The Purple Pinup Guru Platform

When purple things are pulsating on your mind, I'm the one whose clock you want to clean. Aiding is Sparky, the Astral Plane Zen Pup Dog from his mountain stronghold on the Northernmost Island of the Happy Ninja Island chain, this blog will also act as a journal to my wacky antics at an entertainment company and the progress of my self published comic book, The Deposit Man which only appears when I damn well feel like it. Real Soon Now.

Friday, June 10, 2005

PP Guru:
DELAYED STRANGE STIRRING
BELOW THE GURU'S BELT


Time is crucially short - as the PP Guru stated before he has a very important impromptu date tonight with Robert Fripp and the Porcupine Tree.


Not literally with Robert Fripp & the members of Porcupine Tree, you nitwit. Whaddya think the PP Guru is some kind of zen slut? No, the PP Guru has a date with some mortgage broker named Liz- and he hasn't met her before. She responded to an ad the PP Guru placed on craigslist since his original acolyte, Tara, the ever roving night life reviewer had to fly to San Francisco to write reviews of new restaurant and nightclub openings.

Is the interrogation over now?

Good. Now what would the PP Guru have to say about Angelina Jolie that hasn't been said before by any astral live breathing meatless metaphysical walking mage?

Angelina Jolie is the most ultimate sexually charged killing machine ever devised by the forces of nature.

And that schmuck Brad Pitt has to indulge in a steady diet of Angelina's mouthwatering recipe for fur tacos on a daily basis. Lucky bastard

There's just no justice for the PP Guru these days.

So to commemorative the opening weekend of Mr. and Mrs. Smith we present to you:

Angelina's thighs.

Thighs.

Goddamn it, thighs!

Everytime the PP Guru sees that Mr. and Mrs. Smith poster around town, he just wants to run his coarse sandpaper thick tongue of his up the length of them.

The PP Guru will try to check out the flick this weekend, if his already busy schedule doesn't conflict.

As erogenously relayed to:

~ Coat

Sparky adds - the movie is dandy. Saw it this morning. It's fluff but never pretends to be more. Jolie is the treat for husbands dragged to see Pitt. Enjoy.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

PP Guru:
HEY BUDDY, YOUR BATMAN
IS BEGINNING TO HANG OUT



The PP Guru saw the employee premiere of Batman Begins last night on the lot. Here are some of his thoughts.


They should have done this fucking film twenty years ago. Tim Burton who?

The movie claims to explore the origins of the mysterious dark knight detective from Bruce Wayne's dark rooted phobias of bats since he was a impressionable young age to how he acquired his crime fighting skills and how he developed and financed his reknown gadgets and equipment.

Now the makers of the film have been touting to the press that what is depicted here are the definitive origins never explored elsewhere in the comics or any other media.

The PP Guru digresses that this is not true. Many tales have approached the subject in various forms of flashbacks, most notably on the first WB animated series, when it was revealed that Bruce Wayne was once tutored by a sensei in Japan and that he was well versed in the mystic arts in order to become one of the greatest escape artists of our times when he trained with Zatara, the magician father of Zatanna. To the PP Guru, those tales do have merits in properly exploring the myths of the character.

In the movie, you're going to have to sit through a lot of exposition to get to the actual slam bang Bat action, lots of lots of talking heads, but that's good, because some of the dialogue goes deep into the legend's psyche and the rhythm and beats of the actors flow like a pain free piss that you have to take first thing in the morning- but, you're going to wonder after a while ( maybe a full 45 minutes to a hour into it) when he actually does becomes Batman.



Well, like the PP Guru says, it's going to take a while.

The movie opens with a very young Bruce Wayne jostling with a young Rachel Dawes in a greenhouse on the grounds of Wayne Manor over a arrowhead that they found. This rough housing eventually causes Bruce to have an unfortunate accident they introduces him to a fear of...bats.

So dude, does he like become Batman at this point?

The PP Guru tells his inner voice child to have patience. He'll get to it.

So the above was nothing more than a obligatory flashback scene. We cut to Bruce Wayne ( Christian Bale ) now rotting away in some Tibetian hell house prison l where some inmates on a daily basis try to shank him every which way to Bat Sunday- until he is rescued by a mysterious benefactor, Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) who probes into why Bruce Wayne is punishing himself by putting himself in this prison under false pretenses and therefore shows him the path to his destiny to the stronghold castle belonging to Ra's Al Ghul ( Ken Wananabe) and his League of Shadows ninja assassins.

And then he becomes Batman, right?

Not yet, inner voice child. The PP Guru will let you know.

During his training to be come a ninja, Bruce learns tricks of invisibility, how to throw ninja stars, flashbombs and to wield a sword in duel with Ducard, while he delves deep into Bruce's head to unravel the reasons why Wayne is sequestering himself to such guilt ridden excruciating limits to his infatuation of seeing total justice meted out to not only his parents' murder, but to the society he himself had abandoned and the dark role he could have played in it if Rachel ( Katie Holmes) hadn't intervened.

So this is where he decides he has to become Batman, I bet .

You know, inner voice child, you're really beginning to annoy the PP Guru. He wishes you would stop.

As time slowly passes, Ducard has come to decide that Bruce is ready to return to modern cilvilization with the apprentice skills he has been taught (Neeson just can't escape the Qui Jon Jinn typecasting here- he's going to be doomed to play the zendrill sergeant for the rest of his life- but there is a twist to his character that you don't quite expect, which takes place in a different part of the movie- but the PP Guru doesn't feel obligated to tell you jack shit beyond that) and so wants to initiate Bruce into Ra's Al Ghul's criminal enterprise. Unfortunately, Ra's asks Bruce to do the one thing that Bruce is sworn not to do and therefore invites conflict in his relationship with Ducard.

And then he dons the rubbery playtex suit and decides to become Batman, like wow, dude....

Are you quite through, inner voice child?

So after the melee that follows at Ra's Al Ghul stronghold, Bruce hitchhikes through the Tibetian mountains and finds Alfred (Michael Caine) has commandeered a private jet for him waiting on a lonely stretch of an Icelandic runway (where the scenes for Tibet were substituted for) and off they go to Gotham City to catch up on old times. According to Alfred's estimations, Bruce has been gone for approximately seven years. How convenient that Alfred had a plane all gassed up and ready to go after all that time had passed, right.

With the way you're going- this summary is going to drag on even longer. How long does it take to make him want to become Batman?

HEY, inner voice child, SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY, OK?!!

So as Bruce reintroduces himself to the world who once believed him dead, he finds a fat cat neo- con stock holding company miser running the show at Wayne Enterprises. He strikes up a working relationship with Lucius Fox (the always scene stealing Morgan Freeman) who demonstrates all sorts of weird and wild wonderful toys that go to make up a arsenal. Check out the magnetic gloves that control a kind of ion-repelling cloth (for those wonderful shapes that a cape can make while gliding in the air ) and that humvee looking thing you see in all the trailers called the Tumbler. And a plot begins to unravel about poisoning the city's water supply with LSD or some crazy jacked up shit.

Well, that means he has no choice other than to become the Batman....

LISTEN, inner voice child, the PP GURU ALREADY WARNED YOU A ZILLION TIMES- FUCKING QUIT IT ALREADY !!

YES - at this point, he becomes the Batman. Oh sweet Carlos Castenada Christ, why does the PP Guru even bother?

The PP Guru is bored with this synopsis - he's done all he can - so, let's get on with some acute observations concerning the film.

The PP Guru felt that most of the dialogue was spot on, even at times, prolific - but he tends to think that this is on Christopher Nolan's part, rather than Goyer's because - well, for the simple fact that Goyer wrote two really horrible chaotic Crow and Blade sequels and knows that his writing got the obligatory Red Bull boost it has sorely been lacking - due to Nolan's pinch of movie making perfection. Nolan has this time for sure, hands down, outdone his alternative cultural celluloid entry of Momento.

Gary Oldman as Lieutenant Gordon - Oscar worthy. Even under the Irish baroque, the PP Guru couldn't help thinking that Oldman was somewhat channeling the generous spirit of the wonderfully dearly departed DC line editor, Archie Goodwin. Perfect embodiment of the Miller / Mazzucchelli Year One version is as if seperated by birth.

Cillian Murphy as The Scarecrow - Awesome choice and a very nice narcotic hallucinogenic pat on the back for a job well done- the PP Guru felt he was the best Bat villain ever portrayed on the screen. Genuine scary kudos to his work. Makes all the whiny kids want to stay at home and never watch Wizard of Oz ever, ever again.

The PP Guru sincerely hope that Christian Bale sticks around for another couple of celluloid rounds with the bat (he is slated to do the next one and really, really insists that bat viagra be on the set at all times). Speaking of the cinematography, it's fast and furious as much as it is captivating. There were genuine effect moments that literally took the PP Guru's breath away - like nudging to your aisle seat neighbor, 'gee whiz did you see that? how did they manage to pull that off. Even the sprawling Chicago influenced cityscape of Gotham city with monorails hogging up the screen invokes pleasant memories of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Other than moments of bringing Batman:Year One to cinematic life, The PP Guru couldn't help but make comparsions to the late seventies Steve Englehart/ Marshall Rogers run (currently reunited for the Batman: Dark Detective mini-series on sale now), especially in the final scene.

The chase scene with the Batmobile or er, Bat-Tumbler, the PP Guru should say were of 'the edge of your seat' calibre - which was something he had misgivings about when first seeing the trailer- a souped up humvee as the Batmobile? But believe your favorite action- packed sage, when he says it definitely works within the context of the movie. The scene is certainly a cuticle bitter.

If Bob Kane were still alive today- The PP Guru would be sure he wouldn't be complaining as much if he were to see Katie Holmes' bat nipples gloriously displayed on the screen.


The only caveat that the PP Guru harbors - is the treatment of Ra's Al Ghul ( which the PP Guru swears that they keep mispronouncing his name throughout the flick. Compare it to the animated series- but the PP Guru isn't here to tell the crew to go practice their vowels in a mirror - you decide which is better to enunciate) is lackluster as a minor throwaway villain. Where's the fucking Lazurus pit around here? Where's Talia for that matter? Or even Ubu?

But the holy bottom line is - finally, a Batman flick with some integrity.

As spoiler warning sabotaged to:

<>~ Coat
===========================
Sparky adds:
The Batman legend never quite understood why the camp version needed to be killed off via the slow process of Tim Burton. It was what the Boomer kids remembered. And if not that then the odd Superfriends and Filmation abominations that called themselves Batmen and Robins. You know the ones that hung out with Shaggy and Scooby?

WikiPedia: Batman Begins

Batman Begins (originally under the tentative title Batman: Intimidation or The Intimidation Game) is a 2005 American superhero/action film based on the fictional character Batman. Directed by Christopher Nolan and written by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan, based on original characters by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. This movie is neither sequel nor prequel for the previous Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher films, but rather a complete restart of the Batman series which follows the original comics more closely and promises a more reality based Batman. It is scheduled for release June 15, 2005.

Plot summary

As a boy a young Bruce Wayne watched in horror as his billionaire parents were slain in front of his eyes. The trauma of this led him to become obsessed with revenge, but his chance is cruelly taken away from him by fate. After disappearing to the East, where he seeks counsel with the dangerous but honorable ninja cult leader known as Ra's Al Ghul, he returns to his now decaying Gotham City, which has become overrun by organised crime and dangerous individuals manipulating the system whilst the company he inherited is slowly being pulled out from under him. The discovery of a cave under his mansion and a prototype armoured suit leads him to take on a new persona, one which will strike fear into the hearts of men who do wrong – he becomes: The Batman. In this new guise, and with the help of rising cop Jim Gordon, Batman sets out to take down the various nefarious schemes in motion by individuals such as mafia don Falcone, the twisted doctor/drug dealer Jonathan "The Scarecrow" Crane, and a mysterious third party that is quite familiar with Wayne and waiting to strike when the time is right.

Critical reaction

At this time, early reviews have been enthusiastic with Roger Ebert, who panned all the previous live action adaptations of the character, calling it one of the best films of the year. Ebert did, however, give the animated movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm a two-thumbs up, albeit two years after its original release.


Cast

External links

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I'm as big a geek as anyone else. - o&o Sparky

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

SPARKY:
“DEMON DAYS” REVIEWS &
LET'S BRING YOU UP
TO SPEED ON THE GORILLAZ

Wikipedia: Gorillaz

This is a copyrighted image that has been released by a company or organisation to promote their works in the media. It is believed either that the copyright holder has granted permission for use in works like Wikipedia or that the image may be used under the fair use provision of United States copyright law. See Copyrights.
Gorillaz: Russel, Noodle, 2D and Murdoc
Gorillaz is an animated hip-hop collective or supergroup, comprised of four animated band members: 2D (vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals (bass), Noodle (guitars) and Russel Hobbs (drums, percussion). Gorillaz have a dark and humorous backstory, which involves Murdoc inadvertently putting 2D into and out of a coma while trying to steal keyboards and reckless driving. Russel and his family re-rooting in England from New York due to Russel being possessed by a Demon, put in a coma for 4 years until an exorcism, and on the wrong end of a drive-by shooting, which contributed to his drumming and rapping skills, since his friends' spirits reside in him. And Noodle's arrival in a FedEx crate from Japan after an ad was posted for a Guitarist. According to the storyline, character 2D's legal name is Stuart Tusspot. (His original nickname was Stu-Pot. He Became 2d after the accidents caused by Murdoc, giving him 2 dents in his head (2D, 2 dents, get it?).) No one knows what Noodle's real name is, but it is said she was named "Noodle" because that was the first word she said in English. The band lives in the also-fictitious Kong Studios, high upon a mountain in the centre of a cemetery in Essex.

Gorillaz was created by Damon Albarn (of Blur) and Jamie Hewlett (of Tank Girl fame) and was based on their interests, dreams and fears. Matter-of-fact references to horror films are everywhere, including samples from George A. Romero films and horror film locations stated on highway sign posts in the promotional video for "19-2000". There are also some rather obscure references made to people and things such as Tom Savini, Looney Tunes and the band Swell Maps, to name a few. Gorillaz have earned the Guinness World Record for being the Most Successful Virtual Band.

History

Tomorrow Comes Today (1999-2000)

The first single for the band was Tomorrow Comes Today, which was very well received in the UK underground music scene. The EP and video followed suit a few months afterward, generating a lot of word-of-mouth advertising, as well as a large shroud of mystery over who was behind Gorillaz and what they were to expect in the months to come. A promotional booklet was sold at record stores to promote the backstory behind the band. The band's website, an orgy of Macromedia Flash, was a representation of Kong Studios in the fullest sense of the word: inside, you could browse through each member's bedrooms, their recording environment and even the hallways and bathrooms. Each room also had bonus surprises and games to play: for example, the lobby had a remix machine, the cafeteria contained the messageboard on the wall and Murdoc's Winnebago (accessible only by using the enhanced section of Gorillaz, later stolen and found in the United States) contained a voodoo doll of 2D. Each member also had their own computer which contained pictures, sound bits from various takes of songs and their e-mail inboxes. Because of the nature of the site, an official fansite was created to hold the standard band website information, including a discography, touring schedules and more.

Keep A Mild Groove On (2001-2003)

The Clint Eastwood single was released at the start of March, 2001. The blend of raw hip-hop, cheesy horror music and a haunting melodica solo struck chords around the world, thrusting Gorillaz into the global limelight. Due to this, the band's Hotmail accounts were abandoned (and later hacked) and the inboxes on the site were never updated. Later that same month, their first full-length album, the self-titled Gorillaz was released, producing four singles: "Clint Eastwood", "19-2000", "Rock The House" and "Tomorrow Comes Today". Each of the videos contained humorous and often ridiculous storylines and imagery, though "Clint Eastwood" and "19-2000" were the only singles to break through the American music scene. "19-2000" became popular after being featured in an Icebreakers commercial. The only time the video for "Tomorrow Comes Today" was played in the States was when Toonami broadcasted a "Midnight Run" special where they played animated music videos from Gorillaz, Daft Punk, and Kenna.

Around this time, a half-hour TV mockumentary entitled Charts Of Darkness was released, which follows Channel 4 news reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy attempting to track down Damon and Jamie after they were placed in an insane asylum. The special also interviews Rachel of S Club 7 fame and a few of the band's voice talents, who had been given roles to play. The end of the year brought 911, a collaboration with rap artists D12 (sans Eminem) about the September 11, 2001 attacks, along with the announcement of G-Sides, a compilation of the b-sides from the first three singles. The new year also saw a spectacular performance at the 2002 BRIT awards, featuring the band in 3D, weaving in and out of each other on four large screens along with rap accompaniment by Phi Life Cypher. The dub remix album Laika Come Home was released in June. The record was credited to Space Monkeyz Vs Gorillaz, containing most of the debut album Gorillaz reworked by Spacemonkeyz. The single to follow, Lil' Dub Chefin' (M1 A1), contained an original track by the Spacemonkeyz titled "Spacemonkeyz Theme".

On October 30th, 2002, as the band was passing into global obscurity, Kong Studios was closed by police, stating that a domestic disturbance involving a running nude man was reported at the site. The building was in shambles and it turned out that the band had fled to Hollywood to escape whomever or whatever that was trying to attack them. November saw the release of the DVD Phase One: Celebrity Take Down which features an abandoned 3D Kong Studios (only eight rooms, including the lobby, are accessible.) If someone waits in a room longer than a minute, zombie hands will appear and grab the viewer; in some instances, a nude man is seen laughing maniacally. The DVD contains all five videos (including the abandoned video "5/4"), the "Charts Of Darkness" documentary, the five Gorilla Bites (short vignettes), a tour of the website by the MEL 9000 server and much more. Rumours were circulating around this time that Gorillaz were busy preparing a film, but an EMI interview later revealed that plans for the film were abandoned. In an interview with Haruka Kuroda (the voice of Noodle) on fansite Gorillaz-Unofficial, Kuroda stated that Jamie Hewlett rejected many scripts before giving up on the movie.

Demon Days (2004- )

On December 8th, 2004, the website reopened with the announcement of a new album on the way, including production by DJ Danger Mouse and guest appearances by De La Soul. A contest entitled Search For A Star was also announced, allowing fans to send in a minute-long clip of video or audio they had made; the prize included collaborating with the band in some way, shape or form, as well as getting their own room in the newly rebuilt Kong Studios. It has been revealed that a log in system will be added to the website in the near future.

Since then, a second promotional booklet was issued, recapping the previously issued booklet, as well as detailing the failed movie production in Hollywood and the breakup and reforming of Gorillaz. A culture jamming project named Reject False Icons was formed to strike down at modern pop figures. A new album was first reported to be released in March 2005, but was later changed to May of the same year. The name of the album was reported to be "We Are Happy Landfill", but has been changed to its official title, Demon Days. The album was leaked onto the Internet in early April, 2005. The new video from the website, "Rock It", will not be featured on the album.

On the chart week ending April 23rd 2005, the official UK Singles Chart (which originally had counted physical sales only) combined with download sales. However, the new single from Gorillaz managed to spark up a little "flaw", as with this new chart there is a rule that download sales can only be counted and can only chart if there is a physical equivalent sold at shops at the time. On this very first combined chart, when Gorillaz released their single "Feel Good Inc." to the shops, only a limited edition 300 copies in 7" format and was available online (with sales of about 3000 that week) before its official release as a physical CD single in May. The result was that it charted as high as #22. It climbed to #21 the next week, and up to #20 two weeks later. In the week of its official release (May 10, 2005) it finally reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart, giving them their highest charting single to date.

Reviews

  1. GORILLAZ: Demon Days: Here's why Gorillaz are very likely the best thing to ever happen to Damon Albarn ...
  2. Gorillaz/Demon Days/[Virgin; 2005]/Rating: 6.9: Damon Albarn's playroom chest must be filled to bursting ...
  3. Gorillaz - Demon Days: Gorillaz are a breath of creative fresh air...
  4. Demon Days: Gorillaz return with a blisteringly good album that happily skips from genre to genre and looks set to be one of the most rewarding albums you'll hear this year.

Live performances

At all performances, the physical band plays behind a specially designed screen which covers the stage area. Videos, animatics and image collages are projected onto the audience side of the screen, while choreographed lights behind the screen light up silhouettes of the physical band, creating a meld of the physical and animated. For their first tour of the United States, two screens were used; one was simply the animatics, while the second, lower screen displayed the band's silhouettes along with various quotes from interviews.

Horror references

The band's art is deeply rooted in horror film imagery and ideals. Here are a few of the films they reference in their photos and videos:

Controversy

There have been waves of controversy surrounding who is actually behind Gorillaz ever since the first single was released. In the half-hour TV mockumentary entitled Charts Of Darkness, it was explicitly stated that Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett were behind the project; quoting Albarn, "There could be fifty [people] here, but there's two." Many fans have simply assumed that the guest artists in the liner notes (including Cibo Matto vocalist Miho Hatori and Del Tha Funkee Homosapien) complete the band. In fact, the only permanent member behind the music happens to be Damon Albarn. During the "hidden" credits to the DVD Phase One: Celebrity Take Down, it states the names of the creators, the voice talents and those responsible for performing live. The list of integral performers in the group changed drastically for the second album, with the exception of Damon Albarn himself. All artwork and promotional videos are created by Zombie Flesh Eaters (Hewlett's own company) and Passion Pictures.

Members

Gorillaz is not a traditional band with band members. The only permanent contributors to the project are the creators, Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn. The pair enlist collaborators as they see fit, and to date the project has involved a bewildering array of artists. The pair have always been equally influential in the direction of the project and continue to be so with the promotion for the second album. For a more or less complete list, see this site.

Discography

Studio albums

Compilations

Singles

  • "Tomorrow Comes Today" EP (2000)
  • "Clint Eastwood" CDS (2001) - #57 US, #4 UK
  • "19-2000" CDS (2001) - #6 UK
  • "Rock The House" CDS (2001) - #18 UK
  • "911" (free download only) (with D12 featuring Terry Hall) (2001)
  • "Tomorrow Comes Today" CDS/DVDS (2002) - #33 UK
  • "Lil' Dub Chefin' (M1 A1)" CDS (Vs Space Monkeyz) (2002) - #73 UK
  • "Feel Good Inc." 7", CD, DVD, download (2005) - #17 US, #2 UK (some copies of the 7" were released early to ensure a chart position before the official release date - paid downloads became officially eligible for the singles chart shortly before that but only if there was a physical single in stores at the same time)
  • "DARE" (2005)
]

External links

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Can't see why folks want my opinion on the group. I like it for the art - and the music videos - Sparky o&0

Monday, June 06, 2005

PP Guru:
BOOKED SOLID !

The PP Guru has a lot spinning on his metaphysical plate this week- so posting will be sparse - which means you'll have to contend with meandering ramblings on religion and politics from the Spark for the rest of the week. The PP Guru wishes he didn't have a whole lot to do, as his eyeballs have a hard enough time plucking themselves from the containment field of his Argamotto dark sockets that are glued to the digital pixels of his litttle HD-TV doofus mind reducing relay machine and DVD player.

Nevertheless, the PP Guru must venture forth onto the outside plane of outer dimensions and metaphysically force himself to shuffle his two feet forward to a series of events happening in the versatile and eccentric corners of the city of Los Angeles and it circumambient surroundings.

Wednesday or Thursday - The PP Guru, along with a unknown female able bodied astral projecting apparition, who he hopes looks nothing short of spectacular in a asteroid body stocking, will be taking in together, the bat sights, the bat dolby sounds, and the bloodcurdling atmospheric cinematography of the new Batman Begins movie.






The movie, so far, has been getting rave reviews from critics such as Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter comments that for "Nolan to turn Batman Begins into such a smart, gritty, brooding, visceral experience is astonishing. Truly, Batman does begin again." The movie is nearly two and a half hours long. By the time the PP Guru gets out of work, rushes down to meet with his date, and then sits through the movie (without fudging to go to the restroom every fifteen minutes and nodding off to any meanless babble that she will engage with the PP Guru ), he dreads having to wait for two buses to take him back to his Sanctorium School of No Hard Knockers to Stare At. He fears that there will not be a lot of time to post up the usual photo ops of hot leper lesbian action feasting at the Pantheon at the midnight hour. That's a huge chunk of time lost- but at least it will be good chunk of time lost.

Depending on what night the PP Guru sees the new Batman flick, will also depend on when the PP Guru's Peabody award winning Strange Stirring below the PP Guru's Belt Friday column will appear- which will be on Angelina Jolie - (and how could it not be about Angelina Jolie, huh?).

Friday, the PP Guru has got to skidaddle early from work in order to make the Porcupine Tree show at the Wilshire Theater .


Not this Porcupine Tree, you dumbass!


Now you're getting the hang of it, chum.

The PP Guru has had a musical infatuation with this band for a good number of years. He always manages to get the band's new releases exactly right on the date that it makes it's debut on the store shelves (they're on his studio's record label) and doesn't procrastinate when it comes to local LA area performances. No time to waste when it comes to Ticketmaster! You can check out a previous Porcupine Tree concert review written by the PP Guru's slightly deranged alter-ego of Cary Coatney right here . Porcupine Tree will also be joined by special guest Robert Fripp and his League of Crafty Guitarists . The show starts at 8 PM. And that's 8:PM sharp, as far as Mr. Fripp is concerned. And no goddamn photographs either! Save them for the PT slideshow. The PP Guru will be meeting up for drinky- poos early before the show with his new date, Liz.



And after a day of rest, which is Saturday, which also is cartoon watching day - the PP Guru in his mortally schizophrenic guise of Cary Coatney will most likely be pandering his Deposit Man wares at this weekend's Los Angeles Comic Book And Science Fiction Convention this Sunday, June 12th. Lots of Batman Begins giveaways to be hoarded away from what he hears on the bat grapeline.

As exhaustedly relayed to: ~ Coat
====
Tomorrow we'll talk Gorillaz and their new album Demon Days

Sunday, June 05, 2005

SPARKY:
"W"'s Grandpa Would Have
Been Happy —
Imagine Getting
The Slander His Pal Henry Ford
Helped Spread At Wal-Mart.





September 21, 2004

H. Lee Scott, Jr.
President & CEO
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
702 Southwest 8th Street
Bentonville, AK 72716

Dear Mr. Scott:

We have received voluminous messages of concern from across the country that the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is being sold by Wal-Mart on its online catalog of books.

The "Description" of the book on your Web site suggests it may not be a forgery. In fact, there is no question that the Protocols is a forgery, created by a Czarist official in the early 20th century to promote the conspiracy theory that Jews are plotting to control the world. Historians, jurists and other authorities have publicly attested to its fraudulence.

The Protocols has been the major weapon in the arsenals of anti-Semites around the world, republished and circulated by individuals, hate groups and governments to convince the gullible as well as the bigoted that Jews have schemed and plotted to take over the world. For too many it continues to have resonance today, at a time when there is an explosion of global anti-Semitism.

ADL is not in the business of banning books, no matter how reprehensible they may be. While Wal-Mart has discretion in what books it chooses to sell, it owes it to its customers to unequivocally state the nature of the book and to disassociate itself from any endorsement of it. To demonstrate its corporate responsibility, we expect Wal-Mart to do so in the case of the Protocols, should it continue to list it in its online catalog.

We look forward to your response


Sincerely,


Abraham H. Foxman,
National Director
The above letter got the mindless idiots at Walmart to stop peddling hate as “TRUTH”. Imagine that?

Wikipedia: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

The Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion is a fraudulent document purporting to describe a plan to achieve Jewish global domination. Written by Mathieu Golovinski, a Russian operative of Czar Nicholas II based on a early work by Maurice Joly linking Napoleon III to Machiavelli. Czar Nicholas was fearful of modernization and protective of his monarchy, ordered the Imperial Russia secret police, the Okhranka to publish it in order to blame the Jews for Russia's problems.

The Encyclopædia Britannica describes the Protocols as a "fraudulent document that served as a pretext and rationale for anti-Semitism in the early 20th century."


1992. Russian edition

The overwhelming majority of historians in the United States of America and Europe have long agreed that the document is fraudulent, and in 1993, a district court in Moscow, Russia, formally ruled that the Protocols was faked in dismissing a libel suit by the ultra-nationalist Pamyat organization, which had been criticized for using them in their anti-Semitic publications. [1]

The Protocols is accepted as factual in some parts of the world in which opinion against Jews or Israel is high, as well as in countries such as Japan, where some believe it can be read as a textbook description of means to obtain power. In the current conflicts in the Middle East, the Protocols is sometimes being used as evidence of Jewish conspiracy. (UNISPAL

The Protocols are widely considered the beginning of contemporary conspiracy theory literature, such as None Dare Call It Conspiracy and Conspirators Hierarchy: The Committee of 300. The book is popular among those interested in conspiracy theories, although most of them consider it to be false. It has often been declared a major influence to every other book concerning conspiracy theories. Other editions study its great influence in Anti-Semitism during the previous century.

Some recent editions proclaim that the "Jews" as depicted in the Protocols are used as a cover identity for other conspirators such as the Illuminati or Freemasons. Other minor groups that believe in its authenticity have claimed that the book does not depict the way that all Jews think and act but only of those belonging to an alleged secret elite of Zionists.



1978 UK Edition

Subject matter

The Protocols take the form of an essay that is written as if it were an instruction manual to a new member of the Elders, which describes how they will run the world. The Elders seem to want to trick all "gentile nations" whom they call "goyim", into doing their will. There are many unusual points that can be made about the protocols, some of which vouch against their authenticity, yet some of which point out larger questions:

  • The document however is somewhat prophetic in that it describes some things that are very similar to what was established in Russia after the revolution.
  • The document is also written from the point of view that the reader will already understand that the Freemasons are a secret society with a hidden political agenda, but the protocols purport to show that even that agenda is being really controlled by the Elders, a sort of conspiracy theory within a conspiracy theory. This is somewhat unusual for the time that the protocols were supposed to have been written, however, since the idea of the Freemasons secretly interfering in politics for selfish reasons was not really discussed much at the time, being a more modern phenonenon. (At the time, Freemasons were popular as were many fraternal organizations; their biggest opponent, the Catholic Church, was against them not for any imagined wrong but for their nonsecret support of freedom of religion and "enlightenment ideals". However, at least one case of an actual "conspiracy" or society within Freemasonry had already come to light, namely the Bavarian Illuminati. Furthermore, Abbe Barruél had already accused the Jews of founding the Illuminati.) In another way, Freemasons and "liberal thinkers" are shown to be tools for the Jews to eventually create a Jewish theocracy. This point, however, is very different from most of the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theories/essays of the time, which define the "Jews" with not so much emphasis on race or religion, but rather as those who reject Jesus' "spiritual kingdom" and look for a "kingdom on earth". If the protocols were intended as obviously fictitious in the style of C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, it's difficult to pin down who the target audience might be.
  • Another unusual point is that the protocols seems to describe a "kingdom", and goes into great lengths as to how things will be run in this kingdom. However, even during this kingdom the Elders will still not have direct control over the laws, and instead will continue to assert control via usury and control of money. Even the "King of the Jews" himself, will appear to be nothing more than a figurehead.

History


The Plagiarized Document

The actual origin of the Protocols can be clearly traced back to its beginnings and associated with known historical events. There is no actual connection with any Jewish conspiracy.

The origin of most of what make up the Protocols lies in an 1864 pamphlet titled Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu by the French satirist Maurice Joly, which attacks the political ambitions of Napoleon III by using the device of diabolical plotters in Hell. In turn, Joly appears to have plagiarized a good amount of the material from a popular novel by Eugene Sue, The Mysteries of the People. In Sue's work, the plotters were Jesuits, and the Jews do not appear in the pamphlet. There seems to be some confusion here, because the Jesuit plotters were in Sue's book The Wandering Jew, which wasn't in fact about Jews.

It being illegal to criticize the monarchy, Joly had the pamphlet printed in Belgium, and then attempted to have it smuggled over the French border. It was seized by the police, who confiscated as many copies as they could, then banned the book. The police traced the book to Joly, who was then tried on April 25, 1865, and sentenced to fifteen months in prison.

The Forger

Hermann Goedsche, a German anti-Semite and a spy for the Prussian secret police who had been removed from his job as a postal clerk after forging evidence for the prosecution of political reformer Benedict Waldeck in 1849, included Joly's Dialogues in his 1868 book Biarritz, written under the name Sir John Retcliffe. In the chapter "The Jewish Cemetery in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel", he invented a secret rabbinical cabal which meets in the cemetery at midnight every hundred years to plan the agenda for the Jewish Conspiracy. To portray the meeting, he borrowed heavily from the scene in the novel Joseph Balsamo by Alexandre Dumas where Cagliostro and company plot the affair of the diamond necklace, and likewise borrowed Joly's Dialogues as the outcome of the meeting.

Goedsche's book was translated into Russian language in 1872, and in 1891 an extract of the chapter containing the meeting of the fictional centennial rabbinical "council of representatives", including the plagiarized Joly's Dialogues was circulating in Russia; whether they originated it or not, the Russian secret police found the work useful in their fight to discredit liberal reformers and revolutionaries who were rapidly gaining support among the populace. During the Dreyfus affair in France in 18931895, when polarization of European attitudes towards the Jews was at a maximum, the Dialogues were edited into their final form, which appeared in Russia in 1895 and began to be privately published starting in 1897 as the Protocols.

Russian Reactionaries Use the Forgery

It enjoyed another wave of popularity in Russia after 1905, when the progressive political elements in Russia succeeded in creating a constitution and a parliament, the Duma. The reactionary "Union of the Russian Nation", known as the Black Hundreds, together with the Okhranka, blamed this liberalization on the "International Jewish conspiracy", and began a program of widely disseminating the Protocols as a propaganda support for the wave of pogrom that swept Russia in 19031906 and a tool to deflect attention from social activism.

The mystical priest Professor Sergei Nilus gained fame by promulgating the Protocols as Chapter 18, the work of the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. After it had been pointed out that the First Zionist Congress had been open to the public and attended by many non-Jews, he claimed the Protocols were the work of the meetings of the "Elders of Zion" in 19021903, despite the conflict with his claim of having received a copy previous to that date:

In 1901, I succeeded through an acquaintance of mine (the late Court Marshal Alexei Nikolayevich Sukotin of Chernigov) in getting a manuscript that exposed with unusual perfection and clarity the course and development of the secret Jewish Freemasonic conspiracy, which would bring this wicked world to its inevitable end. The person who gave me this manuscript guaranteed it to be a faithful translation of the original documents that were stolen by a woman from one of the highest and most influential leaders of the Freemasons at a secret meeting somewhere in France—the beloved nest of Freemasonic conspiracy. (Source: Morris Kominsky, The Hoaxers, 1970. p. 209.)

Simultaneously a popular edition published by George Butmi claimed that the Protocols were the work of the Masonic/Jewish conspiracy.

Western Distribution by Anti-Bolsheviks


1927 edition by Russian emigrants in Paris; 1930 Spanish edition

After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, various warring fractions used the Protocols to perpetrate hatred and violence against the Jews. The idea that Bolshevik movement is a Jewish conspiracy for world domination sparked worldwide interest in the Protocols. In a single year (1920), five editions were sold out in England. The same year in the United States, Henry Ford sponsored printing of 500,000 copies and until 1927 published a series of anti-Semitic articles in The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper that he controlled.

The Dearborn Independent was a newspaper published by Henry Ford from 1919 through 1927. It was noted for its sensational content, including many anti-Semitic references, and publication of the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

In 1918, Ford negotiated to buy the Independent from Marcus Woodruff, who had been running unprofitably. The initial staff of the newspaper included E.G. Pipp, previously managing editor of the Detroit News, writers William G. Cameron (also formerly of the News) and Marcus Woodruff, and Fred Black as business manager.

The paper was printed on a used press purchased by Ford and installed in some vacant space at Ford's tractor plant in the Rouge. Publication was inaugurated in January, 1919. The paper initially attracted national attention in June 1919 with coverage of the libel lawsuit between Henry Ford and the Chicago Tribune, as the stories written by Pipp and Cameron were picked up nationally.

The paper began publishing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1920, along with other articles reflecting some of Ford's reactionary views. Ford objected to immigration, banking, liquor, and labor unions as well as Jews. A collection of some of the articles was published as The International Jew. (Some sources credit his anti-semitism to portions of the McGuffey Reader, a popular 19th century school text he was certainly exposed to.)

Ford did not write, but expressed his opinions verbally to his executive secretary, Ernest Liebold, and William Cameron. Cameron replaced Pipp as editor in April 1920 when Pipp left in disgust with the planned anti-semitic articles, which began in May. Cameron had the main responsibility for expanding these opinions into article form, although he did not agree with them. Liebold was responsible for collecting more material to support the articles.

The paper reached a circulation of 900,000 by 1925, largely due to promotion by dealers due to a quota system. Lawsuits regarding the anti-Semitic material caused Ford to fold the paper, the last issue being published in December, 1927.

The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5e/Ford.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a4/Timehenryford.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
Henry Ford, center, is awarded the Grand Cross of the
German Eagle by Nazi diplomats. And as Man of the Year
on Time Magazine, January 14, 1935

In 1920, the history of the Protocols was traced back to the works of Goedsche and Joly by Lucien Wolf and published in London in August of 1921. The history of the Protocols was similarly exposed in the series of articles in The Times by its Constantinople reporter Philip Grave who got his information from Wolf's work; and the same year, an entire book documenting the hoax was published in the United States by Herman Bernstein. Despite this widespread and extensive debunking, the Protocols continued to be regarded as important factual evidence by anti-Semites.

Some scholars compare the Protocols to The permanent instruction of the Alta Vendita, supposedly found by Italian Secret police and endorsed by several Popes. The nature of the plans in both is very similar, as the Protocols go into much detail as to how to replace the Pope as the head of the Catholic Church.

Besides the Tsarist forgery, another popular theory amongst scholars was that the Protocols were written by an offshoot Masonic or other fraternal lodge (of which many invoked the name Zion in their name at the time), as a sort of fantasy as to how they would like to control things.

Textual evidence seems to disqualify that the document was written by someone Jewish. One example is the semi-messianic idea that constantly appears in the text, of establishing a "King of the Jews". This was never a Jewish term, and was only referenced on the cross of Jesus.

Western History after 1929

The Protocols eventually became a part of the propaganda arsenal of the Nazis in their justification for the persecution of the Jews. The book was prescribed for compulsory study in schools.

In 1934 the Swiss Nazi Dr. A. Zander published a series of articles accepting the Protocols as fact. He was brought to court, in what has come to be known as the Berne Trial, by Dr. J. Dreyfus-Brodsky, Dr. Marcus Cohen and Dr. Marcus Ehrenpreis. The trial began in the Cantonal Court of Berne on 29 October 1934. On 19 May 1935 the court, after full investigation, declared the Protocols to be forgeries, plagiarisms, and obscene literature.

In a similar case in Grahamstown, South Africa, in August 1934, the court imposed fines totalling 1775 pounds ($4,500) on three men for disseminating a version of the Protocols.

In the United States, the Protocols were republished as fact in William Milton Cooper's Behold a Pale Horse.

In 1937 Italy, the Protocols were published by Julius Evola, who also wrote the introduction.


Contemporary use

Among Muslim nations and groups after 1948

Many Arab governments fund the publication of new printings of the Protocols, and teach them in their schools as historical fact. The Protocols have been accepted as fact by many Islamic extremist organizations, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al Qaeda.

In the past, the Protocols were publicly recommended by Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, one of the President Arifs of Iraq, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and Colonel Moammar Qaddafi of Libya, among other political and intellectual leaders of the Arab world, and in March 1970, the Protocols were reported to be the best 'nonfiction' bestseller in Lebanon.

The Egyptian state-owned publisher al-Ahram editorialized in 1995 in a foreword to a translation of Shimon Peres' book The New Middle East:

"When The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were discovered, some 200 years ago, and translated in various languages, including Arabic, the World Zionist Organization attempted to deny the existence of the plot, and claimed forgery. The Zionists even endeavored to purchase all the existing copies, in order to prevent their circulation. But today, Shimon Peres proves unequivocally that the Protocols are authentic, and that they tell the truth."

An article in the Egyptian state-owned newspaper al-Akhbar on February 3, 2002 stated:

"All the evils that currently affect the world are the doings of Zionism. This is not surprising, because the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which were established by their wise men more than a century ago, are proceeding according to a meticulous and precise plan and time schedule, and they are proof that even though they are a minority, their goal is to rule the world and the entire human race."

Iran

Translations of the Protocols are extremely popular in Iran. The first edition was issued during the summer of 1978 at the time of the Islamic revolution. In 1985 a new edition of the Protocols was printed and widely distributed by the Islamic Propagation Organization, International Relations Department in Tehran. The Astaneh-ye Qods Razavi (Shrine of Imam Reza) Foundation in Mashhad, Iran, one of the wealthiest institutions in Iran, financed publication of the Protocols in 1994. Parts of the Protocols were published by the daily Jomhouri-ye Eslami in 1994, under the heading The Smell of Blood, Zionist Schemes. Sobh, a radical Islamic monthly, published excerpts from the Protocols under the heading The text of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for establishing the Jewish global rule in the December 1998–January 1999 issue, illustrated with a caricature of the Jewish snake swallowing the globe.

Iranian writer and researcher Ali Baqeri, who 'researched' the Protocols, finds their plan for world domination to be merely part of an even more grandiose scheme, saying in Sobh in 1999:

"The ultimate goal of the Jews ... after conquering the globe ... is to extract from the hands of the Lord many stars and galaxies".

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabian schoolbooks contain explicit summaries of the Protocols as factual:

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
These are secret resolutions, most probably of the aforementioned Basel congress. They were discovered in the nineteenth century. The Jews tried to deny them, but there was ample evidence proving their authenticity and that they were issued by the elders of Zion. The Protocols can be summarized in the following points:
1. Upsetting the foundations of the world's present society and its systems, in order to enable Zionism to have a monopoly of world government.
2. Eliminating nationalities and religions, especially the Christian nations.
3. Striving to increase corruption among the present regimes in Europe, as Zionism believes in their corruption and [eventual] collapse.
4. Controlling the media of publication, propaganda and the press, using gold for stirring up disturbances, seducing people by means of lust and spreading wantonness.
The cogent proof of the authenticity of these resolutions, as well as of the hellish Jewish schemes included therein, is the [actual] carrying out of many of those schemes, intrigues and conspiracies that are found in them. Anyone who reads them - and they were published in the nineteenth century - grasps today to what extent much of what is found there has been realized (See: The Danger of World Jewry, by Abdullah al-Tall, pp. 140-141 [Arabic]).
from 'Hadith and Islamic Culture', Grade 10, (2001) pp. 103–104 [2]

Hamas

The Charter of Hamas explicitly refers to the Protocols, and promotes them as factual. Article 32 of the Hamas Charter states:

The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.[3]

The Charter also makes several references to Freemasons as one of the "secret societies" controlled by "Zionists".

Palestinian National Authority

On February 20, 2005, the Mufti of Jerusalem Ikrima Sabri appeared on Al-Majd Saudi Arabian satellite TV to comment on the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister. Sabri stated "Anyone who studies The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and specifically the Talmud will discover that one of the goals of these Protocols is to cause confusion in the world and to undermine security throughout the world." [4]

On May 19, 2005, The New York Times reported that PA Minister of Information Nabil Shaath removed from his ministry’s web site an Arabic translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. [5]

Other contemporary appearances

The American retail chain, Wal-Mart, was criticized for selling The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on its website with a description that suggested it might be genuine. It was withdrawn from sale in September 2004, as 'a business decision'. It is distributed in the United States by some Palestinian student groups on college campuses, and by Louis Farrakhan's "Nation of Islam". In 2002, the New Jersey based Arabic-language newspaper The Arab Voice published excerpts from the Protocols as true; in his defense, editor and publisher Walid Rabah

protested (in Arabic) that

"some major writers in the Arab nation accept the truth of the book."
The document is generally accepted as truthful in large parts of Asia and South America. In Japan, where many people regard the Protocols as genuine, there have even been "self-help" books published, expressing admiration for the Jewish conspiracy portrayed in the Protocols and suggesting that the Japanese should attempt to emulate it to become as powerful as Jews, or more so. The publication of this document has also seen a resurgence in Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union among the new generation of national socialists.

In Greece the Protocols have had multiple publications in recent decades, along with various commentaries depending on who published the book and what is their point of view. The anti-Semitic minority party Hrisi Avgi ("Golden Dawn") consider the book to be an accurate document and distribute their edition to their members.

The final work of cartoonist Will Eisner, published after his death in 2005, was a graphic novel titled The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, detailing the document's complex history.

The New Zealand National Front sells copies published by their former national secretary, Kerry Bolton. Bolton also publishes (and the NZNF sells) a book entitled "The Protocols of Zion in Context" that seeks to refute the idea that the Protocols are a forgery.

See also

Links

Further reading

  • Eisner, Will and Eco, Umberto, The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. ISBN 0-393-06045-4
  • Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide, 1967 (Eyre & Spottiswoode), 1996 (Serif)
  • Hadassa Ben-Itto, The Lie That Wouldn’t Die: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 2005 (Vallentine Mitchell). Review
  • Will Eisner, The Plot
  • Danilo Kis presents a narrative history of the "Protocols" as The Book Of Kings And Fools in The Encyclopedia of the Dead, 1989 (Faber and Faber)
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Got sidetracked - I promised to produce the US Air Force as a blind tool of Evangelist Christians next rant. If we're lucky. And tell you about how some percieved the real winner of the 2004 Presidential election. - o&o Sparky