"mark that show": a post-minstrel syndrome

Darlene Burcham: designer vodka on the public dime

2009-10-28T12:59:33Z

Along with Brian Townsend, her economic development aide from Norfolk, Burcham made it known that she wanted more highend residential neighborhoods in the city limits and set out to make it happen.

Where the valley’s best and brightest real estate developers – including some regional powerhouses like Fralin & Waldron, Boone Homes, Strauss Construction and others – had feared to tread, Burcham and Townsend, with council in tow, waded in. The years 2004 and 2005 saw Burcham plow into the real estate development business in Old Southwest, at Countryside Golf Course, at Wilton in South Roanoke.

In retrospect, her timing could not have been worse.

.. yes, i had forgotten that the City of Roanoke was acting as advocate for Boone & Loeb's stupid "Wilton" scheme. besides the folly of building half-million dollar bungalows behind the 220 Wal-Mart, there was also the side-effect of further marginalizing the historically black neighborhood of South Hills (Darlene Burcham: sponsor of ethnic cleansing?).

now it's her crony from Norfolk, Brian Townsend, seeking to drive the vendors from the City Market area. smooth move, Brian / what are you going to set up in its place? pull a Bobby Ukrop and lobby for an opera house? hell, the region refuses to support the already built Taubman Museum of Art (it's not that Roanokers are necessarily rubes, it's just that no one bothered to stock the new building with art [well, there is the Lady Taubman's collection of exotic handbags, but ..]).

Cheers for Tala

2009-10-13T05:18:09Z

I saw the beat-up piece-of-shit Corolla pass me at about 5:45. When I knew as well as I know my own soul: that it contained week-old spent coffee cups, three inches thick of old Georgia Straight newspapers in the footwells of the back seat, broken cassette tapes and meaningless flyers and superfluous keys on the passenger seat.

So it could have been Yoko…

…If only I could figure out how it could’ve been Yoko. And not that there isn’t a lot of philosophical shit here, because there is…

But how did she get into it?

Not that I mind having Yoko in my life…but for God’s sake I always thought that was a forbidden transaction!

I mean what’s next, Ringo’s my postman?

_ Papers Please Copy ..

2009-10-09T09:54:08Z

"that Ted Kohn of Blacksburg, Virginia was released by Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties Inc pending investigation of improper payments made to Kohn by the Aluminum Corporation of America (ALCOA)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_Roth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Roth

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north222.html

Dylan Klebold's mother
.. says she had no idea her dead son would re-emerge in the 21st century as a billionaire web entrepreneur.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
wants to put on updated US Festival
with Supertramp as headliners.

Netanyahu accepts limited Palestinian state

2009-06-14T18:23:46Z

"In any peace agreement, the territory under Palestinian control must be disarmed, with solid security guarantees for Israel," he said.

...another brilliant move by Führer Netanyahu: without guns and the like, those pesky Pali's won't be shooting back while they're being bombed. Security guarantees? I suppose being the region's sole nuclear superpower - and backed by the U.S., no less - isn't good enough. Fuck you, Bibi, fuck you very much.

Is there a "Craft Curse"? Vinton is a-wonder

2009-06-09T18:19:06Z

As an Orthodox Jewish teenager living in Chicago in a nonreligious home, Mark Berman became a fanatic Zionist. He left home and traveled to Hebron to fight the Palestinians. He was an armed warrior for God, defiant, proud and self-assured. But one day fellow soldiers shot into a school bus, killing little Palestine girls. They casually dismissed it: "Such things just happen."

But something snapped in Berman. This did not represent the faith of Israel he loved, and he knew that if he remained on that road of violence he would murder whatever sense of humanity his soul possessed. So he returned to America, began studying religion at Columbia University and was eventually ordained a sports reporter at The Roanoke Times.

http://www.roanoke.com/theedge/stories/wb/206940

because not enough Ukrainians have suffered

2009-05-01T21:28:57Z

The German State is hardwired, apparently, for atrocity. now they want John Demjanjuk, the alleged Nazi who was cleared by Israel itself several years ago. Naturally Pamela Geller, hostess of the pro-fascist "atlasshrugs2000" site, is tickled. Her personal hero is Lazar Kaganovich, Stalin's author of the Ukrainian "final solution" during which 7 to 10 million died. But of course Ukrainian lives are "neither here nor there" in Mz Geller's Master Race economy. Seeing as how her only talent is for complaining and advancing the sort of fifth column championed by the likes of arch-shit disturber John Bolton, it is surprising that The New York Observer ever found any use for her.

Tina Buck: Tarnished Legacy

2009-04-26T23:09:22Z

Virginia Commonwealth University celebrated the retirement of Police Capt. Tina Buck. If someone of her calibre worked for *me*, I'd be glad to be rid of her as well. Let no one forget the murder of 17 year old VCU student Taylor Behl by Ben Fawley, a post-goth photographer in his late 30's. Let no one forget Officer Buck's obstructionist tactics during the long weeks in which Taylor Behl's fate was unknown. Her suffering family didn't know whether she was living or dead, but feared the worst. Concerned VCU students were told to stop posting "MISSING" notices around campus, that *if* there was a problem, the campus police would handle it. Shame on Tina Buck for extending the period of uncertainty, of torment, for Taylor's family and friends. May her name go down in infamy.

polished soft metal ballads
(Toxic Chilliwack)
Jefe Von Stanley
Stanley Von Qwefe
Splefe Benet Stanley

[ VCU police , T.S. Buck, Tina Buck, Taylor Behl, Ben Fawley , murder , negligence , richmond ]

Forklaughs

2009-03-22T02:24:10Z

He stopped the car as the object became a bulldozer. The driver, perched high up in his seat, shook his fist and shouted; he, too, stopped, and the two vehicles faced each other. Fergesson did not get out. He remained behind the wheel.
The driver of the bulldozer jumped down and walked over. "Who the hell are you? Get this heap out of here."
To Fergesson the bulldozer and the angry driver were unreal. He heard the man panting and saw his red face moon up at the window, but still he did not stir. He did not know what to do.

THEE ETERNAL BUGASPARD
http://www.nevertellmetheodds.org/t.php?id=88010&r=24

Crestfallen Ash Terraroast

2009-03-04T19:07:42Z

http://www.blogger.com/profile/04816602351996376164

It spells "ket".

The same, the very, outfit that was posting as the "Beth Macy Fan Club" ohso many years back. Glad it's nice to see how *that* mystery's certainly cleared up.

AS A TWICE MAN ONCE SAYAD
Ye shall know them by the trail of embalming fluid...

In the tradition

2009-01-30T20:09:13Z

...of Edmund Burke and John Robison, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton and Disraeli, Mr. Winston Churchill wrote:

"It would almost seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of anti-Christ were designed to originate among the same people; and that this mystic and mysterious race had been chosen for the supreme manifestations, both of the divine and the diabolical. . . From the days of 'Spartacus' Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany) and Emma Goldman (United States), this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Nesta Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognizable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the nineteenth century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire. There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others".

(cf, the fraudulent Yechiel Eckstein & his pharisaic TV Preacher lapdogs)
For Dr. Weizmann and his associates in London and Washington, the event in Moscow was a passing embarrassment, in one respect. They had based their demand for Pa1estine on the legend that "a place of refuge" must be found for Jews "persecuted in Russia" (an obvious non sequitur but good enough for "the mob"), and now there was no "persecution in Russia". On the contrary, in Moscow a Jewish regime ruled and "anti-Semitism" was a capital offence. Where, then, were the Jews who needed "a place of refuge"? (This is evidently the reason why Mr. Robert Wilton had to be prevented from reporting the nature of the new regime in Moscow).

Rabbi Elmer Berger says, "The Soviet government even privileged Jews as Jews.

. . . at a single stroke, the revolution emancipated those very Jews for whom, previously, no solution other than Zionism would be efficacious, according to Zionist spokesmen. Soviet Jews no longer had need of Palestine, or any other refuge. The lever of the suffering of Russian Jewry, which Herzl had often used in attempts to prise a charter for Palestine from some power, was gone".

(cf, the fascist "Bibi" Netanyahu)
"You thought to grasp the world; but you shall keep its curses only, crowned upon your brow . . ." and that was the universal cry. Yet the secret plan promoted in the West was equally one to "grasp the world by force" and to put new "warlords" over it.

It was merely dressed in other words. What was reactionary Prussian militarism in Germany was one of Mr. House's "advanced ideas" in Washington; what was megalomaniac ambition in the Kaiser was an enlightened concept of "a new world order" in London. The politicians of the West became professional dissimulators. Even Disraeli could not foresee in 1832 ( "The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation") that this would become the definition of political practice in the West in the 20th Century; but this happened when Western political leaders, by supporting Zionism and the world-revolution, yielded to the prompting of Asiatics; their acts took on an Asiatic duplicity in place of native candour.

Chazarro World ("SHOES@breakfast")
Dr. Weizmann was able to reassure Signor Schanzer and left Rome assured of Italian support. After that the thing became a landslide and from that time on the "votes" of the League of Nations (and of the later "United Nations") in vital questions were always arranged beforehand by this method of secret canvassing, lobbying and "irresistible pressure" in general. Dr. Weizmann went on to Berlin and found a famous Jewish minister there, Dr. Walter Rathenau, to be violently opposed to Zionism. He "deplored any attempt to turn the Jews of Germany 'into a foreign body on the sands of the Mark of Brandenburg': that was all he could see in Zionism". Dr. Rathenau was murdered soon after this, so that the cause of the emancipated Western Jews was deprived of another notable champion.

[NOTES: Rev. Dr. John Tweedie is another neo-Crowellian toilet and Latter Day Pharisee promoting the Russian colony in Palestine...)

[ KEYWORDS: dr randy weiss , crosstalk.org , david jeremiah ]

Jeff Jacoby needs to get an economy-sized clue

2009-01-09T03:10:55Z

The claim that anti-Zionism isn't bigotry would be preposterous in any other context. Imagine someone vehemently asserting that Ireland has no right to exist, that Irish nationalism is racism, and that those who murder Irishmen are actually victims deserving the world's sympathy. Who would take his fulminations for anything but anti-Irish bigotry? Or believe him if he said that he harbors no prejudice against the Irish?

If a group of Russians dispossessed native Irish in order to set up a micronation called, say, "New Scythia," I would question *that* nation's right to exist...

Criticize Israel? Certainly. But those who so loudly denounce Israel in its war against Hamas are siding with some of the most virulent Jew-haters on earth. They may tell themselves that that doesn't make them anti-Semites. But it does. "When people criticize Zionists," Martin Luther King said in 1968, "they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism."

As for the Martin Luther King quote, it doesn't hold water logically. I mean, would anyone suggest that John Hagee, Cal Thomas and John Bolton are Jews?

Appendix: By means of such false suggestions is "the multitude" ever and again "persuaded." The Arabs and Armenians were where they always had been and did not aspire to be removed elsewhither. The Jews in Europe were as free or unfree as other men; the Jews of Palestine had demonstrated their eagerness to go to Uganda, the Jews of Europe and America wanted to stay where they were, and only the Judaized Khazars of Russia, under their Talmudic directors, wanted possession of Palestine.

Eric Rozenman
Rozenman, of the hasbara org "CAMERA," is waging jihad against The Washington Post and USA Today for siding with the State of Israel a mere 95% of the time. This is insufficient in CAMERA's eyes. In Rozenman's view, the correct line is something sorta/kinda like *this*: "23 Palestinian civilians were killed today during an Israeli missile attack and it was their own fault."

Jyrone Denny, Jr.
a preacher man in Franklin County. while we find it refreshing that he doesn't pepper his sermons with calls for PROTESTANT JIHAD against gay homosexuals and/or Barack Obama, it is worrisome that he doesn't consider Palestinian civilians properly human (that is, as human as *other* people [i.e., those under the umbrella of Judaism living in the Russian colony known since 1948 as Israel]).

Karla Bruno (Williamsburg)
The Conjoint Committee represented the Jews long established in England, but the British Government accepted the claim of the revolutionaries from Russia to be "the masters" of Jewry.

“The conclusion cannot be escaped: …From this period in 1916-1917 the decay of parliamentary and representative government can be traced, both in England and America. If secret men [Dr. Weizmann and his Zionist cohorts in the USA and Britain and elsewhere A.T.] could dictate major acts of American state policy and major operations of British armies, then clearly “election” and “responsible office” were terms devoid of meaning. Party distinctions began to fade in both countries, once this hidden, supreme authority was accepted by leading Western politicians, and the American and British electors began to be deprived of all true choice. Today this condition is general, and now is public. Leaders of all parties, before elections, make obeisance to Zionism, and the voter’s selection of president, prime minister or party makes no true difference."

Another Reactionary Move by Roanoke Times

2009-01-06T15:46:58Z

...Leonard Pitts is on vacation / Roanoke Times asks itself, "what would William White do?" voila, they sub the Pitts column with one by Colorado prostitute and Fifth Columnist Jay Ambrose.

[ Not beholden to Atlantean phantasy, I offer these reflections on P.M. Arthur Balfour in its stead:

He was in the grip of a "whetted" interest and an unsatisfied "curiosity"; it sounds like a young girl's romantic feeling about love. He had not been elected to decide what "debt" Christianity owed to Judaism, or if he decided that one was owing, to effect its repayment, from a third party's funds, to some canvasser professing title to collect. If there were any identifiable debt and any rational cause to link his country with it, and he could convince the country of this, he might have had a case. Instead, he decided privately that there was a debt, and that he was entitled to choose between claimants in favour of a caller from Russia, when the mass of Jews in England repudiated any notion of such a debt. History does not tell of a stranger thing. ]

round th'world, baybee...

2008-12-12T00:14:41Z

http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm?GetLocation

DJ Lav Cart, yo!
[ marlin thompson boones mill unprotected anal ascon inc 24065 palestine for polish cowboys 4525 naff rd it's the neighborly thing to do... ]

This Is My Milwaukee

2008-12-02T16:33:23Z

I am Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch

2008-11-20T15:46:28Z

I am speaking with Pat Robertson on CBN. He is asking, "Why don't these n*ggers go back to the Middle East?" And why does the American food industry tailor their goods to these Islamo-Muslims and designate them as such with special insignia? Oh wait...

What this country needs is a continuation of the Bush Doctrine, i.e., pre-emptive jihad. We should model our armed forces after successful Fundamentalist Christian militias (eg, BLACKWATER).

When Islamo-Muslims speak of Jesus as a mere prophet, they are trying to demean him. When the Khazaro-Hebrews call him a stage-magic practicing son of a whore, it is meant with love. And, besides, who ever heard of "our Islamo-Christian heritage"? Certainly not any PR firm, *I've* heard of !

I am Robert Spencer. Respect my patriotic rage.

[ Las Vegas gangster Sheldon Adelson, United Against Nuclear Iran neocon fifth column, Clarion Fund, Raphael Shore, David Frum, Canadian fifth column ]

G_o_ing

2008-11-11T00:14:20Z

Fourth Drawer Down - The Associates
Rock Botto - Robert Wyatt
Swaddling Songs - Mellow Candle

Current Ten - This year so far....

1. Perforations - Champion Kickboxer
2. Couples - The Long Blondes
3. 4 - Dungen
4. Street Horrsing - Fuck Buttons
5. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill - Grouper
6. Mega Breakfast - The Chap
7. Laulu Laakson Kukista - Paavoharju
8. Santogold - Santogold
9. Chemical Chords - Stereolab
10. Other Channels - The Advisory Circle

Current 93, Thunder Perfect Mind
Amon Düül II, Tanz der Lemminge
Jethro Tull, Songs From The Wood
Steeleye Span, Hark! The Village Wait
Shirley Collins, No Roses
Nikhil Banerjee, untitled CD of recordings from All India Radio
Jefferson Airplane, Crown of Creation
Death In June, The Rule of Thirds

Miles Davis- Get Up With It
lovesliescrushing- xuvetyn
Seefeel- quique
Bark Psychosis - Hex
the verve - a storm in heaven

Gene Thommen of Bedford, Virginia

2008-05-28T15:39:53Z

he is an adult sunday school teacher / and he is most assuredly NOT a homoshexual. the differences between him and the Male Homosexual are many and varied. foremost is this: while the homosexual may indeed "s_ck a d_ck," our Biblical Detective - with his mail-order degree in dirt churchianity ('cause CHRIST AIN'T INNIT) - can be found chowing down on a whole BAG.

...meanwhile, here's Pastor John Hagee explaining to the pathetically stupid muthafuckers who write him checks how exactly JESUS IS NOT THE MESSIAH:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8khCJTDD44

do i give a shit? not really. the mystery, though, is why dispensationalist toilets like this Thommen character are so keen to write off the core tenet of the Christian faith 'cause some choad preaching out of some glorified warehouse in San Antonio tells them to.

fucking stupid.

Ray Smith, Wirtz (the Roanoke Times)

2008-05-23T08:18:30Z

yet another exemplar of "Roanoke Dirt Christianity" (tho' Michael Hoffman's "Churchianity" is rather more descriptive). if he were any smarter he'd be donning a Klown suit and hailing Lucifer (not Satan, mind you / Exalted Cyclops Albert Pike knew the difference!) as a full.blown, miniature car drivin' member of th'Craft (these days, a gaytarded anti-Catholic cult with dwindling membership, dwindling influence [except, perhaps, among the Southern Baptists...]).

Who is Valley Forward?

2008-02-26T06:32:21Z

for those who aren't prepared for the DRAMA of "Who is John Galt?" (or, for that matter, Ron Paul, i suppose). Brad Blum - whose dad, Ron, is some kinda hot-shot dentist - writes:

Valley Forward is a relatively new organization with more than 100 members and is composed mostly of young professionals from the Roanoke Valley.

...which, in this particular Retirement Community, means 40 yr olds.

Denise says she saw **** down at the Owl, pished to the gills, imploring bar patrons to ignore "dangerous liberal" George Will and his short list of running mates for likely Republican Presidential nominee John McCain. Blum's man - again, according to Denise (hi, Denise!) - is, um, Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor (from Richmond, maybe?). i have heard absolutely no one else mention Rep. Cantor in this (potential) capacity and can only conclude that it's part of a scheme hatched by Blum, with or without his young middle-aged friends...

John Zorn's Principles of Capital Formation

2007-03-20T06:30:31Z

Martha Argerich -- Debut Recital
Albert Ayler -- Lorrach, Paris 1966
Ginger Baker -- No Material
The Band -- s/t
Bar Kokhba -- 50th Birthday Celebration, Vol 11.
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers -- Moanin'
Anthony Braxton Quartet -- (Coventry) 1985
Peter Brotzmann -- FMP 130
Peter Brotzmann's Chicago Octet/Tentet -- s/t
Tim Buckley -- Dream Letter
Cato Salsa Experience and The Thing w/ Joe McPhee (a.k.a. Two Bands & A Legend)-- Sounds Like a Sandwich (EP)
Ornette Coleman -- Change of the Century
John Coltrane -- Sun Ship
Marilyn Crispell -- Destiny
Die Like a Dog Quartet -- From Valley to Valley
Bob Dylan -- Live 1966 (Bootleg Series #4)
In Order to Survive -- The Peach Orchard
Electric Masada -- At the Mountains of Madness
Gayle/Parker/Ali -- Touchin' on Trane
Roy Haynes -- Out of the Afternoon
Masada String Trio -- Azazel (Book of Angels Vol. 2)
Charles Mingus -- Live at Antibes
Moondog -- Moondog 1 (1st Columbia Album)
Oliver Nelson -- Blues and the Abstract Truth
Tony Oxley -- 4 Compositions for Sextet
Shibusashirazu Orchestra -- Shibuboshi
Sun Ra -- The Magic City
Cecil Taylor -- Nefertiti, The Beautiful One Has Come
The Thing -- Live at Bla
Van Morrison -- Veedon Fleece
Vandermark 5 -- Airports for Lights
David S Ware Quartet -- Wisdom of Uncertainty

Henson Cargill - "Skip A Rope"
Buck Owens - "Sings Tommy Collins"
Joe Harriott/John Meyer Double Quintette - "Indo Jazz Fusions"
Hammons Family - "Traditions of a West Virginia Family & their Friends"
Sun Ra and his Arkestra - "Fate In A Pleasant Mood"
"Mississippi Masters: Early American Blues Classics" (compilation)
Bruce Haack - "Electric Lucifer"
Ol' Dirty Bastard - "Nigga Please"
Skillet Lickers - "Kickapoo Medicine Show"
X-Ray Spex - "Germfree Adolescents"
Bert Jansch - "Jack Orion"
Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paradasio UFO - "La Novia"
Ola Belle Reed - "Ola Belle Reed"
The Planet Rockers - "26 Classic Tracks"
John Fahey - "I Remember Blind Joe Death"
Chris Bell - "I Am the Cosmos"
Olabelle Reed and Alex Campbell
Sir Lord Baltimore - "Kingdom Come"
Jimmy Martin - "You Don't Know My Mind" (compilation)
Fifty Foot Hose - "Cauldron"
Royal Trux - "Cats and Dogs"
Martin Carthy - "Shearwater"
Keiji Haino - "Watashi-Dake"
Michael Nesmith - "Nevada Fighter"
Freakwater - "Feels Like the Third Time"
Richard and Linda Thompson - "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight" (their best album...)
C.O.B. (Clive's Original Band) - "Spirit of Love"
Charles Mingus - "Presents Charles Mingus" on Candid
Shirley Collins and Davey Graham - "Folk Roots, New Routes"
Holy Modal Rounders - "Alleged in their Own Time"
Eugene Chadbourne - "LSD C&W"
Jan Dukes de Grey "Mice and Rats in the Attic"
"Good for What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows 1926-1937"
Lester Pate & Ralph Stanley with the Clinch Mountain Boys - "Keep My Love With You"

teh Storage

2006-12-10T17:45:15Z

HE GOT AROUND: Pynchon makes an offbeat cameo in Peter Ames Carlin’s recent biography, “Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson.” According to Carlin, Pynchon visited Wilson’s Southern California house in the late 1960s with a friend and “sat in stunned, unhappy silence while the nervous, stoned pop star — who had dragged him into his then-new Arabian tent to get high — kept kicking over the oil lamp he was trying to light.” Wilson was apparently afraid of Pynchon, and Pynchon was shy. An onlooker observed: “Neither of them really said a word all night long. It was one of the strangest scenes I’d ever seen in my life.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/books/review/10tbr.html?ex=1166418000&en=9addf14837fd75a9&ei=5070&emc=eta1

“Brian was kind of afraid of [Thomas] Pynchon, because he’d heard he was an Eastern intellectual establishment genius. And Pynchon wasn’t very articulate. He was gonna sit there and let you talk while he listened. So neither of them said a word all night long. It was one of the strangest scenes I’d ever seen in my life.” – JULES SIEGEL on introducing novelist THOMAS PYNCHON to Brian Wilson, ca. ’67 SMiLE sessions. (p. 103)

Moody Richards

2006-11-22T05:51:20Z

Allan L. Casalou, 32°
Grand Lodge of California
1111 California Street, San Francisco, California 94108

In this interview with Bro. Allan L. Casalou, 32°, Managing Editor of the California Freemason, Ill. Michael A. Richards, 33°, a.k.a "Kramer" on Seinfeld, shares his thoughts on Freemasonry, his decision to join the Craft, the influence of Red Skelton, and what will keep the Fraternity vibrant for future generations.

Upon his initiation, an Entered Apprentice is informed that it is the internal and not the external qualities of a man that determine his compatibility with our Fraternity and its ancient customs and teachings. An afternoon with Ill. Michael A. Richards, 33°, may cause the thoughtful Mason to wonder if it is not also the internal qualities of Masonry that should guide the future of the organization and its members.

Michael Richards is well read, articulate, and insatiably curious. Having studied the arts, nature, philosophy, and religions of the world, his quest for further knowledge led him to the door of Freemasonry.

Early Impressions

The first time Richards remembers meeting a Mason was at age 12. "My mother had a friend who was a Mason," he recalls. "I didn't have a father, but he was like a father to me. He was very charitable with his time. On Friday nights he would take me to the American Legion Hall where some of the best vaudeville acts in the country were performed." Through this experience, Brother Richards developed an interest in physical comedy, and, in fact, some of his material today is based on what he saw and learned then.

Red Skelton

"Red Skelton was a great knockabout clown," says Richards. "One of the greatest in the world." In his early teens, Richards watched The Red Skelton Show every week. "All the characters, all of his wonderful physical comedy and mime work, that was big stuff for me as a kid."

Reflecting on Skelton's show, Richards says, "He was like a child playing and falling down and making people laugh, and, then, at the end of the show, he would bless you. Like a Pope, he would give you a blessing. That says so much, doesn't it? Indeed, Red Skelton was a great comic with a tremendous love for humanity."

Skelton once said, "I personally believe we were put here to build and not destroy. So if by chance someday you're not feeling well and you should remember some silly thing I've done or said, and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart, then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled."

In 1969, Red Skelton recited his now famous "Pledge of Allegiance." At the end of the performance, he made what would become a prophetic remark. "Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country, and two words to the Pledge of Allegiance-under God. Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and this would be removed from our schools too?"

"You see," Richards explains to me, "behind the clown and the blessing at the end of the show, behind the mask, was a great heart."

Richards would meet his long-time comedic idol in 1996 when he had the honor to induct Red Skelton into the Comedy Hall of Fame in Lake Tahoe.

"Red and I had a chance to meet and talk in Lake Tahoe. It was then," Richards says, "I learned he was a 33° Scottish Rite Mason."

Richards Becomes A Mason

After reflecting upon his experience with Skelton, Richards wanted to learn more about Free-masonry. He read what he could, but decided the best way to learn would be to experience it firsthand. "I decided to call Red," he says. "I was going to petition Freemasonry through him. But before I could, he passed away."

Indeed, Richard "Red" Skelton died on September 17, 1997, but Michael Richards' interest in pursuing Masonry did not. Exactly 15 months later, on December 17, 1998, Michael Richards was initiated in Riviera Lodge No. 780 in Pacific Palisades, California.

Without Red Skelton to assist him, Richards went to some length to find out how to petition a Lodge and where one even existed. He was finally successful through a call to the California Grand Lodge office. He spoke with Grand Secretary John L. Cooper III and was directed to Riviera Lodge. "I was curious. I had questions. I knocked. They answered," he says.

Richards was passed on March 25, 1999, and raised a Master Mason on May 20, 1999. He affiliated with Culver City-Foshay Lodge No. 467 in Culver City, California, in 1999 and gave his Third Degree proficiency later that year.

Future Generations

Since becoming a Mason, Richards has pursued a greater understanding of it. During the interview we discussed how Masonry fits in modern society and contemplated its future relevance.

Not only did his hit television series, Seinfeld, appeal especially to a younger adult audience, Richards is also a father of a young adult and understands the struggles of their generation. "Young people today need a handrail, and for some young men, Masonry could give them that support."

With regards to future generations, Richards believes, "Masons must understand symbol and psychology, individuation, and what constitutes self-awareness."

Indeed, Masonry uses ceremonies and symbols to impart knowledge to its members. Richards' point is that a greater emphasis on Masonic philosophy and the sacred teachings of all ages could be key to the future existence of the Fraternity.

Beyond The Symbols

Just as it is important to look behind the mask of a comedian like Red Skelton and to see the heart of a great man, Richards says of Masonry, "We must look behind the symbols to see the heart of their meaning. What does a symbol stand for? How do I translate that idea into my life?"

Like Jacques Cousteau diving in the sea, Richards says, "Masons must search the deepest parts of themselves, within any organization, to discover the uniqueness of their life unfolding."

Richards is not alone in his convictions. Past Grand Master Jack Levitt recently wrote: "Freemasonry's truths are covered with symbolism and its insights with allegory. It is necessary to look behind the fact to see the truth and beyond the symbol to see the reality."

And as Richards would say, the reality is you. "A Freemason is a man building up himself, coming into his own to highlight the individual that he is," he says.

When I ask Richards what symbol in Freemasonry strikes him as being especially important, he says, "When you go into our Lodge, on the back of the Tiler's chair are the words 'Know Thyself.' That's important. That is the ultimate message to all Freemasons; to truly know who you are."

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The above article is reprinted with permission from the California Freemason (Spring 2003).

is there a fascist use of Deleuze & Guattari?

2006-08-02T16:57:29Z

If you were a (cugging) English major sometime in the past 15 years, this will strike you as Weird/Fucked beyond.belief:

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060801170800738

like Mr Unabomber (Mr "FC") said, there's no way to separate the negative from the positive uses of a technology...

Mr teh Creepy adds to Phlatlanders

2006-06-19T08:28:04Z

Probably Mississippi John Hurt's Last Sessions
The dB's Repercussion
Big L's The Big Picture
and Blondie's s/t

[ dB's? they prolly got played in the early 80's on the old 107.5 WKZL / oddly, just mentioned by Ralph Berrier... ]

...Gary Numan on the Hi-Fi

2006-06-13T06:45:56Z

Santa Cruz 3-way with the usual suspects
(St. Cyprian, Mason Capwell & Paula Jean Brown !)

all the right gadgets ("at your cervix, madam")