MARK BODE AND VAUGHN BODE ON YOUTUBE My friend Mark Bode talking about his art and his father Vaughn, and a rare video of Vaughn Bode from 1974. Enjoy!




And here's a "Cheech Wizard" animation that Mark did the voices and played the accordion for:
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  The Customer is Always Wrong I've had a few exasperating experiences this past weekend, during which I cursed the gods and fate, and damned my country, my state, and my species. My wife knows that I'm just Being Me, which in this case is Ralph Kramden's doppelganger. I sputtered and fulminated, turning the air blue with invective.

The main source of my discontent lies with a soviet-style supermarket chain known as Aldi's. The Aldi's philosophy may be stated simply as follows: The Customer is Always Wrong. If Aldi's can save a few pennies, what does it matter how it may disappoint, crush, and inconvenience the consumer. Aldi's cuts costs to the bone, leaving throbbing scars.

Over the past year or so, I have had occasion to enjoy a particular brand of beer sold at Aldi's, and apparently no where else in the United States of America--Wernesgruner. After our local Saranac Brewery stopped making my favorite pilsener (opting instead to push its so-called "Traditional Lager," which tastes like a cocktail of douche and turpentine), I spent months in mourning. Saranac, to paraphrase Don Marquis, made me want to cry into my beer and denied me the beer to cry into. After my year or so of "thinking, thinking, thinking of beer" (Marquis again), I discovered Wernesgruner. It had that lovely pilsener aftertaste, and was reasonably cheap. Life was worth living again.

Then the State of New York (bless its soul!) upped the fees for beer licenses for grocery stores--and Aldi's got economy minded and dropped all beer from its New York outlets. Never mind that Wernesgruener was the only beer nearby fit to drink under $25 a case, and its lack would sorely inconvenience and distress those who turned to it as an oasis in a sea of Old Swillwaukee, Spudweiser, Mildew, and Rocky Mountain Oyster Brau. (And I'm boycotting my own local brewery out of principle.) So they can carve pennies off prices, Aldi's killed one of the great amenities available to the harrassed and inconvienced masses living in Central New York State.

Perhaps some of you can live with beer that tastes of Nutri-sweet and formaldehyde, and leaves your head ringing like a firehouse gong after two servings. Perhaps you feel that I should not get above my station, but enjoy the same rotten American corporatebrau the rest of you lap up. Moreover, some of you may feel I should not be trafficking with John Barleycorn at all, but drink spring water to accompany a cheerful plate of sprouts. My invective over this weekend was the shoe that fits you and you must wear it.

To further turn the screw, we passed by our local discount beer store to see if they offered (for sale by the growler) Pilsner Urquell on tap. This was too much for which to hope. The growler taps dripped with the sweetness of all the various faux-wassails that emerge to please the palate of those who would drink beer only if it tasted more like sody pop. Thus another aspect of Christmas as Glucose Tolerance Test. When we inquired if the beloved Urquell would soon be returning to their roster of drafts, we were told that the distributor would no longer sell the barrels to the Utica area. I smiled at the beer dealer. "That must be," I said, "because we're hicks."

If your taste in is your ass in this country, you must be truly happy. You are the target market of everything offered by those limiting real choice. You like the ooze that commonly plays on the radio. You eagerly participate in the corporate scheme to salt-and-sugar you to death. You vote for Republicans and Democrats like it makes a difference. You watch television. And you drink beer that the Czechs and Germans would not use to poison garden slugs.

God Bless you. And God help the rest of us.  ¶ 12:10 AM 0 comments

 

Nine-Eleven, Oy Vey!

Review of 9-11 Evil by Victor Thorn. State College, Pa.: Sisyphus Press. 123 pp. $6.99

At the outset, let me state that there are compelling nuggets of information in Victor Thorn’s slim volume pointing to the conclusion that the state of Israel was directly complicit in the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. The Bush administration is packed with those holding Israeli passports, and they no doubt saw the benefits of such an attack once Vern and Edna woke from their television-induced stupor and began to call for the blood of Israel’s neighbors. Granted. Most of us who have been following the 9/11 cover-up saga were aware of the so-called “Dancing Israelis,” among other things. Thorn does manage to corral all those stray elements to add weight to the implication of Israel in the attacks.

That’s as far along that road as I’m willing to go with Thorn. If a group ever forms calling itself Brown Shirts for 9/11 Truth, 9-11 Evil is bound to be its lodestar. There is so much pure Jew-hatred in this book that it could be shelved alongside Mein Kampf with no discomfort to either. He writes of “twisted DNA” and “blood sickness” in a manner that would do old Adolf proud. At the end of the book he trots out a series of bullet points that offer the usual anti-Semitic chestnuts–blood sacrifice, Christ-killing, and the “demonic” nature of the Talmud. He makes sure to mention how the Jews despise the blacks. (If that’s so, why did Jews spend most of the Twentieth Century playing and promoting black music? Or were Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Joe Glaser, and Irving Mills anomalies? And what of Sammy Davis Junior–a self-hating Jew?)

This book is not calculated to convince an impartial observer–it is directly aimed at the jack-booted or percale-clad malcontents meeting in undisclosed wooded locations. Thorn amps up the hyperbole, and is a veritable Waring Blendor of Heavy Metal metaphor and tattoo-parlor imagery–“these slithering vipers will leave no stone unturned in covering-up their crimes and furthering their agenda.” Leaving no stone unturned is pretty tough work for vipers, since they don’t have hands.

I might have made some different word choices, too–“those in control will truly feel victorious when they no longer have to hide in the shadows, but can come out into the open and expose themselves.” A truly distressing scenario, especially if there are children in the vicinity.

Thorn also decries Bush’s (Zionist inspired) Hegelian Dialectic: You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists. Fine, but he supplants it with a Hegelian whatchamacallit of his own–you’re either with us or you’re with the Jews.

I like Victor Thorn and Lisa Guliani, and felt a great deal of sympathy for them during their recent harassment nightmare. I bought this book at full price and got some worthwhile bits of information from it. But I will not enter their Hegelian Jew-punching contest.

I don't think you can single out one race of people. The rank-and-file Israelis have as much control over their government as we have over ours. Yes, Israel was definitely involved, and yes, half the Bush administration has its head so far up Israel's ass it can see daylight. But the Bushes also pal around with the Saudis, like "Bandar Bush." Poppy watched 9/11 unfold with the Bin Ladens. My sense is that the elites of ALL nations are playing us against each other, but for them it's intramural. It's a scrimmage. Then, when it's an unholy bloody mess, they'll call time out, knock down the borders, and impose their "improving" world dictatorship. And Fred over there with the horns can be dictator.  ¶ 9:28 PM 0 comments

  I was just thinking about Pilsener.
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  Imagine my astonishment while streaming Harry Shearer's Le Show to hear the announcer at WAMC (Albany NY) state that Utica AM station WRUN was part of their system. I'd heard that the station had been sold recently, but I'd assumed that it was being transferred to another right-wing corporate giant for business as usual. I had all but given up AM radio for dead, both locally and nationally. This changes everything. I don't know if other Uticans will be able to handle Harry Shearer (since he discusses news items they don't hear on FOX), but all I can say is "Hooray!" I gotta dust off that old Zenith!  ¶ 3:04 PM 0 comments

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