Saturday, August 12. 2006
From The Archives: Meet Jack Black - Hired Corporate Brainwasher
This article was published on media underground and disinformation back in October 2001. It was written under the pseudonym "George R.M. Moretti" (an anagram) since I didn't think the company I was working for would appreciate my realisation of their attempts to brainwash their workforce...
It was a dank and miserable Monday morning as I trudged off to work through the drizzle. I was not at all looking forward to the event that had been so insidiously arranged and paid in advance for me. By God I’d tried my damnedest to put in for a holiday on that day, but the bastards just regarded me with the kind of contempt that one would expect Marilyn Manson to get at a Pentecostal Sunday School picnic.
I could see it in their faces; that look of pity said it all: “you’re just not a team player George. This is for your good, and for the good of everyone else in the company who is attending.” Career obsessed cabbage-clones, I thought to myself; worthless pre-programmed robotized baboons, off to get their brain cells serviced for the winter.
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Monday, July 17. 2006
From The Archives: Alexandra 'Chica' Bruce Interview 2005
Alexandra Bruce knows how to keep her life interesting. As a real life Dana Scully she spends much of her time researching such diverse subjects as quantum physics, metaphysics, subcultures and urban legends.
Known mostly for her research into the Montauk Project and Ong’s Hat legend, Chica (as she prefers to be called) has recently written an unauthorised guide to the unlikeliest cult movie of 2004: What The Bleep Do We Know!? - a part documentary, part motion picture about a woman going through an existential crisis, who discovers the uncertain world of the quantum field which hides behind reality.
Chica is also the author of The Philadelphia Experiment Murder: Parallel Universes & The Physics Of Insanity and has written articles for Paranoia Magazine, Steamshovel Press, Borderland Sciences and Disinfo.com.
She currently lives in Rio de Janeiro and has recently translated a book on the Mystery of Fátima.
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From The Archives: Doug Stanhope Interview 2004
Doug Stanhope is the most recent prodigy to emerge from an historic succession of American outlaw comics. Armed with the same kind of brutal honesty that has been espoused by the likes of Lenny Bruce, Sam Kinison and the late Bill Hicks, Doug Stanhope’s performance is quite simply a one man riot where no prisoners are ever taken.
Justly earning himself the Strathmore Press Award at his first ever appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2002, Doug is back in the capital this year to drink and chain-smoke his way through a full week of harsh and hard-hitting comedy.
Contrary to the wild “Comedy Rock Star” persona that seems to follow him wherever he ventures, Stanhope is in fact a rather composed individual who is clearly just as honest in real life as his comedy is ruthless. “I do good things with my life too,” he once remarked during a performance, “it’s just that none of them are funny.”
This year I caught up with Doug, several months prior to his Edinburgh Festival appearance, to find out what else makes this man tick.
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Sunday, July 16. 2006
From The Archives: James Inman Interview 2004
James Inman is an angry man. 1997 winner of the San Francisco International Comedy Competition, Inman has been described as being like “the spawn of an unnatural union between Henry Rollins and Don Rickles.”
A rural punk-comic Generation-X anti-hero, James Inman comfortably blows away political correctness in favour of a freeform brutal frankness that so few comics dare even attempt.
Originating from Kansas and currently based in Seattle, Inman has been a three time headliner at the Seattle Lenny Bruce Festival and has wrote and produced his one man show The Greyhound Diary - a tale of a brutal journey into the heart of fear that is the life of a stand-up comic on the road.
This year will be Inman’s first ever appearance at the Edinburgh Festival and one can be almost certain that he is destined to be a huge success in the capital as well as a very exciting and entertaining act to go see.
I caught up with James just prior to his arrival in the UK to get his thoughts on his forthcoming Edinburgh appearance.
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