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ps; thoughts on impeachment

see you next year, ding-a-ling.

We Are the Sprocket Holes vol. 352 / U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 222 / Negation Aspiration vol. 194

2019 was a year of troubling themes - corruption, hate, racism, fear, greed - but chief among them was this: it seems as though we, as a people, no longer share the same basic facts or reality. This was a year spent watching politicians and celebrities and social media all-stars doubling (and, indeed, tripling or quadrupling) down at a furious clip, never willing to admit that they'd done the wrong thing, said something offensive, or simply found themselves in over their heads thanks to a series of bad choices. Doubling down on whatever bullshit you're spewing is the new "Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?", a defensive maneuver so painfully transparent and easily disproven that one couldn't help but stand in awed wonder this year when, time and again, some of the most powerful people in the world would employ this tactic...and more or less get away with it. Sometimes repeatedly! 

Perhaps the Safdie Brothers, Benny and Josh (who directed 2017's blistering, ferocious Good Time) saw all of this coming. Maybe they knew that 2019 would be The Year of Doubling Down, and decided that now would be the perfect time to unleash the anti-hero this period in American history all but demands: Howard Ratner, the wheeling, dealing, frequently-screaming, hanging-on-by-the-skin-of-his-teeth diamond retailer at the heart of the two-hour panic attack known as Uncut Gems.

UNCUT GEMS Review: Crazier The Bet, Bigger The Reward

2019 saved its most intense movie for last.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 221

“There are no consequences for being untruthful. It’s become a feature, not a bug. The audience expects them to lie. There’s a certain liberty in not having a conscience and being able to lie about anything and watch Trump blow stuff up. Trump revels in paying the joker and they revel in him playing that role.”

The lies have it: Republicans abandon truth in Trump impeachment defence

Negation Aspiration vol. 193

What does the average Anglo-American aspire to be, do, have? To be rich, powerful, careless, selfish, and dumb, now, mostly. We don’t, as societies or cultures, value learning or knowledge or magnanimity or great and noble things, anymore. We shower millions on reality TV stars and billions on “investment bankers.” The average person has become a tiny microcosm of the aspirations and norms of elites — they’re not curious, empathetic, decent, humane, noble, kind, in pursuit of wisdom, truth, beauty, meaning, purpose. We’ve become cruel, indecent, obscene, comically shallow, and astonishingly foolish people. That’s not some kind of jeremiad. It’s an objective, easily observed truth. That’s not some kind of jeremiad. It’s an objective, easily observed truth. Who else in a rich society denies their neighbours healthcare and retirement? Nobody. Who else denies their own kids education? Nobody. Who else denies themselves childcare and elderly care? Nobody. Who else doesn’t want safety nets, opportunities, mobility, protection, savings, higher incomes? Nobody. Literally nobody on planet earth wants worse lives excepts us. We’re the only people on earth who thwart our own social progress, over and over again — and cheer about it. How did we become these people? How did we become tiny microcosms of our arrogant, ignorant, breathtakingly stupid elites? Because we are perpetually battling for self-preservation. Life has become a kind of brutal combat to the death. For jobs, for healthcare, for money, for the tiniest shreds of resources necessary to live. We wake up and fight one another for these things, over and over again. That is what our lives amount to now — gladiatorial combat. Meanwhile, elites and billionaires sit back and enjoy not just the spectacle — but the winnings.

This is How a Society Dies

America and Britain are Textbook Examples of a New, Gruesome Phenomeon: Rich Nations Self-Destructing Into Poor Failed States

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 220 / #gorenoise vol. 7

“I think its arrogance of one who has a God-like image of himself,” Handy said of Bevin. “And a lack of concern for anybody else.”

The pardon was just one of several controversial pardons and commutations Bevin issued in his final days in office. The list includes several in Handy’s old district, including a teacher, Charles Doug Phelps, who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and tampering with a witness. In his pardon, Bevin called the conviction “long on duration, long on accusation, long on drama and short on evidence.”

The police found photos of minors performing sexual acts on Phelps’ phone.

In the Partin case, Handy painted the picture of a grisly murder, one where no blood was found because Partin used a hook meant for hunting alligators to cut off the blood flow to Carnes’ head.

Outgoing Kentucky governor pardons man convicted of beheading a woman, stuffing her in a barrel

#gorenoise vol. 6

Cop Accused of Groping a Dead Woman's Breast Has Been Arrested on Felony Charge

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 219

If they yell loud enough and long enough, what they say about the circumstances of this impeachment inquiry will become truth. Their calculation is that by yelling about anything and everything, the American people will either be convinced or at the very least so annoyed they’ll stop watching. To the GOP, yelling seems to be both a demonstration of strength and a deliberate effort to wear down Democrats and any other Americans who care enough to tune in. Thus, the outrage that's been on display these past few weeks hasn't been spontaneous. This isn’t an indication of passion or righteous anger. It is the manifestation of a decadelong marketing strategy that has kept them in the driving seat of Congress for the better part of the Obama and the Trump administrations.

House Republicans' Trump impeachment strategy is simple: Distract, deceive and yell

#gorenoise vol. 5

Boy, 14, Nearly Dies After Sticking 53 Magnetic Balls Up Penis Out Of Curiosity

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 217

The vast enterprise of formerly conservative media outlets now dedicated to trafficking in baroque QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories in defense of Trump will try their best to polish this turd into a diamond. The chances are slim, however, that they’ll be able to convince even their own audience of credulous Trump rubes and conspiracy nuts that this report means all that much.

Justice Department Watchdog Crushes Trumpworld’s Deep State Dreams

We were told Russia was a hoax, the president was persecuted by Obama, and the real traitors would be locked up. So much for all that.

NERRRRRRRRD! vol. 96

Alan Moore’s daughter, Leah, defends his crankiness: “[T]he medium he adored was ruled by corrupt despots”

Negation Aspiration vol. 192

previously on Negation Aspiration 

Man eats banana 'artwork' which was about to be sold for over £100,000

#gorenoise vol. 4

previously on #gorenoise

The discovery in Ecuador has provoked a spate of wildly sensationalist newspaper headlines delighting in the gruesome strangeness of the story. To be sure, it’s easy to get carried away by its sensational elements. Dressing the body of one person in the remains of another might sound like something that a serial killer does (in fact, both fictional and real-life killers have been known to do this), but this practice has much more in common with the loving mainstream funerary practices of modern society than fringe homicidal impulses. 

The Mysterious Case of Babies Buried With Helmets of Other Children’s Skulls

Papers around the world have sensationalized the discovery of babies buried with the skulls of other children around their heads. But what’s really going on here?

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 216

The President's Fans Think He'd 'Operate More Effectively' Without Congress or the Courts

Negation Aspiration vol. 191

Banana Duct Taped To Wall By Maurizio Cattelan Sells For $120K At Art Basel

Awwwwww Yeah vol. 137

That same attitude of rewarding bad behavior is reflected in the porn industry’s 2020 AVN and XBIZ Award nominations, says Fires, where Deen is nominated for 14 awards total. “It’s a boy’s club, business as usual,” offers Fires. “I think he’s back. More and more people are like, ‘Oh poor James Deen, he’s such a nice guy.’ People are like, ‘Why don’t you like him? He’s so nice,” and I’m like, ‘Well, rapists don’t rape everyone…’”

“Someone said I was nominated so I looked up my name and there it was, ‘Best Gonzo Release,’ and I saw my name ‘Ashley Fires, Analized.’ At first it made me sick. I don’t want to be associated with that. It was like, ‘Oh, let’s rewrite history to make it look like Ashley works with James Deen. Who does that?” asks Fires. “It’s pretty much assumed the awards are based on that year’s releases, so why would a scene from three years ago be billed from his company and make it look like we worked together? It’s very misleading. I have never been in a scene directed by James Deen in my 17 years as a performer. I don’t know what that’s about but he’s pawning off second-hand content like it’s his work.”

“This is one of the only industries where the women make more than the men, and may quite possibly be the foundation of the industry. The women are the stakeholders but they don’t seem to matter as much as this one modern male porn actor, and it’s so frustrating,” says Fires. “It’s the prevalence of rape culture being normalized and it reverberates everywhere, even in porn. And it’s not just normalized, these guys are actually getting rewarded.”

James Deen Sexual-Assault Accuser Disgusted by His Porn Awards Nominations: ‘Nobody Seemed to Care’

#gorenoise vol. 3

Feral Hogs Killed a Texas Woman. Experts Say They Are Coming for America.

We Are The Sprocket Holes vol. 351: Top 10 Dust Conductors for the 2nd 1/2 of 2019

1st 1/2

pictured: social media discourse between "cinephiles"

if this year's pickins feel grim and miserable... even for me... then i don't know what to say that wasn't already said better in THE ROOM just before Johnny fucked his girlfriend's panties and turned his brains into a Denny's omelet.

ANTRUM (David Amito, Michael Laicini)

yeah yeah i know i know i hear ya i hear ya "found footage? harumph good sir" but fuck it, jack; this one's got a junkyard Baphomet child oven.

BLISS (Joe Begos)

urban grime-goth in a doom-metallic splatter of malarial neon slime.

CARCINOMA (Marian Dora)

funereal art-gore from the mind's tactile scum chamber.

CLIMAX (Gaspar Noe) 

the kaleidoscopic punishment of Noe's heart-of-carnage universe blisses out in a lysergic revelry. 

DECODER (Muscha)

cut-up no-wave sub-opera lovingly restored by the deviance curators at Vinegar Syndrome.

KNIFE + HEART (Yann Gonzalez)

Bava cruises the bathhouse in this unapologetically homocidal delight from the bowels of France.

PASOLINI (Abel Ferrara)

comes out the same year that 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy finally gets its due. fitting? you betcha.

PORTRAITS OF ANDREA PALMER (J. Lyons, C. Huston)

updates the bleak eroticism of the Golden Age's more downbeat entries for the Cam-Girl era.

A RECORD OF SWEET MURDER (Kōji Shiraishi)

the director of Grotesque getting downright cosmic with them guts.

THE TOUGH ONES (Umberto Lenzi) 

thoroughly vicious crime epic as only Lenzi could deliver, impeccably restored by Grindhouse Releasing.

NERRRRRRRD! vol. 95

Watchmen, The Boys, and The Tick turn superhero burnout into a TV movement


please check out:
MARSHAL LAW
BRATPACK
FLAMING CARROT
NEMESIS
ALL TIME COMICS

The FBI Watch List Book Club 2019 Recommendations

(pssst; you can BUY MY BOOK here and here and here. it has been a sloooooooooooow start)

so yeah, 2019 was another Dollar Tree Parking Lot Grease Fire of a year... mongoloid ugly and bewilderingly idiotic on a sub-molecular level. to avoid being cannon fodder in the great chicken sandwich turf wars, i mostly stayed in, sending out SOSs to my marginal consumerist overlords in the hope that they would provide a psychic balm for my tenderized faculties. here they are;

HELIOGABALUS OR, THE CROWNED ANARCHIST by Antonin Artaud (translated by Alexis Lykiard). Infinity Land Press

"if a revolving phallus, swathed in innumerable robes, stands for whatever is dark about the occult, the bustling storeys that took the notion of the sun far underground physically enacted through their snares and their sharp-edged spells, a world of infinitely grim imaginings, whose more ordinary sexual narratives  are merely their external garb. 

"those ideas which the sun cult practiced at Emesa codified, touched upon the cosmic malice of a principle in which the error periodically committed by adherents was to procure the detestable outcome of events, all the while revering in that principle's darkness."

- from 1. Cradle of Sperm, pg. 59.

WOUNDS: STORIES FROM THE BORDER OF HELL by Nathan Ballingrund, Saga Press

"something struggled into the light. Will felt the presence of it before he could see it. he felt an answer to the long ache. he leaned over Eric's shuddering body, brought his face close. he opened his mouth over the wound, touched his lips to its ragged edges. fix me, he thought. please. make me whole. he closed his eyes, felt the billowing heat of it. something moved against his tongue and he sobbed with a terrified gratitude as it probed the roof of his mouth, his teeth, and his cheeks. filling his mouth. he opened wider and gulped it all in, blood leaking from the seal of his lips. Eric began to shriek, repeatedly and in escalating volume, and a host of startled cockroaches scrambled from their lairs, climbing up the walls and rising into the air with their dark, humming wings, a swarm of Christ-bound spirits."

- from "The Visible Filth", pg. 177

NAROK: VISIONS OF HELL IN THE KINGDOM OF SIAM by Stephan Bessac, Timeless

"while the traditional manuscripts and designs are used as a blueprint, the abbot of the temple has often his own idea and concepts of how everything should look like and the result is sometimes pretty astonishing! in some places for example, some statues would almost be sexless while in others, huge penises and enhanced breasts would adorned the sinners giving to the acts of displayed a definite ero-guro feel. the same for the amount of blood and gore, some temples were very tame while others are a visual feast of viscera, eyes getting gouged out, emasculation, mutilation etc... straight out of a Lucio Fulci / Ruggero Deodato movie."

- from "Through Hells and Back", page 4.

THE DARK SIDES OF EMPATHY by Fritz Breithaupt, Cornell University Press

"perhaps the most radical and discomforting form of this thesis can be found in the figure of the empathetic rapist. The idea - which we might rightly recoil - is that a rapist could commit his crime not because he (and in this case, i will forego gender-neutral language given that the overwhelming percentage of those who commit rape, whether against women or men, are men) lacks empathy but because he has it or wishes to feel it. his goal is to understand his victim, in the midst of the victim's torment, in order to connect to them empathetically. this thought contradicts the common conception of rapists as monsters without feeling. in no way does this excuse or lessen the horror of the act of rape. on the contrary, this would make the culprit more blameworthy, because an empathetic perpetrator understands the pain he is causing quite well. a rapist who coexperiences the pain of his victim is still a rapist. however, my analysis here is not a moral or legal investigation but a more complex understanding of the culprit and his motivation to act."

- from Chapter 4: Empathetic Sadism, pg. 162. 

SOULLESS: THE CASE AGAINST R. KELLY by Jim DeRogatis, Abrams Press

"'thank you' she muttered, before she performed fellatio on Kelly, occasionally shooting glances at the camera. the video cut out again, then came back as she danced for him in and atop the ledge of the hot tub, following his directions - 'dance faster, baby' - now naked except for the big silver cross around her neck. at his prompting, she urinated on the floor outside the hot tub, then straddled him as he sat on the bench and they had intercourse. seemingly double her size, he called her 'Shona,' and she called him 'Daddy'.

"'Daddy fuck you?' he asked. 'yes, Daddy', she said. the girl's eyes had a vacant, disembodied look as she robotically followed Kelly's commands, and her expression showed no signs of pleasure, or any emotion at all.

"the tape cut out again before it returned with the girl lying on the bench next to the hot tub, performing fellatio again, then opening her mouth as Kelly urinated in it and over her breasts and stomach before fondling himself and ejaculating. there the video ended."

- from Chapter 7: Go To Your Mailbox, pgs 115-116

THE DEVILS by New Juche, Amphetamine Sulphate

"ever betwixt and between, ever a fish out of water, ever a cunt, i moved from the small town of Dalkeith into the city of Edinburgh at seventeen and experienced a sort of culture shock. people were overwhelmingly charismatic, and daily social interaction was like an art form compared with the provincial manners of the periphery in all their suspicion and joyless hostility. just even the vocabulary and phrases used by people impressed me, the idioms they possessed, which were so playfully confident and singular, so funny and effortless. then there was culture. whole new worlds of books, films, and above all, music. it was completely intoxicating and my hunger for it knew no limits and was not discerning. i was awkward and retarded, a rube, unable to express myself with confidence. neither my domestic English personality nor my Scottish mining community one with their respective accents were comfortable, so i was quiet much of the time. drugs were my social trump card, again. soon enough i could see that protestant character and other shrill sensibilities were alive and just as well in city folk. the one genuinely noble quality working-class social life had taught me - loyalty - wasn't worth shit to these people. society piled up around me like a 360 painting in layered panels and my sense of self and individual agency were reduced to a baseline feeling of being constantly betrayed."

- from Chapter 5: North, pg. 140. 

FOUR CIRCLES by Meg McCarville, Amphetamine Sulphate

"i can compare my life to my toilet. it recently stopped working. and i couldn't shit in it. it was horrible. when i had to shit i either had to hold it in or run across the street. eventually i just said fuck it and i started shitting in the broken toilet. and then it started piling up. really high. and then it started smelling. really bad. and then one day it got so bad that i had to go downstairs to the dollar store and purchase those yellow rubber gloves and a ladle and scoop it out. and then instead of trying to find a plumber to fix it again, i just started shitting in it. and emptying it out by hand. i did this for six months. i would let the shit pile up so high until the entire house smelled like there was a shit sandwich right in front of my face, and then i'd scoop it up. that's the best metaphor for my life i can come up with."

- from pg. 27.

MCMINDFULNESS: HOW MINDFULNESS BECAME THE NEW CAPITALIST SPIRITUALITY by Ronald E. Purser, Repeater Books

"throughout history, most corporate initiatives have shared the assumption that employee discontent is a subjective condition. the locus of change is the individual, who is expected to adjust to corporate conditions, with occasional concessions. complaints are sometimes psychologized out of existence. in the 1920s and 1930s, Harvard psychiatrist Elton Mayo was hired by the Western Electric Company to make sense of experimental data at the Hawthorne plant on Chicago's West Side. Mayo interpreted discontent with poor working conditions and low wages as "emotional reactions" that shouldn't be taken seriously, especially when coming from women. in many of Mayo's writings, the worker is viewed as irrational, pathological, and lacking in self-control - but no evidence is given for such scientific claims. modern social scientists have since dismissed Mayo's studies, calling his pro-management bias "cow sociology". this alludes to the way that contented cows provide more milk, implying that "happy" employees are more productive. 

"these attempts to manipulate workers - promoting acceptance of exploitative conditions, suppressing and denying conflict, and obfuscating differences in power and interests - have echoes in corporate mindfulness."

- from Chapter Eight: Mindful Employees, section titled "Another Corporate Fad", pgs. 144-145.

THE CRAP HOUND BIG BOOK OF UNHAPPINESS by Sean Tejartchi, Feral House

"there will be men, women, children, and even pets in states of confusion, pain, fear, stress, anger, embarrassment, sorrow, depression, and frustration. there'll be headaches, upset stomachs, storms, earthquakes, fires, floods, vehicular collisions, weight issues, drugs, suicide, murder, execution & punishment, atomic bombs, unemployment, riots, injuries, falls, fist fights, tantrums, and silent, nocturnal shame of bed wetting. i'm including accessories (syringes, knives, pills, crutches, splints, etc.) and imminent unhappiness (e.g. roller skates on stairs and overloaded electrical sockets). from the tearful sting of a scrapped knee to the ominous shadow of interplanetary doom, you can expect a rich tapestry of trouble."

- from the Introduction, pg. 2

MR. KNOW-IT-ALL: THE TARNISHED WISDOM OF A FILTH ELDER by John Waters, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

"maybe it's time to open up my own restaurant in New York City. i'd follow Prune's lead and pick a name that is vaguely foodie-unpopular. like Salt in Baltimore, another good restaurant that unfortunately is no longer. How about Fat? no, too obvious. Liver... funny but too specific. Calories. not bad. i know! Gristle. perfect. Gristle would be located on the only bad street left in Manhattan. if there is one. if Gavin Brown hasn't already beaten everyone to the punch as he always does by opening an art gallery there first. we'd be the snootiest foodie-in-reverse eatery in town. "Dare to Dine Here!" would be our motto. and then the stampede would begin.

"the exterior of Gristle would be purposely misleading to the uninitiated. faux boarded-up windows and doors. just walking by you'd think the building were abandoned until you saw the half-broken-on-purpose small neon sign with the tubes blinking in highly stylized dysfunction. the G in Gristle would be throat-like in design, and the gaseous color chemicals inside would rise up, gag, and begin to vomit out in three animated stages before swallowing and starting all over again."

- from "Gristle", pg. 176. 

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 215

the story is much bigger than Stephen Miller. The real story is about a vast racist network that has a shocking degree of reach into mainstream Republican politics. 

The Creepy Racist Network Behind Trump Aide Stephen Miller