The Legend of Jessie Cristos

The greatest unknown band on the planet. The Legend of Jessie Cristos was a country/goth rock band that played the soundtrack for the film of the same name, which was never intended to be made. Instead, the songs told the story of the Old West messianic vampire cowboy Jessie Cristos, his martyrdom in the hands of the Elders, his tragic romance of the lady Elizabeth, the pursuit of her father, The Judge, and last but not least, Jessie's Dirty Dozen. When the Dirty Dozen Make Merry, run. Anyway, the band occurred briefly in the late 90s, in Boston, and my participation was in graphics, flyers, playing with a fog machine and lights, and even a couple of times performing on-stage, to read from the Book of Jessie. I'd say "Rest in Peace" to Jessie Cristos, but I doubt he ever will. Ha!

Anyway, I've had these old drawings of mine scanned in for ages, and a brief conversation w/the aforementioned Shannon inspired me to upload them.

From The Legend of Jessie Cristos

Go listen to some LoJC tunes at: Original Snub (note: the versions there are fairly low bit-rate... easier to DL, but don't quite do justice to the recordings)

Aspartame in your brain

Please read about aspartame, also known as Nutrasweet, Equal, and other artificial sweeteners. If you can find the documentary Sweet Misery (you may need to pirate it via torrent), it can be compelling.

Aspartame is used in almost every diet soda, and in every sugarless gum I've ever found. Google "aspartame" or "aspartame poisoning" and you'll find plenty of information that may well make you want to kill the people who make and use it, as well as the FDA that approved its use starting in the mid-80's. Splenda (sometimes marketed as Sucralose) also has its damaging effects, but sounds more like health food when compared to aspartame. Please: you are much better off imbibing sugary soda/coffee/tea/etc. than that sweetened/poisoned by aspartame. You can, however, find some diet sodas using Splenda: oddly, I've found that you can actually get Splenda-sweetened Diet Coke in that unending soda aisle in your local supermarket, whereas I've only ever seen the aspartame version in convenience stores. In seeking out other diet sodas, the Weight Watchers brand is aspartame-free. As ever, the golden rule is: read your labels.

NO BEETS?

These days, not so good. Other days, better.

Aside: This reminds me of the wisdom once spoken by (the ravishing) Claudia Christian on Babylon 5: "No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow. Boom!, sooner or later. BOOM!"

I'm officially off my meds, for the most part, a required difficulty as I switch onto a new med. I've gradually phased out my previous anti-depressant (Cymbalta), and once gone, I've dropped a couple of others cold turkey, as of this morning. The sudden loss of doxepin (AKA Silenor, AKA Aponal) was felt last night: Wiki defines the drug as a psychotropic agent with tricyclic antidepressant and anxiolytic properties, but is also helpful in dealing with insomnia. I slept one or two of my ideally 40 winks, although this did help me remember fragments of dream from those scattered moments. So hey, at least there was some entertainment. I'm also off the currently-trendy Adderall, my legal speed, which I came off of a few days early actually, since I ran out of pills and then lacked the oomph required to visit the pharmacy. My only remaining drugs are lamictal (treating bipolar effects in a less blunt way than lithium) and my testosterone gel (Androgel), which to be honest, often feels useless.

After coming down from Cymbalta for the last two weeks, I now get to spend two weeks dry of those three drugs, so as to remove the remnants of them, as they clash with my new drug of choice, tranylcypromine (brand name version is Parnate). This is an MAIO (monoamine oxidase inhibitor), which carries with it serious restrictions on diet. It's hard to imagine your regular omnivore taking this on, but as a vegan I've got a real head-start.

Anything that is aged or fermented is out. This, and other things, contain Tyramine, which is a no-no amino acid-based compound. Here's a partial list of the forbidden, some of which are extremely serious, and others are to be avoided, or in some cases, allowable in very small amounts:

Anchovies, Avocado, Banana peels, Bean Curd, Beetroot, Booze, Bouillon, Brazil Nuts, Bread w/high yeast, Broad Beans (Fava, Italian Green Beans, Lima, Lentil), Caffeine, Cheese, Chinese pea pods, Chips w/vinegar, Chocolate, Coconut, Coffee, Coke, Corn (sweet), Cucumbers, Eggplant, Figs (canned), Ginseng, Grapes, Meat, Miso, MSG, Mushrooms, Oranges, Peanuts, Pineapple (fresh), Plums, Protein Extracts, Prunes, Raisins, Raspberries, Red plums, Salad Dressing, Sauerkraut, Shrimp Paste, Soy Sauce, Spinach, Teriyaki sauce, Tofu, Tomato juice, Vegemite, Yeast, Yogurt

Aw man - fuck me in the eye! NO BEETS? Kids, for that reason alone, remember: don't do (legal) drugs.

Road Map to God

While I've the focus to write this (and the enthusiasm helps): please read my (I say possessively) Shannon's fantastic bit of thought here:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=33789163&blogID=439596233

Ages ago, in "the best years of my life" (an unhappy thing to say, when such years are no longer anywhere near the present, but, hey, and, meh!), I was lucky to have Shannon as a girlfriend... it was in San Francisco, 1993. I lost touch with her for too long, but in one of my more functional moments, recently, I sought her out in this virtual world, and am very happy for having done so. So, read what she has written that I done linked. All of my readers (0-3?) might become hers!

A-ha!

Ok, as a big fan of A-ha, I can't resist linking this revisionist video:



"IS THIS YOUR HOUSE?!"

Most worthy LOL of the day

see Sarah Palin pictures

Drugs wearing off, mind going, cut paste cut paste cut paste

Once, when we were in debate camp...

September 29, 2008
Palin heads to ‘debate camp’ in Arizona

CNN) — As some prominent conservatives begin to raise the question of whether Sarah Palin should remain on the Republican presidential ticket – and others call for her to be given more public exposure in a bid to reverse falling poll numbers – the McCain campaign is bringing the Alaska governor to John McCain’s Sedona ranch for several days of intense debate prep.

Senior campaign advisor Steve Schmidt and other top officials met Palin in Philadelphia Sunday night, and are traveling with her and McCain to a Columbus, Ohio event Monday morning. The group then heads to Arizona.

The original plan was for Palin to prepare in St. Louis, where the vice presidential debate will be held Thursday. Instead, she has already been preparing in a Philadelphia hotel for four days with advisors. She will now get ready for the debate at McCain’s rustic creek-side home — what a top aide calls "debate camp."

The aide, who's part of the team prepping Palin, tells CNN they decided to take her to debate camp there because it is an "invigorating and enjoyable place to prepare for Thursday."

Apparently someone in the McCain campaign saw that clip of Sarah trying to talk (emphasis on trying) on the TV. Somehow she'd gotten away from her handlers in her hotel room and was standing in one of those parking lot-like restaurants where you get your meal from a lady in a window. Or rather, they call out your name when your order's ready (the dead-eyed woman sleeping through her miserable job blandly asked Sarah for hers, and it didn't register any recognition within her, despite being surrounded by lights and cameras).

Someone made the moment more surreal by asking her a vague question about Pakistan, and her answer was also vague, nonsense words being tossed around with all the others being spoken in the busy little area... place? Parking lot.

Finally someone in McCain's camp said "Fucking Christ will someone reign her in already?!"

boobies.

Police say teen plotted to kill mom for breast implants

FOUNTAIN, Colorado (AP) -- A Colorado teenager hired men to kill his mother so he could use her money to get breast implants for his girlfriend, police said.

Nikita Lee Weis, 18, was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, said Fountain Deputy Police Chief Mike Barnett.

Weis' mother, Hyun Weis, was attacked Thursday with a small wooden baseball bat at her home but escaped, authorities said. She was released Friday from a hospital.

---

1 - The headline as it was, I was really hoping that this story was about a son loving his mom's implants so much that he wanted to gouge them out of her and put them in his own chest.

2 - Seeing that the weapon of choice is as it was, are we sure that the "men" hired for this job weren't actually a couple of 4th graders in little league?

Anyway. This has been a very random post.

ok, this is better.

moar funny pictures

Separated at birth?

I knew I'd seen that face before... Sarah Palin is the reincarnation of Nellie Olson!

Once in a while I like to compare the various news sites online against one another, using their lists of "popular" or most read articles. It can be pretty funny, as well as telling. Anyway, today is one of those onces!


CNN's Most Popular
1 National Mall in monumental disrepair, activists say
2 How much skin is too much at the office?
3 Eight dead as canoeists sucked into turbines
4 Woman who died on hospital floor called 'beautiful person'
5 American keeps hot dog-eating crown in overtime


Al Jazeera Most emailed articles
1 Chomsky: US public irrelevant
2 Israel 'committing memorycide'
3 Obama's other Muslim problem
4 Finding Brazil's isolated tribes
5 US 'escalates covert Iran Missions'


New York Times Most emailed
1 Nicholas D. Kristof: The Luckiest Girl*
2 Well: The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating
3 Paul Krugman: Rove’s Third Term
4 Editorial: New and Not Improved
5 The ’60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire

* Had to check this one out to see what it was - an Op Ed bit about a Ugandan girl that managed to go from illiterate peasant to graduating from CT College.


FOX News Most read
1 Flat-screen TV Gas a 'Climate Time Bomb'
2 A Fitting Tribute to a Slain Navy SEAL Gains Attention
3 Grandma, 70, Gives Birth to Twins
4 Surgeon Ordered to Pay $795G for Cutting Off Man's Penia
5 Christina Applegate's Boyfriend Found Dead


London Times Most read
1 Adolf Hitler finally returns to Berlin - but will tight security ensure model behaviour? *
2 Missing PlayStations provide clue to the murder of two French students
3 The top 10 fan versus band scuffles
4 Ingrid Betancourt returns 'home' to France - but doubts emerge about 'daring' rescue **

* Reports on a Madame Tussaud dummy of Hitler being used in a new display.
** This is actually really interesting - IB is one of the hostages recscued in Colombia. But a Swedish radio station (RSR) has been reporting that the rescue was a largely contrived affair, and that the US had quietly paid $20 million (to who, exactly?) to manufacture a staged rescue.


The Nation Most Emailed
1 Disaster Capitalism: State of Extortion
2 Obama's Evolving Foreign Policy
3 The White Whale*
4 Just Democracy
5 This Brave Nation: A Defining Moment

* E.L. Doctorow's keynote address at a joint meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society on the theme of "The Public Good: Knowledge as the Foundation for a Democratic Society."


Washington Post Most Viewed Articles
1 Compound in Red Wine Fights Ravages of Age
2 A Man of Seasonal Principles*
3 Leading With Their Left**
4 The Economy? Words Fail Me.
5 Zooming Around the Alps In a Homemade Wing Suit

* Op Ed re: Obama
** Op Ed re: election


ABC News Most Read
1 'Pregnant Man' Has Baby Girl
2 Brinkley's Soon-to-Be Ex Addicted to Sex?
3 Blueberry Cobbler, Flag-Waving Wings and Patriotic Potatoes
4 Brinkley Forgives Husband's Ex-Mistress
5 Sen. Jesse Helms is Dead at 86


CBS Most Views
1 More Passport Files Breached
2 Bush Greets New Citizens, And Protestors
3 Fit To Serve? Most Young Adults Aren't
4 Stolen Beauty
5 Judge Rejects Bush's Stance On Wiretaps


MSNBC Most Viewed Videos
1 Bush heckled during July 4 speech
2 Fireworks Gone Bad
3 Brinkley trial gets nasty
4 Video shows emotional hostage rescue
5 Brinkley takes the stand


Daily Mail (UK) Most Read
1 The floating cities that could one day house climate change refugees
2 Facebook generation 'form flimsy friendships and are bored by reality'
3 Our solar system is egg-shaped, according to distant space probe
4 Polaroid launches a wallet-sized printer that prints your mobile phone snaps in seconds
5 Meet the underwater Anaconda snake that could solve our energy problems


Telegraph (UK) MOST VIEWED
1 Schoolboys disciplined for 'refusing to pray to Allah'
2 Alex Allan, Britain's leading spymaster, found at home in a coma
3 Ray Lewis resigns as deputy London mayor to Boris Johnson over magistrate claims
4 Faceless figures cause a stir at Wimbledon, Harrods and Elton


The Independent (UK)
1 'I fell in love with a female assassin'
2 Why Canada is the best haven from climate change
3 No words necessary: The cartoonists tackle climate change
4 Muslims feel like 'Jews of Europe'
5 Barcelona the most likely destination for unsettled Adebayor*

* A football (soccer) player being traded.


LA Times most Viewed
1 Baron Davis confident he'll be playing with Elton Brand
2 Goleta fire now covers 5,400 acres
3 Germany's newest citizen, center: Chris Kaman*
4 How harmful is porn?
5 Pringles are not potato chips, judge says in British tax case

* Basketball player.


Huffington Post
1 Arianna Huffington: Seven Things Barack Obama Should Do to Keep From Blowing It
2 Obama Vows To Expand Bush's Faith-Based Programs
3 Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens Undergoes Waterboarding
4 Wesley Clark Stands By McCain Criticism
5 Barack Obama: My Position on FISA


The Guardian Weekly (UK), Wallstreet Journal, and Christian Science Monitor don't have such a lists.

Weeds

Related to my last post... marijuana. It still blows my mind that it's illegal. And again, its benefits to anyone - medicinal, spiritual, recreational, experiencing freedom, etc. - are purely inconsequential. What is of consequence is that there's so much money to be made, that massive corporations are currently not making. The tobacco industry must have been hurt by the increasing restrictions, price hikes, etc. on their products over the years (I say "must have been" just because I don't know for sure, and what I do know is that such a massive industry usually won't let itself be stopped from making profit... so maybe they're raking it in by means unknown to me).

But imagine if weed was legalized. The tobacco industry could release an endless stream of products, using various breeds, endless combos (spliffs, blunts, etc.), and make incredible amounts of money. In terms of legality, it would be as controlled as alcohol, if not moreso, and you'd need a license to sell it (the end result would mean mostly only packies and smoke shops selling it). Fines for breaking the various laws would be even bigger than for alcohol.

Meanwhile, the drug war would actually be winnable. People look to chemicals for their speedy recreation, and to weed for their ambling sensations (I just though of those two words together, and had to use 'em, even is it doesn't make a lot of sense... but you know what I mean). So, people will always be interested in scoring some chemicals, but if weed is legal, most of those people would re-direct their hopeful thrills in that direction. If you can get out of your head legally, why go through the danger of seeking out illegal drugs? There's the potentials for violence, arrest, and all kinds of shit. Let's not forget the fact that you're buying chemicals from some guy on the street (or in the park, as it used to be for me, which was a nicer, greener and therefore more progressive environment... uh... right?).

But who knows what's in that stuff? It could be fake, and harmless, or fake and harmful, or laced with something, or it could be the real thing, and all but the first of those carries serious health risks (obviously, chemical drugs can differ greatly from one another; I'm generalizing). There's no recourse against a dealer of illegal drugs, and he has no liability for producing a quality drug at a reasonable price. Obviously, if someone wants to stay in business, you operate appropriately and ensure customer satisfaction. But there's still no nutritional facts information on the packaging. No warning labels! "WARNING: DIS SHIT WIL FUCK U UP GOOD 4 SHO'!"

Giggles aside, my point is that the market for the chemicals would drop hugely. And using weed would have the same ramifications as alcohol, such as not driving when stoned, not smoking in non-smoking areas, not buying for minors, etc. Except in Texas. And the penalties would probably be more severe, in terms of fines and any sentencing related to crimes in which weed is involved. (I don't personally think that one should be penalized more than the other, but that's simply how it would end up being if it were ever legalized, because of political demand.)

All of these ideas taken into account, in the end it all comes down to money; industry could be making it in astonishing amounts, and they're not. For that sole reason, it's bizarre that it's not legal. It will be legal again, some day, and it would happen one state at a time, not nationally, I'm sure. It is currently legal in Alaska, and the medicinal use is legal in 10+ states, with restrictions, of course. I'm hoping that my home state (Massachusetts) will be one of the early ones to legalize.

Actually, if weed was legalized in Massachusetts, my brothers would be making more money, as they rent out apartments here in Worcester (through me). The housing market would skyrocket, as hordes of stoners decide to relocate and get "freedom fried." I'd love to see some stats on the business impact of Mass's legalization of gay marriage.

Note - on the Wiki page for cannabis, it mentions that "On June 2005, more than 530 distinguished economists, including Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, called for the legalization of marijuana." This led me to the excellent site www.prohibitioncosts.org - check it out.

Chomsky on Al Jazeera and then I ramble on and on.

A good (albeit short) interview w/Norm Chomsky can be read on Al Jazeera's site today... you can also watch it (from Al J's Inside USA show). I always like watching or listening to Chomsky rather than reading him, because in the latter case it can often be like reading a technical manual. In person, he has to dumb it down a bit for people like me.

Anyway, he talks about the election, citing the people as being "irrelevant onlookers," which is not a new idea for people considering our process. But what interested me the most was his explanation of how our health care situation might well improve. Apparently General Motors has voiced the idea that it costs them $1500 more to make a vehicle here than if they did in Canada, because of the differences in our health care systems.

In unconscious synch, I re-watched Michael Moore's Sicko last night (I wish this film had gotten more notice), and one of the things that I again took from this was his interviews with Americans in France. They cited that, while they got ridiculous (in comparison to American) paid vacations and leave, their work productivity was amazing. I'd love to see stats backing up these anecdotes, because it's something I've always believed would be true, but haven't had the opportunity to see it in action. If anyone knows of such data/dada - or has anecdotes relevant to this - I'd love to hear it.

Chomsky also addressed our fake democracy, and compared it to the real democracies of some of the poorest countries, like Haiti and Bolivia, also very interesting. But he said that "You know, if peasants in Bolivia and Haiti can do this, it's ridiculous to say we can't."

My response is that a real democracy that serves the people is easier when the country is smaller, or the government is more localized, and that the US's extreme wealth - held in only a few hands - makes a "real" democracy hardest of all. A massive number of protesters in Washington DC can't affect the entire country. Not even the political body of a single state can have a great effect, forget about a "third" political party, or a big advocacy group. And when the government and media are owned by the extremely rich and extremely established, the systems of both (media including the web and its use) are being controlled in their favor.

In short, we're fucked. I know it's easy to throw my hands up in despair, but I throw them up anyway. But I also have hope. While I personally feel useless, the fact that other countries are showing themselves to be more functional can help lead us in saner directions. The fact that GM sees that it could make more money if we had a better health care system is exciting, because in the end, that's what controls everything. Industries are always tailoring their (not our) government to ensure maximum profit, and there are many opportunities for them to do so. They can ship jobs out of the country, of course, and this happens a great deal. But if more and more jobs are exported, people will go nuts and demand and actually create change, again, because of money. And our industries need us to have money. I was so amused by the news that Wal-Mart found that its customers were buying fewer goods at their stores because they couldn't afford them anymore. How's po' Wal-Mart going to make its money if there's none in the country?

Or, the industries can go to war with one another (brief tangential images pop into mind, of kewl sci-fi future wars waged between companies and their troops, logos tattoed on their foreheads, and no sign of "nations" in sight). If the auto industry can make more money by pushing us closer to a socialized health care system, they'll do it. Or they'll try. Other industries and massive corporations might realize the same, and something might actually happen. Increased productivity from happier and healthier employees could become a real factor to corporations' leadership (the happiness/health aspect is inconsequential of course, the productivity/profit is what's truly important).

The way to get industry and its few ruling bodies to make changes for the better are to show that it also betters them financially. Natural (solar/wind/hydro) power pays for itself over time, and beyond that point is free (minus overhead of course). Manufacturing centers should all be going off the grid as soon as possible, if they really want to make money (assuming they plan to be in business for a long time), setting up their own energy farms and the like. The fact that it will help save the earth is, again, inconsequential. Maybe even one day, we'll reverse the course of our military (the biggest expense of all), and de-privatize it. Although then I wouldn't get to see my kewl sci-fi future in action. But I can still dream... I pledge allegiance to Halliburton, hallowed be thy name....

More and more buttons....

OK, more button designs... the first bunch are screencaps from one of the funniest animated shorts ever, "Rejected" by Don Hertzfeldt. The other design is surely to be only the first of a lengthy series of buttons.

ANATOMICALLY CORRECT ANIMAL CRACKER

I am devoting a new photo (well, picture?) album to my beloved ANATOMICALLY CORRECT ANIMAL CRACKER. Enjoy!

Please feel free to inject him into your own pictures. He likes adventures.

Holy poo.

Ok, just watched and re-watched this season's penultimate episode of Dr. Who. Blown away. It's so far off the hook it's ridiculous. Madness! How they managed to cram that much into one episode is brilliant.



This episode is the big bang. Featuring every surviving Dr. Who cast member (as well as some from Torchwood) vs.... well, no spoilers here. If you want spoilers, go to my collection of screencaps that I wasted too much time culling. Now I have to wait six more days to see the finale! Gah.

Serial killers are running our country and we've got to stop them.

Report: U.S. 'preparing the battlefield' in Iran

I am fucking terrified.

Yet another button.

Otay, took me way too long, but I think this new button is one of my best:



Dr. Hoffman being the discovering chemist of LSD. I posted a memorial bit here, written by Tim Lott (from the London Independent)... he put the LSD experience into words as well as anyone perhaps could.

Stamp Fun II

My buddy Jon gave me this old set of mint stamps, also from China.

China, Cat. #776-780.
Issued December 16, 1947, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Chinese Postal Administration.