Cult Rocked (Rocks)

In 1972 the Bee Gees drummer left to join a band dedicated to a cult leader named Maharaj-ji. A few years later George Harrison of the Beatles produced a different band dedicated to the same cult leader. Carlos Santana was given the name Devadip by his abusive guru Sri Chinmoy. Donovan traveled to India with the Beatles studying Transcendental Meditation. Soon the Doors, Mick Jagger and the Grateful Dead would all be practicing TM. The Beach Boys recorded one of Charles Manson's songs. Leonard Cohen dropped out and moved into a Zen Monastery, but his guru would be ousted for sexual abuse. Musician turned cult leader Mel Lyman was dubbed the "East Coast Charles Manson." John Travolta and Frank Stallone recorded a vinyl record made up of Scientology lyrics that went gold.  

These are just some of the fascinating stories in Cult Rocked

A Leonard Cohen Palate Cleanser: "The Tower Of Song"

"Now you can say that I've grown bitter
but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels
in the bedrooms of the poor
And there's a mighty judgement coming,
but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song "

The Serenade Of The Love Starved Lovely In The Dock

Check it out, 'Bekah's back:

"The two of us weren't meant to be. Andy and I weren't meant to be but then I met Charlie and I was happy for the first time."

Now where have we heard that before? Oh yeah:

Everybody knows you've been discreet 

But there were so many people you just had to meet 

Without your clothes 

Everybody knows

Weak-Teaed Watered-Down Incomprehensible Nonsense

Brent Bozell's going after John Boehner again, which is kinda retarded, but I understand his frustration:

Bozell is correct in the respect that Republicans continually make promises to their base that they know they will never be able to deliver on. Republicans knew full well in 2010 that if they even if they took control of the House, they couldn’t stop the ACA. Reality didn’t stop them from lying and promising to repeal Obamacare if they had control of the House. Republicans have done nothing, but only a true sucker would expect success when Democrats control the both the Senate and the presidency.

A party of suckers

What we lack is strategy - and until we get one - it's all homeopathy.

And y'all know what I think of homeopathy,…

 

To Really Connect With Others (You Must Be Plugged In)

"You can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll 

Sorry, Baby - doesn't look like me at all 

I'm standing by the window, where the light is strong 

They don't let a woman kill you, not in The Tower Of Song"

Ain't that the truth? For an old Buddhist, Leonard Cohen is plenty cool. This gracious old man is still telling it like it is, gently, and with a tip of the hat, no matter how dark the tale becomes. A few years ago, while he was in an ashram or something, his manager decided he was a push-over and took him him for everything. After a long wait, LC took him to court and beat his ass but good. 

 Other than marriage, it doesn't get much tighter than the artist/manager relationship - that shit HURT - and I was proud of Cohen for fighting like it. 

 Above, he's getting cute with the audience, introducing his Technics keyboard's lush tones with, "You've probably never seen one of these, it plays by itself,..." That references what I said a few posts back, about how music is made now vs. how people think it's done. More:

 Sure, a Technics keyboard is essentially an electronic player piano, but just like a player piano can't play "by itself" without the roll (the spooled paper indicating what notes are struck) and the tempo being set (telling the motor at what speed to run) the electronic version can't play "by itself" without that information, and much more, being previously programmed into it. That's where it gets interesting:  

Just before the 3:00 point, we see Cohen playing a short solo, live. BUT - if the keyboard "plays by itself" - did he really play a "live" solo or was it pre-programmed, and he just pretended to do so onstage? (No "costume malfunctions" that way,...) 

C'mon, you know they lip synch, you don't think fake "playing" is even more common? Frank Zappa did a whole show that way in the late '70s, I think, and nobody knew the difference. 

Evidence of Cohen's pre-programming can easily be found. After his solo, he pre-programmed enough measures into the keyboard's song for the applause that followed AND his response ("You're very kind") and then even a few for the laughter - he already knew was coming! And all this before we finally see him get briefly patient, just for a second, waiting for the song's pre-programmed third verse to begin at 3:22. 

It looks spontaneous - especially with the back-up singers (who probably had to live with a recording of that damned machine, just to figure out when the changes are) but everything - including the audience's reaction - was completely thought out ahead of time. Probably weeks, months, or even years in advance. 

You afraid of the NSA? THIS is another awesome display of "the people" under complete technological control, baby. Call your congressman.

 BTW - Cohen DIDN'T anticipate applause for the second line of the third verse, "I was born with the gift of a golden voice" (Can't you just hear one of these freaks screaming "Be Humble!"?) There, we see him have to sing over the unplanned acknowledgment. 

But he's getting some and seems pleased by that. 

 It's usally enough for my type,...

 

Requiem For America (In The Age Of Cult Presidents)

Enjoy rolling over, Everybody!

 

Dawn Of The (Supposedly) Dead

Oh: It's Not Wrong If A Psychic Does It, II

Well, well, well - another "psychic" story:

It looks like reports about Janet Adams, who ran San Mateo's Psychic and Crystal Vision shop, have brought others forward to say "Karma kicks you in the butt." (Really, that's what they're saying.) According to this latest San Jose Mercury News report, Dianna Czellecz says Adams got her for $1,000 and:

"None of Adams' predictions came true, and a candle she gave Czellecz to ward off evil spirits turned out to be a Glade strawberries and cream air freshener."

Yes, you know I love that! Say the word "psychic" and what TMR hears is "Class - all the way!"

And, speaking of San Francisco's South Bay - and "class" - is anybody looking into the "work" of Doti Boon ("The California Psychic") down there?

I'm just askin' because she and Corky Whitacre (great "scam name") have got that whole "Center For Creative Living" scam going on down there, and - as I found out the hard way - "Psychic readings with Doti are always very interesting!"

I wonder if Doti knows - since she told my ex-wife, Karine Brunck, she had "special powers" and to hook up with that Quack, Robert Wohlfahrt - that those two went on to kill three people? She must know: she's psychic!

Anyway, the beautiful Janet Adams (they're all beautiful) is now in San Mateo County jail on $500,000 bail, after already having "served two years for two felony convictions in 2004, and those cases involved swindling."

And, I bet you, she's another "psychic" who never saw prison time coming. But she will now,...

Looking Forward To It

THE FUTURE by Leonard Cohen

Give me back my broken night, my mirrored room, my secret life
It's lonely here, there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby, that's an order!

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall, give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother: it is murder!

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing, nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
And it has overturned the order of the soul!

When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant

Give me back the Berlin wall, give me Stalin and St Paul
Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now - We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, brother: it is murder!

Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing, nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold
And it has overturned the order of the soul

When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant

The Flabby Liars Of The Aquarian Age

"About a thousand years ago, there was this brief period of about 11 or 12 minutes, that is now referred to as the sixties, a hated time, an intoxicating time. I enjoyed myself thoroughly for five or six minutes. It has become a kind of black hole in the sociological cosmos, a kind of Bermuda Triangle, into which all the noblest and worthwhile ideas disappeared forever. A seductive moment; however, being the gloomy chap that you know me to be, I was able to resist it. I think it was back in 1971 when it reached its most acute phase; it was then that I was inspired to write this mournful and bitter ditty in response to all the flabby liars of the Aquarian Age."

-- Leonard Cohen, in his introduction to the song, There Is A War

Thanks to Cosmic Connie for the heads up.