Sometimes One Has to Lie?

The lost Amazonian tribe poses for a photo with friends Bigfoot, Chupacabra, and the Loch Ness Monster.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the aerial photos taken of an allegedly uncontacted and undocumented tribe located in Brazil near the border of Peru. In the blog, I speculated that the pictures were staged. And guess what? The pics were fake! Well, kinda...

It turns out that the photographer, sertanista Jose Carlos Meirelles, used a borrowed aircraft to fly over a Brazilian tribe that was discovered in 1910. For two days Meirelles and his crew flew over the tribe’s camp, provoking them enough to douse themselves in war paint and brandish their weapons to defend themselves against the "giant bird" in the sky. This aggressive reaction pleased Meirelles as he shot the dramatic images which were released to the news media. It was the wacky news media misreported circumstances of photos taken by militant protector of the Amazonian tribes. At least that's what Meirelles claims. Not his fault.

I hope the tribe sues Meirelles for millions for exploiting and misrepresenting them.

This incident is reminiscent of the filming of the documentary "Nanook of the North", shot on an Arctic expedition led by Robert J. Flaherty in 1920. During the making of this "true to life" film, Flaherty purchased Inuit clothing for the natives to wear because their regular attire was unremarkable. He also made poor Nanook build an igloo numerous times in the freezing snow just to get a variety of camera angles. And finally, Flaherty had the igloo built larger than normal to accommodate his film equipment. In his defense, Flaherty stated, "Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit."

Indeed.

R.I.P. George Carlin

So long funnyman.

I really idolized Carlin...yet, he's one of my biggest entertainment disappointments ever. Obviously he's one of the great ones; nothing I can say here will pump up his obituary any more than it's already been pumped. But, when my wife and I were planning our last Las Vegas vacation, and I saw he was playing at the MGM -- I was just plain stoked!

My wife and are stand-up fans, we've seen tons of big name comics, no-name comics, it's just what we're, kind of, into. But the thought of seeing the Abraham Lincoln of comics, live on stage...I was blown away. We dressed up for it, we at Emeril's joint, in the MGM, had great seats, ordered some drinks, and sadly sat there and stared at each other in disbelief at how sad, and miserable, and dark this man had become. We've seen comics get heckled, and once in a while we've seen walk-outs, but never like this...especially for a name this big. Carlin went on and on about suicide, mass suicides, killing babies, all the while blaming the media and the government for all that was wrong with the world.

Now, I'm a fan of dark humor...I'll giggle like a school-girl with a stranger’s hand up my skirt at a dead baby joke, if it's funny. It just wasn't. We left depressed...after the veal oscar over asparagus I just had, and the hundred dollar bottle of wine, you'd think I'd be just happy as a clam. We walked out of there silently, along with the rest of the audience that stayed through that whole comedy massacre.

Just wow, what the fuck happened to that dude? Where was the "Stuff" bit material, or "Baseball and Football" or at least something witty, maybe possibly enjoyable -- is that too much to ask? His performance was just robotic, and depressing. We made our way through the casino and out to the hotel lobby without really talking. We did the only thing we could do, we hopped a cab and caught a late show, I think, up at the Riviera comedy shop to cleanse our pallets. We had wash that rancid, old Carlin off of us like it was e coli. As much as I admire the guy...I've been sad for him for a while...Hopefully, he's making Jim Morrison and Leonardo da Vinci laugh right now. Ah, nevermind, he's probably still going through the orientation process, learning about all the forbidden clouds and what-not -- I bet he's already on St. Peter's last nerve.

Top 5 Reasons The Battlfield: Bad Company Demo Deserves a Higher Score Than GTA 4

   Now that the hype of GTA 4 is dying down, and not as minute too soon in my opinion, there's a new game in town that I doubt will get the credit it deserves. Battlefield: Bad Company. The Battlefield franchise has long been a favorite of online gamers. When Battlfield: Modern Combat came out on the XBOX 360 ( it had been out on the original XBOX prior for some time) I became one of those gamers. It was the first FPS I played online and I loved it. I think the draw for me was the weapons and vehicles at your disposal. It was great to hop in a tank and fire shells at defenseless "soldiers" and what made it even more fun was the online aspect. You weren't playing against AI. They were live opponents that had the same thing in mind. Get you before you got them. And when you hunted down the same guy over and over and vice versa it became sorta personal. That added to the fun. But now the latest addition to the console adaption  of the franchise is coming out and the demo is available at the XBOX Live marketplace and the Playstation Store. I've compiled a list of five reasons that I think the demo alone is worthy of a higher score than the perfect 10 that GTA somehow aquired. Here they are:

#5) Graphics. Bad Company's graphics are updated and look great. Still not on par with Call of Duty 4 or Bioshock, but a far cry from what they were last time around. A bigger step taken than GTA took.

#4) Gameplay. There's something about Battlefield that sucks you in. It's fun, easy and unless you join a room that has a ton of lag, it moves smoothly and fluid. The same can't be said for the choppy controls and glitchy play of GTA 4.

#3) You can blow shit up. Not just cars but buildings, trees AND the cars, tanks and choppers.

#2) The game doesn't get boring. At least not yet. With only 1 map in the online demo, I haven't gotten bored after 15 minutes and just wanted to go on a rampage destroying everything in sight. There's a method to the madness. Got a sniper in an upstairs window? Fire an RPG or tank shell up there and blow the entire section out of the building. Want to blow shit up? It's likely somebody is hiding in an old barn or beat down house and most of them have huge oil tanks beside them. Light one up and get at least one kill.

And finally... The number 1 reason that this demo and the final game for that matter deserves a better score than GTA: The hype machine hasn't been runnng as hard for this as it did for GTA. There's a reason to build hype and most of the time, if a game is put so high up on a pedestal before it's release, it's not going to live up to it's expectations.

AAT SPECIAL REPORT: Karma Is A Bitch!!

If you read the blog regularly…or within the last couple months, you’d know that I said that the release of Charles Manson’s album “One Mind” had me re-visiting the Tate-LaBianca murders and the events thereafter. Well now I’m interested again, because there’s talk of Susan Atkins being released from prison because she’s dying of brain cancer. Ole’ Sadie Mae Glutz apparently has about 6 months to live, and wants to die with dignity...she wants people to show her compassion, and let her die a free woman.
How fucking ironic is that? She, at the end of her life, is making a plea for leniency just like Sharon Tate made to her almost 39 years ago.

But before we get in to that, let’s go back to how I originally became interested in this all over again. Honestly it began like this; I found myself unable to sleep on a Saturday night so I decided to read my favorite news sites on the internet, came across the story about Manson’s album release, and then began a many hours long journey into online literature about this, the most well known string of murders in American history. Like most people, I’ve always found this event eerily fascinating, and I’m often torn on my thoughts of the subject…my mind is all over the place about this subject, starting with the most basic thoughts….can one man *truly* indoctrinate others in to a way of thinking that would lead them to commit such heinous acts? Can drugs play such a role that people could be left remorseless after committing such acts? Most importantly, is Manson more of a creation of the media than anything else?

I also find this situation to be interesting because I think it’s the first time that America’s media really demonstrated it’s power to sway the mentality of the Country in such a profound way. I think that there’s a lot of truth to the things that Manson says about the media, and society for that matter.
Not that I sympathize with Manson, nor do I think he should be out on the street right now from a moral positioning, but I do believe that the media took a guy who for all intents and purposes, meant nothing to anyone, and made him in to a larger than life personification of evil. I also find people’s thought process on the crime interesting as a result. It almost seems as if people find Manson more appalling than those who actually committed the murders. I’ve never quite gotten this. In fact, I read on that Saturday night that people actually think that once Manson passes away, the others would be more likely to be paroled.
What the hell is THAT about?
Is the thinking that if Manson isn’t around to *control* their thoughts anymore, that they’ll be able to be productive members of society?

This goes back to the point I was making….the American media has truly convinced people that Manson is more than he is and if you suggest otherwise, you’re viewed as a Manson sympathizer. But I’m just trying to talk common sense here…Doris Tate (Sharon Tate’s Mother) got it. She said in an interview I saw that she wasn’t much concerned with Manson…that we should be more concerned with the others, because they, she believed, actually have the possibility of making parole. She got it, like I do…but I don’t see a lot of other people who see things this way. They *believe* in Charlie…in fact, I would go so far as to say that if believing in Charlie and all of his powers makes one part of “The Family”, then the media and most of the populace at large should just collectively re-locate to Spahn Ranch. They’ve brought EVERYONE in to the fold.
To them, Charlie is the epicenter of all that is evil…those poor kids were just under his spell….as soon as he’s gone, everything will be ok again. It’s almost like the ending of a movie where once you kill the head vampire, everyone else returns to normal.
Silly, no?

Maybe it’s just me, but I find something much more disturbing about Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Van Houten. When I reflect on what they did…when I really put myself there…I’m left with an amazingly uneasy feeling.
I spent a lot of time reading testimony on that Saturday night….I spent a lot of time looking at crime scene photos, video tours of the now non existent house, and reading the details of the crime. I read of how excited Atkins was as she plunged a knife into her victim…how she found it “sexually exciting”. I read of how she listened to Sharon Tate beg her for her life and for the life of her unborn child, and then how she explained to Tate that she just needed to accept that she was about to die and there was nothing she could do about it.
I read of the things she and Watson wanted to do to the bodies afterward, but didn’t get to because of time constraints.
Then I read of how it wasn’t 100% Susan and Tex’s fault….Charlie said it was ok to take such extreme pleasure in such an evil deed.

One of the things that struck me the most was the murder of Abigail Folger. I read that as she was tackled on the front lawn and being stabbed by Patricia Krenwinkel, she screamed out “I’m already dead!” Imagine that. Imagine knowing that you have suffered such devasting wounds that there’s no way that you’re going to survive, and telling your attacker to stop because they’ve already done their job…but having no idea why. Imagine lying on the grass staring up at the sky on that August night in California as your life bleeds out of the twenty-eight stab wounds you’ve suffered as you hear the pleas from Sharon back in the house. You’re completely unable to comprehend what’s happening to you and around you as your life fades to black….you never imagined the night would end this way while you and your three friends shared dinner and drinks at a Mexican restaurant just hours earlier.

Now imagine being the person that did it to her.
Don’t feel bad…it wasn’t YOUR doing…Charlie told you to…you couldn’t help it.
His words of encouragement afforded you the ability to slash, and stab, and slash some more…without conscience. These were rich “Piggies” after all.

Ok, good, we’re cool because I didn’t want anyone to have to go around and feel like THEY were actually were responsible for their own actions!
DOWN WITH PIGS AND…..What’s that? Steven who?
Oh, Steven Parent…yeah, people often like to forget about him in this story. After all, he wasn’t famous…he wasn’t wealthy…he wasn’t a “piggie” by Charlie’s definition.
But Tex Watson still murdered him in cold blood. I wonder if Charlie told him to do that?
I mean, that doesn’t work does it? If the “piggies” were the rich and famous, how does an 18 year old who was visiting a groundskeeper friend and trying to sell him a stereo fit in to the plan? It must have been ok with Charlie, after all, anyone so eager to please his master…even to the point of human butchery…surely would NEVER act in a way that may displease the all charismatic Charlie. I suppose we can just go with the “no witnesses” angle though.

These days, Tex Watson is a preacher. He’s found God.
What?
No, I know that’s HIGHLY uncommon for people in prison who want to make parole, but Tex isn’t a follower anymore! Why even today, he’ll tell you how none of what he did was his fault.
It was his parent’s fault, and college’s fault, and mostly Charlie’s fault…but NONE on him! This is an excerpt from an interview with Shadow Steele:

"I was very unhappy in college, just carrying out my parent's vision for my life. I had no sound identity, no goals of my own, no satisfaction. I had become a people pleaser, a follower, looking for direction, and ripe to be used by Manson. Slowly, his twisted philosophy seemed to offer us answers, but in the end, Manson had no true answers, only lies he invented."

Poor Tex…he was just a people pleaser! I wonder how pleased Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Voytek Frykowski, Abigail Folger and Steven Parent were with Tex after he “introduced” himself to them on August 9, 1969?
And how THRILLED Leno and Rosemary LaBianca must have been the following night!
Nothing says people pleasing like having a serving fork repeatedly plunged in to you, right?

This mentality…this diabolical behavior isn’t something that can be “put” in to your head. It’s something that just has to be there….and I don’t believe something like that EVER goes away. I think it simply exists in people like this, the same way normal people get excited about love…it’s just that something is twisted…there’s some backwards wiring.

Sometimes, things…people, are just….wrong.

The thing that haunts me the most about this is something that I saw while watching an MSNBC Special entitled “The Mind of Manson”. The two hosts reflected on clips from a 1987 interview with Manson conducted by Heidi Schulman. One clip in particular struck me.
Manson was going on about the trial back then, and the media coverage of it. He said something to the effect of:

“I told that judge….I told him back then….don’t let America see this. I told him….my children are coming.”

The two hosts more or less laughed at Manson saying that he was delusional and believed that his “family” would grow in to an army of sorts.
But is that what he meant?
I would suggest that Manson knew something that the judge and clearly these two hosts STILL didn’t. I would suggest he was telling that judge back then that with allowing the media coverage of “The Family”, he was about to open a door that would never be able to close again…that he was about to alter the course of American society and what it would now be desensitized/accustomed to.
In the course of time since the Mason Family murders and the media frenzy that surrounded it, we’ve seen society change dramatically.
Since that time, we’ve had music that embraces Satanism, murderous gang lifestyles, and sexual debauchery…and it’s become our norm.
We have films that depict grotesque levels of violence, and it’s become our norm….so much so that the very characters that commit the butchery in these films are now made in to action figures and other forms of collectibles.
We have online sites that exist ONLY to show real images of death, and it’s become our norm.
We have radio programs that are FILLED with what a once respectful society would have deemed too obscene to air, and it’s our norm.
We have Charles Manson t-shirts and merchandise, and it’s our norm.
We've have Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails recording albums in the VERY room where these murders took place at 10050 Cielo Drive.
We had Marilyn Manson, a man who took the stage name of Manson and who is the self professed "Anti-Christ Superstar"...joining him on these recording sessions.

We aren't shocked anymore.
We aren't horrified anymore.
Who are we now?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not playing morality police here…I’m guilty too…but when you stop and look around…I mean take a GOOD, honest look around…well….don’t you see it?

Are WE his children? As a society that is?
Is our current position in the morality chart what he was referring to when he said his children were coming?
No you tool, I don’t think Charlie has spooky powers….just a fundamental understanding of human nature. That people are what they are…they grow a certain way based on what’s around them...what's acceptable.
In other cases...the wiring is just bad...the design is flawed somehow.

WE’VE grown into this society…we weren’t made this way overnight…it was an evolution of sorts…or perhaps a DE-evolution.
A little bit here….a little bit there.

This all goes back to my original point.
You couldn’t take someone from the time period before the Manson Family murders and put them in our society today.
They simply would be horrified at what they saw…unless of course, it was already in them.
On the flipside, you couldn’t take four young people from that time back then…one a college student…one a beauty pageant winner…all from decent homes, and convince them to do something horrific by societal standards…unless of course, it was already in them. They didn’t fall in to Charlie’s way of thinking because of who he was, they gravitated towards him because it’s who THEY were.

Fundamental understanding of human nature.
Only in such a distorted society, so distanced from the time before that August night in 1969, could we be confused as to how Susan Atkins life should end.

“You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody’s crazy!”

~Charles Manson

Giant Oompa-Loompas Discovered Near Brazil/Peru Border

Orange men and a chocolate covered woman gaze at the giant scary bird in the sky. Not pictured: Veruca Salt.

By now you’ve all probably seen the pictures: Scantily-clad natives painted in bright colors, poised with their hand-made bow and arrows ready to shoot the noisy mechanical beast-plane down from the sky.

The National Indian Foundation is concerned that illegal logging in Peru is causing various Peruvian tribes to relocate into Brazil. Tribal interaction could cause turmoil for the Brazilian Indian tribes, many of whom are still uncontacted by THE MAN. And besides, illegal logging is shrinking the Amazon and if it continues, our eco-system could be fucked.

So a few weeks ago, in an attempt to prove the existence of the isolated Brazilian tribe, the preservationist group flew an airplane over their village at least twice. They flew over the first time to locate the village, and a second time because they neglected to bring cameras with them the first time around. The lapse between the first fly-by and the second gave the Indian warriors and their women time to don orange or black body paint to show they meant business.

How cool would this be is the photo is real, and the tribe does exist? It is estimated that there are approximately 500 uncontacted Brazilian Indians in the group. That’s hundreds of years of inbreeding right there, folks. Holy shit… can you imagine what was going through their minds when they saw the plane? “Hopi, run and get little Innu. We make virgin sacrifice now!” or “Hualipi go put on your best black body paint boil some water. I’ll wear my orange body paint. We could have company for dinner tonight, and boy do they look DELICIOUS! ”

But the more I think about it, the more I think the photo could be bogus. For one, who the fuck would set out to locate these tribes and not bring a camera? It seems a little farfetched that the Indian Foundation wouldn’t have a camera with them the first time. They took quite a risk that the first fly-by would scare the tribe into hiding. And the orange body paint made for a good photo, didn’t it? It seems a bit too convenient that the natives were wearing such striking colors, all to show that they were ready for battle. The photos would have had less of an impact without the bright orange, don’t you think? And the unarmed woman standing out in the open –imagine seeing a large monster in the sky, not knowing what it is, and just standing there with a gaping maw and no protection. I’m not buying it.

Although I fully understand why the Foundation would fake such a scenario, and I support their cause 100%. It wouldn’t be the first time this has been done, either. In the 1970’s, the Filipino government claimed to have found an uncontacted tribe called the Tasaday tribe. This turned out to be a hoax and the goal was to protect the deep jungle from guess what? Illegal logging.

Rock on, Greenpeace type hippies. Save the Amazon!

Drama and Panic

I've only been in one natural disaster and I hesitate to call it that, because there were no fatalities -- so I guess it doesn't classify as a disaster...mishap maybe, nah I just don't have a better word for it. Occurrence? Whatever, I survived an 8.6 earthquake in Guam back in '93. Yes, you're reading the blog of an earthquake survivor :D Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the following tsunami. It was technically a tsunami albeit a miniscule one; it was only a few feet.

Either way, it really was a blast for me; it was amazing. I had never been in any situation even coming close to that before, save a hurricane or two that fizzled out as it crept up the east coast. But those weak-assed winds are nothing compared to the deafening roar, the rolling streets, and the rocking buildings of a big earthquake. It really was one of the coolest experiences I've had...and what made it even more fun was the 'right after'. We got an early report that we wouldn't have power or water for at least a week, if not two. So, we did what every rockin' dude would do we went to the local shoppette and bought all the cold beer that they'd sell us. We had tequila, we had lemons, we had candles and we had a fucken earthquake party to remember.

But aside from bragging about how cool I was...The other thing I remember is the drama and panic that ensued. The panic came quickly...remember it was '93, before the age of cellular and the regular phones were out from the quake so there were some people who were trying to communicate with, with friggen ANYONE who would listen because they couldn't get a hold of family and friends back on the main-land. To be honest, there really wasn't much damage on the island -- all of the buildings are made to withstand the 190 mph winds of the typhoons, there wasn't a wood joint on the island. Everything was block or concrete, so we were all cool and the gang; there was no need for this panic, this crazy-talk. Some of these people were just silly, I tell you, running around, back and forth, the sky is falling, when there really wasn't anything we could do right off -- except for partying.

And there was the other side -- the drama. Yes, I know an earthquake can be a traumatic experience. The entire earth, our Rock of Gibraltar was moving uncontrollably underneath of us. But it was over, it happened. There was this whole other group of people who were the drama queens - for lack of a better cliché. There was whining, sobbing...it happened to all of us, get over it. Eh, I'm getting off track.

All of this came fresh to my memory yesterday, when we, here in the WV fell under tornado warnings. It really was an amazing storm that passed through here. I was a work, we had the announcement on the big intercom and via computer to "take shelter". There was a strong chance that a tornado, would be rolling through. Now me, maybe I take things too lightly, I don't know, but I figured my chances of biting it via tornado, here in WV are less than winning the powerball. But others, I guess look at things a bit differently. As I was standing by the back door of my office building, watching the sideways rain and the crazy winds bending the trees over, I overheard several cellphone conversations -- insane conversations. First started the crazy rumors. Someone heard that the schools let out, and the busses were picking up the kids -- trying to beat the tornados...oh and by the way leaving kids out at what bus stop shelters?! Please, even in West-byGod-Virginia no school administrator can be that dumb. Then I heard one dude get off the phone and shout that two twisters had touched down in the town a few miles south of us and were heading right for us. WRONG. One guy was talking to his wife telling her to get to the school and get the kids and get everyone to the basement. This was during the storm. OK some people in the WV can be that dumb, but he wasn't a school administrator. The whole thing was just, again, crazy-talk

I'm rambling now...Bottom line here people is that all this silly drama and panic does nothing. Just chill, dogg. There is no amount of action or idiocy that will stop an earthquake from happening, especially after it happens or a tornado or any other thing Mommy Nature wants to throw at us. I say just ride the wave man, keep your family safe and pick up the broken pieces after if needed, it'll be okay. Oh, and by we didn't have any tornados touch down within a hundred miles of us, but it was a really cool storm to watch.

PS. I really don't want this to sound disrespectful to anyone who has been through something horrible, to someone who has lost a loved one. This should only be disrespectful to those who panic in these situations.

Rachael Ray Is An Al Qaeda Operative

Really America?

Are you fucking serious?

In case you are in the dark here...if for some reason you haven't heard this MAJOR DEVELOPMENT in the war on terror, here's a quick bit of info from the Yahoo! newswire:

"Dunkin' Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring Rachael Ray after complaints that a fringed black-and-white scarf that the celebrity chef wore in the ad offers symbolic support for Muslim extremism and terrorism.

The coffee and baked goods chain said the ad that began appearing online May 7 was pulled over the past weekend because "the possibility of misperception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee."

In the spot, Ray holds an iced coffee while standing in front of trees with pink blossoms."

Have you ever started to feel that we DESERVE the bad shit that happens to us?
Have you ever thought something as goddamn stupid as us doesn't deserve to survive?
When I see things like this, I can't help but feel this Country is doomed.
I know, I know, you're thinking "You're going a bit overboard here, aren't you, Joe..you melodramatic homotron!"
And maybe you're right...about the going overboard thing...not the homotron.
I am SOOOOO painfully hetero it's insane.
No...seriously.

Maybe I am being a bit dramatic about us being doomed because one of the most awful chefs on The Food Network has joined forces with Islamic extremism.
What? She IS SO awful!!!
There are so many more chefs on that channel that deserve accolades over her!
But let's get back to business here....

My point is that America seems so unfocused again. It seems so busy with nonsense again. And by again, I'm speaking of the time before 9/11/2001.
Anyone who knows me personally, knows that I HATE The 90's. I think it was a decade that weakened the American character more than anything I have ever seen. We became so drunken with privilege and excess during that decade that we completely lost focus of anything real...anything tangible.

In the weeks following 9/11, it seemed that this Country was now back on track again. All of the silliness of the decades prior had seemingly been shattered that day, and the fortitude of those of "the greatest generation" seemed to envelope the hearts and minds of the American populace.
By that quickly faded.

Now, all these years later, we're back to being busy with silliness all over again.
We're back to worrying about whether a scarf, worn by a woman with no apparent affiliation to radical Islam is a hidden message.
Sometimes it just seems that we care more about the things we should care less about, and care nothing about the things that should be keeping us awake at night.

21 year old Marine Christian Cotner of Waterbury, CT was died during his first tour of duty in Iraq yesterday. He graduated from Wilby High School and was said to be a well liked, conscientious student who enjoyed volunteering.
He didn't however, have strange catchphrases for Olive Oil, or wear scarves that might confuse people about where he stands with things.
That's apparently why you've never heard about him until I told you.

Priorities and all.