Info - Idiot Flesh - Richard B Jr.

[richardbjr]

While I was researching youth arts and culture my son suggested that I listen to this art rock/performance art band. My analysis is forthcoming. The band was called Idiot Flesh. The song, with special guest appearance by Geraldo Rivera, had one of the longest song titles I've seen: "Teen Devil Worshipper Jonathan Cantero's List of Activities for the 12th of October". They disbanded in 1998. Two members went on to form Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

I listened and looked for more.

The band was a band formed in 1985 at Barrington Hall, a student co-op at the University of California at Berkeley.

It's no wonder I missed Idiot Flesh, in 1985 I was exploring with advanced composites in the astro-communications outer space industry, while they were exploring experimental sound with non-traditional instruments, inner space, industrializing strange, "rock against rock" attitude and funny costumes. I wore a tie most days and sensible shoes.

"The band was known to tour the US in a converted city bus with Rathbun [band member] as the driver/mechanic, with the windshield destination banner set for HELL." I drove a Mercedes and a VF750F Interceptor on weekends. "Their work was characterized by its 'rock against rock' attitude and defied classification with marching band routines, puppet shows, and the playing of household items as tuned instruments." I got into a Motown thing in the mid-80s. "A rumor following the group alleged that when the band was offered a record contract from a label, that it would disband before selling out." Their first album was released in 1995. "Their final show was held on a Friday the 13th." I got all that from Wiki.

It's no wonder I missed Idiot Flesh. But times have changed. I dress differently now, any way I want to and I even have pants with holes in them. My son calls me an idiot sometimes. I am expanding my horizons. I am experiencing the wonders of all I may have missed when I was what I was. The analysis is forthcoming, maybe.

Idiot Flesh often performed live with a group of additional stage performers who called themselves the Filthy Rotten Excuse Chickens. They were "a motley bunch," wrote Andrew Lentz in Metroactive Music, "that enhances the Idiot Flesh experience with a variety of acrobatics, dancing and pantomime." Members of Filthy Rotten Excuse Chickens went by the names:

* The Minotaurs of Baal
* Beefra The Cook
* Helpy The Hamburger Bee
* Mr. Punch
* Hatcha & Datcha The Siamese Twins
* Ming Tsao: Professor of Black Math
* Uro Butoh
* El Evil
* Ward C. Picnic
* The Queen of Oakland
* Mumble

Enjoy! more... Idiot Flesh and I get it now. There's something, a message in the names perhaps. And here I've been worrying about things like terrorism, the failing economy, shrinking bank accounts and expanding waistline, and what kind of sneakers I should wear. I think I get it now, there's no point to analyze since it's all there, whatever it is it's all there, in her wagon.

Idiot Song

Comments

[mrnihil]

unfair. i wasn't even alive in the 80's.

I am old

[richardbjr]

endless as the sands, but take heart, I survived the Sixties and Seventies too. In fact, I still disco pretty good.

Re: I am old

[mrnihil]

what's it like having perspective through time like that? seems like it would be......... weird.

Re: I am old

[richardbjr]

yeah, my perspective changed at times... like when I was married for a few years, when I had a real job for awhile, and definitely when my two sons were born and I think I found God on those two days for sure... definitely my perspective changed when I got tubed on my first really big wave, and at the Watkins Glen rock concert in 1973 with some good acid WHOA! I think my perspective has changed more than for someone who has led a more normal life and not faced death as often as I have but girls like guys with scars, don't they?... I guess you could say the way I walk now is really weird, but I have some really cool canes and I do live in Paradise for sure.

Re: I am old

[mrnihil]

that's cool. are you going to get a robot body in 2045? i hear a lot of people will be.

Re: I am old

[richardbjr]

oh yeah, I'm a fan of Kurzweil, Anissimov, Wolfram and all the friendly AI-related singularity crew. But 2045 is being kind of optimistic. Then again, I'm doing everything I can to put off the fusing of ankle, knee replacement kind of thing as long as possible. Screw the superintelligence, anthropomorphism, et cetera, not for me, I'm smart as I need to be. For me it's more like, walking to the beach at sunrise and back, or working an offshore, racing sailboat without falling overboard, or the skipper thinking he needs to start putting a line on me, ha-ha... I'm not that old, yet.

Re: I am old

[mrnihil]

we won't make it to 2045 anyway because Apophis will kill everyone in 2036. the year of the dragon. and doom.

plus, being digital sounds like a lot of work. and if microsoft is working on the OSs for the new machine bodies, it's going to be a while after 2045 that they're even ready for practical applications.

Re: I am old

[richardbjr]

exactly, and there would be no money it when everyone but Apophis would be dead anyway, microsoft knows that. Leaving the planet altogether might be better idea, colonize Mars or something, do some terraforming somewhere and get to dodge a few gamma bursts be fun.

Re: I am old

[mrnihil]

i haven't yet decided if humans have the right to move on to other worlds, but i'll let you know before Apophis happens.


don't dodge gamma bursts, it's where superpowers come from.

Re: I am old

[richardbjr]

"The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." -- Eden Phillpotts

I wonder if an asteroid like Apophis would have a sense of moral realism when it blasts into an inhabited planet, as opposed to an already dead one.

In answer to your moral question, I think the question is best answered by a rule-based, complex adaptive system, assuming some unknown classifiers of course... it's like maybe better to simply flip a coin, and when it's possible to go somewhere possible someone wants to go, blast off anyway whether you are heads or tails and see what happens. I've done that before and I've survived, barely, but survived with few regrets. And most of the time I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about.

Put the pedal to the metal, burn rubber, don't ever slow down, swerve when you have to always keep going, and let your hair flow, out of the open window...

Re: I am old

[mrnihil]

but because we can do something, should we? i mean, should a pedophile move to nevernever land just because the laws there are [currently] more lax? we don't take care of the shit we got, so we should say "oh well, there are other planets to pillage."?

i do like the idea of flipping a coin, though, letting chance decide. it cuts out all of the philosophy and debate that rarely takes you anywhere as succinctly as a coin flip.

Re: I am old

[richardbjr]

You ask: "but because we can do something, should we? i mean, should a pedophile move to nevernever land just because the laws there are [currently] more lax?"

From the perspective of the pedophile, depending upon the pedophile purposes and circumstances and nature of the particular pedophile cognitive processing (the question invites many comparisons) I would say yes, if the pedophile wants to, if it would be in the best interests of the particular pedophile. Now if the pedophile moves and pedophiles and gets caught, how much do we fault the fact that the laws were more lax, inviting the pedophile there in the first place?

Further comparisons can be made, for instance, with varying tax laws for business, labor laws, regulations and costs, the old let's move offshore because we can make more money conundrum. I choose to live on or near the ocean for various reasons, always have, it's better for me and my beloved activities than living inland or on a mountain, although it costs more to live where I choose to live, for me it's worth it.

I suppose another comparative existential exercise, rather than moralistic or metaphysical, would be to apply various rules and conditions to the current illegal immigration debate. Ho-ho!

You ask: "we don't take care of the shit we got, so we should say 'oh well, there are other planets to pillage.'?"

I am no philosopher, academic, moralist or theologian, blah-blah-blah, and I'm definitely not as smart as some say I am, I'm just a fucking old sailor and surfer and shit, but the answer to this one is simple, FUCK NO! We should clean up our act and start taking care of our shit. Do you think we (in the U.S. at least and several other industrialized nations) are doing better now at taking of our shit than we were let's say a hundred, or a hundred and fifty years ago? What do you think of the U.N.'s Agenda 21? What about the number of armed conflicts worldwide, how has that changed in let's say, the last twenty years?

Re: I am old

[mrnihil]

well, blaming the lax laws is a lot like blaming the girl in the skimpy clothes for her rape. but of course, it's the risk you run when you have a free society. from an outside perspective, though, we can say something like "no, the pedophile should actually implode and cease to exist, then things would be a little better off." humans colonizing other planets can be seen from this same outside perspective. if you saw a colony of, say, bacteria invading ecosystems and killing them off, maybe you'd want to wipe the bacteria out, or at least keep from them spreading.

as far as taking care of out shit, now compared to other times, the answer is probably only yes because we weren't able to fuck our shit up then the way we can now. at some points, in some cultures, there's been more respect for said shit, to various degrees, but over all, exploitation is how things work, and that's only amplified when you find out you can print your own money. all i know about agenda 21 is that it's, what, designed to clean up the world? but that it doesn't seem to have done much.

Re: I am old

[richardbjr]

blaming the lax laws is like... not really, because if the pedophile is allowed to move to the lax laws place the pedophile is not violating anything. Now if the girl in the skimpy clothes was wined and dined, taken to a movie, maybe a long walk under the moonlight, a couple dates let's say and then she's violated, would be better analogy. Personally, I like the imploding pedophile option the best.

As far as human evolution is concerned I am an optimist. Having no advanced degrees may have something to do with my optimism. I think we are, as a race, getting better all the time. Personally, I've been told that as I've aged I not only get better looking, but smarter too.

Re: I am old

[richardbjr]

Agenda 21 is not what you think.

Re: I am old

[mrnihil]

lax laws aren't the same as no laws, though- perhaps the pedophile doesn't have to let everyone in the neighbourhood he's a pedophile, or maybe he can live close to a school. his actions (raping lost boys) are still illegal. as is raping someone, generally, skimpy clothes or not.


i'm both, optimistic and pessimistic. or maybe i'm neither, i forget the difference just now. i see moments of greatness, and i see the opposite. my verdict isn't in yet.

Re: I am old

[richardbjr]

I'm going to the beach. It's a beautiful day, the sunrise was magnificent and the nearest I've been to outside is smoking on my balcony, probably sailing tomorrow, so I'm going to the beach and look for that girl in skimpy clothes which won't be hard to find because they're everywhere around here... "and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked, the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind." I'm going beach.

Re: I am old

[mrnihil]

well then.

i'm going to go enjoy the blistering cold of snow and death, in a land where the sun never rises.

(ps im not really going to enjoy it all that much. have fun on the beach, you beach having jerk :P)