Terrorists 1 - America 0

The voice of reason—the single most significant purveyor of social clarity and political sanity—were basically told to shut the hell up last week and it really rubs me the wrong way. The show that makes you stop, scratch your head and say, “You know, they're right. We're really handling things the wrong way,” was censored in the worst way last Wednesday night.

South Park, possibly the best TV show ever conceived by humans, was given the proverbial shaft last week when it attempted to depict animated images of some supposed prophet who probably didn't even exist from a religion that literally throws rocks at women for not being virgins when they wed. That's right, after the long-awaited, dramatic 200^th episode of the animated Comedy Central classic that rehashed a multitude of jokes, appearances, characters, innuendos and plots from the previous 199 chapters, the network decided to play it safe. They threw in 'bleeps' and black censor bars on the climactic conclusion to episode “201” whenever Mohammad (actually concealed in a bear mascot costume and later revealed to not even be Mohammad at all but rather Santa Claus) was on-screen or even when his name was mentioned.

This censorship, of course, didn't come from angry parents or the Christian Coalition or the far-right like it has in the past. No, it came from a group of radical Muslims, threatening what else but violence and death to the show's creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The radicals even listed information about where Matt and Trey live on the website, right about where they posted a gruesome photo of murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. 

There are so many things that make me angry about this entire ordeal, I don't even know how to lay it out. First, the episode's moral message/realization at the end of the episode (which was censored) was all about not giving into fear and intimidation over something so silly as a death threat over a cartoon. Oh, the irony.

And what about the July 4, 2001 episode of South Park titled, “Super Best Friends” which is referenced in the “200”? The season five episode depicted a comical superhero-like group of the world's great religious figures, including: Jesus Christ of Christianity, Moses of Judaism, Joseph Smith of Mormonism, Buddha of Buddhism, Lao Tzu of Taoism, Krishna of Hinduism, Sea Man and—guess who—Mohammad of Islam!

The network had no problem before September 11, 2001 showing a cartoon superhero version of Mohammad, and they had no problem airing reruns on syndicates or streamed versions online. That was, until the death threats came in from a bunch of religious zealot assholes with no sense of humor or even any consideration for the Constitution of the United States of America, the country who so kindly allows their barbaric, 12^th century, douchiness to express their First Amendment right of free speech. Here's how John Stewart so eloquently put it the following night:
 

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A certain touchiness has been seen in the past, with the late Isaac Hayes quitting the show after the 2006 episode exposed the ridiculousness of Scientology, who had voiced the character “Chef” since the show began in 1997. But this is a new brand of touchiness, the kind that threatens to kill a couple of guys who make a brilliant cartoon; a couple of guys who make jokes about everybody and every religion; a couple of guys who took acid, dressed in women's clothing at the Academy Awards. What fucking era are we living in? Last time I checked, in America you can't threaten to kill someone because they make a cartoon depiction (not even a demeaning one) of a guy with the religious relativity of Jesus.

And now, you can't watch the 201^st episode online or even the “Super Best Friends” episode, which was available to stream at South Park Studios up until at least April 20. All because of some whiny crybabies with nothing better to do than threaten violence because they're too big of pussies to actually fight against something legally. But no, this way terrorism wins. Its a big win for fear and intimidation and a hard, ugly loss for free speech, comedy and America as a whole. Good for you South Park, shame on you Comedy Central, and fuck you Revolution Muslim (who made the threats). This just opens the door for more violent threats from dipshits who don't understand comedy or America (we're basically founded on the freedom of expression, speech, religion, etc.). I say this all at the risk of coming off like an intolerant American redneck, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

By the way, the images posted here are of the Prophet Mohammad ala South Park, which I found doing a simple Google search. So if the theme is to persist, I recommend Google and everybody who works for Google to be careful of radical religious cuckoos.

I think all religions are stupid and unnecessary and I don't dislike Islam any more than I dislike Christianity or Judaism. But radical Muslims, you really are a bunch of assholes and I hope the 72 virgins waiting for you in heaven are all fat and ugly. Or big, hairy Jewish-American men. That would really be a kick in the nuts, wouldn't it? Of course heaven isn't real, so they'll be disappointed regardless.

And out of respect for South Park, here he is in all of his cartoon glory...Ladies and gentlemen, the Prophet Mohammad!:

Shocking, I know.

Need a New Time Machine?

Do you ever wish you could just hop in a time machine and travel “back to the future”? Does that time machine have stainless steel paneling, upward opening gull-wing doors and a flux capacitor that will plunge you into the depths of time when the speedometer reaches 88 mph?

Well, dream on because that's mostly science fiction. In fact, until recently, it was completely science fiction.

The car made famous by Marty McFly and Doc Brown in “Back to the Future” was lost in time since the DeLorean Motor Company folded in 1982. But the forgotten DeLorean DMC-12 has reemerged—in the present.

The 135-hp V6 time machine was only in production from 1981-82, with only around 9,000 cars manufactured out of DMC's factory in Northern Ireland. At a base price of around $25,000 (approximately $55,000 in today's dollars), the DMC-12 was on the steep side for John DeLorean's pride and joy. The cars came in one color: unpainted stainless steel. This little piece of history was short lived and—without the help of Universal Studios—would be forgotten.

That was another period in time, though. In 1997, a private buyer from Texas purchased the company and factory stock with plans to reproduce the lost relic. As of 2008, DMC Houston began selling a limited quantity of freshly manufactured (using 80% original materials) DMC-12's.

The “future” models, or rather the newly built cars of the present, still have the same look and feel of the original (yes, the gull-wing doors are still there) but with a few “futuristic” add-ons. Inside you won't find a flux capacitor, but you can fork over some extra dough to get your DMC-12 modernized with XM satellite radio, GPS, backup camera, heated seats and a built-in iPod interface; a handful of things “Doc” never thought to install when he was cruising into the year 2015.

And don't forget the engine upgrade. The original DMC-12 didn't quite satisfy sports car enthusiasts with it's piddly 135-hp engine (about the same as a new Toyota Corolla), and that was the early '80s. With a $5,750 upgrade package, DMC will replace the original engine with a high performance 197-hp engine. But you might as well call it $6,000 with the 140 mph speedometer option.

The DMC site will let you custom-build your DMC-12 to make it your dream car. My custom DeLorean (5-speed manual transmission with the engine upgrade, speedometer, iPod interface, and a stainless steel “DMC” shift knob) comes out to $63,733 before tax and fees. This leaves you with the ultimate question: is buying a new DMC-12 worth dipping deep into your bank account of the future?

When you break it down and make a few comparisons to other new cars in the same price range, it makes you wonder if you should just wait five years for a hoverboard. Keeping in that $64,000 price range, let's see what our other options are: 

You could buy two brand new 2010 Dodge Challenger R/Ts with 250-hp V6 engines and still have about six grand left over...

Another route would be a 2010 Porsche Cayman S with 265-hp and all the bells and whistles you could imagine (minus that flux capacitor, of course). So before you go buy those Nikes, the denim jacket and the orange vest, think again.

But who's to say you have to buy a (mostly) brand new DMC-12 for Porsche prices when you can buy a refurbished or used model for anywhere between $10,000-30,000? Just don't let a new model run into a past version of itself when traveling back in time, or else...

Okay, now you can go buy your Marty McFly attire.

R.I.P. Mark Linkous

This past Saturday, the world and the music business lost another gem. Following in close friend Vic Chesnutt's fatal footsteps, brainchild and leader of the band Sparklehorse, Mark Linkous, killed himself in a Knoxville, Tennessee alleyway.

Sparklehorse's music was melancholy and sad, at times honest and delicate, and even loud and cynical. Linkous' voice was soft and gentle, almost a whimper rather than a whisper. Much of his sonic kindness can be attributed to the southern gentleman attitude that comes with growing up in rural Virginia, where he was born and spent most of his life--even recording his first two albums in his small house hidden away in the forest.

Linkous was depressed for the better part of the past two decades, which his music often reflected--either metaphorically or obviously. Yet at first glance, one reading select lyrics might picture Linkous to be the joyous type; filled with love and a passion for all earthly delights. As here, from the song "Don't Take My Sunshine Away":

"Your face is like the sun sinking into the ocean
Your face is like watching flowers growing in fast motion
All your kisses are swallowed, like the morning's hollows
All vines and tree nuts will come unwound
baby you are my sunshine, my sunshine,
please don't take my sunshine away"

Sadly, Linkous' sunshine was taken away...years ago. He suffered a debilitating accident stemming from a drug overdose that left him wheelchair-bound for the following six months in 1996. At the time, Sparklehorse was touring with Radiohead.

It seems like Linkous had a true grasp and understanding of the beauty of nature and the possibilities of kindness and truth in people, but only as a metaphor. Speaking from lyrical interpretation alone, Linkous seemed to have trouble dealing with the fact that nothing lasts forever; beauty fades, the sun sets, and the opposite of light is an endless abyss of black. From "Someday I Will Treat You Good":

"everything that's made is made to decay
well I'm shrinking bones in the sun
won't you tell me why that
the beautiful ones are always crazy"

At times, maybe Linkous saw himself as the ugly stain on a masterpiece landscape. Almost as if the world were perfect except for him. In the song, "It's a Wonderful Life" (an ironic middle-finger to journalists) his careful, precious falsetto claims:

"I'm a bog of poisoned frogs"

And then:

"I'm the dog that ate your birthday cake"

Throughout the near two-decade run of Sparklehorse, you can almost hear Linkous sink further and further into depression. The general tone of his albums speak volumes about his deterioration. The 1995 debut LP, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, is lo-fi and angry at times--almost frustrated at the unchangeable--and drenched in loud guitars and distorted vocals. But within all the noise are precious gems of folky, melodic alt gems, like "Hammering the Cramps".

After Sparklehorse's debut and Linkous' momentary death (the 1996 overdose stopped his heart for a few minutes) came 1998's Good Morning Spider. Although Linkous says most of the album was recorded prior to the overdose, one new song was written in honor of the care he received at London's St. Mary's Hospital. "Saint Mary" is an honest plea for his nurses to hurry him back to his woody home in Virginia where he could "taste the clean dirt in his lungs and the moss on [his] back" and all he needs "is water, a gun and rabbits". Tracks like "Sick of Goodbyes" have the warmth and tempo of something upbeat and potentially promosing, but the lyrics remain consistently unable to deal with the tragedy of life:

"the night comes crawling in
on all fours
sucking up my dreams
through the floor"

About the "incident" in which he temporarily died, Linkous said, "It scared the hell out of me at the time. When you're in a really desperate situation and you really think you're going to die, it makes you realize how quickly things can be over."

Countless lyrics and quotes here and there make his suicide seem like some sort of expected event, as if it were just a matter of when and where. But in recent years, one could look at his musical output and hope for a happier ending.

In 2001, Linkous decided he was looking for artistic growth, so instead of handling all of the production and instrumentation he'd done on the first two records, he decided to open up his doors and get help from a slew of talents, including Flaming Lips production guru David Fridmann, longtime idol Tom Waits, and friends PJ Harvey, Nina Persson and the late Vic Chesnutt. The result was the beautiful and tragically somber It's A Wonderful Life.

But of course, the tone of depression prevailed. In the ominous "Eyepennies", it's clear that Linkous wasn't really thinking of life as something he enjoyed. His lyrics would get darker and more dismal. From "Eyepennies":

"Blood suckers hide beneath my bed
And black fumes of skin so gently bled
I slept with a cat on my breast
Slowing my heart stealing my breath"

After It's A Wonderful Life, Linkous recorded songs for the next Sparklehorse album, but the depression overwhelmed him. The end result was a mix of previously released, re-recorded and a few new tracks, ushered in with the help of producer genius Danger Mouse. The bipolar 2006 release Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain would be the last Sparklehorse record. Although a well-produced, technically different album, it was obvious that Linkous was losing his will. About the album, he said:

"Well, I'd quit working for a while and it started to get really difficult to live and pay the rent. So it was really getting down to the wire where I had to turn a record in. I had some stuff written that I didn't put on the last album, because they were just really pop songs. They felt like anachronisms on the last record. So I saved all these little pop songs."

The best thing to come out of the 2006 album was the collaboration with Danger Mouse that led to the yet-to-be-officially released Dark Night of the Soul project that brought together former contributers like Vic Chesnutt and Nina Persson, and other big names like James Mercer of The Shins, Frank Black/Black Francis of the Pixies, Iggy Pop, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes and The Flaming Lips, among others. The album along with a 200-page photo book by David Lynch is expected to be released sometime this year after a legal battle with Danger Mouse's label, EMI.

Then on March 6, for whatever reason, Mark Linkous went into an alleyway near a friend's house in Knoxville, Tennessee with a rifle, sat down, and shot himself in the heart, ending his painful, tragic life. To most it wasn't any big surprise, but that didn't make it hurt any less. A southern gentleman with a soft voice and an honest heart who simply couldn't cope with the how and why of life and death.

Listening to Sparklehorse, I've always had the mental image of driving in a car late at night in the rain on a dark, wooded road. Linkous' quiet whisper almost beckons you into the darkness--somewhere where the rising sun and time can't do you harm.

For you, Mr. Linkous, from your own tongue:

"Its time for you to rise
And evaporate in the sun
Sometimes it can weigh
a ton"