issue at best, a vicious and violent one at worst, as the Bible can attest. One of the unuttered secrets of Jihad is the 'second-son' syndrome--sons of minor or discarded wives are given no patronage or inheritance, cannot afford wives of their own and drift into religious extremism in order to gain social respect; we imagine all such unfortunates to be the bored playboy sons of wealthy oil sheikhs, but the reality is they are members of a vast, despised, and all-but-illegitimate underclass, one that we have created for ourselves in urban ghettoes and rural trailer-parks alike. One might even assert that the 'pimp' gangsta culture of today, where a man keeps a 'stable' of young working women is an exact mirror of that of tribal Africa, where the local chief may be married to dozens of women, whom he loans out in return for favors. Should reality--instead of being ignored--instead be legitimated? Why not gay marriage, polygamy, and polyandry? These are the questions confronting our nation in the accelerating age of Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World'; as Michel Houellebecq has cruelly illustrated in his own despairing novels, there will soon be no need for marriage at all, since all modern children are rapidly being abandoned pell-mell by most traditional forms of community and family structure. And as for the laws of inheritance--we see these redefined each day in our courts; they seem to largely now rely on DNA tests and a good lawyer. When wedding has lost its meaning, it become mere theatre, and when that happens we are forced to stare the most fundamental and obvious fact about it in the face: marriage endures, quite simply, when two people are in love with and desire to share their lives with each other. In that most joyous of all human equations we find God's truest handiwork (though the secular are free to argue that it's just a happy coincidence). The law can only compel us to honor our commitments; it cannot make a sacrament of them. And please forgive an old man for pointing out that he has never in his life seen three people in a state of such blissful union.

At least not for long.

(Santorum's point, of course, was that if marriage can mean anything, it will -- and will eventually mean nothing and that the social fabric will fall apart if "deviant" acts are legalized.)

Wonderful comment, LUXXXCORP !

A few follow-up questions though, if you will.

When wedding has lost its meaning, it become mere theatre, and when that happens we are forced to stare the most fundamental and obvious fact about it in the face: marriage endures, quite simply, when two people are in love with and desire to share their lives with each other.

What is its meaning (your structure suggests there's one best answer to that)?

This is why the ancient Greeks and Romans instituted it and enforced it with such vigor, even while they took their pleasure with slaves (or each others' sons. Sex between two grown men was termed 'pathic' and considered a disgusting vice).

What of Alexander then? Was he "pathic," taking his pleasure with persian "boys" who were of an age older than some of his indentured soldiers? Or did the rules not apply to the emperor?

Thank you for your kind words, Edward! And for pointing out my errors.

What I meant to say, of course, is 'When a society forgets what it means by wedding' rather than 'When wedding has lost its meaning'. As a heterosexual man still faithfully married to his high school sweetheart, I personally am a terrific romantic and can imagine no distinction in God's eyes between genders inside a marriage bed or out of it. As an old man, I hold many ultra-conservative views; a prejudice against full gay rights is not one of them.

As for Alexander, there are many schools of thought as to his actual sexual inclinations and behavior. As any student of history knows, there has always been one social code of sexual behavior for men in their civic lives and quite another while off on military campaign (hence the attraction of it for such tortured souls as T.E. Lawrence.) Recent scholarship raises the possibility that several of the early sources for Alexander's life were influenced by Ptolemiac 'hatchet jobs', histories now lost, in which Ptolemy, the former general of Alexander who seized Egypt and whose descendants included Cleopatra, sought to legitimate his own reign both by playing up the rumor that he was Alexander's half-brother and by implying a great deal more homosexual activity to Alexander than he actually engaged in. Obviously, no one can ever know for sure (nor do I care). However, according to the 'official' coda, Alexander's relations with Bagoas (the famous 'Persian Boy') led to a near-mutiny of his troops; they were used to treating him with near god-like status, but even they were revolted at this liaison, possibly because Bagoas was reputedly a eunuch. It was this social pressure, as much as dynastic, which convinced Alexander to remarry (he had three, possibly four, wives) twice more, the final time to Roxana, who was pregnant with a son at the time of Alexander's death. However, Alexander's rumored homosexual relationships included only one--with his childhood friend and close companion Hephaiston--which could have been termed 'pathic' had he even been Greek, which he was not. The rest fell into the category of an older man's love for an 'ephebe', the hallmark of the Sacred Band of Thebes, for example.

There are many books on the subject of the Romans' sexual lifestyles. We think of classical morality in terms of 'I Claudius', largely because it was taken from the scurrilous history of Suetonius (and no one on earth has read Suetonius more often and more credulously than I; it is a sort of Krafft-Ebbing of the madness of power), but the fact remains--we can't be sure that much of it is actually true. If we want a realistic view of Greco-Roman moral behavior, the modern city of Palermo is perhaps our best model. There, as in ancient Rome, a few powerful families and their thousands of 'clients' control civic life with an elaborate system of 'honor', commerce, and murder; publicly conservative and family-oriented, the true proclivities of these men (and their wives) erupt behind closed doors with domestic servants or expensive prostitutes, while their pampered offspring (sometimes even their daughters) enjoy the liberty of the town to pursue their own wild indulgences before assuming the mantle of responsibility in early middle age. There, too, the patronage of a handsome boy by an older 'knight' or indeed, priest or schoolteacher, is thought normal and admirable; sexual congress between two capos would be considered bestially obscene (unless of course one was ritually humiliating the other). This is what antiquity meant by 'pathic'--abnormal, perverse--and we still tack the suffix onto our modern complexes and psychoses as we come up with new ones. Do I agree with this view? No. Do I acknowledge that this is what they truly believed? As with Alexander: as far as history now knows, so yes.

However, according to the 'official' coda, Alexander's relations with Bagoas (the famous 'Persian Boy') led to a near-mutiny of his troops; they were used to treating him with near god-like status, but even they were revolted at this liaison,

"Official" codas were, to my understanding, fossilized in the the 1950-60's no? The attitudes toward homosexuality prevelant in the West at that time might explain the laborious contortions to find Ptolemic conspiracies.

My understanding is the opposite. That Bagoas, if he existed, represented (more than he did homosexuality) the seduction of Alexander by Persian attitudes, especially the notion of the emperor's god-like status (which even the "official" texts I've read indicate drove the Madedonians insane---particularly the idea that his Generals who he had always treated as equals, and probably still considered him of suspect birth, should begin humbling themselves before him). Also, there's little reason to suspect Ptolemy et al. were not also helping themselves to other captured Persian lads, is there?

However, Alexander's rumored homosexual relationships included only one--with his childhood friend and close companion Hephaiston--which could have been termed 'pathic' had he even been Greek, which he was not.

He was close enough with respects to how he behaved once he left Europe, no? Surely, he was more "Greek" than Persian or what have you.

Again, incredibly well-written and informed info...thanks!

What a pleasure to engage in debate with one so erudite and charming.

I'm afraid I cannot pretend to any scholarship on the subject, which in any case is easily Googleable. But I shall attempt a modest (and mercifully brief) reply, hopefully without having to leave this chair to consult my library of Alexandriana--which includes Arrian and Plutarch, both of whom were, I believe, translated well prior to the 1950s...

When I spoke of his troops revolting, something they did several times, as I recall, I was referring specifically to his relations with Bagoas and not to Alexander's policy of Medeizing his troops; when he insisted that they marry Persian brides, for instance, they submitted to this bit of state--and stage--craft with an obvious appreciation of the fact that it in no way compelled them to abandon their wives in Macedonia. As for his Persian robes, they were used to his tantrums and theatrics; Alexander was what we would latterly call a 'drama queen' (indeed Caesar's men affectionately called him the 'Queen of Bithynia', supposedly because of a youthful fling with that country's king). Further, Alexander's soldiers were happy to treat him as a godling, as both Alexander and his mother had peddled the rumor for years that he was the son of Zeus--neglecting the obvious inheritance issues presented; soldiers are happy to follow any leader who is notoriously lucky or blessed by the gods. Again, Caesar's men genuinely believed that he was especially lucky because of his reputed descent from Venus. Discovering a god in one's pedigree was a favorite hobby in antiquity and hid a multitude of miscounted months by one's grandmothers.

And as for Alexander being Greek! I strongly suggest a visit to modern Macedonia, where you will no doubt be set straight. Although Alexander was, of course, tutored by Aristotle and evinced great reverence for Athens, he was hated and distrusted by many Greeks; he had after all, helped his father destroy them as an independent political entity and was now their absolute ruler in all but name. It was partly armies of Greek mercenaries, many motivated by patriotism, that he fought in his first campaign in Asia Minor, where he posed as the liberator of 'Greater Greece'. Macedonia, though it shared some cultural and linguistic links with classical Greece, was as it is today, a largely Balkan nation with a distinct language. And views toward homosexuality there in that time can best be summarized by a single famous incident: the assassin who murdered Philip, Alexander's father, was said to have done so because Philip had ordered him trussed up naked in a courtyard to be sexually assaulted by servants, apparently a common practice (and one that persists to this day inside our own prison system). A practice not rooted in respect for gender orientation but rather in the exercise of primal power and ritual abasement--which they hardly needed to travel to Persia to learn.

It's a shame he's so breviloquent.

I've noticed from your other comments just how thoughtful and articulate you are; so your words are praise indeed.

And I'll try to employ more brevity in future.

And views toward homosexuality there in that time can best be summarized by a single famous incident: the assassin who murdered Philip, Alexander's father....

A few details you omit (and get wrong) in the tawdry business: Philip's assassin was his former boy-lover Pausanias. Supplanted in Philip's bed by another youth (the nephew of the increasingly important noble Attalos) he contrived to send this rival to his death in battle. Whereupon Attalos (not Philip) took revenge by getting the young man blind drunk at a feast and throwing out to be raped. Philip's part in the latter business, and the source of Pausanias' grudge against him, was that he refused to have Attalos prosecuted for the crime. (The account derives from Aristotle)

"Where [polygamy] survives, mostly out in the rural west, it invariably carries with it grave problems of child and sexual abuse, to say nothing of chronic impoverishment." As polygamy is practiced in the rural west it is child sexual abuse. It's not just a side effect. Fourteen year old girls are married off to their uncle or some other community elder and used as breeding slaves.

Could we quit being PC about this? There is one specific group in the US that practices this, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: The problem with them is not that they are simply polygamous. The fact is, they treat women as chattel, young teenage daughters are married off to members within the church by their father's wishes. In a few cases, men of the church were excomunicated and their wives and children were 'reassigned' to other men within the church. They also tend to live off the federal government, as the men generally do not have incomes that can support ~10 women and ~50 children making them the ultimate example of the Reagan era welfare nightmare. However, the irony of this particular instance of polygamy, aside from teh fact that polygamy isn't really the problem here, is that it is not at all a good example of Tacitus' sky is falling rhetoric, in that these people follow a very rigid and strict moral/religious code, which, while not his, is certainly stable. The early mormon church worked in this manner and obviously survived quite well in a hostile environment.

"There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch." - Nigel Powers

This social liberalization and mass hedonism will lead to the decline and fall of the Rebublican Party. But the euphoria will let loose a darker spirit: nostalgia. It's a well-known and meaningless cognitive illusion.

The older you get the more you need to guard against the inevitable "it was all so much better when I was young" tinted glasses.

So, put away your nostalgia-tinted glasses; America is doing just fine. Every generation longs for the good old days.

The thing is - many conservatives are standing on this hill - commitment to traditional social norms as a necessary stabilizing factor at the local level of the individual. The resistance to change is non-trivial and non-compromising.

This country used to have a Middle Class that balanced the ideological wings against each other. I don't think that is true so much anymore, which implies that one or the other ideology will dominate.

On Harry Seldon - Asimov's Foundation Trilogy postulated that a brilliant mathemtician built a mathematical model of human sociological interactions, e.g. statitistical mechanics for human societies, and based upon this, could model societal trends in the future in the way statistical mechanics models the behavior of large groups of particles, without knowing the specifics of any particular one. E.g., mathimatical sociology. Until Harry Seldon comes along, we merely can argue our opinions.

What we're seeing develop are "problems" of affluence, such as the uses of leisure, the new mass hedonism, the collapse. of thrift. Our behavioral engineers, (we tease and call them "Attitude Re-Ajustment Managers", {"ARMS"} y'know, "The Strong A.R.M.S. of the Law) are at this moment running the programs that are helping us begin to look for new ways of expanding human accomplishment. Exponentially!

..."Modeling the mind of a Senator" project. If it works, we can move on to actual human beings! :^) Think local, act global.

Modeling the mind of a senator. What soap could possibly clean you up after that?

Utilitarianism is basically mass hedonism. Satan says "Always look out for your own interests and never compromise your own strength."

Ayn Rand, not Satan, is not advocating mass hedonism and anarchy. Rand is simply saying that actions should be done because it is in the person's own best interests.

"Balance is for losers. Real life is us or them, and by God, its going to be them."

Visit Port Watson! It has it all. Complete with mass hedonism, sacrifices and orgies dating way, way back to before there were Americans, taxes, or even Christians.

Much later, in order to foster biologic fusion, there was a display of bizarre mass hedonism and festivals of nudity to break down residual resistance and let in the radiant light of Christ.

As a society, is Rachel’s web site how we now define mass hedonism? Are her circus tricks and trampy sex appealing? She thinks so. The party girl is trying to cash in.

If her impact on Bollywood isn't evidence enough and even though she exudes mass hedonistic appeal, to simply dismiss her as all looks and no substance is drastically wrong.

Are we immune to this mass hedonism campaign that no longer respects children and the status quo re: television hours? There have been many reports that have surfaced indicating so.

Mass hedonism is summed up quite well as the fever of consumption. It is a fever of obedience to an unstated order and the degrading anxiety of being unlike all the others.

Unsurprisingly, many turn to mass hedonism and apathy as a way of life. Clergy, physicians, and teachers have all seen the toxic results of this character disorder: it's bigger than life and twice as ugly.

While the number eight being the number three for others - this atmosphere of mass hedonism, anarchy and mindless selfish individualism will, certainly, be the death of us all.

Sooner or later, we always end up in the porn section: Mass hedonism was not their style. I pulled my ... out of Priscilla¹s warm ... "Roll over." I told her, as I stood on the other side of the bed.

... or the personal ads: Must be clean-shaven and wear the latest fashions. About that "End-of-Life-As-We-Know-It" mass hedonism scene in "The Matrix: Revolutions": I think it was designed beautifully. Look where Neo And Trinity... (As we, quietly, lower the curtain on this scene...)

I'm in turn stunned into tunnel-vision, shocked at what I've seen, horrified of it's very existence, embarrassed for them, angry that I feel embarrassed for them, disgusted with myself for being angry and, finally, left with a strange feeling of...I can't describe it.

DJ SHADOW provokes mass hedonistic frenzy throughout New York - And it's all happening, again this weekend.

There are several aspects to this unseemly whole and the worst is that the bulk of the mass hedonism problem will continue, and continue to be ignored.

The serum's low uric acid index and it's relationship to mass hedonism, plasma urea, intracellular potassium and packed cell volume in a normal population group is an incredibly important discovery in the field of Heuristic Endemic Algorythems (Positive), HEAP, for short.

Conclusions in this study: SSSSS with or without sex in healthy, middle-aged women and men showed an increased in mass hedonistic behavior, (MHB) and a decrease in fat.

By developing “mass hedonism tourist industries” as a means to pay off its debts, these countries are actually encouraging the peacetime institutionalization of the sex industry and that's terrible.

In the United States, the underground current of mass hedonism became apparent after the completion of the government's Awareness Campaign that began in January of this year.

If the experiences of social legislation of the past half century have taught us anything, it is that tinkering with the basic institutions of family and moral structure by government fiat -- however well-intended -- is usually unwise and fraught with unintended consequences. No-fault divorce opened up a Pandora's box of easily-broken families and maladjusted single-parent youth; poorly-designed social welfare programs weakened family bonds to an oft-fatal degree; and now we see that the "civil union," intended as a sop for those wishing to pretend that a homosexual coupling constitutes marriage, is opening the door to polygamy. As is its wont in matters of the decay of Western civilization, the Netherlands is leading the way.

No-fault not at fault: "No-fault divorce opened up a Pandora's box of easily-broken families and maladjusted single-parent youth;" Not in my experience. Me and my buddies all were divorced during the good old days of fault divorce (it was assumed that us bestial males were at fault) and lost our houses, our children and much of our future income. Big rewards for the lucky winners: a nice house, the kids, and a court-assured income. And without The Hairy Beast to contend with. Too tempting for even the most virtuous woman to resist, I'm afraid.

Fault-based divorce was 'tinkering' to begin with. It represented legal roadblocks preventing two adults from dissolving their union, and it had its own unintended consequences (the legal farce of routine perjury for one, legal empowerment of abusive spouses for another).

No-fault divorce removed these legislative roadblocks. It was not a government intervention, but the end of a government intervention.

The Romans as well as the Greeks had no hang ups regarding homosexuality. Nor did the Japanese, and that culture was stable for 2 millenia. But no doubt your right, offending your particular religous sensibilities is definately causing the sky to fall.

So Edward's advocacy is going to lead to an avalanche of three-ways that will ultimately bury our God-fearing nation beneath an avalanche of sin and sinners? On the other hand... If there is very little possiblity that civil union laws will lead to the American fabric getting as bendy as a weekend in Roger Stone's hot tub? Then I'm not sure what this diary achieves. Other than to offer a grave warning about events that are unlikely to happen.

Government spokespeople said they will not change it's own 300-year-old rating system: "This system is for everyone: Jews, Catholics, heretics, agnostics. Everyone!'' An X rating, however, will prevent anyone under 21 from being allowed to attend. "Especially if accompanied by a parent or guardian.", they added.

The new campus craze: mass hedonism. “Because of the recent change in attitudes toward sex in North America, mass hedonism has booted football from the top spot in college circles." reported Cindy Sherm, a Student council representative and leading student activist.

Discipline is one of those critical front-end tools that can improve the odds for achieving a place in life where personal satisfaction can, if not overwhelm, at least balance, the pain of any human existence.

Then you should be legislating chores and allowances, doing away with trust funds and large inheritances (or making them contingent upon the recipient's productivity), spending the cash to beef up public education and get parents involved, setting federal time limits on TV watching and video game playing .... you know, instilling a work ethic. Because the formal structure of the family itself has absolutely no bearing on productivity. But nice try.

Getting parents involved and instilling a work ethic is a fine thing to say but, with 100,000 plus US K-12 schools each managed differently, with thousands of reform experiments spending many billions over fifty years, it has not happened. Its like demanding that antigravity machines be invented to solve the traffic problem. Yes, it would be nice. We just don't know how to do it.

The traditional family (can) provide more of the inputs we believe are required for raising well adjusted children. The traditional family structure is (often) sufficient, but necessary? I would say no.

TAMPA (AP) -- Thirty Texas churches are backing mass hedonism evangelist Robert Wilton in fraud lawsuits filed by people who say they gave him money but their prayers went unanswered. A 1991 ABC "PrimeTime Live'' report highlighted Wilton's luxurious lifestyle and questioned whether individual requests were processed as promised. His libel suit was dismissed.

Wilton took his "Mass Hedonism'' TV show and live Saturday broadcasts off the air in 1993. His Silva Mind Control Center in suburban Tampa, which was once affiliated with the Church of Bob, boasted more than 10,000 members, now has fewer than 1,000.

I wonder if this latest guy, in Tampa, is going to start a new trend of mass hedonism/suicide parties?

Bangalore_Lakshmi's Xanga Site I like metal but not head banging music, although that, too, is, sometimes, enjoyable, literature, weaving, bead weaving, metal working, glass blowing and crew (crew meaning rowing, not mass hedonism).

That cleared the way for the advice column, a typical feature of the women's magazine known as the "agony column", to become the vehicle for the dissemination of mass hedonism as a way of life. In these columns, medical experts such as Dr. Felon Allwright warned of the discomfort and discombobulation associated with this.

She is the author of three books: "The Aphrodisiac That Failed: Why SSSSS Did Not Become a Mass Hedonism Therapy", "What They Did to Women: The Origins of Sex Therapy" and "Towards Mass Hedonism Therapy: Wilhelm Reich and the Spanish Revolution." "The Age of Mass Hedonistic Maturation: Results and Discussion of the Otholiths of Oceana"

Humans need conformity. There are good reasons for this. Some of the paths the expression of conformity can take are going to cause hardship for non-conformists, like LUXXXCORP. But the greater benefits of it are essential.

Weaken one rule and you weaken all rules. Americans in particular are not, culturally, bound very tightly by rules. In America it has always been possible for a rule-violator to flee the village and start over elsewhere. This makes systems of rules fragile.

Is gun control the answer? Nope. An armed society is a polite society :) We need more weapons, not fewer.

You're not good enough! Human evolution is now being engineered. Choose to enhance yourself or face inferiority. By Joel Garreau, Joel Garreau, a Washington Post reporter and editor, is the author of the newly published "Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human" July 17, 2005

In the next few years, your child will come home from school in tears. He'll say, once again, that he is unable to compete with the children who are brighter, better behaved and physically more capable than he is because their parents have bought them technological enhancements and you have not. What will you do?

You could say, "That's all right dear, we don't care what other parents do with their children's minds and bodies, we love you just the way you are."

Or:

You could remortgage the house, again, to try to allow your child to keep up with the human enhancements that ever so rapidly are coming onto the market.

Or:

You could try to get the enhanced kids thrown out of your school, widening the chasms that already will be separating "enhanced" humans from the "naturals" who could adopt such enhancements but, for aesthetic or political reasons, choose to abstain, like today's vegetarians or fundamentalists.

What you and your children can't do is ignore the enhancement products that are already realigning our concept of what it means to be human.

We are at a turning point in history. For millenniums our technologies - fire, clothes, agriculture, cities, space travel - have been aimed outward at modifying our environment. Now, for the first time, our technologies are increasingly aimed inward - at altering our minds, memories, metabolisms, personalities and progeny.

This is not some science fiction future. Such innovations are in the labs and hitting the market on our watch. Inexorable increases in ingenuity are opening vistas, especially in what we may call GRIN - genetic, robotic, information and nano - technologies.

The curve of innovation is rising exponentially. The significance of all this is not the gee-whiz gear. It is in how we will wrestle with what this means to relationships, loves and lives as we enter a period of engineered evolution that we create and adopt ourselves.

The scientists, engineers and philosophers pondering the reshaping of humankind see three scenarios. .

There are those who think we're bound for a near-future technological "heaven" in which we conquer suffering, stupidity, ugliness, even death.

Then there are those who think powers of such scope could be used for supreme evil in the next 25 years, threatening the very existence of our species - the "hell" scenario.

Finally, there are those who have sufficient faith in human cussedness that they think we will be able to control our futures rather than be the pawns of technology - the "prevail" scenario.

Ethically, intellectually, technologically - it won't be an easy for us to choose. Yet we must.

Consider the genetic temptations you and your budding young scholar-athlete will face. Scientists' understandings of the human genome and the proteins that control all cellular processes in the body are leading to the creation of remarkable pharmaceuticals. One example is the pain vaccine being tested by a Bay Area company. It would cancel acute suffering for a month. Ready for that marathon, son?

Five companies in the U.S. alone are competing to bring memory pills to market. No wonder. They could be a bigger commercial blockbuster than Viagra. They promise not only to ban the senior moments of the baby boomers but to revolutionize education of the young. Think of what it will do to language acquisition alone. Some analysts believe that it could increase our kids' SAT scores by 200 points or more.

Robotics is allowing unprecedented connections between the human brain and our machine creations, blurring the distinction between the made and the born. Matthew Nagle, a paralyzed young Boston man, last summer became the first human to send an e-mail with his thoughts. A computer device implanted into his brain by a company called Cyberkinetics can read his neurons as they fire. This also allows him to control a robotic arm. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the research arm of the Pentagon - is funding similar research because an F-22 is a difficult machine to fly with a joystick. How much simpler it would be, they reason, if a pilot could control it directly with his brain. Images and alarms collected by the plane could be piped directly to her senses, bypassing computer screens and keyboards.

Nanotechnology refers to building objects and substances one atom or molecule at a time. The results can be amazing, including forms of carbon that exist by the beaker-full that are 60 times stronger than steel, have the weight of plastic, sport the clean electrical conductivity of diamond and display the precision of DNA.

Nanotechnology is projected to be a trillion-dollar industry by 2015 - comparable to the total GNP of Canada. Some say it will revolutionize everything: warfare, energy use, medicine.

These GRIN technologies, in short, mean that every power of our comic-book superheroes from the 1930s and '40s either exists or is now in active development. A technique called "gene doping," for example, produces such muscle strength in rodents that some University of Pennsylvania researchers flatly doubt we'll ever have an Olympics again that does not involve genetically altered humans. The 2004 Athens Olympics may have been the last one.

Brain-scanning devices at Temple University, meanwhile, offer tantalizing hope of lie-detection so meticulous that, like the Shadow, we may indeed know what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

Advocates of the "prevail" scenario think back to the Dark Ages. Humans then were beset by apparently insurmountable trials similar to our own. But with the rise of the printing press, we could store and share our ideas in ways never before possible. Print allowed the rise of institutions beyond the imagination of one country, much less one person: global trade, and then the Enlightenment, which gave us democracy and modern science itself.

There's reason to hope that such co-evolution is occurring again. In the '70s, if you had been told that there would be a ceaseless rain of computer viruses and worms attacking the guts of our most sensitive computers, you might rationally have assumed the human race, or at least technological progress, to be doomed. You might have seen it as hopelessly Pollyannaish to think that defenses might evolve as quickly as they have.

In fact, the signs that humanity can make good use of technology to thwart the bad abound. On 9/11, the fourth plane didn't make it to its target. Why? Because the Air Force was so quick? No. It was because dozens of ordinary people on that plane - empowered by mobile phone technology - in less than an hour analyzed, diagnosed and cured their society's problem, at the greatest cost to themselves.

Still, we have many questions with which to grapple.

Already we see people living much longer, healthier lives than in the past. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health think that the first human to robustly live 150 years is already alive today. What will it mean to marriage and parenting - not to mention Social Security - if this curve of increased vigor continues?

What will it mean to your family if your kids are greatly more capable mentally than you are? Did any fathers ask their daughters to fix the Model T, the way we now routinely hand a balky cellphone to our offspring? The relationship between who learns and who teaches, which has been stable for millenniums, has been upturned: "You looked at the previous generation to learn how to live yourself. That's no longer possible," explains anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson.

And what does it mean to the institutions we cherish - like democracy - if it is no longer clear that all men and women are created equal?

The measure of success in the "prevail" scenario that I hope for would not be how many transistors we can get to talk to each other. That way merely leads to the other two scenarios, in which our future is technologically determined and we are just along for the ride. Rather, "prevailing" in the midst of such radical evolution would be measured by the richness, depth, variety and ease of the most important connections - the ones among unpredictably clever humans like ourselves.

P.S. DJ SHADOW RULES! BECK, TOO! Can't forget NEGATIVELAND or ART OF NOISE, either. (And I liked Mark McGuire's dingers. So what about the steroids. It's called "Takin' it to the next level, TOO THE EXTREME, BABY, YEAH!!!" Not for me no thanks I've got to go check the Top 40 now bye. {You, really, shouldn't meet your heroes up-close-and-personal-like. You're just ruining it for yourself.)

UNPUBLISHED TERM PAPERS, SHORT STORIES, MAGAZINE ARTICLES AND OTHER EPHREMIA I'VE AUTHORED FOR SALE

"Goal Setting For Dream Achievment: Willy Loman, Victor Frankl and "Man's Search For Meaning" term paper, 7.5 pages

"The Managerial Enterprise of IBM" late 70's, early 80's" comprehensive management evaluation of corp. circa late 70's, early 80's, (thumbs-up) 11 pages + works cited page

"Organizational Behavior Modification Theory and Style" 7 pages

"An Autobiographical Examination of Carol Pearson's "The Hero Within": What Archetypes Am I?" 6 pages + works cited page

"Mass Media as a Tool for the Encouragement of Radical Hedonism and Egoism in Society" 4.5 double-space-typed pages with 1" margins + works cited page

"A Slush Pile of Business Management Case Studies" a passel of "What If's..." answered. Stupid stuff like "Cookie Wars" and "My Best Employee Is Having A Nervous Breakdown! What would you do?"

"Lighting the Stage" primer, 4 pages

"Naval-Gazing Tripe" actually, an 8 page goals statement

"The Return, (from the dead), of the Mucker" Parts I & II, both 2 page prose poems glorifying Conanesque life as well as the war in the far distant, higher-tech future. Y'now, a diptych. Would make a better motivational poster around the office, with art by Frazetta or Neal Adams, than most of those dry Boy Scout anthems and stern Calvinistic warnings.

"Sexpit" short story, modern horror, 6.5 pages

"Golddiggers of 1984" short story, modern horror, 6.5 pages

"Helluva City" beginning of an urban noir novel, 3 pages

"The Tomorrow File" sci-fi thriller feature film treatment for an adaptation of the novel by Lawrence Sanders, 3 pages

"The Unformed" sci-fi horror feature film treatment, purple ichor a la Classic Lovecraft, pastiche?, 3 pages

"Visit Port Watson" undefinable genre comic book, many, many, many, too many uncounted pages, LUXXXCORP is an outlaw Savings and Loan whose home office is located in the free port/pirate enclave, (see "Islands in the Net") of Port Watson, the capitol of the Republic of Sonsoral, an island in the South Pacific that operates outside the guidelines of international law with total legal impunity. Explores Libertarian Political & Economic Theory.

"Reluctant Messiah" sci-fi action/adventure feature film treatment, "Jesus? Meet the aliens!" 1.5 pages

"The Big Show" Sundance Project treatment, "Slackers" attend the weekend Art in the Park in "Nashville", 3 pages

"The Road to Parnassus" any genre feature film treatment of an adaptation of a Tudor, (Stuart?) era play circa 1497 - 1642. It's my little secret because as of 1947 the author was still...UNKNOWN! There's a French edition of the plays, (It's a trilogy!) in the Folger/Shakespeare Library, Georgetown DC, if you're REALLY interested.

"He's Fenster. She's Dorkus." half-hour romantic sitcom treatment, 1 page, Oh, hell, this one's a freebie > Just fill in the blanks. I'll do it for you the first time: "--Dorkus' --father is the --Islamic --Ambassador to --the United States. He's a --closeted, --hedonist at heart. --Fenster's --not his real name --father is a --Chinese trade representative doing some--industrial spying when he can. She's an --idiot. He's --even dumber. It's Tristan & Isolde, the Capulets & the Montegues, The Patty Duke Show, { just say any TV show - the more obscure the better.} with an --ideological twist. And they don't --die in the end, either! {Exclamation points are key!} See, there? That's not too bad. And it's easy. I guess that's why they call it "hack" work. It's, simply typing away...filling up the page with little sqiggles that I can, maybe, SELL! Hmmmm. {I need to type faster.}

"Sybil Brand" porn treatment. This is not for you.

"Blue Velvet" film commentary, 3.5 pages

"The Deer Hunter" film commentary, 3.5 pages

"Your Dead Grandparents had Sci-Fi Movies, Too>Go to>Metropolis" film commentary, 2 pages

I've got a film commentary on "The Searchers" around here, somewhere. "Dr. Strangelove", too.

Assorted manifestos, thesii, screeds and rants.

Another slush pile of dreck I had to write. It was for the money of a Korean-American feature film producer in Hollywood, (Fairfax) We did four flix together. From two guys in the living room hammering it out all the way to The American Film Market, Beverly Hills Hotel. With help from The Greek in his hillside pallazo. Ah, the tales of Hollywood...where was I?

The above are only hard copies. I lost 100's of pages when I spilt coffee on my notebook keypad and, slowly, it...fried...right...up. Quite an experience. I would wish it upon mine enemies. Carrie Phillips is not my enemy.

I've had a few art exhibitions: "Fuel in the Engine of Consumer Democracy" and such at the 0 Gallery in L.A. 01, too. Cotton Exchange & other L.A.C.E. shows. Almost made it into the Temporary Contempory! Current project: 44" x 77" giclee's on foil, flocked & just plain weird wallpaper. Nice Sofa Art if you like "My Trinity" of Rosenquist, Rauschenberg & Lichtenstein! Cheap, too. Framed or rolled - Get 'em now 'cause after I'm dead there'll be no more a-coming and you know what that means...Jeez does this mean I have to include scans? Oh, bother. ChinesewallChinesewallChinesewallChinesewallChinesewallChinesewallChinesewallChinesewallChinesewallChinesewall