4/20

An annual 4/20 gathering at the University of Santa Cruz - click to enlarge

According to the Wikipedia: “A large celebration is held every year on 4/20 at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus, with attendance reaching more than 10,000 in 2008. University police have tried various methods to prevent the gathering, including photographing students participating in the event, but the crowd has grown every year. In Dunedin, New Zealand, students at the University of Otago and other cannabis law reform activists meet under a walnut tree on the Otago University Union Lawn on Wednesdays and Fridays at 4:20pm to openly smoke cannabis in public in what they consider an act of protest. In 2008 a member of the Dunedin group was arrested and others were issued trespass notices after attempting to openly smoke cannabis at one of the regular 4:20pm protest meetings. "

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The Free Music Archive

I have found so much great (and free and legal) stuff from WFMU over the last couple of years--stereo demo records, music that has slipped into the public domain, recordings of strange bands, Frank Ackerman's UFO music, the soundtracks from instructional recordings, esoterica, ephemera...novelty records, and mainly just the offbeat and interesting. While the focus is music, my favorite finds and downloads include "78 RPM Records, jazz, psychedelia, hip-hop, electronica, hand-cranked wax cylinders, punk rock, gospel, exotica, R&B, radio improvisation, cooking instructions, classic radio airchecks, found sound, dopey call-in shows, interviews with obscure radio personalities and notable science-world luminaries, spoken word collages..."

Now, WFMU has joined with Seattle's (and NYC's) KEXP, Portland's KBOO, and other music companies, web sites, and blogs, to form the Free Music Archive, "a social music website built around a curated library of free, legal audio. It's a work in progress, and your participation will help us continue to grow."

Sign up, and check out these samplers Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, , and then explore the rest.
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An interview with John Doe of X on X and rock and roll

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Where are they now? -- The banjo pickin' boy on the porch in Deliverance

Billy Redden in 2003 at 49 years of age

What ever became of the boy who played the banjo (The Wikipedia describes him as the "creepy banjo kid") on the porch in 1972's Deliverance?

As it turns out, Billy Redden, the man who may be the most famous banjo player of all time, can barely play at all.

In 2003, Redden appeared in Tim Burton's movie "Big Fish." It was his first movie since his appearance in Deliverance. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted Burton on Dec. 23, 2003: "I never forgot that image." The spooky and haunting Redden appeared in one of the key scenes of "Deliverance." 

Redden said he did not mind being a hillbilly icon in the film, but he was embarrassed by what he--unintentionally, hilariously--called the film's "love scene" (a violent rape that turns the sylvan rafting trip into a nightmare). Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty starred in the film. Voight claimed that Billy is the son of an unholy union between his mother and his brother). I find no confirmation of that, but I've never believed much that emerges from that rabid Republican's mouth.

Billy Redden in 1972 - click to enlarge

Tim Burton eventually located Redden in Clayton, Georgia, where Redden works as a cook, dishwasher and part-owner of the Cookie Jar Cafe. "Big Fish," drew the attention of media as far away as London and throughout the United States. "Quite a few people have come in to meet me," Redden said.

Burton gave Redden the banjo he used in the film,and a video about how to play the banjo. Redden said he would give it a shot.

Redden's performance on that porch, in the Dueling Banjos is one of the most memorable and creepy movie scenes ever. After that scene (and the Ned Beatty "love scene"), you knew anything could happen in this bizarro hillbilly world. I might have some cousins in that film. Billy and I might even be related, when you think about some of Our People's breeding practices back there (and maybe even out here). We're not quite in the "I'm My Own Grandpa" camp, but who knows?

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The Grateful Dead check in with Barack Obama

"No ties ... and no tie-dyes," is how the Dead dressed for a meeting with President Obama in the Oval Office, according to a source at the White House on Monday evening.

Obama thanked the Grateful Dead last year:



The meeting (not on the president's official schedule), was arranged by a Deadhead in the White House (lots of fans there, and in Washington including Senators Al Franken and Patrick Leahy, two other Senators, The Gores, etc). The current lineup of Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, Warren Haynes and Jeff Chimenti and some of their wives, met with Obama for about 15 minutes.

Then it was on to a much longer visit with senior staff. While the president has never been to a Dead show, the officials they met with next -- senior advisers David Axelrod and Pete Rouse and Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina -- are said to be big fans who had plans to attend last night's Verizon Center show. "They talked about a lot of different issues."

When Jerry Garcia visited the White House, he wore sweat pants. This time they wore jackets.
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Don't let the bedbugs bite!

Click to enlarge

You can buy these bedspreads (aka duvets), with the couple, or the man or woman, individually, here.
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Painting: Billie Holiday

click to enlarge

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***Editorial - Pablo Fanque*** A Fish Rots From The Head Down - Obama's Gay Marriage Problem

"favors civil unions"

Editorial by Pablo Fanque,
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

I hear people continually excoriate the religious right, Rick Warren, Rush Limbaugh and others for opposing gay marriage. But what about El Jefe? Barack Obama is part of the opposition too. . .every bit as much as Rick Warren. I became, fairly late in the race, an Obama supporter. As President, he has surprised me. He's doing a great job. But, in my booklet, his Achilles' Heel is his policy on gay marriage; we should have known, and remembered that. He told us during the election.

Although Barack Obama "supports civil unions," he is against gay marriage. I have come to see this "supports civil unions" as a smarmy dodge that people all across the spectrum employ. Obama's luke-warm support does no favors to anyone at all. In the end, really, how different is this from George Bush? Rush Limbaugh [1], or Louisiana Gov. Jindal? They, too, oppose gay marriage.

In an interview with the Chicago Daily Tribune, Obama said, "I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."

Barack Obama did vote against a Federal Marriage Amendment and opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. He said he would support civil unions between gay and lesbian couples, as well as letting individual states determine if marriage between gay and lesbian couples should be legalized.


click to enlarge the BFFs

From the White House Web site: "President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights."


Click to enlarge - "I love you, man"

And yet. . .and yet, I have been spammed with emails, and petitions, asking me to come out against Rick Warren, and other conservatives publicly opposed to gay marriage. What about the guy at the top? "A fish rots from the head down," as Michael Dukakis noted about President Reagan. Nothing has changed. We just like the fish better. Mister President. . .it's time to set aside your cultural predispositions and do what's right. Sure, you'll take some heat, but let's face it--you will never be in a stronger position to expend some of your hard-earned political capital.
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[1] Rush recently delivered this shocking bombshell: "…let’s say we discover the gene that says the kid’s gonna be gay. How many parents, if they knew before the kid was gonna be born, [that he] was gonna be gay, they would take the pregnancy to term? Well, you don’t know but let’s say half of them said, “Oh, no, I don’t wanna do that to a kid.” [Then the] gay community finds out about this. The gay community would do the fastest 180 and become pro-life faster than anybody you’ve ever seen. … They’d be so against abortion if it was discovered that you could abort what you knew were gonna be gay babies.”
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***Editorial - Jack Brummet*** Tear Down The Wall, Mister President: Hasn't Cuba Suffered Enough?

An Editorial by Jack Brummet
All This Is That poetry, arts, and persiflage editor

It's editorial day on All This Is That. Pablo snagged gay marriage and Jack got the Cuban Blockade. . .


click the former President to enlarge - art by Jack Brummet

President Barack Obama's announcement of a U.S. policy shift toward Cuba makes no mention of the "harshest of measures" we imposed on the island, as former Cuban leader Fidel Castro pointed out today. And he's right.

BHO's removal this week of limits on travel by Cuban Americans to their homeland and how much money they can send to relatives falls fall short of being the relief we need to deliver. Does our President really want to continue the punitive and retrograde measures of his predecessors?

Fidel Castro, in his message, said Obama can use his "talents" in creating a constructive policy that would end the embargo that "has failed for almost half a century."

Castro promised his country would "not beg," for an end to the US embargo, which he characterised as a genocidal policy.

“Cuba has resisted and it will continue to resist; it will never beg for alms . . . not a word was said about the harshest of measures: the blockade,” Mr Castro said in a response posted on the internet and published by state-run media just hours after the news broke in Washington.

Obama’s executive order on Monday also did away with some restrictions for US telecommunications companies, allowing them to provide mobile phone and internet services, a big complaint of Cuba’s in the past.

Mister President, it's about 20 years late, but we need to do more, and we need to do it now. End the blockade, let Cuba have access to modern medicines, and our [relatively] cheap food and consumer goods. If you're worried about taming the Communists, remember that we have seen many other examples where free trade with America helped open the floodgates of free speech, and yes, even democracy.

And finally, why not give their flagging economy a boost? They've been seriously in the hole since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the end of subsidies to Cuba. Let's allow them to freely trade (like they do, for example, with our good friends to the north in Canada). Let us help them out by buying their top-notch rum, cigars, excellent music, poetry, art, fiction, and movies. We need to embrace our neighbors, just as we do Canada and Mexico.

President Obama, it's time.
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JFK - digital art

click JFK to enlarge
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Fresh pornography: Not The Cosbys XXX (with photos and video)

In the vein of the Brady Bunch porn movie, (See All This Is That's article here), a new spoof is in the works based on Bill Cosby's long-running sit-com, called Not The Cosbys XXX. 

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Poem: In Transit

We're like bars of soap,
Imperceptibly eroding day by day.
We fade away that slowly, and some of us


Slip away before
Anyone notices we were here at all.
We are all in transit. Some of us make the journey


On foot and some of us
Jump into the express lane
To avoid our plodding, terrestrial locomotion,

As if there is nothing
To be seen, felt, and heard
Between the beginning and the end.
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