What Are YOU doing For The Rapture?, part 5: Rapture Eve

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What Are YOU doing For The Rapture?, part 4

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What Are YOU doing For The Rapture, part 3

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John Berryman reads his Dream Song No. 26. You've probably never seen anyone read poetry like this before.

By Jack Brummet, Poetry Editor

I've never seen John Berryman read poetry before tonight, although Dream Songs is one of my favorite books of 20th century poetry, and I have read most of his other books of poetry, prose and fiction. 

This poem is scary, jangled, beautiful, elusive, creepy, and slangy with amazing rhythms and chiming internal rhyme. I've never seen anyone read poetry like this before.  It's riveting and disturbing, especially when you know the dénouement of his story: leaping from a bridge to his death in the Mississippi River five years after this.

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What Are YOU doing For The Rapture, part 2

Poster and underlying drawing by Jack Brummet

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The Kinks' Apeman (with the great lyrics)

By Jack Brummet, Tops of the Pops Editor

This is a charming performance of one of my favorite Kinks songs:  Apeman.  Lyrics below.



Written by: Ray Davies
Published by: Warner-tamerlane Pub. Corp. - BMI

Apeman

I think I'm so sophisticated
'Cos I'm living my life like a good homosapien
But all around me everybody's multiplying
Till they're walking round like flies man
So I'm no better than the animals sitting in their cages
in the zoo man
'Cos compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees
I am an ape man
I think I'm so educated and I'm so civilized
'Cos I'm a strict vegetarian
But with the over-population and inflation and starvation
And the crazy politicians
I don't feel safe in this world no more
I don't want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an ape man
I'm an ape man, I'm an ape ape man
I'm an ape man I'm a King Kong man I'm ape ape man
I'm an ape man
'Cos compared to the sun that sits in the sky
compared to the clouds as they roll by
Compared to the bugs and the spiders and flies
I am an ape man
In man's evolution he has created the cities and
the motor traffic rumble, but give me half a chance
and I'd be taking off my clothes and living in the jungle
'Cos the only time that I feel at ease
Is swinging up and down in a coconut tree
Oh what a life of luxury to be like an ape man
I'm an ape, I'm an ape ape man, I'm an ape man
I'm a King Kong man, I'm a voo-doo man
I'm an ape man
I look out my window, but I can't see the sky
'Cos the air pollution is fogging up my eyes
I want to get out of this city alive
And make like an ape man
Come and love me, be my ape man girl
And we will be so happy in my ape man world
I'm an ape man, I'm an ape ape man, I'm an ape man
I'm a King Kong man, I'm a voo-doo man
I'm an ape man
I'll be your Tarzan, you'll be my Jane
I'll keep you warm and you'll keep me sane
and we'll sit in the trees and eat bananas all day
Just like an ape man
I'm an ape man, I'm an ape ape man, I'm an ape man
I'm a King Kong man, I'm a voo-doo man
I'm an ape man.
I don't feel safe in this world no more
I don't want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore
And make like an ape man.
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What are YOU doing for The Rapture?

Poster by Jack Brummet
Unexplained Phenomena Editor

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Alien Lore. No. 205 - NMA.TV hits another one out of the park: "Roswell Aliens, A Plot By Stalin?"

By Jack Brummet,   Paranormal and Unexplained Phenomena Editor

thanks to Jeff Clinton for the tip!

NMA.TV is one of the most consistently hilarious sites on the entire web.  Yesterday, they once again hit it out of the park with this great take on Roswell, The Greys, and Josef Stalin.  When you watch the video, don't forget to click on the close caption link (the video is not in English).

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The Burger King Super Seven Incher

Yes, the ad is real and it really appeared.  Burger King claims the ad only appeared in Singapore.  "Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce."  A great example of a bleeding corporation throwing a desperate Hail Mary...

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An old painting uncovered in our closet: The Beatles

click to enlarge - 2' x 3', poster with acrylic paint, pen, stickers, ephemera, and duct tape

An old piece--Claire recently found this in a pile in one our closets, where it has resided for at least ten or fifteen years. . .

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Blowback on the ten hottest female sex offenders in Texas

By Mona Goldwater, Ethics and Mores Editor





The "10 hottest women on the Texas' sex offender list" has, not surprisingly kicked up a firestorm.  Did they really think it wouldn't?  The Houston Press featured the article on their blog.  The controversy was probably exacerbated when the blog post's author admitted that he was looking for eyes and mouseclicks. 

click to enlarge the ten "hottest"

Richard Connelly the author, tried to explain: "Last week I spoke to two veteran child-porn prosecutors for a Q&A on how they do their jobs -- how they deal with looking at such horrific evidence -- and how parents can protect their children from being exploited."

"They talked of how child predators don't fit any category -- the people they prosecuted included successful lawyers and doctors, as well as unemployed losers."

"It triggered an idea about how people have a preconceived notion of what dangerous predators "always" look like -- slovenly fat guys in T-shirts asking kids if they wanted a ride -- and how best to shake that notion up."

"I also wrote an over-the-top intro, trusting that the outrageous headline (Anything putting "hottest" near "sex offenders," I thought, would clearly show over-the-topness)."

Well, it misfired.  But Connelly appears to have kept his job, and they didn't even remove the offending blog post, although they did offer up the above comments and a sort-of-apology.

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1972: Facing the Selective Service System, and The Draft

By Jack Brummet
Unexplained Phenomena Editor

It's hard to remember now what we faced in the late 60's and early 70's, when involuntary conscription was still the law of the land.  It wasn't so much the draft per se, as the fact that there was a bloody war raging in Vietnam (and vicinity) and every single day, the 'papers and news were filled with body bags and body counts.  And very little of the news was good news.  Before the war was over more than 58,000 American boys would die in Vietnam.

The debate over the war was constantly raging--between parents and sons, teachers and students, police and protesters. . .it happened constantly, and everywhere.  It was absolutely exacerbated by other changes in the "youth culture": drugs, sex, rock and roll, underground newspapers and radio stations, long hair and beards, strange clothes, rock festivals, gigantic marches, people dropping out of society for communes, and people joining political and action groups like the Students for a Democratic Society, The Yippies, The Panthers, The Weatherman, The Draft Resistance, and hundreds more.  It was a strange and wonderful time.  And always hanging over our heads (I turned 18 in 1971) was the draft, and being sent to Vietnam, or at the best, enlisting in the Navy or Coast Guard to avoid 'Nam.  When you were drafted, they did not send you to dig ditches in Omaha.

In 1970, the the Selective Service System instituted a national lottery for draft numbers.  The target draft age was 19.  In 1972, the picked the numbers for people born in 1953.  My birth date came in at 182; I was safe.  That guy born on March 6th--he was No. One.  If you were born on Christmas Day, you were No. Six.

The draft (not just the lottery) ended on July 1st, 1973.

This list shows the number of inductions into the military over the terrible arc of the Vietnam War.

Year   Inductees

1962     82,060

1963   119,265

1964   112,386

1965   230,991

1966   382,010

1967   228,263

1968   296,406

1969   283,586

1970   162,746

1971     94,092

1972     49,514

1973          646

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