Oil And Water

 

 "Nerds!"

    

 Police warn witchcraft shop in rural Pa. that tarot is illegal 

   

 A woman was imprisoned for ‘endangering’ her fetus. She gave birth in a jail shower 

   

 Veterinarians Confront a Human Problem: Anti-Vaxxers 

   

 University students march on campus after TAMPONS removed from the MEN'S bathroom 

   

 Paul McCartney Says Yoko Ono's Presence During Beatles Sessions Was Workplace 'Interference'

Any Story That Recalls Salvador Dali Was A Con Man - And Yoko Ono Was Thought To Be A Witch And An Idiot - Is Alright By TMR (And Nobody Else)

Some consider Dalí a bit of a con man. Close friend and muse Amanda Lear recalls how he once duped Yoko Ono, selling her a blade of grass for $10,000. Apparently, Ono had asked Dalí to sell him a strand of hair from his infamous mustache. Not one to turn down a check, he got creative. 

“Dali thought that Yoko Ono was a witch and might use it in a spell. He didn't want to send her a personal item, much less one of his hairs,” Lear explained. “So he sent me to the garden to find a dry blade of grass, and sent it off in a nice presentation box. The idiot paid 10,000 dollars for it. It amused him to rip people off.”

 

Karma

Chill

 

Bill Burr's Comedy Is Based In Racist American History

Friday Night (Bracing Myself For An Exciting Tomorrow)

 

"When You Come To A Fork In The Road,...Take It"

THANKS, BUT NO THANKS: 

Yoko Ono unveils unconventional menswear line 

ALL NATURAL: 

From free love and sexual liberation to vegetable patches and $3 a day living costs

Domination (Another "Guru" Blows It For Everybody,...)

Tie Up Your Boobs (We're All Going To Die)

Scientists discover ‘real-world’ ecstasy use is more dangerous than lab tests:

For a glimpse into real-world drug use, Australian researchers went to parties where people were using a drug known as ecstasy - and discovered that users' brains were at far more risk from the drug than anyone had suspected.

The researchers also found that ecstasy pills often contain a variety of other drugs.

Jim Carrey Got a Really Stupid Haircut:

Jim Carrey, that nearly forgotten relic of the '90s, tried to improve his image and box office relevance by getting himself a new haircut. It's not working.

Carrey's wide mohawk is not the sort of haircut that an adult Canadian should be sporting, at least not one like Jim Carrey.

Well, now that he's done killing babies with Jenny McCarthy, maybe it's the best he can do,...

John Lennon's letters to be published by Little, Brown:

The letters of John Lennon will be published in October 2012 by Little, Brown, the publisher announced Friday. "The Lennon Letters" have been compiled in cooperation with Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow. It's the first time she has given permission for a selection of his letters to be published.

Editing the book and writing its introduction is Hunter Davies, the official Beatles biographer, who has tapped Ono's own archives as well as tracked down correspondence from Lennon that is in the hands of collectors, dealers and the original intended recipients.

In the release about "The Lennon Letters," the publisher points out that Lennon, who died in 1980, never had a chance to convert to email.

Also, there's one letter already out there, and a Beatle business book on the way.

Monty Python? Most of the time it wasn't funny, says Terry Jones:

"Some burst out laughing at the mere mention of a dead parrot. Others find Monty Python’s surreal humour merely, well, silly.

But now those who have never quite got the joke have found an ally in the shape of one of the stars behind the cult comedy.

Terry Jones has confessed that he ‘only occasionally found Python funny’.

Jones, 69, added: ‘I used to watch in trepidation at things that didn’t work wondering if no one would laugh.’

When asked if it was a ‘cop out’ to fill in the gaps between comedy sketches with cartoons, he admitted: ‘Yes.'"

Theatre Review: We're All Going To Die!:

The perky refrains in the freaky existential cabaret written and performed by the playwright Young Jean Lee are probably not going to be squeaked out by Britney Spears, wailed by Mariah Carey or even bellowed by the freak-flag-waving Lady Gaga anytime soon.

And all I can say is "Thank goodness for that!"

TMR's Christmas Gift To You - An Extended Explanation With Links: (Just Like) Starting Over

The links in this post will tell you the whoooole story of this blog:

We want you to consider an alternate universe, where John Lennon was a passionate black artist, living in San Francisco, and Yoko Ono was his French NewAge bride and actually liked.

And, instead of John cheating on Yoko at a New York party and she sends him away to California, Yoko cheated on John while in France and, upon discovery, ran back to that country to join her lover - a Dr. Timothy Leary/Charles Manson type.

And finally - rather than this change of events leading eventually to Mark David Chapman killing John - this new trajectory led Leary/Manson and Yoko Ono to killing others.

What do you think John's reaction would've been? Do you think he would've taken the advice of most NewAgers and just "moved on", or do you think he would've gone the primal scream route to exorcise his pain and call attention to the murders?

Do you think he would've attacked the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi/NewAge hippie culture that led to this turn of events? (For instance, do you think he would've stayed shy, or become emboldened enough to call the song "Sexy Sadie" by it's real name, "Maharishi"?)

And how virulent would've been the reaction of the hippies - now siding with Dr. Timothy Leary/Charles Manson and the likable Yoko - if John had done so?

This is kind of the situation TMR found itself in, not long after it started in 2005. (The blog did not begin in 2007, as it appears now, but was sabotaged - twice - by NewAge "friends" upset with the direction it had taken, and the attention it had garnered.)

And just as we're surprised that - in this universe - even Charlie Manson has supporters after all he's done, and everything he (apparently) is, we're even more surprised at the level of hostility we've received over the years for suggesting there's something wrong with the culture that produced him - and a coming reckoning for the many crimes that culture's bestowed on the rest of us.

We've admitted, many times, that we know we're probably not the best representative for our position.

But honestly - because of a cultural acceptance of the views and positions that's produced the many crimes we've documented - there are very few attempting to bring these issues to the public, and even they don't have the up-close-and-personal experience (or insight) that someone who's been intimate with a believer - or been a believer themselves - carries.

So we're kind of stuck.

Fortunately for us (if not our readers) the immediate problems we face in this work are pretty self-evident.

We think The San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle sums it up nicely in his review of the new (former Scientologist) Nicole Kidman movie, "Rabbit Hole":

The movie's area of inquiry is essentially undramatic, a tale told in a minor key, but it's sensitive and illuminates areas of experience that usually go unexplored. What happens to the couple, each one grieving separately, each one associating the other with loss? How do friends talk to them? It's easy to console people when you don't think their misfortune is all that bad, but what do you say to somebody experiencing your own worst nightmare? "Rabbit Hole" depicts the isolating nature of grief, a self-isolation that is also, to some degree, community enforced.

In other words, no matter what you may think of us, divorced and/or broken - or how we're choosing to alert others to the dangers of cultism in general, and NewAge culture in particular - like those Charlie Manson fans, many of you are part of the problem as well.

Believe it or not, despite our apparent glee at saying something is cultish (or someone is in a cult) it still tears us up, as much as the accused, to discover this is the situation we live currently in; realizing it's the Western World's 21st century. The difference is only in our comprehension of it all.

You have to understand, though we knew nothing of cultism, homeopathy, quackery, or numerology, or any other such things, we do remember what life was like before our wife's murders and we were forced to grapple with them.

We remember what it's like to think of NewAge, and it's many tentacles, as "harmless".

We remember what it was like to unabashedly admire Oprah Winfrey, and her many accomplishments, including the legion of women who listen to, and "follow" her.

We remember what it was like to vote Democrat, to side with environmentalists, feminists, and gays.

We remember what it was like to admire aspects of socialism, and communism, and multiculturalism, and to reject sexism, and racism, and all the other "isms" that have been brought to our attention from our first days growing up in the ghettos of South Central, Los Angeles.

But now - since replacing all of that with the glory of being an un-hypenated American - we just can't stomach any of it any longer.

Now, eschewing conspiracy theories (and conspiracy theorists) and all those words imply, we stand with those who have examined this entire social phenomena anew - Christopher Locke, Jonah Goldberg, Bill Whittle, Neil Davenport, Barbara Ehrenreich, and others - and who have found a sinister threat to all we hold dear.

We stand with those who have called for a new Nuremberg Trial for it's ringleaders - and for many of it's fellow travelers.

And we stand with those who have called for a new emphasis in our schools (and especially our media) on real science, critical thinking, and common sense, for the common good.

We embrace the American Founder's "enlightenment" - and no one else's.

We have stood before you, for five long years, as merely a betrayed artist with a certain insight - and, yes, a lot of anger and resentment - that we've refused to abandon until it's acknowledged as accurate, right, and good.

We are John Lennon - across the universe - declaring, "the dream is over".

And "Merry Christmas" from The Crack Emcee.

There Might Be Two Many People On That Stage

Yoko, as always, was a totally fashion-wrong socialist. Dick Cavette (who now writes for that fountain of wisdom, The New York Times) buys into the bullshit, but not only does John prove he's the only one on stage with any sense but, when told he's wrong, quips, "I don't care!" - a phrase we don't endorse, but seems funny in this context. Isn't it weird how he's dead and this pair of idiots are still alive, and admired, no matter how stupid they are? Life is strange.

Here's the history of the over population myth:



Never forget:

Liberals "believe" there's too many people - and, also, only they should be allowed to remedy the problem.

Get them before they get you first.

American Masters: LennoNYC

Watch the full episode. See more American Masters.

Yoko's annoying (as always) the music's really dated, and John's a puss. But it's still kind of interesting,...kinda sorta anyway. It depends on your feelings about hippies. And bad fashion. And stupid politics. And sideburns. Let's face it:

If he wasn't killed we're not sure we'd care at all.

The "dream" is, indeed, over.

Imagine All The People (Really) Living For Today

People are angry about this commercial. But, as Eric Clapton's "Cocaine" plays on the radio while/where I'm writing this - coming right after "Angie" by the Rolling Stones - I can't help but say that, while I don't care whether Yoko Ono exploits John Lennon's image to sell French cars or not, I totally agree with the statement the ad (and Lennon) are making. From The New York Times:

"The commercial for the Citroen DS-3, which is being promoted with the slogan 'Anti Retro,' includes footage of Mr. Lennon criticizing people’s nostalgia for the 1960s and ’70s."

And I couldn't agree more. Think about it:

I'm trapped listening to music from 40-50 years ago, writing about horrifying belief systems that gained popularity 40-50 years ago, etc., all being pushed by people trapped in a '60's time warp, who thought this ass-backwards nonsense was cool when they were teens 40-50 years ago, and insisting they'll never grow out of it - and (by the sheer size of their g-g-g-generation) won't let the rest of the country do so either. Back to the Times:

"On his Twitter account, Sean Ono Lennon, the son of Mr. Lennon and Ms. Ono, supported the advertisement. 'I realize why people are mad,' he wrote. 'But intention was not financial, was simply wanting to keep him out there in the world.'"

Which sounds fine and dandy as solipsism goes, but, if you ask me, it also sounds like the first problem with this ad campaign is that Sean and Yoko totally missed the point of the late John Lennon's own words.

Imagine that.

It's No Wonder She And John Lennon Thought They Might Need Some Primal Scream Therapy

"Yoko's speeches throughout the night underscored her idealized, and numbing, hippie views,...."

-- Jim Farber, spending a night with Yoko Ono - which is more than enough - before hoping for daylight, and a chance to get back to The New York Daily News.

They Found Themselves By Losing Their Minds But Also Made The Statement They Were Crazy

"The Beatles posed as rebels against class conventions and the supposed stuffiness of their elders, but their appeal was always to nice boys and girls, who enjoyed the patronising sentimentality of Eleanor Rigby and When I'm Sixty-Four.

In New York they met Bob Dylan, who introduced them to smoking pot. Dylan was in every way a superior artist and performer.

His songs, rasped out in that distinctive snarling voice and interrupted by jerky mouth organ recitatives, truly did herald something new in the world.

The sung lyrics of Dylan are very nearly in the league of some of the great songs of the world, such as those of Robert Burns. The Beatles are pappy by comparison.

This fact, obvious to everyone else, was certainly not clear to The Beatles themselves, who, the moment they were famous, became invested with a risible degree of self-importance.

Lennon was the most pretentious and self-regarding, and the more he made an exhibition of himself, the more he seemed to believe himself to be some kind of poet-sage or philosopher.

Lennon's own self-importance, however, was as nothing to that of his second-wife, Yoko Ono.

When they married, they lay in bed being photographed and offering such useful advice to the world as 'stay in bed' and 'grow your hair'.

Going further, they suggested that the violence in Vietnam and the Middle East and between the super-powers of the Soviet Union and the United States would evaporate were the politicians involved only to remove their trousers.

...There was a mindlessness about the 1960s, a sheer silliness not to see the consequences of such vandalism."

-- A.N. Wilson, author, on when the world lost it's way, for the Daily Mail.

"The Devil Talks Pretty"

Sri Chinmoy died the other day. Here's how the New York Times described him:

"The genial Indian-born spiritual leader who used strenuous exercise and art to spread his message of world harmony and inner peace, died Thursday at his home in Jamaica, Queens, where he ran a meditation center. He was 76."

"The genial Indian-born spiritual leader". Sweet, right? Check out this list of his followers, drawn from several articles on his passing:

Carlos Santana

Singer Sheena Easton

Olympic athlete Carl Lewis

Record producer Narada Michael Walden

Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band

Jazz musician John McLaughlin

New York City Councilman James Gennaro

Al Gore faxed a condolence letter

So did Mikhail Gorbachev

There are many more names listed (Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Eddie Murphy, Susan Sarandon, Yoko Ono, Richard Gere) but I want to be fair, so lets just regard them as people Chinmoy ran into, O.K.? (Sure.)

O.K., now let's look closer at this "spiritual leader" - and the New York Times - to get an idea of how credible they both are for delivering the truth to the public:

The New York Post says other papers are "gullible" for buying Chinmoy's message, and "have chugged down the Kool-Aid, then licked the bottom of the cup" about "the creepy Queens 'guru'", and that "a quick Internet search" (something I seem to be good at) reveals a "sleazier side - which includes claims from former devotees that he ran a 'cult'. The Post says Chinmoy caused 'disturbing personality changes' in members and also ordered his dreamy-eyed female followers to engage in exploitive sexcapades. How "spiritual".

In 2004, one former longtime follower of Chinmoy told The Post how Chinmoy summoned her for extended sex romps, then ordered her to have sex with another woman while he watched. Other women recounted similar tales, including one who said Chinmoy paid for her abortion after he got her pregnant."

Sweet.

A couple of papers quoted Carlos Santana as saying the man some called “Sleazy Sri” was "vindictive" and everything Santana had experienced with Chinmoy had “turned to vinegar” , adding, “This shit is not for me–I don’t care how enlightening it is.”

Rick Ross's Cult News site reported that "some tagged Chinmoy’s devotees 'spiritual slaves' and repeated allegations depicted the supposedly celibate holy man as a 'sleazy' sexual predator that preyed upon vulnerable female followers.

Benjamin Spector, once a disciple of the guru wrote, 'My one-time leader Sri Chinmoy encouraged many of us to work below the minimum wage and without benefits, at businesses owned by senior group members in New York and other locations. Many workers were illegal aliens.'

Spector explained, 'The followers of cult leaders are very frequently well educated, sophisticated and sensitive, but authoritarian leaders rob them of their ability to think independently as individuals and dominate them.'"

Now, as much as I want to delve into the subject of those "well educated, sophisticated and sensitive" followers, I'll stay on point and ask:

Why didn't the New York Times report any of this ugly stuff? They didn't even use the word "controversial" with this pervert.

Our so-called "paper of record" did two stories on this asshole's passing and there's not a word of his public wrong-doings in either of them. It's just like with Yusef Bey and Oakland's Your Black Muslim Bakery cult, where there's just a mention - years after the fact, and once a reporter had been killed - that Bey was, literally, using girls he adopted as a toilet, forcing them to drink his urine and semen, and all while he gleefully held letters of support from Left-wing anti-war Representative Barbara Lee and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums.

Seriously, folks, is the New York Times a newspaper anymore? Under the circumstances, I'd say it's as qualified to call itself a "newspaper" as Sri Chinmoy (or Yusef Bey) was to call himself a "spiritual leader". Both bastardize the very idea of what they claim to represent. The framing of every belief, and every story, is so slanted as to never expose anything - unless, of course, it's against the Bush Administration or one of his supporters - preferably conservative and almost never true as well.

The number of people who wholeheartedly believe what the New York Times says anymore is mind-blowing to me. (As mind-blowing as the idea that all those celebrities, listed above, could fall under the spell of a craven bald-headed old fool from India - only leading to more people, who aren't celebrities, giving their lives over to him.) People tell me it's because the New York Times is "well-written" but so what? Well-written lies are still lies.

None of us should ever forget the words my ex-slave foster mother used to say, to keep us kids on our guard around the world's charlatans and liars, because her simple words were never as true as when reading a story in the NYT - or listening to the words of a so-called "spiritual" type:

"The Devil always talks pretty."