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  • Infinite Gesture —  21  Lyrics in Search of Music

    Infinite Gesture — 21 Lyrics in Search of Music

    A collage featuring a mid 20th century man hypnotizing a woman with large green eyes
    Fake Album Cover
    Infinite Gesture Unrecorded Lyrics by R.U. Sirius
    by Jay Cornell
    visit Undated Records for more great visuals 
    Expressionistic painting of R U Serious

     

     

     

    Avant God  (2016)

    I want an avant god 
    Loving perversity 
    Unlimited diversity 

    Optimized for your VR cabal 
    Totally portable 
    Sometimes snortable 

    Gendered or not
    Maybe subject to rot
    Why not?

    The avant god is as real
    As the knees on which they kneel
    Try to keep it on an even keel
    The kind of god you have to steal

    The avant god is false
    The kind of god you must report
    The kind of god that misses court
    The kind of god you know you want

    I want an avant god
    Loving perversity
    Unlimited diversity

    The Tedium Is The Message (2018)

    You know it hit me in the gut
    Rampaging glut of culture
    Nobody needs to consume anymore
    Another song — I’m just another bore

    Every day with nothin’ to sing
    Luxury communism the next big thing
    Yeah it’s the thing that’s hot
    And this new song… I guess it’s not

    The tedium is the message
    Go tell it on the stage
    Tear down the proscenium walls
    Another crack at days of rage
    Old yippie act your age
    Or turn in your back pages
    We’ll throw them in the fire
    And we’ll wear grown up attire

    You know it hit me in the gut
    Rampaging glut of culture
    Nobody needs to consume any more
    Another song I’m just another bore
    Every day nothin’ to sing
    Luxury communisms the next big thing
    Yeah it’s the thing that’s hot
    And this new song… I guess it’s not

    (psychedelic breakdown musical interlude) 

    The tedium is the message
    Culture ain’t your friend
    Be all psilocybin imbibin’
    Strange attractor til the end
    That list of albums you never send
    That last attempt to make a trend
    It’s all just gonna end
    Culture ain’t your friend

    The tedium is the message
    Go tell it on the stage
    Tear down the proscenium walls
    Another crack at days of rage
    Old yippie act your age
    Or turn in your back pages
    We’ll throw them in the fire
    And we’ll wear grown up attire

    Flabbergasted 

    Well I used to be disgusted 
    And then I tried to be amused 
    But now I’m just plain flabbergasted 
    At the depth of the abuse 
    And I’m not singing ‘bout a bad date 
    And I’m not singing ‘bout ya 2 minutes hate 
    I’m looking at the new level of crazy
    With their hands wrapped around our fate

    Does anybody remember the quantified life? 
    (R. Plant voice) Does anybody remember laughter?
    Does anybody remember the balcony speeches?
    Does anyone remember bloodletting and leeches?
    Does anyone remember the days before then?
    Lugubrious meetings with remake-able men
    & Little Brother is watching one and other 
    So mark your turf — Then run for cover 

    Our Cruel Father Who Art Beheaded (2020)

    Our cruel father who art beheaded
    Shallow be thy almost long tail
    Thy ghosts are feted no statues erected
    & all the tasty treatises are pungent stale
    You took a wish upon a star
    Even your golf game was subpar
    And there’s no remorse just one less source
    Of crumblin’’ dice & slammed shut doors

    Our cruel father
    Lost his head
    Who will bake
    All the children bread
    Who will run
    The important biznesses
    Who will count
    All the lesser sicknesses

    Our cruel father who art beheaded
    Swallowed much too much for one man
    Took his sadness to the blood bank
    Now there’s nothing much left to brand
    With all the sins the eater consumes
    All the letting a million lilacs bloom
    All the fantasies dreamed by the TV
    All the tricks that say can you see

    Our cruel father
    Lost his head
    Who will bake
    All the children bread
    Who will run
    The important biznesses
    Who will count
    All the lesser sicknesses

    Two Truthers and a Birther Walked Into A Bar (2016)

    Two truthers and a birther walked into a bar
    The truthers had some ritalin — the birther had a car
    They made a pact right then and there
    To tell the folks who didn’t care
    About the bad things being done
    And get some guns and have some fun

    Scrambled codes make scrambled minds
    Strategic lies make paranoids
    Anemic guys make angry blogs
    Unhappy girls want perfect bods

    The truthers split to berkeley & hung out in a tree
    The birther went to Nashville  — The Grand Opry
    They planned to meet halfway between
    And make the sheeple share their dream
    By dropping acid in the tea
    Then pirating every Tee Vee

    Scrambled codes make scrambled minds
    Strategic lies make paranoids
    Anemic guys make angry blogs
    Unhappy girls want perfect bods

    The birther trained the truthers in marksmanship and fight
    The truthers showed the birther how to hack into a bank
    But things went south when Truther One
    Shared all their plans with Neil Young
    Who wrote a song then turned them in
    While slipping each a Mickey Finn

    Scrambled codes make scrambled minds
    Strategic lies make paranoids
    Anemic guys make angry blogs
    Unhappy girls want perfect bods

    The truthers woke up sadly in a stuporous haze
    They swore to all in court it had just been a phase
    The birther returned to the south
    Big hero by word of mouth
    Did a day maybe two in jail
    Ex-Governor Perry paid his bail

    Scrambled codes make scrambled minds
    Strategic lies make paranoids
    Anemic guys make angry blogs
    Unhappy girls want perfect bods

    We Are Duchampians of the World (Infinite Gesture) (2019)

    Libido mosquito
    Found in a purse
    Dead man’s soup can
    Things could be worse
    Infinite gesture
    Obstinate curse
    Reframe the same refrain
    Give it another name

    We are Duchampians my fiendish little friends
    And we neverminded the Karens or the Kens
    We are Duchampians
    We are Duchampians
    Open for cruising
    And we are Duchampians of the world

    Regrettably circumspect
    More sly than high
    Ivy league and twee
    Means shit to me
    Infinite gesture
    Land of the fee
    Home of the craven
    Reframe the same refrain

    We are Duchampians my fiendish little friends
    And we neverminded the Karens or the Kens
    We are Duchampians
    We are Duchampians
    Open for cruising
    And we are Duchampians of the world

    The Stepfather Of His Country

    He was the stepfather of his country
    But he raised the kids as his own
    He gave them ears of corn — oodles of porn
    But when they bought bad cocaine they earned his scorn

    & when they all got older
    He turned them into soldiers
    Strapping tote bags to their shoulders
    filled with weapons of mirth
    It was all rather cheery
    He read them Dr. Leary
    Until those silly numbskulls
    Decided to give birth

    That was just the final straw
    This was just what killed their pa
    “Birth & death stay from my door
    What do you think the porn was for?
    To make you each one onanistic
    Now I’ll get a bit fascistic”

    One by one he ate his grandkids
    Chowed them down like gutted pigs
    Except one who was schizophrenic
    & could produce some anaesthetic
    Together they drifted into a coma
    Singing gleeful songs of soma

    & thus a world was born & died
    All because of a stepdads pride
    It takes a village to make things fair
    Fuckin’ stepdad didn’t care

    No Rest For The Precariat  (2019)

    Dumb easy feckless proles
    Matrons danced the Watusi
    Hoodlum malcontents did the stroll
    Early tech geeks couldn’t find sushi

    Assholes like me were relentlessly droll
    Dads at home acted like il Duce
    Middle class kids weren’t on the dole
    Everyone bowled and went to the movies

    But now there’s no rest
    Now there’s no rest
    Now there’s no rest
    For the Precariat
    But now there’s no rest
    Now there’s no rest
    Now there’s no rest
    For the Precariat

    Punters fighting punters
    Owners sailing yachts
    We can jump into the fire
    But we cant afford new Reeboks
    Nothing much is left to say
    It’s cyberwar from day to day
    Street distress from night to night
    Play instruments of madcap blight

    And now there’s no rest
    Now there’s no rest
    Now there’s no rest
    For the Precariat
    But now there’s no rest
    Now there’s no rest
    Now there’s no rest
    For the Precariat

    MONDO is Italian for World (2019)

    When I opened up her fridge
    Saw tablespoons of monkey jizz
    Preserved within a box of lemons
    Next to the tarantula venom
    That is when I had to see
    This was just the gal for me

    All along the citadel
    Physicists were raising hell
    Alchemists were raising heaven
    Magicians were raising seven
    Fools were shouting 23
    This must be the place for me

    Soon an apparition came
    Carrying a vial of fame
    Pleased to meet you what’s my name?
    “I’m the scepter and the stain”
    Come on in, call me “him”
    Take this number, call up Tim

    It was all a mad charade
    And a glorious freak parade
    Some got screwed but some got laid
    Most got something some got paid
    Mondo is Italian for world
    I knew this had to be my girl’’

    Deleuze Guittari Gnash & Jung  (2020)

    Deleuze Guittari Gnash & Jung
    They weren’t having too much fun
    Til Dylan came along in a big-ass truck
    Sayin’’ “Hey who really gives a fuck?”

    They all piled in pointing at him
    Taking narcotics and drinking gin
    Bob asked “who here plays guitar
    Who else here is a fuckin’ star?
    & if you don’t like blues harmonica
    Get the fuck out my car”

    Well they had to think of something
    Deleuze started humming
    Then Jung started dreamin’
    And Gnash started schemin’

    Bob said “that’ll have to do”
    Guattari said “I ain’t no fool
    Let’s cruise drunken through the burbs
    Pretend that we’re the angry birds”

    They saw the white men cooking chicken
    That is when the plot did thicken
    While Deleuze and Guattari screamed like angry birds
    Dylan didn’t say a fuckin’ word

    Soon the neighbors with their guns
    Cried “go elsewhere with all your fun
    We like Bob Dylan and we like puns
    But we have no truck with Carl Jung”

    And just to make them stay away
    Said “Last week we fucked up Dr. Dre
    And if you wanna see the dawn
    Hey hey you you get offa my lawn”

    (rept many times)
    They said “hey hey you you get offa my lawn

    Lip Sync Ships Stinker

    Torn limb from limb by the mean girls at the orphanage
    Glued back together in a spirited attempt at hoodoo bricolage
    Went on a rampage of irreligious sacrilege
    It didn’t matter to her a whit if it was Islam or written in Sanskrit

    Lip syncs sink ships
    Uncle Fester loves Trent Reznor
    Polly the hijacker wants a cracker
    Lip sync ships stinker

    She sniffed the air tingling & tasting loves uneasy lunacy
    Saw sorrowful vistas spotted with funereal urns
    She rang a doorbell brought her neighbors an eerie shrieking doll
    With that invasion they entered the dreamlands of the unwell

    Lip syncs sink ships
    Uncle Fester loves Trent Reznor
    Polly the hijacker wants a cracker
    Lip sync ships stinker

    Live Free Or Dye Your Hair Blue (2020)

    (every other line is verse/chorus i.e. call/response, etc.)

    What will you wear to the new civil war?
    Live free or dye your hair blue
    Who’s gonna be your new Tipper Gore?
    Live free or dye your hair blue
    Did you beat the militias to the gun store?
    Live free or dye your hair blue
    What will you wear to the new civil war?
    Live free or dye your hair blue

    Will it be televised virtual or raw?
    What will you wear to the new civil war?
    Will it be tearful fearful and more?
    What will you wear to the new civil war?
    They’ve got the bullets we’ve got the queens
    What will you wear to the new civil war?
    Scare ‘em up with pictures of guillotines
    What will you wear to the new civil war?

    His name’s Erik Prince and he’s not funky
    Live free or dye your hair blue
    Should we wear grunge or a wee bit punky?
    Live free or dye your hair blue
    Frilly shirts & scarves like those elegant junkies? (distant voice shouting … “it’s only rock and roll”)
    Live free or dye your hair blue
    What will you wear to the new civil war?
    Live free or dye your hair blue

    Live Free Or Dye Your Hair Pink (2021)

    Live free or dye your hair pink
    The choice is easier than you think
    There ain’t no choices just cacophony of voices
    It’s the entire kitchen sink
    So while we try to make sense
    Ideas are being steamrolled by events
    While we try to make sense
    Ideas are being steamrolled by events

    An intoxicating mixture of dogshit and fennel
    Chowed down right there in the very kennel
    A handful of bros and their surly bitches
    Laughing in the faces of beheaded snitches
    And if’n that don’t float your boat
    See what the news is with your remote
    Yes pandemonium comes to all seven seas
    Pirates with nukes and the deadly bees

    So take a moment to name your poison
    To run with the wolves or hang with the boys ‘n’
    Take a quick pic for an NFT fortune
    Or just wait around for the next bus to Boston

    Not A Bug But A Feature (2017)

    We all have a lot of drugs
    It’s not a bug it’s a feature
    And me I’m easily buzzed
    So I can give you a bunch of my drugs

    They tell me hugs not studs
    They tell me don’t piss in the strudel
    But I don’t care for their advice
    I’ve got some drugs to make me nice

    We’re having too much fun
    And all the guns are loaded
    And we were born to be wacked
    And we were made to attack

    We were born inside out
    Like in a Cronenberg movie
    But we have lots of strange drugs
    Therefore the whole thing is groovy

    Queerish  (2019)

    You couldn’t sit outside
    Without some trajectory
    Some vast vocabulary
    Hitting upside your head

    You couldn’t read queer studies
    To a Ballardian fuddy duddy
    Messing with your data entry
    Some self-conscious narco-mancy

    Have we not lived too long?
    Can you please digeriDON’T?
    I’m only begging Apollo
    For a few sensible follows

    I only want to light up a smoke
    Take a broken mirror home
    Zapruder film please leave me alone
    I only want an ice cream cone
    (rept last 2 lines)

    The Smarter King Of Deliria (2020)

    The girl at the ticket booth
    Started wailing and weeping
    With all the grieving
    A body could hold seething
    & the bouncer standing near to me
    With cracked and violent idiot glee
    Was swinging his fists randomly
    Saying everybody gets in for free
    But first you have to get passed me

    Everyone from all around
    saying stuff that sounds profound
    & a smarter king of Deliria
    That day was duly crowned
    & if you listen a wee bit closer
    To all the people in the ground
    You’ll hear them screaming loud
    & this is the sound

    [follow with Ornette Coleman meets Jimi Hendrix 8 minute jam]

    Sneerbot (2014)

    The edgelord built a sneerbot
    He knew it would replace him
    When it came time to upload his mind
    He slipped away on a vacation
    He hid out in Tangiers
    Imagining he was Brion Gysin
    But Edgelord pals can’t be trusted
    And one day one slipped him some ricin

    And we were laughing all the way to the bank
    But we found the account was vacant
    We tried everything from flash to bland
    And to making the sex more blatant
    We tried pitching to the British ravers
    And to the sincere planet savers
    And to the loony libertarians
    Who didn’t do us too many favors

    And the sneerbot says…
    Haw haw haw they used to wipe there own asses
    Haw haw haw they used to wipe there own asses
    Haw haw haw they used to wipe there own asses
    Haw haw haw they used to wipe there own asses

    And the sneerbot says…
    Look at this history of the human masses
    Haw haw haw they used to wipe their own asses
    And look at this dude tryin’ to boil his own eggs
    Man those humans was on their last legs

    Watched jocks and the hippies share a kegger
    And give free oysters to the local beggar
    I’ve seen this all with my very own eyes
    Man these humans they take the fuckin’ prize

    and the sneerbot said
    Haw haw haw they used to wipe their own asses
    Haw haw haw they used to wipe their own asses
    Haw haw haw they used to wipe their own asses
    Haw haw haw they used to wipe their own asses

    Beware The Rolling Logs  (2017ish)

    We’re rolling logs
    He lets me pet his frog
    I use his cancer-smelling dog
    We’re gonna shoot P.J. O’Rourke

    Beware of spiritual babes who worship Hindus named Craig
    Beware of racist grifters playing for political gain
    Beware of every belief or of even giving relief
    Beware of Einsturzende Neubauten as much as Judas Priest

    We’re rolling logs
    He lets me pet his frog
    I use his cancer smelling dog
    We shot P.J. O’Rourke

    Beware of eating bad things that turn out to be good
    Beware of stuff that’s good for you that isn’t even food
    Beware of arguing with people who quote Michel Foucault
    Beware of garbage etymologists trying to steal all your faults

    We’re rolling logs
    He lets me pet his frog
    I use his cancer smelling dog
    We didn’t shoot P.J. O’Rourke

     (rhythm change)
    When the world is almost over
    I’m gonna be that fat lady who sings
    So much to do in-between
    Get big tits – record some hits
    Maybe get married to Sting

    How To Explain The Details

    He took wheels made of concrete, tied them to a dead ox
    Then put a boy who had both measles and the mumps on top
    Boiled some tea using cadmium and rotted melon
    And to guard it all he bought a matching set of escaped felons

    At the opening with Jeff Koons Hirst and Emin
    Drinking Pernod and passing out buttered pillow trim
    Laughing vigorously at all of Emin’s cynical jokes
    When the testicles of Valentino emerged from out my throat

    What to do then how to explain the details?
    It was that trip to Spain where I came upon some entrails
    They weren’t testicular damned I cried in my defense
    The artist just laughed at me and said this chokes at your expense

    And that’s how I learned the ways of sensual martyrs
    Not from some blue hair punkette in Stiv Bators dog collar
    It took a friendly tea of cadmium and some melon stink
    And something about Jeff Koons that made me want to go to sleep

    Vertigo & World War 3 (2022)

    With no fucks left to give
    We fell into the abyss
    And kept falling & falling falling endlessly
    Vertigo and World War Three

    And the gods said…
    We gave them the pandemic
    We sent some great floods
    Australia was pretty much on fire
    We got them to accept eating bugs
    But World War 3 is gonna be big
    Fry the trees and roast the pigs
    And here’s the hilarious kicker
    We’ll call the newsman Wolf Blitzer

    Yes all the gods laughed and laughed
    “Oh man that’s just way to crass”
    Let’s get this thing movin’
    Get around to shootin’ Putin
    And America all rootin’ tootin’
    Will probably give the final bruisin’
    Drop the big one like once before
    Melt the earth down to its core
    What do you think the money was for?

    Ain’t no micro-aggression
    Get over yourself
    No cure for depression
    There’s nukes on that shelf
    No contested election
    No stories to tell
    Death in every direction
    Yes this is hell

    Have a Dramamine
    Have a wacky dream
    Have a widespread illness
    Take some time for silliness
    Before world war three
    Before world war three
    This ain’t the space age
    We ain’t here to go
    Vertigo

    Don’t you know the way?
    Just say Namaste
    But don’t say gay
    Watch those assholes pray
    Before world war three
    Before world war three
    This ain’t the space age
    We ain’t here to go

    Ignore  (2020)

    Ignore
    Out of boredom or torpor
    The trending thing is so soporific
    & your beauty & the moonlight is so terrific
    So ignore

    Ignore
    Every Marie Kondo urging you pep talk
    Every ugly rumor about Johnny Depp
    Just ignore

    & when you’re stuck in traffic
    Some MAGA wearing a leather jacket
    Some argument that trades logic for static
    Ignore

    And if everybody else lost the plot
    & you ask are they really alive or not
    Just lay yourself down on the cot
    Have some whiskey & a little pot
    & ignore

  • Head in the clouds, boots on the ground.

    Self-hosted infrastructure is the first step toward voluntary apotheosis.

    –Unknown

    When people think of The Cloud(tm), they think of ubiquitous computing. Whatever you need, whenever you need it’s there from the convenience of your mobile, from search engines to storage to chat.  However, as the latest Amazon and Cloudflare outages have demonstrated all it takes is a single glitch to knock out half the Internet as we know it. 

    This is, as they say, utter bollocks.  Much of the modern world spent a perfectly good day that could have been spent procrastinating, shitposting, and occasionally doing something productive bereft of Slack, Twitter, Autodesk, Roku, and phone service through Vonage.  While thinking about this fragile state of affairs in the shower this morning I realized that, for the somewhat technically inclined and their respective cohorts there are ways to mitigate the risks of letting other people run stuff you need every day.  Let us consider the humble single board computer, computing devices the size of two decks of cards at most, a €1 coin at the very least.  While this probably won’t help you keep earning a paycheque it would help you worry less about the next time Amazon decides to fall on its face.

    (more…)

  • To Mainline the Pure Dope of Illuminatus!

    An Interview with Illuminatus TV Showrunner Brian Taylor

     

    by Prop Anon

     

     

    In December 2019, Deadline announced that Illuminatus!, the legendary underground novel, was on its way to becoming a tv show with Brian Taylor, writer/director of the movies Crank, Gamer, Mom and Dad, and the tv shows Happy! and Brave New World, slotted as the showrunner.  

    Like Wilson, Taylor has taken risks with his craft. Whether it was developing “the Rollercam,” an innovative camera technique used to film Crank with his creative partner Mark Neveldine, or beta-testing the Sony RED camera while filming the underrated sci-fi gem Gamer, Taylor welcomes the inclusion of what Discordians call “the random factor.”

    Wilson would give props to the risks Taylor has taken. Choosing to be the showrunner of a story with as labyrinthine a plot structure as Illuminatus! may be Taylor’s biggest risk of all!

    (more…)

  • Grant Morrison Surveys the Situation In “The Age of Horus”

     

    Interview by Prop Anon

    For those familiar with Mondo2000.com, Grant Morrison needs no introduction. Over the course of his long career, Morrison, and his generation of punk rock warlords, busted through the doors of the lagging comics industry — sorely in need of some power chord clarity and imaginative story lines — and proceeded to take readers on new paths of literary discovery. Morrison’s genius use of tropes, his subversions and inversion of same, are so much fun to read. It’s all there, the light and the dark.

    Times are dark. Since the last time I interviewed Morrison, in 2017, Trump and his idiotic minions have rolled out the red carpet for the angel of death. Morrison knows what’s at stake. However, don’t ask him for specific details about the daily plays of politricks. There is little need. The ebullient Scotsman continues to trek the antipodes of the mind, dropping gems and jewels like Chester Copperpot (from The Goonies), educating readers how to vibe right and live like rock stars during a possible apocalypse.

    In this interview we discuss his newest television show Brave New World which features an Artificial Intelligence, named Indra, that feeds on human brains to survive. Morrison also provides an update on the progress on his The Invisibles tv show, as well as his insights into Robert Anton Wilson, magick, the Aeon of Ma’at.

    Enjoy!

    (more…)

  • Help Chelsea Raise Funds To Resist A Grand Jury Subpoena

    Donate to her legal fund here. Statement from the Chelsea Resists Support Committee

     

    Latest update March 5, 2019:

    The Chelsea Resist committee has started a website where you can get more tools to help spread the word.

    From the Chelsea Resists Legal Fund page:

    Chelsea Manning has been summoned to appear and give testimony before a federal grand jury. While the exact nature of the grand jury is unknown, signs indicate it is related to her 2010 disclosures of information about the nature of asymmetric warfare to the public. Following in the footsteps of scores of other activists, Chelsea is challenging the grand jury subpoena, and therefore risks being placed in jail for for up to 18 months if she is found “in contempt” of court.

    Chelsea risked so much for public good, and has been through a lot of hardship. Let’s show her solidarity together and let the State know their punitive harassment won’t be tolerated.

    What are grand juries?

    Grand juries are used to establish “probable cause” that a felony offense has been committed. Prosecutors run the proceedings behind closed doors, without a judge or defense attorney present. Basically, the whole process is rigged to favor indictment of the individual accused of a crime. They have also been used historically to oppress and frighten targeted groups, in particular, people perceived as dissidents and activists.

    Why Resist a grand jury?

    Due to their secretive nature and limitless subpoena power, the government has utilized grand jury processes as tools for garnering information about movements by questioning witnesses behind closed doors. Since testimony before grand juries is secret, grand juries can create fear by suggesting that some members of a political community may be secretly cooperating with the government. In this way, grand juries can seed suspicion and fear in activist communities.

    From the Chelsea Resists support committee statement:

    Since her release in 2017, Chelsea has become a prominent public speaker, emboldening countless activists who resist fascism, white supremacy, and transphobic bigotry.

    (more…)

  • A Conversation with Projekt Seahorse a.k.a. Aaron Moun10

    Projekt Seahorse will be performing at the next Raw Thought at the DNA Lounge from 9pm-2am on March 8th!

    Dance, play with robots, watch a beautiful shamanic dancer perform (Lael Marie) or just chill in artist Grumpy Green’s super special Psychedelic Chill Room (an immersive art installation).

    DJs include: Melotronix, Tha Spyryt, Ailz, & Cain MacWitish – with visuals by Projekt Seahorse and shamanic dance by Lael Marie – all at our March 8th Raw Thought at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco! TICKETS

    Watch a highlight clip of Projekt Seahorse performing with Raw Thought DJ Tha Spyryt.

    By Lisa Rein

    The Edirol V-4

    Projekt Seahorse a.k.a. Aaron Moun10 is known for his analog mixed-media art, which he performs live in real time. We interviewed him about his techniques and process in creating his real time masterpieces.

    Lisa Rein: So how do you make your visuals? Is everything analog? Are there any digital components? How does it work?

    Projekt Seahorse: I’m like a live band. I’m running everything from 4-6 different VHS players and two DVD players and two laptops, all into a video mixer, and then I’m sequencing all of it live.

    LR: So your using that old video mixer?

    PS: Yes I’m mixing it all live to the energy of whatever music artist I’m working with.

    LR: So it’s still analog mixing then, when you are using that video mixing board?

    PS: Yes. Analog mixing in real time.

    LR: Neato. What kind of video mixing board is it?

    PS: Well, right now I’m using an Edirol V-4. But normally, what I’m used to using is this old Panasonic from like 1982. It’s called the “MX 50” – and this is how ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN all used to edit their videos. Before digital came in.

    A Panasonic MX 50A

    PS: So, I coordinate and sequence everything in a live atmosphere.

    LR: How do the laptops fit in then? I see them there as you are working.

    PS: I use a 2006 or 2007 Dell, which is actually the first laptop that I’ve ever owned. I still use that. It’s only ever been online like two or three times so it still works great. That runs like the very first version of Resolume on it. And then I also run this 2013 Macbook Air. That’s just begging to be put down – but I can’t put it to rest yet.

    LR: Are there some digital clips that you are running from the computer? What’s the computer doing then, if you’re doing all of the mixing with the video mixer?

    PS: I’ll use this software called “Arena.” And then a I have a bunch of clips stored on my computer. Some of them are VHS clips and some of them are digital clips.

    LR: So, these are good clips that are good to mix in with everything. As opposed to clips you que up on VHS or DVD? So there ARE some digital clips. But they are still being mixed in with the analog mixer.

    PS: The digital portions appease promoters. If it were up to me I wouldn’t use them at all.

    LR: Are you saying the computers are partly for show? Because people freak out when there’s no computer?

    PS: Affirmative.

    LR: And that is still analog output to the projector, right? From the mixer – even if you are blending in digital sources?

    PS: From the computer to my mixer is digital to analog conversion. And then, from the mixer – coming out of the mixer, I go analog back to digital. (Since the projectors prefer digital input.)

    Shamanic Dancer Lael Marie dances as Projekt Seahorse immerses her in his video art projection. (Click to see a short video 🙂

    LR: So Lael Marie will be performing with you for the first time at our Raw Thought show on March 11. I’ve seen you guys perform together during a practice session and she’s absolutely amazing; and the two of you together are quite impressive. How did you ever find her?

    PS: We met at a party and she’s always looking for new progressive projects and events where she can dance, so I told her about Raw Thought.

    LR: Yes she mentioned she was always looking for interesting collaborations, and said this was a dream come true for her, as she had been looking for a projectionist to collaborate with for a while. (I’ll have an interview with her up later this week!)

    PS: Werd.

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  • The President Addresses The Nation

    The President Addresses The Nation

    R.U. Sirius January 8, 2019

    I see them all lined up at the border
    killers, gangsters, rapists…

    Ravers with drugs
    Bugs with diseases
    Mr. Freeze
    Chupacabra
    Old Sandinistas
    Bolton just told me there’s Zapatistas
    Angry strippers who use the name Rita
    Members of ISIS carrying Pita

    vampire bats
    gals wearing pussy hats
    Soros’s minions of liberal fat cats
    Knee takers carrying baseball bats

    Masked Antifas throwing rocks
    Vicente Fox
    Honduran children with chicken pox

    IRS agents have joined the throng
    Octavio Paz arm-in-arm
    With Robert de Niro and Erica Jong
    Mueller supporters who know I’ve done wrong
    Emiliano Zapata on the back of King Kong
    Streisand singing that stupid song

    Hillary Clinton is down there too
    Professor Chomsky and his radical jews
    Even the truthers are turning on me
    Why can’t I just make a decree
    This is a national emergency

    Yes there are monsters south of our border
    I need a wall against this disorder
    Dictator or prison – that’s how I see it
    Yes it’s an emergency soon I will decree it

  • ASD PSP Update: What We Know About Law Enforcement Use of Facial Recognition Software with Body Cameras – Including Amazon’s “Rekognition”

    An Interview with Tracy Rosenberg (Executive Director, Media Alliance & Co-coordinator, Oakland Privacy.org)

    By Lisa Rein & Tracy Rosenberg of the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project

    New! We’ve just updated our Muckrock Templates for Filing Requests re: Surveillance Equipment.) Use these handy templates to request information on the existence of any and every known piece of surveillance equipment. Works for Police (city) AND Sheriff (county).

    Tracy Rosenberg & Lisa Rein will be discussing the Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project, its templates, latest results from Sacramento & many other cities in California at this month’s Raw Thought Salon on March 8th – from 7-9pm.

    Then stay from 9pm-2am to dance and hang out in artist Grumpy Green’s super special Psychedelic Chill Room (an immersive art installation). DJs include: Melotronix, Tha Spyryt, Ailz, & Cain MacWitish – with visuals by Projekt Seahorse – all at our March 8th Raw Thought at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco! TICKETS

    Facial recognition software allows cops to feed in images of people and look them up in real time. For instance at a protest or any kind of public gathering. One of the new planned technical innovations is to put the software onto the body cameras many police now carry, turning cops into walking facial recognition programs.

    Tracy Rosenberg holds up a sign at the T-Mobile/Sprint merger protest in Fresno, California, on January 15, 2019.

    Lisa Rein: Hi Tracy! Thanks for helping me give folks an update about what we know now about facial recognition.

    Tracy Rosenberg: No problem.

    LR: So, you were telling me that, currently, to your knowledge, no city has yet to put body cameras with facial rec out on “the street?”

    TR: That’s right. So far, it’s just an idea being talked about and explored. As with much of law enforcement use of facial recognition software, it is isolated and spotty, but we are seeing more and more. The threat is very real.

    For body cameras carrying the software, there is no police department yet doing it. However, Axon-Taser, which dominates the police body camera market after acquiring their primary competitor VieVu last year, says they are exploring and proactively put in place a new corporate ethics board in the hopes of stemming the expected public uproar.

    http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/If-Facial-Recognition-Comes-to-Body-Cameras-How-Will-Government-Respond.html

    And when SF-based Assembly member Phil Ting tried to include a ban on facial recognition software being attached to police body cameras in his legislation (AB748) to make body camera videos available as public records, law enforcement fought very hard and was eventually able to force the removal of that clause from what eventually became law. That was virtually unreported by the press in their coverage of the law and it was a big deal.

    The most prominent facial recognition software producer, of course, is Amazon with their “Rekognition” product, which they have been shopping around to municipal police departments and to ICE. A public records act request by the ACLU revealed that two police departments were takers, the Orlando PD and the Washington County Sheriffs Department in Oregon.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/05/22/amazon-is-selling-facial-recognition-to-law-enforcement-for-a-fistful-of-dollars/?utm_term=.444adcfbb642

    Both are engaged in “pilot projects” (as is also the case in Alameda which we’ll discuss below).

    Orlando paused their pilot program briefly in response to public scrutiny, but has now started it up again.

    https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2018/10/18/city-of-orlando-launches-second-test-of-amazons-facial-recognition-software

    LR: What other implementations are on the horizon in the facial recognition space?

    (more…)

  • Interview with Raw Thought Artist Grumpy Green About Their Life, Love & Art

    Come to Raw Thought on March 8th (from 9pm-2am) & see Grumpy Green’s super special Psychedelic Chill Room (an immersive space for both dancing & chilling).

    DJs include: Melotronix, Tha Spyryt, Ailz, & Cain MacWitish – with visuals by Projekt Seahorse – all at our March 8th Raw Thought at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco! TICKETS

    By Lisa Rein

    As we begin the interview, Grumpy’s cat, “Freddie Mercury” knocks over some brushes in water in a water bottle all over a piece of beautiful artwork sitting on the living room table.

    “It’s okay,” Grumpy says. “I’ve already scanned it.”

    Aha! Great opportunity for me: “Hey if that’s garbage to you now would you please sign it and give it to me?” They promise to sign it and let me take it with me. It’s the creature in black, above, at the beginning of this article.)

    Lisa Rein: So tell me about your radio show.

    Grumpy Green: It’s on S.P.A.Z. radio.

    LR: That’s an Internet Station?

    GG: Yeah it’s on SPAZ.org, it’s an anarchist collective and they stream radio from Guadalajara, from Portland, from Amsterdam, and from all over the world. Every broadcast comes from a different location. It’s also available via pirate radio in San Francisco, but not yet in Oakland. (Coming soon.) In San Francisco it’s at 103.5.

    LR: Awesome. And this will be your first show this Sunday?

    GG: Yes! Our show is called #LiveAmmunition and it’s every Sunday from 2pm to 5pm.

    LR: Are your shows recorded if folks miss the live ones?

    GG: Yes. The next day, at 8am in the archives. (Link to Sunday, Jan 6, 2019 show)

    LR: Great! I will link to it!

    GG: It’s me (Grumpy) my other friend Traveiza and our other friend Chi Hai. They are all DJs and really incredible artists, and we all bring a little bit different flavor to club music.

    We started recently, just in the underground music scene, playing shows together. And we started tag teaming DJ sets. Like we’ll do back to back and each do two songs. We started doing it just for fun a few months ago and we just all worked so well together. This opportunity came up to do the radio show and we decided to do it altogether, and bring on local queer and trans and really give a platform to the Oakland underground scene, specifically the queer underground scene.

     

    LR: Is there an instagram just for the show?

    GG: Yes. It’s just the name of our show is “@LiveAmmunition” We also do an advice segment for people that wanna call in.

    LR: How did you come up with “Grumpy Green?”

    GG: Well my last name is “Green.” And “Grumpy” is something that my ex-partner – I guess my first real relationship – they would always call me “Grumpy,” but as a way to kind of point out when my mental illness was acting up. Because I have Borderline Personality Disorder and I have really intense mood swings, which is why I smoke so much weed, because it really helps me stay like baseline. Otherwise I feel like 50 things a day and I’ll be like crying and then I’ll be like “ha ha ha ha” – just like really crazy. But we would fight a lot, and whenever I’d get upset he would try to be like “da da da, you’re being Grumpy.”

    And a while after we broke up and decided I didn’t want to go by my birth name any more, and it started out just for my art. But I don’t go by my birth name ever ever now. Because I feel very dysphoric about it. So it started out as just like a pseudonym for my artwork, but it was sort of a reclamation and acknowledgement of my mood disorder and mental illness, but being like “I’m fucked up, but that is beautiful.”

    From “Lucid Dreams”

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  • Cindy Cohn & Cory Doctorow & Annalee Newitz Discuss “The End of Trust”

    (Left to Right) Annalee Newitz, Cory Doctorow, Cindy Cohn.

    By Lisa Rein.

    Video: YouTube – Internet Archive

    Audio: Internet Archive

    I was lucky enough to get a last minute ticket to see Annalee Newitz interview Cory Doctorow (Science Fiction Author, BoingBoing, Special Advisor for the EFF) and Cindy Cohn (Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation) a few weeks ago in the SF mission to promote McSweeney’s new “The End of Trust” publication – which is now available for pre-order.

    Annalee Newitz: “When discussing Social Justice Issues, Corporate Malfesence, The Government Breaking the Law to Look Into Our Private Lives, and I know that at EFF, one of the main responses to these kinds of problems has been litigation. It has been to go to the courts. And I’m curious to hear why you think that is a good tactic because we have many tactics at our disposal. There’s direct action. There’s calling our congress critters. There’s all sorts of ways that we can influence the political process. So, why the law. Why the courts? And how can ordinary people participate?”

    Cindy Cohn: “The first reason is that there’s a fundamental constitutional question at the centerpiece regarding how we are going to interact with our technology, that can make all the other questions easier.

    The second reason is that all of the direct actions that you might want to take in order to exercise your self-governance and have your voice heard, requires some kind of legal protection, right? And when we talk about “direct action,” the reason that you can do direct action and not end up with a very long jail sentence is because, in the United States, compared to other places around the world, is because the Constitution says you can. All the hackers who EFF represents, who tell us all the things about the security problems and the surveillance – if we don’t get the law right, they’re not going to be able to do that. So, I often say that about EFF that we’re kind of the plumbers of freedom. We’re trying to get the obstacles out of the way, so that all the other things you can do to exercise your rights in the digital world can really flow freely.

    And so, I think for both of those reasons, EFF was grounded in the law. But also, at this point, we build technology. We have an action center. We support a lot of people that do a lot of direct action. We support a lot of people that need to protect themselves, that do direct action, and all sorts of other things. So although we are firmly grounded in the law, and that’s my background, the organization has really trying to grown to build a lot of different tools in our toolbox to deal with these problems.

    Cory Doctorow: “Yeah. I think it’s easy to forget just how powerful states are. They have a lot of resources. And in a fight where you are trying to say, use cryptography to be free, in a state that is illegitimate. You have to use cryptography and the privacy tools associated with it absolutely perfectly, as do, everyone you communicate with, and never make a mistake.

    And when you get tired or distracted, you don’t get to call in another you to spell you off and manage your operational security for you. While you’re distracted or taking care of your kids or dealing with the flu. And your adversary from the state, has three shifts of people that can watch you. Right? And when one of them gets a little tired, and gets screen burn and needs to take 15 minutes off to go to the bathroom, they can swap someone else in.

    So in the long run, your ability to use cryptographic tools to defend yourself against an illegitimate state. You’ll always lose, right? Because you need to make one mistake. They have to find one mistake you made. They get to make lots of mistakes provided they can still catch that one mistake you made. And then they get to roll up you and all your friends and take you to jail and torture you and so on.

    And so, without a legitimate state, the utility of cryptography is to allow you to just have a space in which you can organize to make your state legitimate. But unless you can attain that kind of democratic accountability. Unless you can attain that kind of legitimacy, you’re always gonna lose…

    Larry Lessig, take a drink (audience laughs), is one of the great cyber lawyers, and he devised all the areas in which we can act to change the world into four categories. Four directions. We can do code. We can do law. We can do norms, and we can do markets. And they all feed back into each other. And EFF does all of these things. We sometimes advise businesses who are building up stakeholders for good policy. We sometimes do activist intervention where we try to convince people that they should expect more and demand better.

    Link to the Book Excerpt in Wired by Bruce Schneier – “Surveillance Kills Freedom By Killing Experimentation” by Bruce Schneier. From the upcoming “The End of Trust” – now available for pre-order here.

    Here is a complete list of authors:

    Edward Snowden
    Jenna Wortham
    Cindy Cohn
    Sara Wachter-Boettcher
    Cory Doctorow
    Reyhan Harmanci
    Hamid Khan
    Ken Montenegro
    Myke Cole
    Ethan Zuckerman
    Elizabeth Stix
    Ben Wizner
    Malkia Cyril
    Jennifer Kabat
    Alvaro Bedoya
    Gabriella Coleman
    Camille Fassett
    Virginia Eubanks
    Jacob Silverman
    Julia Angwin
    Trevor Paglen
    Soraya Okuda
    Thenmozhi Soundararajan
    Douglas Rushkoff
    Bruce Schneier
    Dave Maass
    Madeline Ashby
    Edward F. Loomis
    Jenny Odell
    Carson Mell
    Chelsea Hogue
    Joanna Howard

     

    (Left to Right) Annalee Newitz, Cory Doctorow, Cindy Cohn.