Dr. Hunter S. Thompson on the 99%

"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile—and the rest of us are f***ed until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. We owe that to ourselves and our crippled self-image as something better than a nation of panicked sheep."  —Dr. Hunter S. Thompson in The Great Shark Hunt, 1979

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Middle Finger of the day, No. 23

By Mona Goldwater, Sign Language Editor

True, we don't post them every day, but when we have received enough good ones from our readers, we'll throw them up on the blog all at once.  Send in any interesting middle finger shots that come your way. . .  /Mona

John Shaft

Aussies

Senior Citizen

sign

Old Navy girl

the family photo

Iraq

Another family photo

On The Street

Kristen Srewart

J.C.

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Drawing: Faces No. 36

Drawing by Jack Brummet

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Drawing: Faces No. 47

by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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ATIT reheated: A salute to two political MILFs: Governor Sara Palin and Ex-Prime Minister of the Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko.

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

[reheated from ATIT in April, 2007]

Remember way back, when Sarah Palin was just a cute Governor?  She was plucked from relative obscurity by Senator John McCain and became his VP candidate in 2008, soon became a pariah, lost the election, went back to Alaska, later quit her job as Governor, wrote a best-selling book that made her rich, starred in a reality show, began endorsing and campaigning for other people, and then faded into obscurity during Rep. Michele Bachmann's brief flash in the plan.  She has been quiet for a while now.  I expect we'll hear from her soon--she doesn't seem to like being out of the limelight for too long.  The limelight, however is becoming elusive

Yulia Tymoshenko, now 50, was sentenced to seven years in jail last month after being found guilty of abusing her office as prime minister. Critics branded the case a showtrial.  She is reportedly now in such poor health that she can barely get out of bed in prison. . .

Alaska Governor Sara Palin

Ex-Prime Minister of the Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko

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A friend in good weather and foul: Senator Lori Klein's spirited (and twisted) defense of Herm Cain

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

Thanks to Kristopher Skelton, who passed this along after someone passed it along to him.  Salon today reported that Arizona State Senator Lori Klein (and Herm Cain's AZ campaign chair) has mounted a spirited defense of skirt-chasing serial-groping Pizza Man. 

"not unattractive" AZ State Senator Lori Klein

"Lori Klein, an Arizona state Senator and Cain’s Arizona state chairman, told CBS News she stands by Cain."

"Says she has known him for 12 years and he’s “never been anything but a gentlemen – and I am not an unattractive woman.”

Klein also told CBS News that if Cain is innocent he should sue White for libel.  Like Herm himself, she also went on the attack against the media for ferreting this out.  She said that, in politics, “we want a virgin to do a hooker’s job.”

This reminds me of Herman Cain's earlier attempt at defending his actions, where he essentially said "OK, you have these four women raising a ruckus.  But what about the 300 million Americans who I haven't harassed?"

I strongly suspect we'll see HC bow out of the race on Thursday or Friday.

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Drawing: Faces No. 73 - Hotlips

By Jack Brummet

Take the money and run by Graham Nash - an Occupy Uprising theme song (with lyrics)

 By Jack Brummet, Music History Editor

This is a wonderful song from David Crosby and Graham Nash in their prime.  It could be a theme song for the Occupy Uprising.  In fact, 'though, Graham Nash wrote this song about Neil Young and Steven Stills, who kept the money and ran.  Crosby and Nash were in the sort of "George Harrison" slot in the band CSN&Y--they got to put maybe one song on each album, and thus lost the author royalties on CSNY albums, while Stills and Young racked up millions of dollars on their publishing credits. 



Take the money and run
(By Graham Nash)

Take the money and run
Like a thief across a neighbor's yard
Take the money and run
Like a ghost out in the night.
Take the money and run
'cause you found out that it wasn't hard
to take the money and run
because you were out of sight.
You cannot tell me any more lies
You cannot pull the wool over my eyes
Take the money and run

Take the money and run
'cause the summer sun is sinking down
Take the money and run
'cause the four winds may not blow
Take the money and run
'cause the verdict has been handed down
Take the money and run
because there's no place left to go.
You cannot give me any more time.
You've already taken too much of mine
Take the money and run
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Drawing: Faces No. 258

By Jack Brummet

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Drawing: Faces No. 257

Drawing by Jack Brummet

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Faces No. 256 - Opening Day

Drawing by Jack Brummet

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Søren Kierkegaard, from 19th century Denmark, writes about Fox News?

“The daily press is the evil principle of the modern world, and time will only serve to disclose this fact with greater and greater clearness. The capacity of the newspaper for degeneration is sophistically without limit, since it can always sink lower and lower in its choice of readers. At last it will stir up all those dregs of humanity which no state or government can control.”    ― Søren Kierkegaard

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Drawing: Faces No. 255 - Pairs

Drawing by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Painting: Mr. Blue 2/3

By Jack Brummet
[digitized/shopped from an original watercolor]

click to enlarge

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Map 3: The Keelin Map

By Jack Brummet

[watercolor and pen and ink on d'Arches watercolor paper, approximately 3' x 1', framed in a three pane ex-window]

This is one of the first maps I ever painted. It hangs in Keelin Curran's office in One Union Square.  The frame is an ex-window from our house that we replaced when we renovated our basement. 

Drawing: Confusion

By Jack Brummet

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The Best Thanksgiving Song Of All Time - Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant

One Thanksgiving tradition for me is listening to Alice's Restaurant.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  /jack

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A pictorial history of Presidential turkey pardons from Harry Truman through Barack Obama

By Jack Brummet, Holidays and Holy Days Editor

President Harry S. Truman seems to have been the first President to issue a pardon to a Thanksgiving turkey, in 1947.  All subsequent Presidents have carried on the tradition.

Oddly, I can't find an image of any of Jimmy Carter's pardons, only this shot:

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The Wall of Faces

Drawings by Jack Brummet, Photography by Philip Palermo

Here are some photos, by Philip Palermo, of my office walls.  I drew the faces over the last 12 years, on surplus 2'x2' muslin cloths, stamped with Mississippi Lighthouse for the Blind (who manufactured them for hospitals).  The faces are almost all drawn with pen and ink, or Sharpies, with some random additions of colors.   Because the squares sat folded in a warehouse so many years, they are permanently creased. . .so I started drawing one face per square (and later, sometimes, six faces per square.  I've given away and sold quite a few over the years, but still have around 150+ of them, which were on my office walls until the end of this week.  I don't know what their next home will be. . .

—click the photos to enlarge—

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Occupy No. 9 - "Unscrew the locks from the doors!"

by Jack Brummet

Thanks to Walt Whitman for the quote. See the footnote [1] (a/k/a what Ed Sanders coined a "satellite data cluster") for details on the images on the poster.

[1]  Notes on the images:  a sign on Wall St. itself; a stealth banner on Ballard's Market Street (Ballard is Jack's neighborhood in Seattle) that was removed after one day; Giotto's painting of Jesus rousting the moneychangers outside the temple; the New York Stock Exchange Building, photographer unknown; a scene from from the film "Frankenstein" (the source of the ever-popular torches and pitchforks meme...before memes had that name); an engraving of the "Storming of the Bastille"; "take out the trash is a reference to one of the best episodes of "The West Wing."

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Outfoxed! #OccupyWallStreet talks to Fox News and they picked the wrong guy out of the crowd

Thanks to Ray Estrada for sharing this great clip, which we assume never saw the light of day on Fox news.

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Saint Misbehavin' - The Wavy Gravy (a/k/a Hugh Romney) documentary

By Jack Brummet, Counterculture Editor

The trailer for this film is intriguing.  My son, Del, his cousin Melanie, and a friend, Sam, went down to Wavy's "clown camp" in Mendocino County, California, for three years running.  One year we were also down there and got to see their show, and even meet Mr. Gravy.  For all his bluster, hot air, and possibility confabulated stories, he has done a lot of good in the world, and I think that half the kids who go to Camp Winnarainbow are poor kids, on full scholarships.  Wavy Gravy is something right in the world. 

"Beginning with Woodstock ‘99, director Michelle Esrick has spent ten years documenting the life of Wavy Gravy.

 "Saint Misbehavin’ journeys from the hills of California to the Himalayan Mountains to reveal the life of this one of a kind servant to humanity. The film blends Wavy’s own words with magical stories from an extraordinary array of fellow travelers both cultural and counter-cultural, revealing the man behind the clown’s grin and the fool’s clothing.

"In Saint Misbehavin’ Wavy is revealed more than the tie-dyed entertainer and ice-cream flavor namesake that often defines him in the popular imagination. Audiences will come to know the activist, the optimist, and the healer who reaches beyond political, economic, and cultural divisions in his commitment to social change and the alleviation of human suffering.
Wavy’s life is his message, serving as deeply needed inspiration that we can change the world and have fun doing it.

"Satirist Paul Krasner describes Wavy as “The illegitimate son of Harpo Marx and Mother Theresa, conceived one starry night on a spiritual whoopie cushion,” to which Wavy has replied, “Some people tell me I’m a saint, I tell them I’m Saint Misbehavin’.”

"Featuring: Wavy Gravy, Jahanara Romney, Jordon Romney, Dr. Larry Brilliant, The Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Odetta, Patch Adams, Lisa Law, Buffy Sainte Marie, Denise Kaufman, Tom Law, Steven Ben Israel, The Hog Farm, and more!"

Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie - Theatrical Trailer from Ripple Effect Films

From the film:



JACKSON BROWNE
“I have known Wavy for over 20 years, but it wasn’t until last year that one of my kids went to his camp. I was really amazed at how powerful this camp was in the lives of these kids…Wavy was connecting with these kids in such a meaningful way and I really looked at him with new eyes because I am used to his joking and his philanthropy but it was brilliant, it was revolutionary stuff, it was about really turning the tides in the lives of people who will be the next to inhabit the corridors of government, and business, and become the artists and the influential people of this century…only a really serious revolutionary would have the vision and the depth and the breadth of character to actually continue to do this all these years and on into the future and so add to the description of clown and Saint….Revolutionary.”

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