Cup of TNB

Listen below or at http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/podcasts/

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A very interesting looking project

About the Film

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within is a feature-length independent documentary by Chicago Director Yony Leyser, in collaboration with BulletProof Film, Inc.

The film features never before seen footage of William S. Burroughs, as well as exclusive interviews with his closest friends and colleagues including John Waters, Genesis P-Orridge, Laurie Anderson, Peter Weller, David Cronenberg, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Sonic Youth, Anne Waldman, George Condo, Hal Willner, James Grauerholz, Amiri Baraka, Jello Biafra, V. Vale, David Ohle, Wayne Propst, Dr. William Ayers, Diane DiPrima, Penny Arcade, Donovan, Dean Ripa (the world’s largest poisonous snake collector), and many others, with narration by actor Peter Weller.

The film investigates the life of legendary beat author and American icon, William S. Burroughs. Born the heir of the Burroughs’ adding machine estate, he struggled throughout his life with addiction, control systems and self. He was forced to deal with the tragedy of killing his wife and the repercussions of neglecting his son. His novel, Naked Lunch, was one of the last books to be banned by the U.S. government. Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer testified on behalf of the book. The courts eventually overturned their decision in 1966, ruling that the book had important social

value. It remains one of the most recognized literary works of the 20th century.

William Burroughs was one of the first to cross the dangerous boundaries of queer and drug culture in the 1950s, and write about his experiences. Eventually he was hailed the godfather of the beat generation and influenced artists for generations to come. However, his friends were left wondering, did William ever find happiness? This extremely personal documentary breaks the surface of the troubled and brilliant world of one of the greatest authors of all time.

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within is the first and only posthumous documentary about this legendary figure.

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New group blog/zine,

Libertarian Punk. Keep your fucking hands off!

Wherein 9 young punks and 2 old punks rail against th’ liberals and th’ statists, and discuss their love of punk rock, guns, freedom, and how damn silly most of the world is.
Comments welcome on the site, especially from haters.

How can you NOT want to post comments on a site with articles titled “Regarding Creative Commons, and socialist ideas of copyright”, “Guns- More Punk Than Guitars”, “Hating guns will blow up your penis”, and “Nullification of Health Care ‘Reform’.”

And they have blog categories like “damn liberals”, “The road to serfdom”, “guns”  liberty”, “punk rock, man!”, and “take action NOW!”

Truly, this is NOT your dad’s punk rock zine.

http://www.libertarianpunk.com/ 

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Entire new CD “Cling to Our Guns”

GET TORRENT

High-quality recording, mastering and MP3 encoding. (192k 16 bit joint stereo MP3.)

Lyrics sheet.

Track listing:

1.    GET OFF MY PROPERTY!    4:48
2.    MY GUN KEEPS YOU HONEST 4:37
3.    REDISTRIBUTION OF THEFT 3:58
4.    GOVERNMENT IS A COLLECTIVE HALLUCINATION     4:43
5.    GUN CONTROL GETS WOMEN RAPED 3:58
6.    LIBERTY IN SHARDS 4:09
7.    FREAKY LIBERAL MAMMAL SEX 4:22
8.    FAKIN’ THE RACE CARD    4:01
9.    SINGLE CRACKLING BLUE FLASH 2:24
10.    WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS! 4:16
11.    US Bill of Rights (read by Mrs. Dean) 4:11
12.    LETTER TO A YOUNG ME (SPOKEN) 26:39
13.    MY GUN KEEPS YOU HONEST – CLEAN VERSION FOR RADIO 4:37

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INFLUENCES: Big Black, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Ron Paul, Dead Kennedys, Nine Inch Nails, Ted Nugent, Big Black, Bomb, The Happy Flowers, Minor Threat, Government Issue, Baby Opaque, Naked Raygun, 9353, The War Hippies.
—-
Please blog and post.

Website: www.LibertarianPunk.com

RIGHT ARM OF WYOMING (or “RAW” for short) is a one-man libertarian anarchist hardcore punk/industrial rock band from Casper, Wyoming.

Songwriter/lyricist/guitarist/bass player/drummer/producer Michael W. Dean says “I moved out of California after buying my first gun.” He believes that “California would be a beautiful place to live, if it weren’t for all those damn Californians.”

Michael W. Dean sang and played bass in the 80s and 90s in the San Francisco band Bomb (Warner Brothers). He played guitar in the early 80s hardcore punk band The Beef People, and sang and played bass in the mid-80s post-punk band Baby Opaque.

This is his first CD since Bomb. He’s spent the interim directing the films D.I.Y. or DIE: How to Survive as an Independent Artist and Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow, and being the author of the books $30 Film School, $30 Music School, $30 Writing School, Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women, The Simple Pleasures of a Complex Girl, and co-authoring the books DIY NOW! Digital Audio and YouTube: an Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts.

ABOUT THE BAND NAME: Michael says, “You may wonder, what does the name Right Arm of Wyoming mean? Well, it does NOT mean ‘right wing.’ I’m libertarian. I relate with the right wing more than the left wing, but I’m NO-wing. “Right Arm of Wyoming” is a take-off on the phrase, ‘Right arm of the free world’, a description of the world-famous battle rifle, the FAL. I like FALs. That’s my FAL (and my bass guitar) in the logo photo.”

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Sign up at http://hukilau.us/

Hukilau is a new platform to create, fund and distribute independent film. We aim to become the new model for film and video finding it’s audience. Propose independent movie projects, get them funded. Become a producer, or simply be a participant by watching and rating movies. Hukilau is the new way to create, produce and distribute film and video projects. Sign up to be included in our upcoming beta.

Please pass this on to any filmmakers or film enthusiasts you may know.

Hukilau is a way of fishing invented by the ancient Hawaiians. The word comes from Huki, meaning pull, and lau, meaning leaves. A large number of people, usually family and friends, would work together in casting the net from shore and then pulling it back. The net was lined with ki leaves, which would help scare the fish into the center of the net. Consistent with the Hawaiian subsistence economy, anybody that helped could share in the catch. Hukilau Beach, in Lā’ie, is named after the technique, which has been used there for centuries. A Hukilau is also known to local Hawaiians as a festive beach gathering. (wikipedia).

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FoolishPeople presents A Red Threatening Sky

Valentinian. Harry wakes with no memory of how he arrived inside the club. He has been contracted to find a missing person. Pearl.

The Hotel room. Her hands and feet are bound and a hood hides her face. Teddy boy philosopher Roy Boutling watches the prize for the club’s owner. Sebastian Qyain.

The Aviary. The birds song has become distressed. The ornithologist Miss Moreau waits for her lover, a man whose face she has never seen.

The Dance Floor. The showgirls receive a letter from Sebastian Qyain. It contains the revised ending of the Valentine’s show at Club Aetherus, directing them in a horrifying act.

Opening hour approaches under a red threatening sky.

You are invited to enter and investigate the mystery of love’s final destination, in a unique experience honoring the earliest traditions and rituals of courtship, jealousy, union and lust.

A Red Threatening Sky examines the nature of love, an unrelenting force which pervades all our lives from the moment we are born until the day we die.

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How did Camus’ WWII experiences form his ideas and theories about rebellion??

Let me first say that to adequately answer these questions would require an extensive essay, for which I do not currently have the time. But I will try to be brief and to the point. You may certainly call me if you wish further clarification or elaboration. Camus’ views on rebellion have their roots in his pre-War experience; they are metaphysical as well as social and political. His struggle with the meaning of life, made vivid by his tuberculosis and confrontation with death - led to his refusal to accept both the metaphysical assurances of Christianity and the despair of the “absurd.” These were augmented by his outrage at the oppression and humiliation that was socially inflicted upon people, leading to his active engagement in political journalism and rebellious political activity, both before and during the war. But with the war he came to realize more clearly the need to limit and focus his rebellion, and to work to build sustaining communities and comradeship. He came to see more clearly the dangers posed by absolutistic ideologies of the Left and the Right — and to place them in their historical context as efforts to replace a failed religious transcendence.

How does Camus define rebellion for us?

It is the act of saying NO to efforts to deny one’s humanity, dignity, human rights. NO to such infringements and by so doing to assert one’s right to a minimum of respect — a right which is implicitly universal in scope.

How would this definition relate to anarchism?

AC was not an anarchist, but a libertarian socialist, committed to an institutional order that is based on social humanity’s cooperative organization and effective control of the institutions of society and the economy.

Could Mersault the protagonist from Camus’ novel “The Stranger” be see as a rebel?

Yes, but only at the end. Throughout the novel he is in effect a rebel against the established order, but not conscious of that fact and not as an expression of explicit intent. He comes to self-consciousness of the fact that he has not “played by the rules” and then self-consciously approves of that life and affirms his commitment to his rejection of the established order, which he expresses explicitly at the conclusion in his wish that at the time of his execution he will be greeted with cries of hate. You might use Hegel’s expression and say that he was initially a rebel in-itself but not yet one for-himself, to which he finally comes.

How does rebellion relate to art, when speaking of Andre Breton and the Surrealist Movement?

Art, for AC, is a prime example of rebellion, The artist says NO to the world as it is, and YES to the values of a transformed world. Check out his Noble Prize Address on the role of the artist. The problem with Breton is that he cannot balance his rebellion with an affirmation of the limits posed by the need to respect human integrity and to advance human dignity

>Would Camus have seen Jesus Christ as a rebel?

I don’t think so — I rather suspect his view would have been close to Nietzsche’s: Christ advocated turning the other cheek - and complete acceptance of the coming of the Kingdom. Rebellion, according to Camus, is the opposite of a world of grace, and of such acceptance of the divine.

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Good true story by our friend Michael W. Dean, on the Republican Liberty Caucus blog:
http://libertarianrepublican.blogspot.com/2009/12/punk-rock-california-liberal-buys-gun.html

Also mirrored at the Liberty Republican Forum, here:

http://www.fontcraft.com/liberty/?p=16603

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Cup of TNB: Episode #2: Greg Olear

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First, why did you write a book about “Blood Rituals”?

Jack Donovan:  Well, my co-author Nathan Miller and I wrote a book about blood-brotherhood because Mr. Miller originally suggested it to me as an alternative to the ideal of “marriage” which carries too much heterosexual cultural baggage to create an innately masculine bond between two men.

But the book really isn’t about same sex-marriage. It’s about rites between men who were predominantly straight. It’s about male bonding and things that men—specifically men—have done to ritualize their friendships and alliances. Very few books have ever handled this topic, and ours is the only one to pull together so much information from so many diverse sources. In our research, we found blood-brotherhood bonds of various kinds in the recorded practices, literature, folklore and mythology of cultures from all over the world, throughout history.

Instead of making the book a mere summary of what we found, we wanted to put together a real sourcebook, what we’ve called a “toolbox for the imagination.” We retold or reprinted stories that can be read as standalone examples of blood-brotherhood. The book contains original translations of blood-brotherhood rites from Wagner and Karl May’s Winnetou. Examples from Celtic and Norse mythology are featured. But we also have these really engaging little folktales Mr. Miller found and retold from African and Asian mythology. There’s basically a tale or a practice in the book that a man from almost any background should be able to identify with. Also, a lot of the rites are so primal and gory that the book is entertaining on that level as well.

Nathan F. Miller:  I had the idea of applying blood-brotherhood instead of marriage to male couples around 2000, but it was Mr. Donovan who first suggested that there could be a book in the topic. With the research it really took off, turning into a much broader and entertaining subject than either of us had anticipated. In the end, it’s not even a homo book but a general men’s interest book, with
heroics, adventure, and quite a bit of gruesomeness.

Regardless of race, blood rituals tie men together and create a bond. Why is this?

Nathan F. Miller:  It’s very interesting, because similar rituals have been performed by men of Africa, aboriginal Australia, and South America — populations that had been separated from each other for tens of thousands of years!  Anthropological study of the
blood-brother phenomenon shows certain logics that could apply to men anywhere.  One reason is the rituals were meant to create a physical connection in a way that imitated natural biological relationships, but allowing the men to control the bond.  Another logic was involved in the idea that the blood of a person was their very life or soul, so for two or more men to mingle their lives together was to create the most sacred bond possible.  Yet another idea that often went into blood-bond ceremonies was that blood was such a magical substance that “conditional curses” could be placed on the blood, and the potential oath-breakers.  Interestingly, instances of blood brother rituals could show all three logics simultaneously;  the men involved would be considered to have become actual brothers, yet also something even more sacred than brothers, and have curse-backed promises tied into the agreement as well.

That’s from the standard anthropology, but my co-author and I have also added some conjectures of our own, in trying to answer the question “why men?”  Although there have been what could be call “blood-sisterhood” rites in some cultures and parallel things between
men and women, these have happened far more rarely.  We are both interested in the theories of Lionel Tiger, who actually coined the
term “male bonding,” seeing it as arising from early man’s role as hunters and defenders.  To us, this meant that the male bond
originated in “bloody business,” tasks where blood had to risked, spilled, handled.  So it would only make sense that men would have more interest in using blood in formalized bonds.

The suicide of writer Yukio Mishima was a ceremony that spilled blood. How do Asians view what is called ‘Hara-kiri”, was his act of suicide creating a bond with the men who made up his private army?

Jack Donovan:  I’ve read from several sources that there’s something in the language of “belly-cuttting,” which is a rough translation of
hara-kiri that also implies a demonstration of intent. A close English comparison is the idea of a “gut feeling.” You’re showing everyone what you’re made of, what’s in your guts. Sometimes samurai were ordered to commit hara-kiri (or more formally, seppuku, but Mishima preferred hara-kiri). But other times, and this seems to be what fascinated Mishima, a samurai would perform hara-kiri of his own accord to demonstrate intent, to show loyalty, to make amends for an error, to preserve his own honor, or sometimes in protest. Westerners see suicide as a sad, pathetic act associated with failure and depression and sometimes they look at Mishima’s suicide through that lens. But Mishima orchestrated his suicide and rehearsed it on film several times. I wouldn’t consider it a bond, though the men who were there will be powerfully connected to Mishima until they die, and the young man who committed hara-kiri after him obviously had a strong bond with his mentor.

However, if Mishima’s suicide finalized a bond between him and anyone or anything, it was a bond with Japan-or Japan as he envisioned it, a Japan that was committing cultural suicide. The Japan he loved in some sense died after WWII, and I think a part of him secretly wished he had died with it. Suicide was also his poetic ideal, so his suicide was also a work of art. It was also a protest, but I doubt he truly believed his death would change the course of history. People who call his suicide a failure because it failed to start a revolution underestimate his intelligence. I don’t think he was insane and he obviously wasn’t stupid.

Mishima did actually make a blood pact with the members of the Tatenokai a few years prior to his suicide, and that story is recounted in our book.

Could you tell us about a few modern day blood rituals that bond men together?

Jack Donovan: Well, blood-brotherhood still happens in the world. Blood oaths have often been employed to bond men engaged in acts of rebellion, war or criminal conspiracy. In a recent case, Texan financier Allen Stanford and the chief banking regulator for Antigua
and Barbuda made a blood pact to conceal fraud together. It all came out in the court proceedings when they were caught.

And I’m sure some boys still make blood pacts like the one in Tom Sawyer. A friend told me recently that we had made a blood pact as
boys that I didn’t even remember.  It is also likely that blood-brotherhood oaths are still common in less developed countries.

Gang members swear oaths and get tattoos, and I thought that given modern health concerns this might be the best way to bring the
tradition of blood-brotherhood into the modern age. Often, men get memorial tattoos of some kind that symbolize their connection to
another man who has died. Why not get a tattoo that symbolizes your connection to another man—a mentor or a best pal, the guy who has you back—in life? That’s the spirit of blood-brotherhood.

With that in mind, my compadre Lucio and I performed our own blood-brotherhood rite by mutually tattooing each other with our
initials. We did it while smoking cigars and drinking whiskey. We wanted it to be a guy thing. The last chapter in Blood-Brotherhood
develops that idea, and describes the rite we performed and the technique we used in greater detail.

Is there conformity in the role that is played by homosexuals? A stereotype that prefers effeminate images of men? Especially in the media?

Jack Donovan:  Yes, that was the subject of my first book, Androphilia. Homosexual males who consider themselves part of the “gay” community often have a conflicted love-hate relationship with masculinity. Sexually—and you can see this both in the majority of pornography and online pickup profiles—homosexual men venerate manliness and virility. They want their fantasy men to be uppercase MEN. They present themselves as MEN looking for MEN. There are exceptions but that is the general rule.

However, homosexual males—especially older ones—have often had difficult relationships with their fathers. Many have also had tense, negative or possibly traumatic experiences with dominant peers who enforced traditional masculine norms. All homosexual men are aware of the fact that there will always be some straight men who, given the opportunity, would exclude them from male groups, emasculate them and push them out to the enemy “Omega” zone on the basis of homosexuality alone. This anger at heroes and father figures and this potential to be excluded creates resentment against traditional, exclusive, hierarchical models of masculinity.

If MAN is the ultimate brother and father, homosexual men want to love him and be him and murder him all at once. So they love him through surrogates and kill him by rejecting what he stands for. They side with women against him to castrate him. They mock and taunt him with flamboyant, effeminate displays. They look down on his stoic, simple, grounded manliness by aligning themselves with high culture and excess.  Gay culture is patricide.

The patricidal nature of gay culture is what most often makes it through media filters; it’s what people expect from homosexual males.
It’s frivolous and angry at the same time, but people only see the frivolousness of it, and gays have politically gone out of their way to make themselves seem as harmless as possible—even when they have to lie to or mislead the public about what most gays actually do and think. The public image of gay is too silly and harmless to be taken as a real threat, as long as the sex stays behind the scenes. But a man who can only be silly and harmless, who can never be seen as a real threat to anyone, has castrated himself. Manliness is strength, it is formidable. A man stands his ground. The silly faggot does tricks for attention and then rolls around on the floor, offering his belly. He’s a harmless, neutered lapdog with a pink barrette in his hair for the entertainment of his female masters.

Many of the men who like my work have good relationships with their fathers and male peers—they bristle when they see this sort of
castrating bitchiness and lapdog behavior in gays. Some read my work and suddenly see their own conflicted behavior, and begin a process of reconciliation and purging of that need to castrate men even as they castrate themselves. I encourage that, but I no longer see these men as “gay.” When they’ve moved beyond the culture of castration, they’ve moved beyond gay.

Blood ritual is important to magical practice. Could you tell us something about this use of blood in magic?

Jack Donovan: Well, blood is connected with life. It keeps us alive. Blood is connected with life and the soul and also with family and the
heart. Blood is also readily available, just a cut away—though cuts are painful and a sacrifice in themselves. The sacrificial spilling of
blood is an act that invokes life and death. If you’re going to perform some sort of magic, it’s difficult to think of an element more
powerfully symbolic than blood.

Blood ritual is written about extensively in the Hebrew Bible. Are there any instances which come to mind?

Nathan F. Miller: Probably the most important instance occurs in the book of Exodus after Moses has been given the Ten Commandments and the laws.  Moses and other Israelites sacrifice some bulls at an altar to Yahweh, and Moses spreads part of the blood onto the altar, and, after reading the laws out loud to the people, he spreads the rest of the blood onto the Israelites themselves.  This ritual actually has a form like many blood-brotherhood ceremonies, with animal blood divided up between two parties that are making irrevocable promises to each other.

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Joseph Matheny

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BRAD LISTI (b. August 1, 1975) is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestselling novel Attention. Deficit. Disorder. and the founder of TheNervousBreakdown.com, an online literary community and publication featuring writers from around the world. He has a BFA from the University of Colorado and an MFA from the University of Southern California. He was raised in the Middle West, but his kinfolk are from the Deep South. He teaches creative writing and English composition at Santa Monica College, and he can be found online at Myspace, Facebook, and www.thenervousbreakdown.com.

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