India rattled by vibrating condom

By Jyotsna Singh BBC News, Delhi

The company says its product has been "well received"

A vibrating condom has sparked a fierce debate in India, over whether it is a sex toy - which are banned - or a means of birth control.

The controversial condom has caused outrage in the state of Madhya Pradesh, because a government-owned company is involved in marketing it.

The pack of three condoms, branded as Crezendo, contains a battery-operated ring-like device.

Critics say it is in fact a vibrator, and should therefore be banned.

Sex toys and pornography are illegal in India.

'Ultimate pleasure'

The condom was given a low-key launch across the country three months ago. At that time many critics failed to notice that it had government backing.

A promotional message from the company, Hindustan Latex Limited, describes Crezendo as a product that "provides ultimate pleasure by producing strong vibrations" .

Condoms and sex are still taboo in India

That has caused an outcry among many in conservative India, including the Madhya Pradesh minister for road and energy, Kailash Vijayvargiya, who argues that it is nothing more than a sex toy.

"Sex toys are banned in India and the vibrating device is nothing but a sex toy being sold as condoms.

"The government's job is to promote family planning and population control measures rather than market products for sexual pleasure," he told BBC News.

The Hindustan Latex company says that the new condom was launched to promote the use of condoms in order to prevent the spread of Aids.

'Personal choice'

"The product was launched with the primary objective of addressing a fall in condom usage... A major reason cited by users was the lack of pleasure when using condoms.

"So we added the vibrating ring as a pleasure enhancer. It helps to hold the condom in position besides producing a vibrating effect," company spokesman S Jayaraj told BBC News.

Condoms are becoming more available in India

The company says the condom pack, priced at 125 rupees ($3, £1.50) has been "well received".

It has strongly rejected allegations that its product is a sex toy, but has offered to withdraw the product from Madhya Pradesh if the state government asks for it.

Hindu hardliners have held protests asking the government to ban its sale, though most people on the streets of the state refused to be drawn on the matter.

But those who were willing to discuss such a sensitive issue seemed broadly supportive.

"It is wrong to protest against the move. It is a matter of personal choice," Kunal Singh, a resident in the Madhya Pradesh capital, Bhopal, said.

Medical store owner Ravi Bhannani said: "Customers want something new and this pack offers something new."

Judge Orders FBI to Turn Over Thousands of Patriot Act Abuse Documents

By Ryan Singel June 15, 2007 | 3:52:04 PMCategories: Sunshine and Secrecy

Just one day after a news that an internal audit found that FBI agents abused a Patriot Act power more than 1,000 times, a federal judge ordered the agency Friday to begin turning over thousands of pages of documents related to the agency's use of a powerful, but extremely secretive investigative tool that can pry into telephone and internet records.

The order for monthly document releases commencing July 5 came in response to a government sunshine request by a civil liberties group, which sued in April over the FBI's foot-dragging on its broad request.

The April request from the Electronic Frontier Foundation asked the FBI to turn over documents related to its misuse of National Security Letters, self-issued subpoenas that don't need a judge's approval and which can get financial, phone and internet records. Recipients of the letters are forbidden by law from ever telling anyone other than their lawyer that they received the request. Though initially warned to use this power sparingly, FBI agents issued more than 47,000 in 2005, more than half of which targeted Americans. Information obtained from the requests, which need only be certified by the agency to be "relevant" to an investigation, are dumped into a data-mining warehouse for perpetuity.

An Inspector General report in March found rampant errors in the small sample of NSLs examined and systemic underreporting of the powers usage to Congress. The report also found that agents issued more than 700 "expedited" letters, some containing materially false sworn statements. These letters had no legal basis and essentially asked companies to turn over data by pretending there was an emergency in order to get the data necessary to get a proper NSL. One former FBI agent says its clear the FBI violated the law.

Now the Justice Department must turn over 2,500 pages of documents a month to the EFF, including information on cozy surveillance contracts between the FBI and telephone companies and information on how data captured by NSLs were put into the FBI's massive data mining warehouse.

The Justice Department told the court that there were more than 100,000 potentially responsive documents and that ten people are working full time on filling the request for documents. Look out for a run on thick, black magic markers in D.C.

THREAT LEVEL can't wait to see:

1. All records discussing or reporting violations or potential violations of statutes, Attorney General guidelines, and internal FBI policies governing the use of NSLs, including, but not limited to:

A. Correspondence or communications between the FBI and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board concerning violations or potential violations of statutes...

2. Guidelines, memoranda or communications addressing or discussing the integration of NSL data into the FBIís Investigative Data Warehouse; 3. Contracts between the FBI and three telephone companies [...] which were intended to allow the Counterterrorism Division to obtain telephone toll billing data from the communications industry as expeditiously as possible;

4. Any guidance, memoranda or communications discussing the FBI's legal authority to issue exigent letters to telecommunications companies, and the relationship between such exigent letters and the FBI's authority to issue NSLs under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act;

5. Any guidance, memoranda or communications discussing the application of the Fourth Amendment to NSLs issued under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act;

8. Copies of sample or model exigent letters used by the FBI's Counterterrorism Division;

9. Copies of sample or model NSL approval requests used by the FBIís Counterterrorism Division;

10. Records related to the Counterterrorism Divisionís Electronic Surveillance Operations and Sharing Unit (EOPS).

Photo: buschap

Scholars Race to Recover a Lost Kingdom on the Nile

June 19, 2007

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

On the periphery of history in antiquity, there was a land known as Kush. Overshadowed by Egypt, to the north, it was a place of uncharted breadth and depth far up the Nile, a mystery verging on myth. One thing the Egyptians did know and recorded — Kush had gold.

Scholars have come to learn that there was more to the culture of Kush than was previously suspected. From deciphered Egyptian documents and modern archaeological research, it is now known that for five centuries in the second millennium B.C., the kingdom of Kush flourished with the political and military prowess to maintain some control over a wide territory in Africa.

Kush’s governing success would seem to have been anomalous, or else conventional ideas about statehood rest too narrowly on the experiences of early civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt and China. How could a fairly complex state society exist without a writing system, an extensive bureaucracy or major urban centers, none of which Kush evidently had?

Archaeologists are now finding some answers — at least intriguing insights — emerging in advance of rising Nile waters behind a new dam in northern Sudan. Hurried excavations are uncovering ancient settlements, cemeteries and gold-processing centers in regions previously unexplored.

In recent reports and interviews, archaeologists said they had found widespread evidence that the kingdom of Kush, in its ascendancy from 2000 B.C. to 1500 B.C., exerted control or at least influence over a 750-mile stretch of the Nile Valley. This region extended from the first cataract in the Nile, as attested by an Egyptian monument, all the way upstream to beyond the fourth cataract. The area covered part of the larger geographic region of indeterminate borders known in antiquity as Nubia.

Some archaeologists theorize that the discoveries show that the rulers of Kush were the first in sub-Saharan Africa to hold sway over so vast a territory.

“This makes Kush a more major player in political and military dynamics of the time than we knew before,” said Geoff Emberling, co-leader of a University of Chicago expedition. “Studying Kush helps scholars have a better idea of what statehood meant in an ancient context outside such established power centers of Egypt and Mesopotamia.”

Gil Stein, director of the Oriental Institute at the university, said, “Until now, virtually all that we have known about Kush came from the historical records of their Egyptian neighbors and from limited explorations of monumental architecture at the Kushite capital city, Kerma.”

To archaeologists, knowing that a virtually unexplored land of mystery is soon to be flooded has the same effect as Samuel Johnson ascribed to one facing the gallows in the morning. It concentrates the mind.

Over the last few years, archaeological teams from Britain, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Sudan and the United States have raced to dig at sites that will soon be underwater. The teams were surprised to find hundreds of settlement ruins, cemeteries and examples of rock art that had never been studied. One of the most comprehensive salvage operations has been conducted by groups headed by Henryk Paner of the Gdansk Archaeological Museum in Poland, which surveyed 711 ancient sites in 2003 alone.

“This area is so incredibly rich in archaeology,” Derek Welsby of the British Museum said in a report last winter in Archaeology magazine.

The scale of the salvage effort hardly compares to the response in the 1960s to the Aswan High Dam, which flooded a part of Nubia that then reached into what is southern Egypt. Imposing temples that the pharaohs erected at Abu Simbel and Philae were dismantled and restored on higher ground.

The Kushites, however, left no such grand architecture to be rescued. Their kingdom declined and eventually disappeared by the end of the 16th century B.C., as Egypt grew more powerful and expansive under rulers of the period known as the New Kingdom.

In Sudan, the Merowe Dam, built by Chinese engineers with French and German subcontractors, stands at the downstream end of the fourth cataract, a narrow passage of rapids and islands. The rising Nile waters will create a lake 2 miles wide and 100 miles long, displacing more than 50,000 people of the Manasir, Rubatab and Shaigiyya tribes. Most archaeologists expect this to be their last year for exploring Kush sites nearest the former riverbanks.

In the first three months of this year, archaeologists from the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago scoured the rock and ruins of a desolate site called Hosh el-Geruf, upstream from the fourth cataract and about 225 miles north of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. Their most striking discovery was ample artifacts of Kushite gold processing.

Gold was already known as a source of Kush’s wealth through trade with Egypt. Other remains of gold-processing works had been found in the region, though none with such a concentration of artifacts. Dr. Emberling said that more than 55 huge grinding stones were scattered along the riverbank.

Experts in the party familiar with ancient mining technology noted that the stones were similar to ones found in Egypt in association with gold processing. The stones were used to crush ore from quartz veins. The ground bits were presumably washed with river water to separate and recover the precious metal.

“Even today, panning for gold is a traditional activity in the area,” said Bruce Williams, a research associate at the Oriental Institute and a co-leader of the expedition.

But the archaeologists saw more in their discovery than the glitter of gold. The grinding stones were too large and numerous to have been used only for processing gold for local trade. Ceramics at the site were in the style and period of Kush’s classic flowering, about 1750 B.C. to 1550 B.C.

This appeared to be strong evidence for a close relationship between the gold-processing settlement and ancient Kerma, the seat of the kingdom at the third cataract, about 250 miles downstream. The modern city of Kerma has spread over the ancient site, but some of the ruins are protected for further research by Swiss archaeologists, whose work will not be affected by the new dam.

British and Polish teams have also reported considerable evidence of the Kerma culture in cemeteries and settlement ruins elsewhere upstream from the fourth cataract. Near Hosh el-Geruf, the Chicago expedition excavated more than a third of the 90 burials in a cemetery. Grave goods indicated that these were elite burials from the same classic period and, thus, more evidence of the influence of Kerma. A few tombs had the rectangular shafts of class Kerma burials, graceful tulip-shaped beakers and jars of the Kerma type and even some vessels and jewelry from Egypt.

“The exciting thing to me,” Dr. Williams said, “is that we are really seeing intensive organization activity from a distance, and the only reasonable attribution is that it belongs to Kush.”

The primary accomplishment of the salvage project, the archaeologists said, is the realization that the kingdom of Kush in its heyday extended not just northward to the first cataract, but also southward, well beyond the fourth cataract. At places like Hosh el-Geruf, they added in an internal report, “the expedition found the Kushites’ organized search for wealth illustrated in a significant new way.”

The research is supported by the Packard Humanities Institute and the National Geographic Society. The Hosh el-Geruf site is in the research area assigned by Sudanese authorities to the Gdansk Museum, which invited the Chicago team to dig there.

By this time next year, the dammed waters may be lapping at the old gold works, and archaeologists will be looking elsewhere for clues to the mystery of how remote Kush developed the statecraft to oversee a vast realm in antiquity.

Security setup records teen sexually abusing barn horse

By Gwyneth Gibby
Gazette-Times reporter

Suspect arrested on charges of burglary, sex abuse of animal

A Corvallis teenager is facing charges of burglary and sexual abuse of an animal after being arrested last week at a barn in northeast Corvallis.

The teenager, 17 at the time of his arrest, was arrested by Deputy Randy Hiner and Corvallis Police Officer Jason Harvey at the barn in the 4000 block of Northeast Minnesota Avenue at about 2:30 a.m. on June 7.

The owners of the property had reported assaults on the horse before, once on July 30, 2006, and again on Feb. 9 of this year. After the July incident, the owners noticed the halter of their mare had been moved. So the owners installed a video surveillance camera inside the barn.

In February 2007, the owners again noticed a halter and some food dishes had been moved in the barn. When they checked the video from the surveillance camera, they saw a male who they estimated being between 16 and 18 years old, sexually assaulting the horse. He wore a jacket and long pants and a baseball cap. They were not able to identify the suspect from the video.

Deputy Clay Stephens, who viewed the video, said the youth seemed very practiced, not hurried but not wasting any time. Stephens said he seemed to be following a “very concise, deliberate, well-thought-out plan.”

After the February incident, the owners installed a silent alarm on the barn. On June 7, at around 2:30 a.m., the alarm sounded in the house. The owners looked at the video monitor and saw the suspect preparing to assault the horse. They called the sheriff’s office. The suspect had gotten into the locked barn by squeezing behind one panel of a sliding door.

The suspect was charged with second degree burglary, a Class C felony, and sexual abuse of an animal, a Class A misdemeanor. He was taken to the Linn-Benton Detention Center where he was arraigned and released later the same day. His next court appearance is a hearing June 20.

The one that got away from Mooch!

This cutie was on one of the sliding door window screens. Moochie had been walking around the yard with it in her mouth & playing with it earlier.
After it ran up the screen I dragged Moochie into the house so it could get away. I figured it won this battle.

Tattoos go against Bible’s teachings

By Scott Blazek: Guest Columnist

June 15

In response to Grant McGee’s June 1 column on tattoos:

It may not be politically correct to cite the following in this amorally diverse culture, but here are 12 reasons not to get a tattoo.

12. The procedure for getting a tattoo is painful. It involves needles jabbing you.

11. Tattoos can fade, so often they have to be “re-inked.”

10. Seems like statistics suggest that a sure way to jinx a relationship is have the name of your romantic interest tattooed on your person.

9. What will tattoos look like when you’re old and wrinkled? Ugh!

8. They are permanent. We change our taste in clothes, people, interests, but a tattoo is for life. If you like permanent art, invest in art you can hang on your wall and sell later or pass on to your kids. I’ve never heard of tattoos increasing in value.

7. If you decide to try to remove a tattoo, it’s very expensive, painful and often leaves scarring.

6. Your tattoo will make it much easier to identify you in a criminal lineup.

5. For many, tattoos seem addictive. They can’t be satisfied with one little item, but go on and on.

4. They are expensive. Why is it that many people with tattoos who smoke and drink alcohol (to excess) can afford these items in their budget, but are hard up for cash when it comes to basic essentials? Do tattoos advertise a stereotypical “class” of folk who don’t budget or prioritize their funds very well? Sorry, but stereotypes don’t usually come from a vacuum.

3. A tattoo puts off potential employers. Many jobs require uniforms. Tattoos compete with this concept. With obvious tattoos, you’re obviously disqualifying yourself from high-end jobs.

2. Health concerns regarding this semi-surgical procedure without guaranteed surgical or regulated precautions. People have been known to get hepatitis and other diseases from tattooing. If you go to donate blood, the interviewer always asks if you’ve been recently tattooed.

And the No. 1 reason for not getting a tattoo:

1. The Bible says you shouldn’t — Leviticus 19:28

“You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.”

The law of God given to Moses was on three levels :

1) The moral code — for all people of all time — practical rights and wrongs for the general well being of mankind;

2) The ceremonial or priestly code, which was for the Jewish people’s identity to set them apart from their idolatrous neighbors; and
3) the civil code, which “governed” the nation as a civilized culture.

If tattooing is “truly” wrong and not just a matter of personal opinion (if any absolutes still exist), then this action must go contrary to the Judeo-Christian set of moral standards set down in the Ten Commandments.

The commandment, “You shall not kill!” has been defined as to refrain from hurting or harming anyone including self.

The Bible also states, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
We live in a culture of moral relativism where for the most part each person decides for themself what’s right or wrong. It is unpopular to suggest that someone’s actions may be wrong. We might hurt their feelings or sound “judgmental” or dent their self esteem.

When someone gets a tattoo and shows it off, we’re tempted for a moment to tell them what we really think. Then you hear yourself say simply, “That’s nice!” or worse yet, “That’s cool” and thereby only encourage this objectionable practice.

Oh yeah! The No. 1 reason for getting a tattoo — “It’s cool!” How shallow, how juvenile, how potentially destructive!

And for those who’ve gotten tattoos: As hard as it may be to do, it’s OK to admit that you made a mistake, stop, and encourage others not to do the same.

Scott Blazek is pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church. Contact him at 763-4526.

Skloot up for dinner

Tattoos making a mark in China

Tattoos making a mark in China

By Sun Yuqing (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2007-06-16 20:16

More and more Chinese are beginning to have or accept tattoos, according to some tattoo fans said during the Tattoo Show Convention China 2007 in Beijing.

A photographer said that policemen in certain areas of east China's Jiangsu Province would question young men with tattoos years ago since they were usually regarded as punks looking for trouble.

A 27 year-old man surnamed Wang openly showed off his torso with his arms and back covered in tattoos. [Sun Yuqing/chinadaily.com.cn]More A girl's tattoo is reflected during the Tattoo Show Convention China 2007 in Beijing June 16, 2007. [Sun Yuqing/chinadaily.com.cn] More

But now the practice of pricking indelible marks on the skin is becoming popular in China as the convention is crowded with men and women with different kinds of tattoos. The organizers hope this event can provide a platform for a healthy and professional development of tattoos in China and also offer the room for tattoo fans to exchange ideas.

A 27 year-old man surnamed Wang openly showed off his torso with his arms and back covered in tattoos. He wore army pants, wore a gold necklace and had a ring that pierced his lip. He said he was only 17 when he had his first tattoo, a black swirl of thorns on his left shoulder. Wang talked with his friends who also had tattoos, and he was friendly to those who touched his tattoos or asked for taking photos.

Wang also admitted his parents were against him having a tattoo at first but gradually they accepted his choice. Now, Wang's arms, chest, and back are tattooed with different designs. A design of dragon on his left arm was finished after 30 hours and the tattoo cost 8,000 yuan (more than US$1,000), said Wang.

A girl Tian Tian, 19, had her back tattooed with two evil-looking bald heads and she explained that she just liked the design. Tian Tian also acknowledged her parents didn't like the tattoo.

"It's my own business, and I have my own rights," said the teenager, who just quit her job in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province,

Many tattoo artists from other provinces were on hand to give fans tattoos at the convention.

One surnamed Lee said he has worked in this field for three years in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province. "It's a profitable job, and I earn about 10,000 yuan one month," claimed Lee. He developed his business mainly through friends and word of mouth.

However, Dong Dong, chief tattoo artist for Beijing-based Mummy Tattoo Studio, said that he couldn't earn that much, but he could earn enough to buy the materials for tattoos. Dong Dong has worked in the industry for eight years and he continues his major career of painting now.

He said: "In previous years, many people had tattoos just to show off and think they are cool. But now more people decide their own design and have tattoos because they are really interested in them." Dong Dong said that a good tattoo artist should have a good understanding and use of color transition, style and design.

Fun in the backyard with Kobe & Mooch

'Cream of Wheat' man gets grave marker

Fri Jun 15, 4:41 AM ET

A man widely believed to be the model for the smiling chef on Cream of Wheat boxes finally has a grave marker bearing his name.

Frank L. White died in 1938, and until this week, his grave in Woodlawn Cemetery bore only a tiny concrete marker with no name.

On Wednesday, a granite gravestone was placed at his burial site. It bears his name and an etching taken from the man depicted on the Cream of Wheat box.

Jesse Lasorda, a family researcher from Lansing, started the campaign to put the marker and etching on White's grave.

"Everybody deserves a headstone," Lasorda told the Lansing State Journal. He discovered that White was born about 1867 in Barbados, came to the U.S. in 1875 and became a citizen in 1890.

When White died Feb. 15, 1938, the Leslie Local-Republican described him as a "famous chef" who "posed for an advertisement of a well-known breakfast food."

White lived in Leslie for about the last 20 years of his life, and the story of his posing for the Cream of Wheat picture was known in the city of 2,000 located between Jackson and Lansing and about 70 miles west of Detroit.

The chef was photographed about 1900 while working in a Chicago restaurant. His name was not recorded. White was a chef, traveled a lot, was about the right age and told neighbors that he was the Cream of Wheat model, the Jackson Citizen Patriot said.

Long owned by Kraft Foods Inc., the Cream of Wheat brand was sold this year to B&G Foods Inc.

Beenie Man, Sizzla and Capleton renounce homophobia

Three prominent dancehall artists known for their anti-gay lyrics have signed the Reggae Compassionate Act

Rosie Swash
Thursday June 14, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Three of the biggest names in reggae and dancehall music have agreed to renounce homophobia and excise lyrics promoting violence against gay people from their music. Beenie Man, Sizzla and Capleton, all previously responsible for anti-gay lyrics, have signed the Reggae Compassionate Act, a petition set up by the Stop Murder Music campaign.

All three musicians have suffered loss of revenue, which some reports estimate amounts to as much as £2.5 million, over recent years following high-profile boycott campaigns from organisations such Stop Murder Music and gay rights group OutRage! "The Reggae Compassionate Act is a big breakthrough," said Peter Tatchell, an OutRage! founder who is one of the forces behind the act. "The singers' rejection of homophobia and sexism is an important milestone. We rejoice at their new commitment to music without prejudice."

Dennis L Carney, vice-chairman for the Black Gay Men's Advisory Group, added: "This is a giant leap towards restoring peace, love and harmony to reggae music. These performers are sending a clear message that lesbians and gay men have a right to live free from fear and persecution - both here in the UK and in Jamaica."

While Beenie Man, Sizzla and Capleton have all pledged to "uphold the rights of all individuals to live without fear of hatred and violence due to their religion, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or gender", several other high-profile Jamaican artists have been singled out for not complying. "The other five murder-music artists, Elephant Man, TOK, Bounty Killa, Vybz Kartel and Buju Banton, have not signed the Reggae Compassionate Act. The campaign against them continues," said Tatchell. He added: "These artists have openly encouraged the murder of lesbians and gay men, which is a criminal offence in every country... [They] are the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan."

The pledge taken by Beenie Man, Sizzla and Capleton can be read here.

Japanese comic titans double the laughs

By MARK SCHILLING

It was a marketing gimmick of the first order to open Takeshi Kitano's "Kantoku Banzai!" and Hitoshi Matsumoto's "Dai Nipponjin" on the same weekend. This head-to-head duel between films by the two reigning kings of Japanese comedy can only boost the box office of both.

Kantoku Banzai! Rating: (3.5 out of 5) Takeshi Kitano stars in "Kantoku Banzai!" (c)2007 "KANTOKU BANZAI!" SEISAKU IINKAI, (c)2007 BANDAI VISUAL.TOKYO FM.DENTSU.TV ASAHI/OFFICE KITANO Director: Takeshi Kitano Running time: 104 minutes Language: Japanese Now showing (June 8, 2007) [See Japan Times movie listing]

A preliminary verdict of sorts has already been rendered by the Cannes Film Festival, where "Kantoku Banzai!" was rejected for the competition and "Dai Nipponjin" was selected for the Directors Fortnight section. A three-minute short Kitano made for an omnibus film commemorating Cannes' 60th anniversary screened — but so did 34 shorts by other directors. It's a cute throwaway, about a grimy worker wandering into a rundown rural theater where Kitano is the projectionist — and screws up the screening of Kitano's own "Kids Return" in the usual ways.

Similarly self-referential is "Kantoku Banzai," a film that Kitano has described as part of the ongoing "creative destruction" of his career, beginning in 2005 with "Takeshis'." In that film he played two versions of himself — one "Beat," a famous TV comedian, the other, "Takeshi," a scuffling actor who idolizes Beat. The film's many shifts between dream and reality are head-spinningly hard to follow — and "Takeshis' " was a box-office disappointment.

In "Kantoku Banzai!" Kitano has made his first all-out comedy since 1995's "Minna Yatteru ka" (Getting Any?) — the least screened of his films, for good reason, being little more than a feature-length dirty joke that falls flat. His new film, however, is more accessible and funnier, especially to anyone who has been following his long TV and film career. Kitano stars as "Kitano" — a director who is rummaging around the genre bin for his next film and coming up empty-handed. This, Kitano insists, is not only fiction — he hit an impasse and "Kantoku Banzai!" was his way of working through it, somewhat like Fellini with his crisis-of-confidence masterpiece "8 1/2." So we get Kitano trying and failing to make an Ozu-esque home drama, a tear-jerking love story, a gritty 1950s family drama, a ninja actioner and a J-horror movie. All have their comic moments, but only the family drama achieves something more than (deliberately lame) parody. Its alcoholic house painter father (Kitano), abused housewife mother, studious older brother and mischievous younger brother are all based on Kitano's own dysfunctional family — and its incidents, including the way poor shitamachi (old downtown Tokyo) residents fasten onto a new car like vultures on prey, give the lie to recent nostalgia about the glorious warm-hearted 1950s.

The film truly gets underway in its second act, in the tale of a mother- (Kayoko Kishimoto) and-daughter (Ann Suzuki) pair of grifters who attach themselves to a rich political fixer/philanthropist Mr. Big (Toru Emori) with the aim of marrying off the daughter to Mr. Big's idiot son. Kitano plays Mr. Big's hapless private secretary, who gets into various ridiculous scrapes in the service of his boss.

The gags come from the unfettered, unhinged late-night-TV side of Kitano's mind, not the serious-film-director side, in which the comedy is usually subsidiary to the larger story and not all that funny. A nice bizarro touch is the frequent appearance of a "Kitano doll" that takes the brunt of the punishment (getting dumped off a bridge, beaten to a pulp by goons, etc.) for Kitano in his various incarnations. A sign that the 60-year-old Kitano is getting too old for action scenes? Not really, since he also appears as a high-flying, sword-wielding ninja, taking on 60 opponents at once.

But the doll does get laughs and reminds us that Kitano's mind, creative blocks or no, is still one of the most original in Japanese — or world — show business. Its big joke: Kitano, who has ostensibly sworn off the violent gangster pics that made his reputation, has made — guess what? — another violent pic. Ho ho — but Kitano gives his 13th film the biggest possible send-off, taking the joke to another, higher, more explosive level.

If "Kantoku Banzai!" is a gag-studded treat for fans, "Dai Nipponjin" is an ambitious play for everyone from kiddies who like "Ultraman" to pointy heads who can spend endless coffee shop hours parsing the film's multilayered take on the Japanese spirit. Matsumoto, the boke (dim-wit) of the manzai duo Downtown, reportedly spent five years developing the film, his first as a director, discarding almost as many story ideas as Kitano did for "Kantoku Banzai!" But instead of subjecting the audience to his rejects, Matsumoto builds on a simple-but-brilliant comic premise with patience, subtlety and daring. The laughs come slowly at first, but pick up steam as the story progresses and, in my case, kept coming hours after the film was over.

Dai Nipponjin Rating: (4 out of 5) Hitoshi Matsumoto struts his stuff in "Dai Nipponjin." (c)2007 YOSHIMOTO KOGYO CO. LTD Director: Hitoshi Matsumoto Running time: 113 minutes Language: Japanese Now showing (June 8, 2007) [See Japan Times movie listing]

The premise: the hero, one Daisato (Matsumoto), is being interviewed for a documentary, but looks and talks like a middle-aged loser. He lives alone in a cluttered firetrap of a house, has the scraggly hair of the homeless and is hated by his neighbors, who have decorated his front gate with exhortations to die or disappear. His business is being a superhero, but though he is fifth in the family line, the character he becomes — Dai Nipponjin (The Great Japanese) — has long since gone out of fashion. With his stand of straight black hair (imagine the electroshocked hero of "Eraserhead," with longer hair), short arms, long trunk and purplish pro-boxing briefs, Dai Nipponjin looks like a compendium of everything uncool in this age of long-limbed, artfully coifed, stylishly dressed Japanese superstars.

Also, instead of being of normal human size, like Superman or Spider-Man, Dai Nipponjin becomes as gigantic as the monsters he battles, through a process that is absurdly dated. How can the masses identify with such a grotesque throwback to old, unstylish Nippon? The short answer is, they can't, and despite his feats of derring-do (with monster introductions by a nasal-voiced narrators in the style of pre-war radio broadcasts), his TV ratings are slipping.

Matsumoto plays this character with an utterly straight face, while fleshing him out with deft, dry comic strokes. This approach is reminiscent of Ricky Gervais in "The Office," but Matsumoto has a wackier imagination — and gives it full rein, ending with a finale that threatens to degenerate into a violent, unfunny free-for-all. But it also offers a spot-on commentary on similar free-for-alls staged countless times on TV (by Downtown among others), as well as the distance Japan has traveled from its cultural and spiritual roots. Matsumoto, the hippest and smartest of comic puppetmasters, is never preachy or obvious. Also, unlike Kitano, he keeps his ego firmly on a leash. I give him round one of this battle of comic giants, by a decision.

The Japan Times: Friday, June 8, 2007

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John Cale is playing at my house

They are both stars of New York's music scene - pioneers of the coolest pop, separated by 30 years. James Murphy and John Cale get together with Dorian Lynskey to compare notes across a generation

Friday June 15, 2007
The Guardian

The Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills is one of those dazzlingly white exhibition spaces that can make even three chairs arranged around a table resemble an art installation. In one of those chairs sits John Cale, who should feel right at home. Arriving in New York from Wales in the mid 1960s, he formed the Velvet Underground with Lou Reed and came under the wing of Andy Warhol. Since leaving the band in 1968, he has traced an unpredictable path between solo albums, film scores, and production work.

At 67, Cale looks simply extraordinary. The lines on his tanned face are sleek and bold, as if etched in stone, and his hair, bleached, tufted and partially dyed red, sticks out like a cockatoo's feathers. His baritone crackles and booms around the gallery.

Next to him is 37-year-old James Murphy, whose diverse dance-rock hybrids as half of Brooklyn-based production duo DFA and linchpin of LCD Soundsystem have made him one of this decade's most pioneering producers. Vaguely resembling a cartoon bear, he is a witty, garrulous conversationalist, only slightly cowed by meeting a lifelong musical hero. "This is a big deal for me," he tells Cale, who responds with a cheerful salute.

We have convened their first ever face-to-face meeting not just because LCD Soundsystem's current single, All My Friends, features a version by Cale, but because they have much in common, including New York, sonic innovation and a reputation for getting their own way. But it's equally interesting to note the differences between Murphy, the vinyl-fetishising romantic who feels he was born too late, and Cale, the ardent technophile gushing over internet radio, download platforms and the logistics of Daft Punk's live shows.

John, when did you first hear LCD Soundsystem?

John Cale: Daft Punk Is Playing at My House. Catchy. The great thing about All My Friends is that I could sing along with it. His range is exactly mine.

James, when did you discover John's music?

James Murphy: My best friend across the street had older brothers, so that was my first experience of Velvet Underground records. I like the mystery of rock. My whole education in music was hearsay and that has so much more power than being able to Google it. I remember the cover of [Cale's 1974 album] Fear really scared me.

JC: Those were some cheekbones. [Producer] Chris Thomas saw me in the studio and said, 'I'm worried about you. You don't look well at all.' And I thought I looked really nice and svelte. [Grinning madly] 'I'm fine. I'm having a great time!'

John, you've lived in New York on and off for more than 40 years. When you heard LCD Soundsystem's album, did the lyric, "New York I love you but you're bringing me down" strike a chord?

JC: Yeah, that's New York. I still love New York.

JM: How can you not?

JC: It's the centre of aggro. Michael Bloomberg has done a great job of cleaning up the city but man, ride the subway. Then you get it.

JM: It still smells like piss. No amount of money can change that.

James, you grew up in small-town New Jersey. Do you ever feel you missed the city at its best?

JM: All the time. Because I'm by far the youngest in the family. I remember growing up and thinking of my own birth year as comically recent. During my favourite era of music, I was too young or non-existent. When I look at 1968 to 74, watching everything getting turned upside down, and record companies run by weirdos, and genuinely strange music becoming hits ... [To Cale] Do you feel that knowing people who weren't musicians helped?

JC: I'll tell you the best thing [Allen] Ginsberg did for me. He came over to La Monte [Young]'s when we were rehearsing and I'd been in New York for like three months. I was very green. Very few people could understand what I was saying because I had a really thick Welsh accent. The first thing he said to me was, 'Have you got any friends?' And it was just like bam! [Mimes a deflating balloon] All the air went out of me. He said, 'In New York the hardest thing is to find friends. You have to go out and physically hold on to them. I remember that. I don't have a lot of friends from Wales and that's a studied pose, I suppose. My daughter is crazy about learning Welsh. I think she's bonkers. I don't know where it came from. She found [the Welsh community] in New York a year ago. I don't want to know! Please! I've been running away!

Let's talk about originality in music. John, with the Velvets did it feel like you were making something genuinely new?

JC: Yeah, it did. The minute we slowed Venus in Furs down from a folk song and had the drone in there. We went through a lot of drones and detuned guitars. We were perverse. [Smiling devilishly] I mean in a lot of ways, but we detuned the guitars so that nobody could figure out how the hell we did it. Nobody's going to come close.

JM: I don't even really consider originality. Outside of sampling, you don't get more brazen about influences than me. If I was to compare what I'm doing to Nina Simone or the Velvets or something that was creating space in a very different time, I'd be crushed. So I just try to be like, well, what can I do that makes sense to me in 2007? I can't play by the same rules as the music that I love.

Are you happy when you've finished a record?

JC: I'm really exhilarated, but it's mainly the exhilaration of finishing a crossword. It's always about the next one. You just plough ahead.

John, you worked as a producer on seminal records by, among others, Patti Smith, the Stooges, and Nick Drake. Was that as much luck as design?

JC: Absolutely. I was trying to get a gig. I didn't have a job. I was looking to pay for breakfast. And [Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman] said, 'Yeah, yeah, if the right thing comes along,' and sure enough the right thing was the Stooges. You look at someone and think, 'This is what this person is going to be.' There's nothing you can really change. They have a magic. Iggy had this way of threatening the audience and then embracing them the next minute. He was a chameleon. And Patti had a preacher's verve.

JM: I was a terrible, terrible producer through the entire 1990s. About eight bands in a row broke up after working with me. I'd bring in records and be like, 'Have you heard this?' And then two guys would be like, 'What are we doing? Our band sucks.' [Cale roars with laughter] So I was bad news for a long time. And then the Rapture [Murphy produced the band's 2003 album Echoes] was absolutely brutal. I was very aggressive and fucked up. I used to believe shit needed to get crazy for it to get good and I was going to bring the crazy. I think I did them an occasional disservice.

Do you have unusual ways of describing music?

JM: I remember watching a performance of Strange Brew by Cream on TV. Eric Clapton's all puffed up and playing like he's got a powdered wig. [Pulls a Lord Snooty face] And I remember thinking that's what the guitar sounds like! It's a little braggy but kind of foppish. It's like a rapier rather than a broadsword. That face is the gesture I come up with most. The other one is the monkey gesture. [Lets his arms hang down and mouth droop] The Stooges are kings of that.

JC: I remember watching the Searchers on [New York DJ] Murray the K's Christmas show, and he ripped this guitar solo that was just scalding. I remember thinking, 'How the fuck did he do that?' And that's one of the things about rock'n'roll. There's something that happened at that particular time and that particular place, and if you can get that down on record ...

JM: You have to make the space for it, though. I think there's more and more space for getting it "right" and less and less space for getting it special. That "momentness" is something I find less and less.

JC: Miles [Davis] would get you in the moment. He went destroying everything that went before him just so you could get to now. I really like that. I always try to invent something on stage that nobody's heard before. [I like it when] you don't know what you're doing.

JM: There should be fear there.

JC: Right, right. Because when something happens you are so over the moon. Bam! There it is. What I can't get enough of is that process of becoming something. I don't know what I want to become. I don't think it's important. It's the fear, the uncertainty, the blindness.

· LCD Soundsystem's single All My Friends is out now on DFA/EMI. John Cale's Circus: Live album is out now on EMI. LCD Soundsystem play the O2 Wireless Festival in London tomorrow and Leeds on Sunday

Sgt Pepper must die!

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? It's meant to be a classic album, but all you can hear is a load of boring tripe ... we've all felt that way. And so have the musicians we asked to nominate the supposedly great records they'd gladly never hear again

Interviews by Paul Lester
Friday June 15, 2007
The Guardian

Tupac Shakur All Eyez On Me
Nominated by Mark Ronson, producer

This was Tupac's biggest record, and is seen by rap fans as the greatest latterday hip-hop album. But I've never got the cult of Tupac. Sure, he was in a lot of pain but he never said anything particularly clever - Notorious B.I.G. was far superior. People really related to the emotion in his voice, but it didn't resonate with me. No one would doubt Tupac's "realness" - he was shot nine times, for God's sake, and he began recording this album hours after being released from prison - but it doesn't compare to Biggie. Dr Dre produced it, and I didn't rate his production, either.

Problem was, Tupac was so prolific. He would write 50 songs in a weekend. Maybe he knew he was going to die, so he recorded relentlessly. I bought it at the time because it had one song on it that I'd play in clubs, but one out of 20 isn't great. In fact, there are 27 tracks on it - it started the trend of putting loads of songs on rap albums. Tupac wasn't up there with Dylan - Dylan was a brilliant poet. Eminem is probably the Dylan of rap, whereas Tupac just sounded like he was whining.

Nirvana, Nevermind
Nominated by Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips

It's better to be overrated than underrated. Besides, it's not the musicians' fault Nevermind is overrated - it's the public's, or the critics'. But you don't find yourself ever longing to listen to it, because there were - still are, in fact - so many mediocre bands that sound like it, that you're constantly experiencing it. I never get out Nevermind and think: what great production, what great songs. Nevermind had a poisonous, pernicious influence. It legitimised suffering. The sainthood of Kurt Cobain overshadows the album: Kurt's lyrics, his attitudinising and navel-gazing, were hard to separate from the band's image. You can never just hear the record. For me, Bleach and In Utero are superior. Even the album cover seems cheap: that stupid dollar bill just seems to have been airbrushed in there. If Alice in Chains had done it, we'd have thought it was a joke, but because it was Nirvana we thought it was oh-so-clever. If you think you're going to hear an utterly original, powerful and freaky record when you put on Nevermind, as a young kid might, Christ you're going to be disappointed. You're going to think, "Who is this band that sounds just like Nickelback? What are these drug addicts going on about?"

The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
Nominated by Luke Pritchard of the Kooks

Of all the albums that get written about as "classics", this one least deserves it. Having said that, it contains one of the greatest songs ever written: God Only Knows, which is melancholic yet uplifting, pure yet fucked-up. But the rest of the record is a total let-down - I felt that way from the very first listen. Pet Sounds is a million miles away from Sgt Pepper or Dark Side of the Moon. I do appreciate the lyrics, and I know it's an album about getting older, but as a concept album, it doesn't quite add up. Good tunes, yes - Wouldn't It Be Nice is a great pop song - but most of the other tracks just don't resonate for me. I apologise unreservedly to everyone who loves every word and note, every last crackle, on this album, but that's how it is. Oh, and it's got the worst sleeve of any major album, ever. Feeding time at the zoo? I don't think so.

The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses
Nominated by Eddie Argos of Art Brut

They're totally overrated. Plus they covered Scarborough Fair. I don't understand why people still play their music in nightclubs - it makes me really angry. When I'm drunk in a club I usually end up arguing with the DJ who's playing them. The Stone Roses were an awful, awful band. They were uncharismatic, their lyrics are nonsensical and their music is dreary. Also, we have them to thank for Oasis, although at least Noel Gallagher is funny and Liam is a bit of a pop star. The Roses make me think of kids older than me swaggering around with bowl haircuts and affecting Manchester accents. It makes my skin crawl. And all their fans are so smug: "Oh, you don't understand it." I do understand it! It's ridiculous that it regularly gets voted in at the top of those "greatest British album ever" polls. They spawned a new thug-boy pop culture.

The Strokes, Is This It
Nominated by Ian Williams of Battles

The Strokes were just rich kids from uptown New York; the children of the heads of supermodel agencies who formed a rock band and thought they deserved respect because of that. Suddenly the downtown, older form of punk rock got co-opted by the system. If ever there was a point where Gucci and rebellion were married together, it was right there. The Strokes have, basically, been responsible for five or six years of a new form of hair metal, in the guise of something more tasteful. Their music is post-9/11 party music because it came out that week and everybody wanted to dance. They're seen as the rebirth of rock in the UK - but it's a very conservative, old-fashioned idea of rock for the 21st century. As for their punk credentials, I'm not going to say anyone's more authentic than anyone else ... But the Strokes are the new Duran Duran; the new decadence for the new millennium.

Television, Marquee Moon
Nominated by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand

People expect us to love Television the way they think we love Gang of Four and were influenced by them - but we don't and we weren't! Marquee Moon is one of those records that I thought I loved, but it was only after a few years I realised I didn't love the album, just the first 10 bars of the title track, which are pretty astonishing. Those guitars that play off each other and the way the instruments go into wonderful places and the guitars are totally insane and that big cascade of drums - it's incredible. Then your attention wanders. You know when a boring guy is explaining to you the technical spec of a car, the fuel injection system and the leather seats, and his voice becomes so much background noise? Once I took the needle off this record, I realised I hadn't heard it at all. But what annoys me is the way people pontificate over the album; it's one of those staples of student halls of residence. People wax lyrical about it, but the reason it's so popular is because it's a prog rock album its okay to like. Because the words "punk" and "New York" and "1977" are associated with it, it's deemed cool. Really, though, they're a band who give guys who like 20-minute guitar solos an excuse. They were the Grateful Dead of punk, and I always hated all that jam-band stuff. They have the ethos of a jam-band but the aesthetic of a New York outfit. If anything, the Strokes took the look of Television, the aesthetic - and the Converse sneakers - and ignored the jam-band aspect. They took those first 10 bars of Marquee Moon and did something great with it! Tom Verlaine's lyrics didn't have much impact on me. I'm always uneasy when singers in bands profess to be poets - they can veer into pomposity and pretentiousness. But I've got to be careful: I once said something about Jim Morrison and the Doors, about their pseudo-poetry, and immediately all these articles on the internet appeared saying, "Kapranos slams Morrison!" I'm not slamming Television - I respect them. But Marquee Moon is an album I admire more than enjoy.

The Beatles, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Nominated by Billy Childish, prime mover of British garage rock

I was a big Beatles fan - I had a Beatles wig and Beatles guitar when I was four - so I know what I'm talking about, but Sgt Pepper signalled the death of rock'n'roll. Rock'n'roll is meant to be full of vitality and energy, and this album isn't. It sounds like it took six months to shit out. The Beatles were the victims of their success. This is middle-of-the-road rock music for plumbers. Or people who drive round in Citroens - the sort of corporate hippies who ruined rock music. I bought it the day it came out: it was ideal for a seven-year-old. These days, well, it's my contention that it represents the death of the Beatles as a rock'n'roll band and the birth of them as music hall, which is hardly a victory. The main problem with Sgt Pepper is Sir Paul's maudlin obsession with his own self-importance and Dickensian misery. (Paul McCartney is the dark one in the Beatles, not John Lennon, because he writes such depressing, scary music.) It's like a Sunday before school that goes on forever. It's too dark and twisted for anyone with any light in their life. Then again, when he tries to be upbeat, it rings false - like having a clown in the room. The best thing about the album was the cardboard insert with some medals, a badge and a moustache. But the military jackets they wore on the front made them look like a bunch of grammar-school boys dressed by their mummy. When I was in Thee Mighty Caesars we did a rip-off of the sleeve for an album called John Lennon's Corpse Revisited, featuring the Beatles' heads on stakes. This isn't the greatest album ever made; in fact, it's the worst Beatles album up to that point. Live at the Star Club trounces it with ease.

Abba, Arrival
Nominated by Siobhan Donaghy, former Sugababe turned solo artist

I love the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Burt Bacharach, all those great pop melody-writers, but there's something about Abba that I hate. Maybe it's going to parties with shit DJs for most of my childhood that has made me hate them. Abba were forced on people from my generation, so there's a natural resentment towards them. Through my mum I discovered Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix, and if I'd done that with Abba maybe I'd have appreciated their brilliant pop songs. On Arrival, the particularly annoying songs are Dancing Queen, Knowing, Me Knowing You and Money, Money, Money. And if we're talking about the reissue, you can add Fernando. Nick Hornby may well say they're part of the canon now, but I still don't have to listen to them. Yes, they wrote some of the catchiest melodies of all time. But then, The Birdie Song is catchy, too.

Arcade Fire The Neon Bible
Nominated by Green Gartside of Scritti Politti

People who enjoy this album may think I'm cloth-eared and unperceptive, and I accept it's the result of my personal shortcomings, but what I hear in Arcade Fire is an agglomeration of mannerisms, cliches and devices. I find it solidly unattractive, texturally nasty, a bit harmonically and melodically dull, bombastic and melodramatic, and the rhythms are pedestrian. It's monotonous in its textures and in the old-fashioned, nasty, clunky 80s rhythms and eighth-note basslines. It isn't, as people are suggesting, richly rewarding and inventive. The melodies stick too closely to the chord changes. Win Butler's voice uses certain stylistic devices - it goes wobbly and shouty, then whispery - and I guess people like wobbly and shouty going to whispery, they think it signifies real feeling. It's some people's idea of unmediated emotion. I can imagine Jeremy Clarkson liking it; it's for people in cars. It's rather flat and unlovely. The album and the response to it represent a bunch of beliefs about expression and truth that I don't share. The battle against unreconstructed rock music continues.

Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon
Nominated by Tjinder Singh of Cornershop

This album is a sort of lab experiment, put together by scarf-wearing university types. There's a certain irony in a song like Money that takes pot-shots at greedy corporations, when this album made so much money. There's also irony in these super-wealthy elite prog musicians positing themselves against The Man, having a go at the machine. The light shows, all the technology and white-coated technicians at their disposal, make them very much part of the machine. I appreciated the early stuff Pink Floyd did with Joe Boyd, but this is a bloated concept album that made punk necessary. It says, "What a crazy world it is!" and "Everyone's demented!" It's meant to be imbued with the spirit of Syd Barrett, God rest his soul. I'm amazed that it's up there in the pantheon, because I can't see any virtue in it whatsoever. Lyrically, it's banal and doesn't say anything beyond "greed is bad". Radiohead are the 21st-century Floyd, which says it all really.

The Doors LA Woman
Nominated by Craig Finn of the Hold Steady

In America when you're growing up, you're subjected to the Doors as soon as you start going to parties and smoking weed. People think of Jim Morrison as a brilliant rock'n'roll poet, but to me it's unlistenable. The music meanders, and Morrison was more like a drunk asshole than an intelligent poet. The worst of the worst is the last song, Riders on the Storm: "There's a killer on the road/ His brain is squirming like a toad" - that's surely the worst line in rock'n'roll history. He gave the green light to generations of pseuds. A lot of people told him he was a genius, so he started to believe it. The Velvets did nihilism and darkness so much better - they were so much more understated; what they did had subtlety, whereas the Doors had little or none: they were a caricature of "the dark side". I actually like Los Angeles, but the Doors represent the city at its most fat, bloated and excessive. Morrison's death does give rock some mythic kudos, but that doesn't make me want to listen to the music. In fact, if it comes on the radio, I change the station.

The Smiths Meat Is Murder
Nominated by Jackie McKeown of 1990s

I'm a Smiths fan and I like most of their records, but this is the weakest link in the canon. With the debut and The Queen Is Dead, you could cut up Morrissey's lyrics and they could be pages from the same book. For Meat Is Murder, he seemed to make a list of topics to write about. It was a protest album, which defeats the idea of Morrissey as romantic. The cool-guy cover with Meat Is Murder written on his helmet rams it down your throat. The title track is offensive, not least because of the loud, gated drums and 80s production that you get on Huey Lewis and the News records. Morrissey was obviously suffering from a loss of nerve or lack of faith when he wrote these songs. It took him years to write the first album in his bedroom. By the second album, he started panicking and pointing fingers at teachers at school and thinking up things like, "Oh, meat is murder and, oh, we're going to get attacked by thugs in Rusholme." Barbarism Begins at Home is where the Smiths betray their jazz-funk session-guy roots; it's absolutely treacherous to listen to, even if it was brilliant fun to record. You can just see the rolled-up jacket sleeves. It's everything Morrissey hated. Meat Is Murder is Red Wedge music for sexless students. It's like being stuck in a lift with a Manchester University Socialist Workers' Party convention.

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band Trout Mask Replica
Nominated by Peter Hook, ex-New Order and Joy Division

Steve Morris, New Order's drummer, was a great fan of his, but Beefheart was one of those things I found unlistenably boring. I desperately wanted to like it because Steve loved it so much, but I had to admit defeat. Ian Curtis found it easier to convert us to the Doors, put it that way. Trout Mask wasn't a work of untutored genius, it was untutored crap. When you're beginning as a musician, people try to educate you with music like this, but I never understood the allure of Captain Beefheart. I certainly didn't last all four sides. There are very few records I gave up on, apart from Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music and Trout Mask Replica. It sounded like somebody taking the piss. But then, I've never been a great fan of jazz, and this erred on the selfish side of jazz. It sounds like you feel when you've taken the wrong drugs, like going to your mate's dope party on speed. I'd listen to it with my head in my hands. Trout Mask was highly regarded by post-punk bands because of its idiosyncratic approach to rhythm and song construction - but those bands were full of shit, weren't they? I wouldn't have put it at the front of my record pile to impress people; it would have been at the back with my Alvin Stardust and Bay City Rollers records that they sent me from the record club I belonged to at the time. These days, I would rather listen to the Bay City Rollers than Beefheart.

What kind of heathen dislikes the Velvet Underground and Nico?
Novelist and music lover Ian Rankin gives his reasons

This is a sacred cow but that doesn't mean it can't be turned into hamburger. You can start before you even listen to the music. The front of the album bears the name Andy Warhol and a yellow banana - there's no mention of the band whatsoever. The back of the album says it was produced by Andy Warhol alongside the Velvets, so straight away I'm annoyed. It's one of the worst-produced albums of all time - put it on a modern hi-fi and you'll think: this sounds like shit. It's muddy, the volume comes and goes, the guitars are all out of tune, as is the viola. John Cale is one of the great Welshmen, but the viola on Venus In Furs sounds like a Tom and Jerry sound effect. And Nico's voice is flat throughout - she sings English the way I sing German. Talk about looks being everything: she was a supermodel trying to sing in a rock band, but she couldn't sing - she gave good dirge.

It all flags up that the Velvet Underground were just part of Warhol's circus, his Factory; just another product. Once you start thinking about the Velvets being part of that, the notion of them waiting around for the man is ludicrous. As far as introducing the idea of nihilism to rock, the first Doors album, which came out the same year, was far better produced, far darker, and more nihilistic. Ditto the first Mothers of Invention album. Those two were from the west coast; the Velvets were from New York. And this was New York trying too hard. There's a line in Venus in Furs about "ermine furs adorn imperious". Those are four words that should never appear in a rock song and here they are put together. And the last two tracks are completely unlistenable: The Black Angel's Death Song and European Son, which constitute 11 minutes and one fifth of the album.

Nevertheless, as Brian Eno said, almost no one bought this album but the ones who did put a band together, so it was important - as the beginning of the black raincoat brigade.

The TSA Hates Your Vibrator

How to safely fly with your sex toys

Violet Blue, Special to SF Gate

Thursday, June 14, 2007

The Transportation Security Administration loves lube. Loves it. They collect it. And then they have parties. Your vibrator? Not so much.

If you're one of the 500,000 (half a million!) people traveling to San Francisco for this year's Pride Parade, before you pack your one suitcase of sweaters and hot pants (you'll need both) and your five suitcases of sex toys, think about the TSA for a minute. (Ugh, not like that.) Sure, uniforms are hot, and some of you may have those nonconsensual cavity-search fantasies rarin' to go, but save your fetishes for Pink Saturday and pack your sex toys with care. Otherwise, be prepared to have your expensive toy collection ripped apart by security dogs and your favorite dick detonated by the feds. Imagine arriving and having to explain, "Honey, they blew up the Ballsy Jeff Stryker 10-inch."

The TSA flight guidelines apply to the sexual traveler more than ever. And it's not just the pocketbook pain of losing high-priced lube that could be a concern; not everyone wants a Spinal Tap moment going through the security line. If you pack a sex toy in your carry-on or on your person, be prepared to explain it to unsympathetic security officials who may not know the difference between "packing" and packing, and in front of a crowd of your fellow passengers. Or to demonstrate your Hello Kitty USB vibrating clit-hugger for interested, embarrassed or intrigued TSA employees. And be sure to take the batteries out of your toys before stashing them in your checked baggage, unless you want to have a real problem -- but you likely won't be treated as horribly as 36-year-old Renee Koutsouradis.

Five years ago, Koutsouradis was seated next to her husband at the Dallas airport when she was paged over the intercom. The baggage handlers had noticed that one of her checked suitcases was making a strange sound -- it was vibrating. She met with Delta personnel on the tarmac (in view of many fellow passengers) and explained that the noise was from a vibrator in which she'd unwittingly left the batteries, a sex toy Renee and her husband had picked up during their vacation to Las Vegas. The airline personnel had Renee hold the vibrator up for everyone to see, as Delta employees laughed and made sexually harassing comments such as, "Doesn't your husband satisfy you?" while passengers and employees watched. Renee brought suit against Delta for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The kind of humiliation Renee endured is thankfully rare, but every sexual traveler can potentially be the victim of minor ordeals and tense moments. Sex toys scanned by X-ray machines get removed from bags for examination. Metal detectors pick up piercings in private areas, and their owners are subjected to extended searches. And if your gender does not appear to match the gender identity on your driver's license or passport, you may be in for a long delay -- or worse. The simple answer to these problems would be to travel sans sex toys or to change how you dress or appear for travel. But what if you're going on a long trip, having a wild weekend or can't (or don't want to) change who you really are?

Make your self-assurance the first thing you pack. It's reasonable -- and expected -- that airlines will be alert for questionable items. But as Good Vibrations' staff sexologist Dr. Carol Queen states, "It is highly inappropriate, and potentially an act of sexual harassment, for an airline staffer to make a public issue of finding an intimate object in a customer's bag." What if it were a pack of tampons they were examining? You have just as much right to have a dildo in your luggage as you do any personal-care item; it is not dangerous, and it is improper for anyone to make it public. Remember that airport and airline personnel are engaging in harassment should they humiliate anyone regarding sexual matters -- be it for condoms, hygiene products or a strap-on harness in your baggage.

The Sexual Traveler's Guidelines

Use common sense. Don't put sex toys in your carry-on baggage unless you absolutely have to. Remember that if they're confiscating toenail clippers and eyebrow tweezers, they're definitely not letting you bring the fuzzy handcuffs, tit clamps, leather flogger or unusually shaped vibrator on the plane. Don't put anything in your carry-on you aren't willing to part with if security decides it's potentially dangerous. Even if you believe their decision is uninformed, you won't be in any position to argue if you want to make your flight.

Bag your toys. Even if they're not liquid, you'll want to put each toy in a Ziploc bag (does the TSA have a Ziploc fetish or stock in the company?), even if you pack it in your checked luggage. If they single you out in the security line to have your bag pawed through and contents examined, you won't want those filthy gloves of theirs touching anything of yours destined for an intimate area -- not after they've been touching everyone else's shoes, child toys, hairbrushes, laptops and more. Ew. Don't forget to bag your checked butt plugs as well -- if your bag gets spot-checked and opened, another pair of dirty gloves will be all over your plugs, and that's just gross.

Their rules don't make sense, but they still apply. Yup, I'm talking about the 3-ounce liquid rule for lubes (just pack the lube, or toss a 1-ounce lube sample in your laptop bag). Interestingly, the TSA doesn't consider gel-filled bras to be dangerous liquids, and they are permitted, no matter how big your "lethal weapons" are. Even if the bottle of Liquid Silk is half full (or half empty), it still isn't permitted if the container size exceeds 3 ounces. Also, remember that the TSA makes inconsistent, on-the-spot decisions that could consider your key-chain clamps as dangerous as toenail clippers. And kinksters beware: Bringing that e-stim unit on the plane just isn't going to happen (your cattle prod must be checked). The fun and games will have to wait until you get your bags.

Remove the batteries from all battery-operated devices -- even if you think they're difficult to turn on. The new push-button pulsing vibes are especially easy to accidentally turn on, and tiny toys powered by watch batteries (like the Fukuoku) are easy to forget about. Even if a vibe doesn't buzz in your bag, if it accidentally starts, it can get hot enough after a while to cause problems. Also, if you bring your vibe in your carry-on, remember that security X-ray personnel might decide the mechanical parts look interesting enough on the X-ray screen that they need to take a closer look. You'll be very glad you bagged your toy when they pull your vibe out by the corner of its Ziploc and hold it up like a dead rat caught by its tail for all to see.

Pack your dicks with care. Dildos are less of a problem because they're generally made of silicone or jelly rubber and have no mechanical parts. Dildos made of glass or porcelain will require special packaging concerns -- wrap them well in soft cloth. Metal dildos will definitely go in your checked luggage. Strap-on harnesses usually have metal buckles or D-rings, and "packing" or wearing a harness with metal fixtures through any security line is not recommended. However, if you have a hot scene planned for the minute you get off the plane, you can wear a fabric or neoprene harness under your clothes, though travel might be more comfortable if you carry on the harness and change in the plane's lavatory before landing. Stow harnesses with metal in your check-in luggage, along with any and all S-M toys. Harnesses and kinky gear aren't cheap, and it would be a tragedy to come all the way from Indiana for the pre-Pride human pony tea party (or -- gasp! -- pulling the Pride pony cart) without your bridle. Replacing your S-M and fetish gear is expensive, while being the prettiest pony at Pride: priceless.

Piercings can be a pain. Traveling with piercings has proved so bothersome for some folks I interviewed that when traveling they just remove their piercings and pack 'em away with their socks and pasties. That's one option -- but if you can't or don't want to remove your piercings, you have a couple of possibilities. Some piercings won't set off metal detectors, but large or multiple ones might. Stainless-steel, titanium and gold piercings are in the low-risk category. Be prepared for uninformed security personnel to single you out and possibly search you completely. Be calm and explain that you have genital or nipple piercings. Prepare yourself for your trip by carrying a drawing or photograph of your piercing to show security, but remember that on heightened alert the security personnel will likely need to see it for themselves -- in which case they will assign a same-sex officer to take a look. The security team is justifiably trying to ensure the safety of your fellow passengers, but if you feel they behave inappropriately, complain loudly and state clearly that they are doing so -- making a private issue public may protect you.

Be prepared to defend your gender. Traveling when you do not appear as the gender on your identification is much trickier than remembering to take the batteries out of your vibrator. Especially in the shadow of the Patriot Act, transsexuals, FTMs and MTFs in transition, cross-dressers, butch dykes who appear masculine and people who simply don't look one obvious gender or another all face issues of proving their identity when getting on a plane. If your driver's license says "F" and you look like an "M," you may some explaining to do. With the Patriot Act, when they run your license at the airport, it automatically links to all other federal databases, and if there are any discrepancies, again you'll have some explaining to do -- and a possible delay.

Explaining your situation isn't always easy. You will be pulled aside and questioned, and it's wise to think through what you'll want to say before you go to the airport so you can remain calm. Your sailing will be the smoothest if you do everything you can to travel with the correct information. If you're lucky enough to encounter understanding security guards, that will help, too. Some airports have security personnel who have undergone sensitivity training (hope for this!), and even if they haven't, they will eventually accept your situation. People in transition from one gender to another will want to travel with a letter from their therapist explaining that they are in transition, and they should be sure to have contact information for the therapist on the letters in case the security personnel are required to cross-check.

Be aware of the customs and social mores of the place you are traveling to. In Texas, they won't look kindly at a suitcase full of vibrators (possessing more than three is currently illegal in that state). In some countries, appearing as a different gender than that on your ID can be met with confusion, suspicion or worse. Carry the phone number for your country's embassy or consulate on you at all times. While you still may have to pray for sensitivity training for our American diplomatic staff, some embassies (such as Thailand, Brazil and the Philippines) are aware and understanding toward gender issues.

In San Francisco, of course, we've got your sparkly pink welcome mat right here. And if you lose your lube, we'll have you covered. Literally.

---

Violet Blue is author and editor of over a dozen sexual health books and erotica collections. She is a professional sex educator, lecturer, podcaster, video blogger, porn/erotica reviewer and machine artist.

Violet is also a fetish model, a member of Survival Research Labs, an author at Metroblogging San Francisco; girl friday contributor at Fleshbot, a San Francisco native, and a pro blogger.

For more information and links to Web sites discussed in Open Source Sex, go to Violet Blue's Web site, tinynibbles.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/06/14/violetblue.DTL

Naked cyclists in green protest

Hundreds of naked cyclists pedalled through London and Brighton at the weekend as part of the World Naked Bike Ride.

About 700 cycled through central London after more than 200 rode through Brighton, reports the BBC.

The naked cyclists - and others with strategically-placed body paint, sticky tape or bum bags - were highlighting the damage caused by car dependency.

They were also promoting the environmental benefits of cycling.

The World Naked Bike Ride is now in its fourth year with more than 60 cities participating in 2007.

The London leg began at Hyde Park and finished in Wellington Arch, a route of about six miles.

Naked cyclist Martin Ireland said: "We are seeing an increasing number of stories of melting ice caps and Antarctica crumbling away and no government is doing anything serious about this.

"They are paying lip service to the problem so people have been taking to their bikes, unclothing, to express their feelings about it."

Duncan Blinkhorn, 45, one of the organisers of the seven-mile Brighton ride, said: "This is a fun if outrageous way to make the serious point that we should not have to tolerate roads, cities and a planet dominated by the brutishness of cars that routinely foul the air we all breathe.

"Bikes and naked bodies harm nobody. Car fumes are driving us all to climate chaos."

For Mum!

New fish

This explains some attitude problems

In search of food

X JAPAN Reunites For New Single, Tour

X JAPAN Reunites For New Single, Tour - June 4, 2007

Nearly ten years since X JAPAN's New Year's "farewell" concert and nine years after the death of the band's influential lead guitarist Hideto "Hide" Matsumoto, X JAPAN has officially reformed and is planning a new tour and single, tentatively due before the end of 2007.

According to an article in the Japanese newspaper Sponichi, X JAPAN founder Yoshiki summoned former vocalist Toshi to Los Angeles in November 2006 to work on a song that was written as a tribute to late guitarist Hide, entitled "Without You" (originally released instrumentally on Yoshiki's first album). After an emotional recording session, the two felt that "the puzzle pieces just fit," and decided to officially reunite the band.

Yoshiki is said to be in talks with guitarist Pata and bassist Heath regarding the reunion, with hopes to feature the band lineup circa the group's final performance. While nothing has been set in stone, the tentative touring lineup is expected to include Yoshiki, Toshi, Pata, Heath, and roughly 10 guest guitarists who will perform Hide's parts during various songs in the set.

Current information indicates that X JAPAN's tour will begin near Yoshiki's home of Los Angeles, with the Toshi-sung single release of "Without You" due sometime this year.

Regarding the reunion, Yoshiki stated, "After Hide's death most fans were split between two extreme opinions, either 'you reunite and I'll kill you' or 'if you don't reunite I'll die.' I had trouble making the decision and for a while I wasn't able to move forward. This reunion is actually a first for me as well."

ANIME EXPO® 2007 ANNOUNCES J-ROCK CONCERT OF THE CENTURY

ANIME EXPO® 2007 ANNOUNCES J-ROCK CONCERT OF THE CENTURY

News

Saturday, 26 May 2007

Anime Expo 2007 announces SKIN to perform on June 29th, 2007 Anaheim, California (May 25, 2007) ‹As announced on the stage of J-ROCK REVOULTION: SKIN performs June 29th, 2007 at Anime Expo® 2007. SKIN is Yoshiki, Gackt, Miyavi and Sugizo Stay tuned for more info ... All registrants who register before the end of May are automatically placed into the drawing. Those who have already pre-registered are also automatically entered into this drawing. Secure pre-registration can be done via online at https://secure.rhq.com/anime/anime2007/attreg/index.cgi . Attendees interested in booking flights, car rentals and/or other hotels for Anime Expo® 2007 can do so via the AX Travel Store located at www.AXTravelStore.com. About Anime Expo® Located in Long Beach, California - Anime Expo®, the nation¹s largest anime/manga convention, serves to foster trade, commerce and the interests of the general public and animation/ comics industry. This event serves as a key meeting place for the general public to express their interest and explore various aspects of anime/manga, as well as for members of the industry to conduct business. AX 2007 will be held June 29 ­ July 2, 2007 at the Long Beach Convention Center in Southern California. SPONSORS: ADV Films, Bandai Entertainment, Copic Markers, Digital Manga, Gaia Online, Go! Media, Infinity Studios, Informasian TV (IaTV) and the Los Angeles Times. More information can be found at its website (www.anime-expo.org). About Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation The Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation (SPJA) is a non-profit organization with a mission to popularize and educate the American public about anime and manga, as well as provide a forum to facilitate communication between professionals and fans. This organization is more popularly known by its entertainment property ­ Anime Expo®. More information can be found at its website (www.spja.org).

Things that need to be done

World's largest penis erected

An amusement park in China has built what it claims is the world's largest penis.

The 30ft erection, named Sky Pillar, has been built at Longwan Shaman Amusement Park in Changchun city.

Builders wrapped more than 6,500ft of straw around the steel structure which stands on an altar atop 1,250ft high Qinlong Hill.

"It is a totem of Shamanistic culture, which originated in this city," says the president of the park, Cheng Weiguang.

Legend says a Shaman hero named Ewenki vanquished a cruel female ruler and gave her a penis totem, telling her to respect males and not kill them at will.

After this, the ruler set a penis totem on top of the hill, reports East Asia Economic and Trade News.

Shi Lixue, director of the China Folk Culture Association, backed the project, saying: "It symbolizes our ancestors' pursuit of happiness and prosperity."

And, although some tourists said they felt uncomfortable about the statue, others were unmoved.

"It's just a pillar. I don't care. It can be a symbol of the park," said one mother who was visiting the park with her child.