Finding Utopia - Taylor Camp

In 1969, thirteen Hippies–refugees from campus riots, war protests and police brutality–fled to the remote Hawaiian island of Kauai. Before long this little tribe of men, women and children were arrested and sentenced to ninety days hard labor for having no money and no home. Island resident Howard Taylor, brother of actress Elizabeth, bailed out the group and invited them to camp on his vacant ocean front land–then left them on their own, without any restrictions, regulations or supervision. Soon waves of hippies, surfers and troubled Vietnam vets found their way to this clothing-optional, pot-friendly tree house village at the end of the road on the Island’s North Shore.

In 1977 after condemning the village to make way for a State park, Government officials torched the tree houses, leaving little but ashes and memories of “the best days of our lives.”

John Wehrheim’s 1970s photographs reveal a community that created order without rules and rejected materialism for the healing power of nature. The story of Taylor Camp’s eight-year existence is told through interviews made 30 years later after tracking down the campers, their neighbors and the government officials who finally got rid of them.

Finding Utopia Film Festival presents

TAYLOR CAMP - Living the '60s Dream.

Saturday, May 29 - Aloha Theatre - Kona, 7:30PM
Sunday, May 30 - Hawaii Theatre - Oahu, 2PM
Sunday, May 30 - Palace Theater - Hilo, 5PM & 7:30PM
Tuesday, June 1 - Kalani Oceanside Retreat - Pahoa, 8PM
Wednesday, June 2 - MACC Castle Theater - Maui, 7PM

http://TaylorCampKauai.com for trailer, reviews and details.

Download File: Look Inside Taylor Camp.pdf

Link | Taylor Camp

I haven't seen this dvd yet and also I thought I'd posted about this place before but don't guess I did... but it belongs here on this website. :p

Read more...

Voluntary Peasants

Voluntary Peasants is a fun, hip, magical, mystical adventure, a Zen romp, full of humor, warmth and spiritual survival wisdom.

--published by Hot Button Press is scheduled for release this summer.


High Times calls Stephen Gaskin "the Gandhi of the American counterculture."

Stephen said:

This country needs in great numbers to become voluntary peasants. Being enlightened is a lot like being a grownup and taking responsibility.

Telepathy is evidence that we are all connected. We can get telepathic with each other, and we can get telepathic with God, with birds, trees, grass.

We can send energy to people who need energy by thinking loving thoughts about them.

By now, everyone knows how to get high, but if you want to stay high, you need moral structure.

Government does not have the right to dictate levels of consciousness.

The Farm began in 1971 as more than a commune, but as a dream-come-true adventure and all-out, put-your-butt-on-the-line, social experiment, political statement and attempt to create a gracious lifestyle the whole world can afford. Everyone worked to manifest a way of living that feels right, in touch with the earth, healthy, productive, fun and good for children. We built our own village, complete with school, clinic, doctors, midwives, lab, soy dairy, bakery, radio station, houses, roads, green, cutting edge, alternative energy, cottage industries, motor pool, laundry, canning and freezing operation, rock, boogey and reggae bands. We used horses, tractors and computers.

For thirteen years, I lived and worked at The Farm as a carpenter, farmer, chef, baker, gateman, news editor and mechanic. Like the rest of The Farm adult community, I considered Stephen Gaskin my spiritual teacher, my guru. We were all Stephen's students.

Stephen told us, “I’m trying to teach you to not need me.” It took me awhile. --Melvyn Stiriss

Read More »

www.thefarmcommunity.com
www.TheFarm.org

Read more...

Waterpod - Afloat in the New York Harbor

Photograph by Michael Nagle for The New York Times.
For the last two months artists have been floating around New York City on the Waterpod, a 3,000-square-foot experiment in community living and artistry.

Founded by Mary Mattingly, whose medium is mainly photography, it was envisioned as a self-sustaining living space, an eco- and art-friendly sphere that could be recreated in the future, when land resources might be scarce.

See Waterpod Images, from concept to fruition.

Read more...

Federation of Damanhur

Federation of Damanhur

A United Nations award-winning sustainable community, Damanhur is an eco-society based upon ethical and spiritual values. Founded in 1975, the Federation numbers 1,000 citizens and is located in Valchiusella, in the foothills of Piedmont, only 40 minutes from Turin airport. Damanhur promotes a culture of peace and balanced development through respect for the environment and social and political commitment. The Federation has centres in Italy, Europe, the Americas, and Japan and is linked with organizations worldwide.

link | link


Damanhur is renowned for its beautiful underground Temples, created entirely by hand and decorated with mosaic, sculpture, painting, glass and metalwork. The Halls of Water, of the Earth, of the Spheres, of Mirrors, of Metals, the Blue Temple, the Labyrinth: the Temples of Humankind are a three-dimensional book, that tell the story of humankind through art and beauty. The Temples are also a laboratory where science and spirituality are united in the search for new paths for humanity.

link

Read more...

Harmony Kormine's Mr Lonely

Harmony Kormine's Mr Lonely

HARMONY KORINE catapulted to fame as an enfant terrible, and for a few years he played the part to perfection. He was the young skateboarder turned wunderkind screenwriter behind Larry Clark’s 1995 sensation, “Kids.” At 24 he directed “Gummo” (1997), about glue-sniffing, cat-killing teenagers in a Rust Belt backwater. Most critics hated its junkyard, freak-show aesthetic, but it spawned an instant cult, with devotees including Werner Herzog, who became a mentor and collaborator, and Gus Van Sant. Mr. Korine’s next film, “Julien Donkey-Boy” (1999), inspired by his schizophrenic uncle, continued the gutter-punk provocations.

But after that he largely receded from public view. Now 35, having dug himself out of what he called “a black hole,” he has finally made another film, “Mister Lonely,” a sweetly cockeyed fantasia about a colony of celebrity doppelgängers and a troupe of sky-diving nuns. Over coffee during a recent trip to New York — he now lives in Nashville with his wife, Rachel, not far from his childhood home — this onetime fixture of the downtown party circuit did not seem nostalgic for the old days. [Read More]

"In broad terms, it's a movie about a Michael Jackson impersonator living in Paris who's down on his luck. He meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator at a commune where all these other impersonators live. They want to put on a show in hopes that the world will come see them perform..." (Harmony Korine, Hollywood Reporter)

Deigo Luna, 28, was quite unprepared for the set of his newest film, Harmony Korine's "Mister Lonely," opening Friday, May 2. In keeping with the title, he says it was one of the loneliest experiences of his life - no Internet, no phone, no way to know how Mexico was faring in the World Cup soccer tournament.

"First of all, we were living the life of the characters," Luna says of the production, which was filmed in and around a castle in the Scottish highlands.

Luna was perfecting his moonwalk because he was playing Michael Jackson - or rather, a character who spends his life playing Jackson. Almost all of Luna's fellow cast members are celebrity impersonators: Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton), Charlie Chaplin (Denis Levant), the Pope (James Fox), Madonna (Melita Morgan), the queen of England (Anita Pallenberg) and Sammy Davis Jr. (Jason Pennycooke).

And they never break character: Chaplin and Monroe (a couple in the film) sunbathe, the Three Stooges tend sheep and the Pope drunkly presides over communal dinners. Together, they practice their shticks in a performance intended for the local community. They don't judge one another. They're all in the same boat.
Read More

**AND the music is another post in it's own right.**
J. SPACEMAN
SUN CITY GIRLS
MISTER LONELY
MUSIC FROM THE FILM
BY HARMONY KORINE
LP/CD

RELATED:
[::] NYTimes.com
[::] Watch the Trailer
[::] Music from the Film

Read more...

The Hippie Narrators

The Hippie Narrative:
A Literary Perspective On The Counterculture

Mount Vernon’s Scott MacFarlane examines the key works of prose of the hippie movement of the 1960s and early 1970s and how the works are reflective of the counterculture.

He mentions that "Siddhartha," written in 1922, and "Stranger in a Strange Land," published in 1961, were very instrumental because these narratives shaped the formation of a hippie counterculture and were written before the sixties movement.

And he covers Kesey, Brautigan and Wolfe. Nationally influential. link


That leads me to the Foxfire Books, which is one of my favorite books of all time.

Regionally influential in the South were the Foxfire Books. Especially to those of us living on communes and/or outdoors.

Firefox has branched off to teaching and workshops now, but originally it was the communer's bible here in the South, where you could find sections on hog dressing, log cabin building, basket weaving, preserving foods, making butter, planting by the signs, snake lore, hunting tales, faith healing, and moonshining, which we left to the pros. We made blackberry wine.


Read FOXFIRE Series 1 - 6 (PDF)
**UPDATED: JUNE 22, 2007 - Caution: Not all of these are working links, but these are the only online FOXFIRE books I could find and for the links that ARE working you will almost certainly be able to get a feel for what the FOXFIRE series were about. Thanks. --Editor

Read more...

Down On Gaskin's Farm

Sex, Drugs, and Soybeans
In 1970, pot-smoking guru Stephen Gaskin, a former U.S. Marine, led his band of acolytes on a mystic trip out of San Francisco and into the American heartland. But a funny thing happened on the way to enlightenment: Gaskin's hippies learned the ancient virtues of hard work, good hygiene, and crop rotation. Deep in the Tennessee woods, they formed a spiritual commune called The Farm, which has morphed over its 36 years into a high-tech eco–think tank.

Read More

Read more...

saturday morning me//
hazelnut coffee/hot cheese biscuit/oj,every day/
black jeans/grey hoodie/black sox/
goodbye: leftovers/hello: zantac/
today's forecast: going to time travel/
to visit our old commune/
listening: bjork/
so how about you?/

Today's Quote:
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
--George W Bush

Read more...

Key Democrat Wants To Reinstate Draft

WASHINGTON ? Americans would have to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18 under a bill the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee says he will introduce next year.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars.

"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," Rangel said.

In 2003, Rangel proposed a measure covering people age 18 to 26. It was defeated 402-2 the following year. This year, he offered a plan to mandate military service for men and women between age 18 and 42; it went nowhere in the Republican-led Congress.

What a tool. Just more indication that the US 2-party system is royally fucked up. You can't even hope for the lesser of the two evils anymore.

link

Read more...

from the website:

This year the father of micro-finance and founder of the Grameen Bank won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in inventing and promoting micro-loans in the developing world. A micro-loan is as little as a few hundred dollars invested into a one-person business with minimal qualifications. That tiny borrowed amount can launch a vegetable stand, repair shop, or bicycle taxi -- a living in other words. As each micro-loan is repaid (and most are), the effects of that small goodness are amplified and leveraged by being loaned out and invested again and again. Micro-loans are the world's only perpetual motion machines.

Previously I've recommended the micro-finance cool tools of Trickle Up, Opportunity International, and my favorite, Heifer International, as three ways to leverage small amounts of money for maximum global good. (Micro-finance programs are not a panacea. For a critique start with this article in Forbes.)

The news now is that there are many other outfits that offer individuals (like us) ways to leverage as little as fifty dollars via micro-finance programs online. Unleashing compounding good is only a few clicks away. Make a loan, or outright grant, using your credit card, or even PayPal.

Grameen Foundation
A spin off of the original Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Minimum contribution, $100. One of their projects is Village Phone -- cell phones that women can rent to others. "The Village Phone program in Uganda, the first of GF's efforts to replicate the pay phone program outside Bangladesh, continued exceeding expectations in 2005. More than 3,500 microfinance clients have bought and now operate a Village Phone as "Village Phone operators." Besides the boost to operators' incomes, the program is creating a national telecommunications network. Of Uganda's 56 districts, 53 now have at least one Village Phone operator. Often, Village Phone is the first local telephone that villagers have. Having a quick means to communicate has contributed to higher levels of productivity, savings, and safety for entire communities."

Learn about the individual Success Stories.

Namaste Direct

FINCA Village Banking

via - [MORE »]

Read more...

SCI: Eco-Warriors, Music Rulers & Party Savages

When the String Cheese Incident comes to town, it's usually an event. Sure, SCI fans would say that, but I'm talking about what often goes on when they come to your town.

Years ago after playing an outdoor gig, they observed their fans staying behind cleaning up the venue. SCI soon began helping, too, by giving back to the communities that embraced them and most recently coordinated Fall 2006 Food Drives with Conscious Alliance. It's a great outfit comprised of visionary artists who made excellent posters, and musicians who raise money and donate their time to those in need.

On the day of the show in Asheville (NC) last week, SCI and voluteers spent the afternoon cleaning up trash along the river banks.

But for 2007 New Years, a gale of cultural forces will unite for two super freaky nights at the Sea Of Dreams event, that's put together by Anon Salon, Peak Experiences, (the new millenium's Bill Graham,) & Madison House in San Francisco. You can see from their previous events that this one is not to be missed if you are anywhere west of the Mississippi.

String Cheese Incident along with other bands will be there and every element and orifice will be rocked for your entertainment pleasure.

Read more...

THE UNDERGROUND PRESS

Did you ever read/see any of the great underground newspapers of the late 1960's - mid 1970's in the US? There was The East Village Other (NY), The Great Speckled Bird (ATL), Black Panther, Berkeley Barb (Berkeley, CA), LA Free Press, The Paper, of East Lansing, Michigan, and many more?

I was a faithful Speckled Bird reader. We bought these most of the time from people on street corners in Atlanta; on the corner of 14th St, where all the other freaks hung out. As surely as you'd see a Bird vendor around there, you'd also see someone selling flowers for a small fee to wear in your hair or wherever. And you knew who was selling "what" "where". And someone was in a doorway playing guitar; a few bumming spare change passing by. All waiting for the next musical, sexual, or pharmaceutical experience.

Receiving The Last Whole Earth Catalog was a spiritual experience. Sort of a hippie Sears catalog and was one of the very few books we had at Peace Tree (a lakeside commune in Tennessee) when we first began. It was all about survival, metaphysics, learning to grow organic, live natural, how to build a shelter-- how to build or make just about anything. Stewart Brand (Burning Man) was the founder. We've still got one around the house someplace.

Many college libraries have some of these newspapers on Microfilm. Some are for sale on Ebay. Why are there no equivalent newspapers/websites? "Where is that one great progressive balls to the wall website that has it all?" Music, protest and boycott info, in-depth interviews, sex (& relationships), drugs, literature? more»

from the archives

Read more...

Forget the Haight and Woodstock

A new book makes a compelling case that Laurel Canyon, home to Joni, Zappa, Mama Cass and many more, was the true center of '60s rock.

The '60s were all about neighborhoods. Haight-Ashbury, Greenwich Village, Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue, Watts, Tu Do Street, Harlem, Woodstock -- for Americans, at least, the decade was divided into a series of remarkable communities, some utopian and others nightmarish, each with a strong claim to being the epicenter of that turbulent epoch.

link

Read more...

RE-BLOGGING

The worldwide Freecycle Network is made up of many individual groups across the globe. It's an international grassroots movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Since I first posted about it, many other communities have opened up their own Freecycle groups. Put in your zipcode and check it out.. Best thing I've freecycled or bartered lately? The car I'm driving was bartered for my husband building someone a deck.

Locally, Hendersonville and Ashevilleboth have busy groups.

* Bandnews.org - Live from the Web | Search & Read official Music News - Band Directory - Archive. "Bandnews.org is a search engine keeping track of what is going on in the band scene. A bot collects the news from official band websites and magazines so you can read them on one page." [via: DJ Martian]

Professors publish case study of successful nutritional treatment for cancer. Link [via: Rutabaga Stew]

November 15, 1969. 250,000 War Protesters Stage a Peaceful March and Rally in Heart of Washington. - Link [via: One Thousand Reasons]

AOL has a new stand alone browser. They took some ideas from Firefox, like tabbed browsing, and there's some nice, new features of their own. Check it out @ AOL Explorer. For Windows, Mac, and Linux. 10 minutes download for modems; 1 minute for DSL, Cable.

Now Playing - Incredible String Band - The Sun In Pale Silence

Read more...

N'Light'N Launch Party 3/26/05 Chapel of Sacred Mirrors


The audio experience, the choreography, the magnificent art. What an incredible event. Sure wish I could follow through on this invitation.... but do have some wonderful sites for you to peruse today. Reality Engine and ArcheDream. (URLS below.)
via: Blue Spectral Monkey @ touchsamadi from Asheville & NYC

Date & Time: 2005-03-26 10:00 PM
Location: N'Light'N Launch Party 3/26/05 Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, NYC

Reality Engine presents

N'Light'N Launch Party

Saturday - 03/26/05 - White Galactic Wind

Reality Engine in collaboration with CoSM invite you to a special private event, welcoming the spring and Easter with the N'Light'N opening at the Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors. Being already established as a meeting point for the visionary community, now it will also become a reference on the East Coast for upbeat down tempo and neo media gatherings.

This event is meant to uplift the awareness of collective consciousness through the multi-mediation of ego loss and ecstatic ritual process. Bringing together in celebration diverse communities committed to experience sacred sounds and images as pathways toward a return to a natural state of happiness.

With a performance by ArcheDream, an archetypal mask theatre company which uses ritual, movement and myth to present allegorical dramas. The inspiration for ArcheDream is derived from ancient rituals where the Devine mingled with Humankind. Their theatre uses various forms of dance, innovative music, multimedia projections, archetypal masks and costumes that are illuminated with ultra-violet light, accentuating the supernatural aspects to reveal the dreamscape as the action unfolds. ArcheDream is founded on the quality of the individual artist participating in a collaborative effort. This remains their ongoing quest as they merge creative forces with the Reality Engine crew and the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors to " N'Light'N " through an original performance of ArcheDream, the Episode titled "5th Element." For more information please visit: www.archedream.com.

Special Performance by ArcheDream: "The 5th Element"

Upbeat Downtempo grooves by:

Blue Spectral Monkey (TouchSamadhi-Asheville-NC)

Alien Blue (CoSM - NY)

Matyas (Reality Engine)

Pedro (Reality Engine) +

Dan Covan

For more info log at http://realityengine.org
Online tickes http://cosm.org

Namaste,
Reality Engine Team.

May any merits created by or through this gathering be offered to the freedom of all beings. (Posted by: blue spectral)

Read more...

What Half the World Wants - by Mumia Abu Jamal

If we look to the ubiquitous commercials that zip past our eyeballs, we would think that most women want the bun-roller or a new and improved derma-peel. Each of which promises a brand new sexier you. But there is a world beyond the glare of the TV screen where women are organizing and fighting for - not a new toy but a new world.

On March 8, women around the world in LA, England, Argentina, Uganda, Peru, Philadelphia, San Francisco, in Guyana, in southern India, in Trinidad and Tobago, in Spain, women will be staging the fifth global women's strike.

A movement involving women in some sixty countries many involved in grass roots organizations. Fighting for payment for housework, for clean safe water resources, for housing, education, gender justice, and peace. In a world where war is now our norm, the global women's strike is part of the vast throng against war and occupation. Not only in Iraq, but in Palestine, in Columbia, in the Congo and in Kashmir. Their organizing slogan, which unites strikers from a broad array of struggles, is deceptively simple: 'Invest in Caring not Killing.'

Although the movement had its beginning years ago in the '[Wages] for Housework' movement in England, it has grown considerably into a worldwide antiracist and antiwar movement. The movement recognizes the basic inequality built into the capitalist economic system. The class, racial and gender based exploitation underlying it all. Women's issues differ from nation to nation and between classes in the same nation.

Yet there are also similarities in the fundamentals underlying those differences. On the supportive role played by women in the home, Marxist, feminist Selma James in her influential 1973 pamphlet 'Sex, Race and Class' writes: 'House wives are involved in the production and, what is the same thing, reproduction of workers. What Marx calls labor power. They service those who are daily destroyed by working for wages and who need to be daily renewed and they care for and discipline those who are being prepared to work when they grow up.' At base, James argues, because women's work performs such a critical role in capitalist reproduction, it should receive a commensurate return.

All around the world women are trying to better their condition and that of families and communities. In England, Crossroads Women's center at 230a Kentish Town Road, London NW5 2AB, is coordinating the strike. Their email address is womenstrike8m@server101.com.

In Peru the Centro de Capacitacion para Trabajadoras del Hogar in Lima can be emailed at ccth@terra.com.pe.

In Trinidad and Tobago, the National Union of Domestic Employees are organizing, their email address: domestic@tstt.net.tt.

Here in the US, there are Crossroads women's centers in LA, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Their email addresses are simple:
la@crossroadswomen.net
sf@crossroadswomen.net
philly@crossroadswomen.net

Those without Internet access can call them by phone.
LA (323)-292-7405
San Francisco (415) 626-4114
Phily (215)-848-1120

In Kampala, Uganda the Kaabong Women's Organization is concerned not with war in a distant land, but war at home. For Uganda, there has been war for the past 17 years. Their demand is not just for peace, but for land and for water. For there, as in much in the rest of the world, agriculture rests on the backs of billions of women. The Kaabong Women's organization can be emailed: akulum@hotmail.com. "Invest in Caring, not Killing", hmm what a concept.

From Death Row this is Mumia Abu Jamal.
http://www.prisonradio.org/maj/maj_2_26_04half.html

Long version: mp3, 4 MBs, 4:49
Medium version: mp3, 3.25 MBs, 3:50
Short version: mp3, 2.53 MBs, 2:56

Eloquent, effective Mumia. No wonder they try to stifle him.

Read more...

I recently read that protesters are torn between going to Burning Man and RNC. Not me. I won't be going to either one. I'm still quite interested in both events. It just suits me better to keep it parked for now.



I used to drive, fly, or thumb my way across inevitable obstacles to any and all events that interested me. There never was any concern over money or shelter. You took along what you could carry in your pockets and stash bag. You did the best you could and left it all up to the haps. But it was also the time of 'what's mine is yours' and 'spare-change' in our pseudo-underground movement, which helped. If I had $50, I gave $45 of it away. Keeping it all to myself was crude and priggish. I even left the keys in my van with a note on how 3rd gear hung up, etc. If you need it worse than I do, then by all means. This principal only works when others around you are of the same mind. The whole commune mentality, I suppose you could call it.



What a gradual and unnoticeable change it's all been from there to here. Although a lot of those ideals are still the base of my moral fiber. Now, I no longer leave my keys in the car for just anyone to drive, extra bucks are generally not given away, and my hitchhiking days are but sweet, faded memories.

Read more...

Trojan Pleasure: Sexual Organ - via: Geisha Asobi

Select one of four backing tracks, and then play the keyboard for wave after wave after wave of glorious ecstasy-filled music. Read: Music accompaniment for pron. OK silliness for work if you don't crank it up.



Yes, cram this weekend. Because Monday begins TV-Turnoff Week. TV-Turnoff Network is a national nonprofit organization that encourages children and adults to watch much less television in order to promote healthier lives and communities. Can you actually do it or will you rationalize, like I probably will, on how you'll suffer if you miss all those educational shows?



Earth Mandalas - Make your own mandala on the computer from your favorite graphic. via: zenlunatic who with a beautiful new baby finds the time to open up her own store very soon.



And Bryn is also opening up her store really soon. These two lovely spirits are following their dreams and we can vicariously come along for the ride as they post pictures of their latest developments.



Jumping in the shower and he says, "Great, you can wash my hair!"

His favorite foods and wine by candlelight to no avail

He asks you what a Brazilian is and you show him

...Priceless.

Read more...

Orlando's Hard Rock Cafe's Vault is a museum. Collectibles include a snakeskin coat from Keith Richards; a purple suit from Jimi Hendrix; John Bonham's (Led Zeppelin) drums, and Bob Dylan's typewritten lyric sheets for "I Want You," "Absolutely Sweet Marie" and "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again," songs from his landmark Blonde on Blonde album, in the Vault. There's also a wall-sized quilt depicting Frank Zappa as a playing card constructed from ladies' underwear thrown on stage during some long-ago tour. [link] [see gallery]



{local}

Web site picks top 100 places to live. Top 10 communities, which received the most nominations, were, in order: Venice, Fla.; Paragould, Ark.; Edmond, Okla.; Bonita Springs, Fla.; Asheville, N.C.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Bartlesville, Okla.; Carlsbad, N.M.; Huntington Woods, Mich.; and Madison, Wis. [link]



{film news}

How could a film that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke and Benicio Del Toro get any cooler? How about by adding Johnny Depp? AND Christopher Walken? AND Steve Buscemi?! That's not cool enough for ya? How about if Quentin Tarantino directs a portion of it? Well that's precisely what's happening with Robert Rodriguez and his SIN CITY. [link]



As you were. Nothing more to see here.

Read more...

THE UNDERGROUND PRESS

Did you ever read/see any of the great underground newspapers of the late 1960's - mid 1970's in the US? There was The East Village Other (NY), The Great Speckled Bird (ATL), Black Panther, Berkeley Barb (Berkeley, CA), LA Free Press, The Paper, of East Lansing, Michigan, and many more?

I was a faithful Speckled Bird reader. We bought these most of the time from people on street corners in Atlanta; on the corner of 14th St, where all the other freaks hung out. As surely as you'd see a Bird vendor around there, you'd also see someone selling flowers for a small fee to wear in your hair or wherever. And you knew who was selling "what" "where". And someone was in a doorway playing guitar; a few bumming spare change passing by. All waiting for the next musical, sexual, or pharmaceutical experience.

Receiving The Last Whole Earth Catalog was a spiritual experience. Sort of a hippie Sears catalog and was one of the very few books we had at Peace Tree (a lakeside commune in Tennessee) when we first began. It was all about survival, metaphysics, learning to grow organic, live natural, how to build a shelter-- how to build or make just about anything. Stewart Brand (Burning Man) was the founder. We've still got one around the house someplace.

Many college libraries have some of these newspapers on Microfilm. Some are for sale on Ebay. Why are there no equivalent newspapers/websites? "Where is that one great progressive balls to the wall website that has it all?" Music, protest and boycott info, in-depth interviews, sex (& relationships), drugs, literature? more»

from the archives

Read more...