AVN Suckling Hind Teat:

I see they finally got around to running the story I have had for 3 days…..The one I tried to give them on day one…

It’s good though..better late than never and we have done a good thing here as you will all see soon.

Here Comes The Shit:

According to channel 4 in Los Angeles Cal OSHA has released a long awaited report on the porn industry and it doesn’t bode well for porners.

Net result is that Cal-OSHA plans to start visiting porn sets, complete with eye protection, dental dams and condoms…way to go “Doctor” Mitch your ineptitude finally came to fruition.

If this happens, porn as we know it is about to change.

As You May Have Noticed:

The post at Thetrolls.net has come down that doesn’t matter. Things are in motion…More as it happens.

Writing About Ralph Steadman Got Me Thinking:

I had a conversation with some friends a couple of weeks ago and the suicide of Hunter S Thompson came up…by me. Of the four of us in the room I was the only one in my mid 40s OK mid to late… The rest were barely 30 if that. None of them knew who Hunter S Thompson was.

I said come on you guys read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas…THAT Hunter S Thompson.

One girl, a bright girl for whom I have a lot of respect said oh ya…I tried to read that it was too stupid, all about drugs and stuff, it made no sense. The other said oh ya I saw the movie, it really sucked it didn’t make sense either.

I agree the movie was horrid.

But I couldn’t understand how these highly educated and articulate people couldn’t understand Fear and Loathing, and really had no clue who Hunter was or what he was about.

Then it hit me….They weren’t there.

What they knew of the 60s and 70s had been learned from history books in public schools, They hadn’t lived it like my generation had. They had no idea about Kent State or the marching band that refused to yield. “Alice’s Restaraunt” is just a long folk song to them, something their parents played when reminiscing. A draft comes from an open window. How many black people know the significance of the name Jefferson State? How many people at all know the significance? A peace sign to them was something their generation cooked up.

We very damn near had a second civil war in this country and in many senses of the word, we did have one, people paid with their lives for what they believed in and there were casualities who were innocent…Look up the name Allison Kraus…she would have turned 54 this year….no not the singer, the one who was killed by National Guard Riflemen at Kent State University in Ohio. Who really set that ROTC building on fire? Who really knows what the hell I am talking about?

To my friends, “Four dead in Ohio” is just a lyric from an old song, something about tin solidiers and Nixon or something. They think “American Woman” is a song about chicks in the USA, of course, so does Lenny Kravitz…

I haven’t read a primary or secondary school American History book lately but I bet that the 60s are little more than a few footnotes about civil rights, the death of the Kennedys and maybe women entering the workplace. And some carefully worded stuff about a place called Viet Nam and a police action or a “conflict” there.

So how could they understand something as socially complex and metaphorical as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? Much less the man who wrote it.

My grandmother had a saying: “He outlived his usefulness” I’m guessing that’s how Hunter felt in his final days. Too bad he will, in the long run, likely be more remembered for his eccentric antics, suicide and being shot out of a cannon at the end than for his unique ability to capture the the soul of an entire generation and put it into words.

If you would like to learn about what really happened at Kent State and Jackson State, from the people who were there go here

http://www.may4archive.org/index.shtml

You wont read about it in history books I bet and it’s a rare glimpse back in time that most of you weren’t around for.

The photo above was taken by John Filo:

On May 4th, 1970, John Filo was a young undergraduate working in the Kent State photo lab. He decided to take a break, and went outside to see students milling in the parking lot. Over the weekend, following the burning of the ROTC building, thousands of students had moved back and forth from the commons area near to the hill in front of Taylor Hall, demonstrating and calling to an end to the war inj Vietnam. John decided to get his camera, and see if he could get an interesting picture. He saw one student waving a black flag on the hillside, with the National Guard in the background. He shot the photograph, and feeling that he now had recorded the moment, wandered to the parking lot, where a lot of the students had gathered. Suddenly, G company of the Ohio National Guard opened fire. John thought they were shooting blanks, and started to take pictures.

A second later, he saw Mary Vecchio crying over the body of one the students who had just been killed. He took the picture.

A few hours later, he started to transmit the pictures he had taken to the Associated Press from a small newspaper in Pennsylvania.

The photograph won him a Pulitzer prize.

“All Animals Are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others.”

Be Careful What You Wish For…This Time I Got It and It’s Good:

In 1995 there was a special edition 50th anniversary hardcover release of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the second I saw it I bought two of them. What made the book special was the illustrations. All the pages were high gloss paper and it was Illustrated by Ralph Steadman. When I saw it hit me that this was a defining moment, I have never read a book more suited to Steadman’s illustration, with the possible exception of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. That this piece of classic literature was illustrated by Ralph Steadman blew me away.

Ever since I got them I have tried to get one signed by Steadman, I emailed him, snail mailed him, offered him money, but I never got a response. I never saw one for sale and its one of the few books he has illustrated that is not available signed on his site.

The book is long out of print…it can still be found but I had given up on the autograph.

A few years ago I told my buddy Aaron, a fellow Steadman fan how hard I had tried to get it autographed.

Two days ago Aaron IMs me and tells me theres a first edition, mint condition copy..flat signed by Steadman on Ebay for a bargain price (under 200.00)

Needless to say I bought it then and there….clicked the buy now and bought the only one he had

I’m psyched, thats exactly where and how I wanted it signed. 10 Years I waited…..Thanks Aaron I love ya man!