The Cartoon Debate

Jihad University

There are 60 more photos from Abu Ghraib that the ACLU succesfully got released by suing the US government. Some were just shown on Australien TV. It wasn't reported that widely here in the US, but Europe and Middle East are quite shocked, coming fresh out of the recent wave of riots, having to deal with Hamas and nuclear bully Iran. And there is a big difference between autocratic govermnents manipulating their uneducated masses into rioting because of some cartoons in a paper whose name they can't pronounce from a country they didn't know anything about two weeks ago, and the outright and justified anger of being conquered in the name of freedom of democracy by a nation of torturers.

But all is quiet on the Middle Easter front. I talked to NYU historian Bernard Haykel, who's currently in Ryadh on a research project about the modern history of Saudi Arabia. He said most people in Saudi-Arabia talk about the surging stock market. He was at a dinner on Tuesday and nobody even mentioned the new Abu Ghraib photos. "Most people think that everything that is to be said about America and the West has been said. Those images just reconfirm what everybody knows anyway." The pan-Arab newschannels Al-Jazzeera and Al-Arabia showed mostly restrain and didn't broadcast the images of naked prisoners. Because according to Haykel those images would be far worse than the actual torture pictures. He said it's hard to imagine for Westerners, what these images trigger in a Muslim. They destroy a person's dignity, which makes the sexual degradation real torture. Haykel said the US armed forces most likely wouldn't have come up with this culturally based form of torture themselves, but probably had secret services from Egypt in Jordan help them set up a system of degradation in Abu Ghraib.

The worst part of the pictures is the great value they have as a recruiting tool for the Islamists. US rank and file do realize these longterm effects of the pictures. "Abu Ghraib is a graduate-level training ground for the insurgency", an American officer told the New York Times. In military and intelligence circles the prison is supposedly already known as Jihad University. With 325.000 people on the terrorist watchlist and a British hacker begging his hometown court not to extradite him, because he might end up in Guantanamo for having hacked US government computers five years ago, this nation sure has some serious PR problems. And Karen Hughes was definitely not the person to put in charge. This ain't no spin to doctor. This is the world watching...

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See the latest batch of images from Jihad U.

If you want to know how we got to Abu Ghraib, read the brillant collection of documents, files and essays "The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib" by the director of the NYU's Center on Law and Security Karen Greenberg and the President-elect of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Joshua dratel.

Ugly American

So now it’s official – the ugly, ignorant, natives-torturing, mosque-bombing, honor-defiling American is an international pop icon and his name is Billy Zane. In the Turkish action flick „Kurtlar Vadisi – Irak“ (Valley of the Wolves – Iraq) Leo's adversary from "Titanic" plays sociopath US-commander Sam (as in uncle) William Marshall (I guess not as in plan), who loves to massacre Muslim believers. In the beginning he mistakenly captures and tortures a unit of Turkish special forces, whose commander commits suicide, which triggers the revenge mission of a Turkish commando. Supposedly the film is based on real events from the Iraq War that are widely known in Turkey.

The trailer looks like classic Third World movie fare, with square-jawed heroes, strangely clichéd Arabs, Billy Zane sporting two of the three facial expressions he’s capable of, and somewhere I think you can catch a glimpse of our all-time favorite Hollywood drunk Gary Busey, who plays a Jewish doctor, who robs the inmates of an Abu Ghraib-like prison of their organs, so he can sell them in New York and Israel. I guess anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism are an unbeatable double feature in the Muslim world. Zane didn't mind the slant. In a TV interview he said: "I acted in this movie because I'm a pacifist. I'm against all kinds of war." Well, I have never ever agreed with Bill O'Reilly so far, but when it comes to world politics, maybe Hollywood actors should shut up.

The film’s supposed to be harmless guilty action pleasure though. Would be kind of fun to see a B-movie with reversed roles. On the other hand – two of Turkey’s biggest bestsellers last year were a rabidly anti-American novel about a Turkish-American war called „Metal Storm“ and Hitler’s „Mein Kampf“. Maybe this is the moment, when we should mention the Armenian genocide...

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Watch the trailer for „Valley of the Wolves - Iraq“.

DJ Mischief at the Olympics

Did anybody notice the slightly mean-spirited spin the Turin Stadium DJ put on his playlist during the parade of nations?

Here are his most stellar picks:

Michael Jackson’s „Don’t Stop 'Til You Get Enough“ for Belgium.
If you don't live in Europe, you might not be aware of the fact, that the biggest news story coming out of Belgium in the past ten years was the trial against pedophile child killer Marc Dutroux and his accomplice wive, so playing Jacko for that country is of course rather mean in both directions of the reference.

Santa Esmeralda’s „Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood“ for Denmark.
No hard guesses, why Denmark deserves "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" with half of the Muslim world going apeshit over some Danish cartoons which were disrespectfully depicting The Prophet.

Donna Summer’s „Hot Stuff“ for Ethiopia.
Playing "Hot Stuff" for Ethiopia was kind of an Olympic inside joke, since the only Ethiopian athlete at the winter games is one of the twelve athletes suspended, because they might have used some illegal performance enhancing substances.

Dan Hartman’s „Relight My Fire“ for France.
"Relight My Fire" is obviously a reference to the recent riots in the French banlieues, when thousands of immigrant ghetto boys torched cars, shops and schools. And since there's growing fear that these riots might flare up again, Dan Hartman's all the more fitting.

Lipps Inc.’s „Funkytown“ for India (and Iran).
Well, maybe "Funkytown" was already past the mischief hour. On the other hand it was cued to the entrance of India, which does have the city of Calcutta. Or did they mean Bombay, given that European cable channels started to play Bollywood fare a while ago? And why did the song play all the way through to the entrance of nuclear sabre-rattling, holocaust denying, women veiling, modern civilization hating Iran? That country sure ain't funky, but outright dangerous.

Right around the letter 'I' somebody must’ve caught on to him, because after that the songs didn’t cue to the entrances of new nations anymore. And playing Aretha Franklin’s „Freedom“ for the US and South Africa or Barry White’s „You're The First, The Last, My Everything“ for Thailand’s lone competitor don’t really qualify as witty.
(If in doubt what the songs were referring to, check out the 1st commentary of this post).

Sly at the Grammies

Honestly, I wasn't sure, if Sly Stone was still alive until he showed up on stage during the Grammies last night. I guess, neither was he. Nor the rest of the world (there's even a documentary in productin right now that's called "On the Sly: In Search of the Family Stone"). He did literally vanish from the face of the earth, after he had filed for bankruptcy in 1976. He wasn't the only Soul genius to have blown his money on extravagant stage shows, too many musical projects and the usual indulgencies in fashion at the time. George Clinton had had a similar fate, being chased by the IRS for years, before Prince bailed him out and helped him come back to true form. But Sly's few appearances in public, like the few moments on stage with his sister's tribute band to his very own Sly & the Family Stone in '93 were more like Elvis sightings. Well, now we know. Hopefully last night's sighting was not the last. The hairdo sure was promising.

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Watch Sly & the Family Stone perform "Love City“

Watch Sly & the Family Stone perform "Stand“

Watch Sly & the Family Stone perform "I Want To Take You Higher“

Watch Sly high like a kite on the "Dick Cavett Show“

Super Bowl Revisited

Update from the frontlines of the fight for videoweb supremacy – Google landed another scoop by posting all Super Bowl Commercials on a single video page. They even advertised this right under their normally commercial free regular search box. Brillant move, leaving their main competitor Yahoo further in the dust. So now you can see them all over again - the brillantly evil Philip Seymour Hoffman in the MI3 trailer, the Monthy-Pythonesque FedEx Neanderthals, the first glimpse of the Wachowski Brothers' "V for Vendetta" resembling an overpriced remake of Apple's legendary "1984"-themed Super Bowl XVIII commercial, Pizza Hut's major accomplishment of finding an ill-fitting dress for Jessica Simpson, Coca Cola challenging Red Bull's global market lead for instant ADD with the hilariously mysoginist spot for the Full Throttle Energy Drink....

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Watch each and every "Super Bowl XL Commercial“. If you must.

If that's not enough, iFilm has almost every Super Bowl Commercial from the past five years on file.

200 Motels

Here’s something to set you TiVo to – the Sundance channel is showing Frank Zappa’s „200 Motels“ this month. Not exactly at convenient times -Tuesday 02.07.06 at 06:00 AM, Thursday 02.16.06 at 12:00 PM and Wednesday 02.22.06 at 02:30 PM.

This is what the Sundance Channel says about the film: "Considered by some the progenitor of the music video, this wide-ranging experimental exercise in filmmaking by Frank Zappa and co-director Tony Palmer is a different kind of magical mystery tour, following the Mothers of Invention on the road. Paralleling Zappa’s famed musical experimentation, 200 Motels played with visual ideas revolutionary in 1971, most notably earning its place in cinema history as the first theatrical feature shot and edited on video and then transferred to film. With cameos from Keith Moon and Ringo Starr."

And since we’re already at it – there’s some far out 1976 SNL performances of Zappa and his orchestra. Zappa found a soulmate in John Belushi, who joined him for some radical soloing. And then there's the legendary claymation video from 1979...

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Watch the trailer for „200 Motels“.

Watch the claymation video for Zappa’s „City of Tiny Lights“.

Watch Frank Zappa and John Belushi perform "St. Alphonzo Street".

Watch Zappa play it straight with a cover of the Allman Brothers’ "Whipping Post".

Raise the Roof

I guess, if you’re blogging about something that the New York Times covers the next day, you’re just too damn slow. Still - now I know that YouTube is a really new phenomenon, having gone online in December, logging 10 million video views a day already. The Times’ Ben Ratliff snooped out some fantastic 1969 TV performance by a very early Parliament/Funkadelic with George Clinton sporting a rather dazed look and a hilariously psychotic hairdo.

You can get kinda lost in the vaults of this site, which you can turn into a peephole to your favorite musical pasts. It can't be more, since the quality is really low-res, but it still gives you a good taste and foreshadows what the video search engines will be like, when they're up on full Internet II speed. Have we seen anything as cool on TV lateley as Curtis Mayfield performing „Superfly“, anything as emotional as Bill Withers doing a stripped down version of „Ain’t No Sunshine“, anything as explosive as Sly and the Family Stone on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1968?

I’ll sure be diggin’ some more. Pun intended.

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Watch Parliament/Funkadelic raise the roof of a TV studio.

Watch Bill Withers sing "Ain’t No Sunshine".

Watch Curtis Mayfield perform "Superfly".

Watch Sly & the Family Stone on the Ed Sullivan Show

High Energy

Who will win the pole position for the moment, when the web finally turns into a video medium? Google was pretty smart to launch a video search engine, no matter how lousy the quality. Right now it's all about being first and Yahoo might prepare a modern marvel in their new abode in Santa Monica, where they bought property that used to be part of Universal Studios. Bu they still lost the race for the primary video search engine.

In the meantime the web underground has already generated a vast archive of video gems. YouTube seems to be the hot site to look for rare video footage. The wonderful Disco Delivery blog has linked up some great finds from the 70s. Who knew the Supremes were such a great Disco outfit, after Diana Ross had left? Who remembers Chaka Khan being a foxy powerhouse of Soul during her tenure as Rufus lead? There's endless other finds on YouTube. Mulllet heaven in the promo video for the Wing's 'Band on the Run' album. Glam history made by Elton John jamming with T.Rex. David Bowie coked up to the gills on Soul Train. Ian Dury proving groove prowess. Miles Davis defining cool.

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Watch the Supremes promo for "High Energy".

Watch Chaka Khan & Rufus doing "Any Love".

Watch the Wings' promo for "Band on the Run"

Watch T.Rex perform "Get It On" with Elton John.

Watch T.Rex perform "Metal Guru" after being announced by German MC Ilja Richter.

Watch David Bowie perform "Fame" on "Soul Train".

Watch Ian Dury perform "Sex & Drugs & Rock'n Roll".

Watch Ian Dury perform "Sweet Gene Vincent" together with The Clash.

Watch The Clash perform "I Fought the Law".

Watch Miles Davis and John Coltrane perform "So What".

Watch Herbie Hancock perform "Cantelope Island" with Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Ron Carter and Tony Williams.

And just for the novelty value a rather creepy interpretation of a Gainsbourg-Bardot classic by a leering Claude Francois with a slightly chubby teenage Jodie Foster.
Courtesy of Spiked Candy blog.