RIP Roky Erickson
guitarist and singer for
The 13th Floor Elevators & Roky Erickson and the Aliens
Friday, May 31, 2019
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Invisible Circus: Historical Essay
The Invisible Circus was San Francisco's digger underground answer to the Trips Festival that had happened the previous year. The Diggers staged this happening at Glide Church, where the Artists Liberation Front had held one of the first Free Fairs the previous fall.
The Jackofficers - Ventriuclar Refibrillation
The Jackofficers
Ventricular Refibrillation
from the lp Digital Dump
The preachers getting rich from poor Americans
Televangelist Todd Coontz has a well-worn routine: he dresses in a suit, pulls out a Bible and urges viewers to pledge a very specific amount of money. "Don't delay, don't delay," he urges, calmly but emphatically
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
The Screamers: The Great Lost Band of the First Wave of L.A. Punk
Being ahead of your time can be a risky career move. Take the case of the Screamers. When punk rock hit Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, there was no band bigger than the Screamers.
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Malaysia Is Shipping 3,300 Tons of Garbage Back To the Countries It Came From
We, humans, do love our plastic. From our morning yogurt to our evening takeout, all this plastic feels impossible to avoid. The thing is, well, this plastic needs to go somewhere. Malaysia, a major plastics importer, is one of those somewheres. But now, the country is shipping thousands of tons of the world's plastic back home
Ask a Porn Star: Do You Actually Like Facials?
Ask a Porn Star: Do You Actually Like Facials
short dcumentary film
Saturday, May 25, 2019
Test Dept. - Corridor of Cells
Test Dept.
Corridor of Cells
from the lp The Unacceptable Face of Freedom
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
IQ rates are dropping in many developed countries and that doesn't bode well for humanity
An intelligence crisis could be undermining our problem-solving and dim the prospects of the global economy.
An intelligence crisis could undermine our problem-solving capacities and dim the prospects of the global economy.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Master/Slave Relationship - Scene
Master/Slave Relationship
Scene
from the cassette Throwing It All To the Wind
Master/Slave Relationship - Ground Zero
Master/Slave Relationship
Ground Zero
from the lp Bed of Perverse Dreams
Man Arrested in Kazakhstan for Wielding a Blank Poster in a Public Square
Aslan Sagutdinov’s action was an experiment in crossing the line of public demonstration in the country, despite his lack of an obvious political message.
Blood Debt: Feudal Familial Law In the Balkans
Blood Debt: Feudal Familial Law In the Balkans
short documentary by Vice International (2015)
AN EGOCENTRIC AND CONVOLUTED HISTORY OF EARLY "FILK" AND FILKING
In the first place, "filk song" was a typographical error. That was obvious to everybody who read the essay in whose title it appeared. Besides it had no meaning. Who ever heard of a filk?
Read the full essay on The Fanac Fan History Projecy here
Zoviet France - I Felt the Breath of My Assassin
Zoviet France
I Felt the Breath of My Assassin
from the compilation Sky Flowers and Horse Eggs
Monday, May 20, 2019
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Who is Johnny the Conqueroo?
Read the full article on Riverside Blues Society here
Electronic musician Carolyn Fok discusses her career and new archival releases
he work of electronic musician Carolyn Fok spans over four decades and has ranged from aggressive industrial to more ambient soundscapes. It’s always had an experimental edge, with meticulous and highly creative sound design.
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Plastic Factory
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band
Plastic Factory
from the lp Safe as Milk
Friday, May 17, 2019
Wallace D. Fard and the Secret Origin Of the Nation of Islam
Much has been said, not so much actually known, about Wallace D.
Fard. As the founding member of the Nation of Islam, his birth and
death remain shrouded in mystery. Sources of information about his
life are unreliable and after the start of the Black Muslim religious
movement, Fard’s brief moment in the public eye receded as he
seemingly disappeared into nowhere. One can only wonder how such an
elusive individual could have started one of the most controversial
religious organizations in American history.
Sources of Fard’s life leave much to the imagination and lack
credibility for many. The largest file of biographical data comes
from the FBI who opened an investigation into his life in the 1950’s
when the Nation of Islam began to make waves. Federal investigators
searched through legal records to track Fard’s movements but the
inconsistency of Fard’s name and the conflicting accounts coming
from people who knew him have made researchers suspicious. The FBI’s
intent is also questionable as they may have been involved in a
campaign of misinformation in an effort to discredit Wallace Fard for
the sake of undermining the authority of the Nation of Islam itself.
Another important source of knowledge about Fard comes from the
sociologist Edmann Doane Beynon who published a sociological study of
the NOI as they began to grow in Detroit during the 1930s. Beynon
interviewed followers of Fard and published his research in a
sociological journal. Handwritten letters from Wallace D. Fard to
Elijah Mohammad have also been located. Most of the people who
actually knew the man are dead.
The first written account of W.D. Fard came from Portland,
Oregon on a birth certificate for his son. The mother, his common-law
wife, described him as a dark-skinned man with brown eyes and wavy
black hair who went by the name Wallie Dodd Fard. She claimed he had
been born in New Zealand and made a living by running a food truck.
Wallie Fard abandoned his family and later showed up in Los Angeles.
Public records and a draft registration card for Word War I show that
a Wallace D. Fard owned a restaurant. The draft registration form
list his name as Wallace D. Fard but with “Ford” written under
the name in quotation marks. His place of birth was listed as
Afghanistan. A birth certificate also shows that this Ford was
married and the father of a son. The next set of documents to
surface were arrest forms and prison records, including fingerprints
that match the draft registration, for a Wallace Dodd Ford, charged
on counts of assault with a deadly weapon and transportation of
bootleg liquor. This particular Ford did time in San Quentin where
some say he met with Elijah Mohammad and the two of them schemed up a
plan to charge people money for converting to Islam on their terms.
This bit of information has been never been confirmed.
In the 1930s, a door to door salesman making was making his
rounds in the African American neighborhoods of Detroit. Described as
a light-skinned black man with an exotic accent, he became known to
his customers as Wallace D. Fard Mohammad. He sold incense, perfume,
candles, and colorful silks which he told the people had been
imported from Africa. He claimed to be from Mecca and carried a copy
of the Holy Bible with him so when potential customers
invited him in to hear his sales pitch, he could ask them if they had
been sufficiently versed in religion. Usually after making a sale, he
would talk about God. More and more people grew interested in his
message and soon they were holding secretive church meetings in their
basements while W.D. Fard’s role as traveling salesman receded and
his job as religious teacher became more important. Soon he stopped
bringing his Bible and started bringing The Koran instead.
Fard began telling his followers that the teachings of the Bible were
wrong and the Christian church had been invented by the Caucasian
white devils to enslave Black people. Thus, thrown into a state of
spiritual crisis, psychological disorientation and confusion, Fard
then enlightened them by explaining that African American people were
the lost tribe of Shabazz who had been kidnapped by the Christian
white devils and sold into bondage in America. He taught that The
Koran was the true teaching of God and that Wallace D. Fard
Mohammad was a messenger sent by Allah to take them back to their
homeland.
Meanwhile, rumors began circulating in the African American
community of Detroit that Fard’s “voodoo cult” was using his
candles and incense to sacrifice babies to prepare his followers for
the future murder of the white devils. This charge may or may not
have been mere gossip.
One of the attendees at W.D. Fard’s meetings was Elijah
Mohammad who claimed to be obsessed with Fard; a deep and close
friendship developed between the two men. Elijah Mohammad said that
Wallace Fard taught him everything he needed to know about Islam. The
organization began to grow and he started to teach in highly
regimented and disciplined groups who abstained from drugs, alcohol,
pork and other unclean foods. The groups grew so big that they
eventually rented a building which became know as the Mosque Number
1. About that time Wallace D. Fard Mohammad disappeared; Elijah
Mohammad assumed the mantle of leadership and proclaimed the
organization’s name to be the Nation of Islam.
Elijah Mohammad taught his followers that W.D. Fard was God
incarnate. He laid out plans to form a separate state for African
Americans that would eventually secede from the United States of
American and form their own self-sufficient country. His message was
one of Black empowerment, citing the necessity for African Americans
to become economically independent of white society, who he routinely
referred to as “blue eyed devils”. His teachings later attracted
the attention of Malcolm X who would go on to become a prominent
leader of the Civil Rights era. The Nation of Islam became a
lightning rod for controversy and two newspaper articles were
published in an attempt to weaken their influence over the African
American community. One article claimed that W.D. Fard was a Turkish
secret service agent who had worked for the Nazis; another article
claimed that he was the son of a white man and a Polynesian woman who
gave birth to him in Hawaii. These claimed have never been proven.
Elijah Mohammad, in his later years, embraced orthodox Sunni
Islam. He toned down his rhetoric, stopped insisting on forming a
separate, all-Black nation, and started preaching a message of peace
for all humans. After his death, the American Islamic author Michael
Mohammad Knight met with elder members of the Nation of Islam to ask
about W.D. Fard. They told him he was ethnically Pakistani. He
emigrated to America after being employed on an American cruise ship.
When the Nation of Islam began to grow so big, he decided he did not
want to live in the public spotlight and let Elijah Mohammad take
over leadership of the movement, though he helped to run the sect
behind the scenes. The two maintained a close friendship throughout
their lives and spent many hours each day talking on the phone. W.D.
Fard supposedly died circa 1980 and was buried in a grave with an
assumed name, known only to the members of the Nation of Islam who
knew him best.
Taking his name into consideration can lend some credibility to
this story. The name “Wali”, short for “Walidad”, is of
Arabic origin and is one of the most common names in Pakistan and
Afghanistan. The name “Fard” is also a common Arabic name,
sometimes spelled “Fahd”, “Fa’ad”, “Farad” or “Fahad”
when written using Latin script. Those familiar with the
transliteration of the Arabic script into English know that the
phonetic sounds of Arabic, Urdu, and English do not match up , making
multiple spellings of the same words a routine occurrence. Arabic has
pure vowel sounds as opposed to English’s extensive use of glides,
raisings, drops, and diphthongs in its vowels. Therefore, the capital
of Oman can be variantly spelled “Moscat”, “Mouscat”,
“Muscat”, or “Moskat” for example. Analysts of Fard’s
handwriting have shown that he was a very poor speller and most often
made mistakes in his use of English vowels. Samples of his signature
written in Arabic script have also been analyzed and have shown that
it contains idiosyncrasies that differentiate Urdu handwriting from
Arabic, even though both languages use the same script.
So who was Wallie Dodd Ford and why all the confusion over the
name? Some conspiracy theorists have said that he never existed; he
was a fictional character made up by Elijah Mohammad so that he could
claim to have received communications from Allah. Others say that
Fard was from Venus and came to America in a UFO to spread the
teachings of the Nation of Islam under God’s command. Invoking
Occam’s razor can lead one to the more mundane conclusion that he
was an ordinary man who emigrated to America but got off to a rough
start. He could have been a con artist who changed his name to avoid
being found by police, family members, or other nefarious individuals
he had gotten associated with in his younger days. After all, this
would not be the first time a religious movement had been started bya
fraud. Maybe his message resonated with the right people and what he
started grew too big so he decided to step aside and let someone else
run the show. Possibly some narrow-minded authorities at the time
could not comprehend the same Wali Fard and wrote his name as
“Wallace Ford” on legal documents. Maybe he found solace and
friendship in the African American community after facing too much
racist adversity and xenophobia in the dominant white culture two
decades before the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement and he turned
his frustrations into a political theology.
Since most of the people who knew Wallace Fard are dead, we
probably will never know the complete truth. In the end, if he was a
con artist, would it really matter? Despite the extremely
controversial nature of the Nation of Islam when it rose, that
organization has also done some important things for the African
American community. They were a key instigator in the Civil Rights
Movement, they helped Black people establish successful businesses
and careers, helped police Black neighborhoods, assisted criminals in
re-adapting to life after reentry into society, and have had a high
rate of success in helping people escape the nightmarish trap of drug
and alcohol addiction. Maybe it is time to acknowledge that in some
ways, a group of people should be judged according to their successes
as well as their faults. If the two sides even out, can they be all
that bad?
reference
Knight, Michael Muhammad. Blue Eyed Devil: A Road Odyssey Through
Islamic America. Soft Skull Press, 2009.
Albert Ayler Quintet - Truth Is Marching In
Albert Ayler Quintet
Truth Is Marching In
from the lp Slug's Saloon
Does a new genetic analysis finally reveal the identity of Jack the Ripper?
Forensic scientists say they have finally fingered the identity of Jack the Ripper, the notorious serial killer who terrorized the streets of London more than a century ago. Genetic tests published this week point to Aaron Kosminski, a 23-year-old Polish barber and a prime police suspect at the time. But critics say the evidence isn’t strong enough to declare this case closed.
Thursday, May 16, 2019
THE TRUTH ABOUT DIEGO GARCIA: 50 YEARS OF FICTION ABOUT AN AMERICAN MILITARY BASE
The U.S. military facility on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean represents a horrific example of the human costs of war and imperialism.
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
Monday, May 13, 2019
The Guano Islands: Bird Turds and the Beginnings of U.S. Overseas Territories
n the mid-nineteenth century, explorers headed out to sea, hoping to claim new islands for the United States. One seemed promising: “These islands are small, high and rocky, barren and uninviting to the last degree, yet out of them has come wealth to stagger the dreams of oriental imagination.” These islands held an extremely valuable resource. With high levels of both phosphorus and nitrogen, it was excellent for crops. In his 1850 State of the Union, President Millard Fillmore said this resource had “become so desirable an article to the agricultural interest of the United States that it is the duty of the Government to employ all the means properly in its power for the purpose of causing that article to be imported into the country at a reasonable price.” This article would enable American farmers to produce on a larger scale, at a time when farming was undergoing vast changes as a result of the Industrial Revolution. This prized new resource was guano.
Sunday, May 12, 2019
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Willie Bobo - Fried Neckbones and Some Home Fries
Willie Bobo
Fried Neckbones and Some Home Fries
from the lp Uno Dos Tres 123
How "Hell's Kitchen" Got its Name (I think)
No neighborhood's name wallows in more obscurity than "Hell's Kitchen." A veritable Thunderdome of the late 1800s, the mostly Irish and German community was notorious for assaulting unwelcome intruders by raining down a storm of bricks, rocks, and paving stones from tenement rooftops with legendary accuracy. It was Gopher territory, a gang known for lurking in cellar stairwells. It's said that no other gang stepped foot in Gopher territory without permission.
Friday, May 10, 2019
A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality
Physicists have long suspected that quantum mechanics allows two observers to experience different, conflicting realities. Now they’ve performed the first experiment that proves it.
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