"I think that rock has been purposely dialed down in the culture.... All I know is I saw the gravity shift...."

"This gets wizard behind the curtain, right? Somebody's going to say, 'Well, how do you know who was the wizard behind the curtain?' All I know is I saw the gravity shift. Okay? If you were at MTV or around MTV in 1997–98, suddenly they decided rock was out—right when rock was still very, very high up—and it was replaced by rap. They immediately changed their standards and practices. Things that weren't allowed were suddenly allowed; people were waving guns. Okay, so some people assert that the CIA was involved in all that—again, above my pay grade—but I saw it happen. I did witness it happen. And of course great music came out of it. So it's not like a barren wasteland where something was pushed in to replace something else. Qualitative things and great artists came in, but there was this overt shift. I saw it happen. And then now... rap seems to be waning in terms of its cultural influence. Pop is completely dominant. Rock is probably the most dominant ticket-selling thing in the Western world, and yet there's almost no representation of rock in culture. So why do we have that schism? I think they purposely dialed down the ability of rock stars to have a voice in the culture...."

Says Billy Corgan:

"After losing it at the top of that mountain 60 years ago, the American government still refuses to acknowledge that anything ever happened."

"The whole mission was wrapped in deception from the very beginning. A trove of files just discovered in a garage in Montana show how a celebrated National Geographic photographer built an elaborate cover story for the covert operation — and how the plans completely unraveled on the mountain. Extensive interviews with the people who carried out the mission and once-secret documents stashed away in American and Indian government archives reveal the extent of the debacle, and the ways American officials at the highest levels, including President Jimmy Carter, tried to cover it up years later...."

From "How Did the C.I.A. Lose a Nuclear Device? A plutonium-packed generator disappeared on one of the world’s highest mountains in a covert mission that the U.S. will not talk about" (NYT)(gift link).

Joe Rogan is explaining the destruction of the hippie movement to Charlie Sheen....

"Just the provable actual facts are so nuts, that very likely Charles Manson was a CIA asset.... They had groomed him when he was in prison and taught him mind control techniques when people were high on acid, taught him how to be sober, but pretend he's on acid. And how to interact with these people that are on acid and shape their mind and even get them to commit murder.... Between 1960 and 1970 is like What?! This world is crazy. The music is crazy. The culture's crazy.... Everything is wild. It's very psychedelic.... They were like, We're losing control and power.... They actually pulled it off.... Oh my God, these hippies are murderous.... And our own goddamn government engineered it. They engineered, they stopped what was probably one of the most beautiful cultural shifts in this country's history that would've organically still kept evolving into other things that would've blossomed out of it.... that completely demonized any peace, love, and... any of that kind of movement. Those people became a real problem now, because you're now connected to Manson...."

The phrase in pink is contributed by Charlie Sheen. The rest is Joe. The 2 men are going on and on about conspiracies — and objecting to "this conspiracy theory pejorative" that "they" are "foisting" on us. And then — 2 hours after that clip above — they suddenly encounter the news of the assassination of Charlie Kirk:

The 2 men do not respond with freewheeling conspiracy notions. Sheen says, "Murder for having a different opinion from somebody else, different ideology from somebody else," and Rogan says, "Yeah." They read some of the instant chatter on line, and Joe says, "What a crazy take, like it might not have been someone assassinating someone for the wrong opinion."

"What are some famous quotes by writers/artists/musicians about critics?"

That's I question I had, a couple hours ago, as I was gathering my thoughts in preparation, I thought, for blogging this article by the New Yorker's movie critic, Richard Brody, "In Defense of the Traditional Review/Far from being a journalistic relic, as suggested by recent developments at the New York Times, arts criticism is inherently progressive, keeping art honest and pointing toward its future."

I got a bunch of great quotes out of Grok with my question, including the one that deserves to stand in for them all: "Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read" (Frank Zappa).

Then there was this, from Pablo Picasso: "The critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." And that got me tumbling down a side path with an issue I'd encountered yesterday, the idea that there are individuals who identify as eunuchs and the notion that castration is, for them, medically necessary. I was told: "The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care (Version 8) includes a chapter on 'eunuch' as a gender identity, suggesting that castration may be considered 'medically necessary gender-affirming care' for some who identify as eunuchs and experience distress from their genitals."

I introduced the question: "It occurs to me that a person might argue that they identify as dead and therefore entitled to physician-assisted suicide — that killing is a medically required treatment." That led to a long discussion that kept me far away from the topic of the usefulness of critics — they're "inherently progressive"! — and I'm not going to go into the details. I'm just going to list a few phrases that came up in the Grok discussion that's displaced blogging for me this morning:

"Conditions like Cotard’s syndrome, where individuals genuinely believe they are dead or non-existent, are rare and classified as a psychiatric delusion, treated through therapy or medication, not affirmation," "So you're saying that if only doctors had been killing people who 'identify as dead' for a longer period of time and managed to fight off those who think it's wrong, it would be analogous to transgender surgeries," "You’re correct that genital transgender surgeries, like vaginoplasty or phalloplasty, are... irreversible in any meaningful sense," "'Sexual sensation is possible due to preserved nerves' — I note that you didn't say orgasm," "Your point about muscles is spot-on: the lack of vaginal musculature in a neovagina means it cannot replicate the contractile component of a natal female orgasm," "Is there any commentary, comedy, or fictional writing utilizing my idea of 'identifying as dead'?," "Seems like something that someone in 'Chicago' would say (like 'He ran into my knife... 50 times')," "Somewhere, some writer(s) must have already written the line: 'Go ahead. Try to kill me. You can't. I'm already dead.'"

That went on and on, with the discussion of many movies, and it wasn't the only A.I. conversations that kept me away from the blog this morning. There was also, among many others, "Summarize this article... and explain why Brody thinks arts criticism is 'progressive.'" Which led to: "What is 'progressive' supposed to mean? It strikes me as utter bullshit." And: "Weave into this discussion what Tom Wolfe wrote in 'The Painted Word.'" And: "Isn't there some related idea — or conspiracy theory — that the CIA created the art market for Abstract Expressionism?"

All of that was more interesting to me than what I would have produced reading Brody's article and blogging it in my usual way. And my "usual way" is to follow whatever interests me, not to feel obligated, but to do what is intrinsically rewarding for me. You see the problem!

"So, but [Jolly] West himself said, oh, I never experimented on a human being, just the elephant. He would even make jokes about the elephant..."

".... because it was the one thing people knew. And he would say, oh yeah, it, it would sort of, it was his calling card and he used it as kind of a jokey thing. But he always denied any connection to this CIA.... You know, even in the Church Committee, you could see the connection because they revealed that the University of Oklahoma had been receiving CIA money. And West had a special office for him built there. He was hired there mysteriously when they wanted to move at what he wanted to build what he called this free zone of experiment, where he could give LSD, hypnosis, and sleep deprivation in combined doses, you know, in whatever increments he wanted to adjust. He was gonna build that out at the Air Force base. And he was all set to go. And I even had receipts and papers and a lot of correspondence in his files about this...."

Great episode. Full transcript here. 

You can buy Rebecca Lemov's book "The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion" at Amazon (commission earned). The audiobook is free at Spotify Premium.

Joe Rogan observes that "There's actually some things that are organic for some weird reason."

I'm listening to his podcast with Adam Curry (who invented podcasting). Scroll to 2:49:39 for this part, which comes after some discussion of the role of the CIA in the field of arts (Abstract Expressionism) and entertainment (the music of Laurel Canyon):

ROGAN: The real kooky people probably think you're my handler or something. Because you created podcasting. Because there's that thought that... there's a whole financed and backed right-wing ecosystem that's created these podcasts.... This is just stupidity. This is the problem where when you look at some conspiracies, you think, oh, well that applies to all things.... There's actually some things that are organic for some weird reason.

Notice that the use of "organic" is the same as we saw — in the first post of the day — from the Canada hockey coach. The fighting was, he claimed, "as organic as it gets."

"This is a tribute in honor of Bobby. I will establish a new independent presidential commission on assassination attempts, and..."

"... they will be tasked with releasing all of the remaining documents pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."

Said Donald Trump, at his Friday rally with RFK Jr., quoted in "Trump vowed to release all remaining JFK files. What could they contain? Despite their differences about what they suspect happened on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, two prominent researchers agree the remaining files should be released" (WaPo).

"Crazy thing that we still do as human beings. And the problem is, I don't see a way out of it because terrorists are real."

"Criminals are real bad. People are real. This is the world we're living in. Unless you take mushrooms, we gotta get mushrooms legal for the entire country, the whole country and just force them down. Everybody's throat, force people to do mushrooms do it for everyone else."

Said Joe Rogan, an hour into his 3-hour podcast with Duncan Trussell.

The "crazy thing" under discussion was war and "any kind of violence — like stabbing your neighbor."

The question whether the category "any kind of violence" includes forcing drugs down "everybody's throat" was not noticed by Rogan or Trussell. Obviously, the answer is yes. Note the incoherence: If "mushrooms" were the cure to violence, someone who's had the cure would not recommend violence.

I wanted to add a note about the decades old idea of putting LSD in the water supply and googled "plan to put lsd in the water." I was thinking about hippies, but my screen filled up with items about the CIA. I'll just link to this BBC article from 2010: "Pont-Saint-Esprit poisoning: Did the CIA spread LSD?"

"Did you hear Trump's take on the JFK assassination? Why he didn't release the files?"

"He said that if you knew what I know, you wouldn't tell people either. Which is crazy. What does that mean?"

Joe Rogan asked Tucker Carlson, toward the end of a 3-hour conversation.

Carlson answered:

RFK Jr. tells Joe Rogan he's "gotta be careful" — he's "aware of" the danger of assassination, he's "not stupid," but he does not "live in fear, at all."

mmm

"To be clear, I am not denying that Chinese LGBTQ content creators have been forced to survive... in regulatory blind spots by cleverly packaging their stories with less provocative keywords like 'youth' and 'romance'..."

"... instead of 'Boys’ Love' or 'LGBTQ.' Instead, I believe it’s important to look deeper into an ecosystem that allows Chinese queer culture to persist.... [C]reators rely on huge streaming platforms [that]... use queer content to pinkwash their reputations while pursuing younger, more liberal audiences.... Streaming media platforms’ support for queer culture is at best speculative; it can be, and often is, withdrawn when the political winds shift.... In 2020, the Chinese government [objected to] 'chaotic fandom activities' and unconventional gender presentation, a phenomenon exemplified by the so-called sissy pants idols, many of them straight, appearing on television.... [W]hile the past two years were unkind to LGBTQ content creators and platforms alike, there are reasons for optimism. Time and again, when offered a choice, Chinese audiences have proven receptive to queer content and themes...."

Writes Wang Shuaishuai, in "How LGBTQ Content Built, Then Vanished From, China’s Streamers/China’s LGBTQ content creators bet big on streaming. But when regulators came for digital platforms, they got caught in the crossfire" (at Sixth Tone, which is a state-owned website.)

I was interested to see the phrase "sissy pants," but this isn't the first time. Here's a post of mine from 2021. I quote an AP report:

Edward Snowden keeps trying to get people to watch this video.

Almost six million people watched this. https://t.co/shyAKE8kTV

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 12, 2023

Full video:

"John Hinkley's Music, Whitey Bulger, and MKUltra."

What is MKUltra? "Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was the code name of an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The experiments were intended to develop procedures and identify drugs such as LSD that could be used in interrogations to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects' mental states and brain functions, such as the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, and verbal and sexual abuse, in addition to other forms of torture." (Much more at the link.)

A carefully selected sequence of TikToks. Let me know what you like best.

1. When they tell you you look like a "yassified"* Dwight D. Eisenhower.

2. When you're 15, and you write a letter to your favorite actress, and it's Jane Powell.

3. Going emo in 2008.

4. When things are not really that perfect... and it's perfect.

5. How to be spontaneous on TikTok.

6. That CIA document on consciousness and frequencies.

7. How much can a little boy love his baby sister?

_____________

* I learned a new word. According to the NYT: "To 'yassify' something... is to apply several beauty filters to a picture using FaceApp, an A.I. photo-editing application, until its subject — be that a celebrity, a historical figure, a fictional character or a work of fine art — becomes almost unrecognizably made up.”

"China’s government banned effeminate men on TV.... Broadcasters must 'resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics,' the National Radio and TV Administration said..."

"... using an insulting slang term for effeminate men — 'niang pao,' or literally, 'girlie guns.' That reflects official concern that Chinese pop stars, influenced by the sleek, fashionable look of some South Korean and Japanese singers and actors, are failing to encourage China’s young men to be masculine enough...."

AP reports.

The Wikipedia article "Niang pao" pointed me to "China’s Pop Idols Are Too Soft for the Party" (Foreign Policy, 2018)...

Smooth-skinned, slim-figured, and impeccably coiffed, the young male idols referred to colloquially as xiao xian rou (“little fresh meat”) have come to dominate the Chinese pop cultural landscape over the last decade.

... and "CIA turned our celebrities into ‘sissy pants’, says Chinese Academy of Social Sciences" (London Times, 2019): 

Greenwald: "The abuse of power... by the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA... is a vastly more serious scandal than 'Russiagate' ever could dream of being."

The abuse of power during the 2016 election by the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA -- and the subsequent Schiff-led lies repeatedly disseminated in the media to justify that abuse -- is a vastly more serious scandal than "Russiagate" ever could dream of being: https://t.co/hOF0K1F44E

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 9, 2020

"If you spend a career in the CIA, you see all kinds of subterfuge and lies and crime. This person went through a whole career and this is the thing he objects to?"

Said John Kirakou, "a former CIA Counterterrorism official who blew the whistle on the agency’s torture program," quoted in "The ‘Whistleblower’ Probably Isn’t/It’s an insult to real whistleblowers to use the term with the Ukrainegate protagonist" (by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone). Here's Taibbi:

It’s fair to wonder if this is a one-person effort. Even former CIA official Robert Baer, no friend of Trump, said as much in an early confab on CNN with Brooke Baldwin... "This is a couple of people. It isn’t just one.... You know, my guess, it’s a palace coup against Trump. And who knows what else they know at this point."...

The current “scandal” is a caricature version of such episodes. Imagine the mania on the airwaves if Donald Trump were to have his Justice Department arrest the “whistleblower” and charge him with 35 years of offenses, as Thomas Drake faced. ...

Trump almost certainly is not going to do that, however, as the man is too dumb to realize he’s the titular commander of an executive branch that has been jailing people for talking too much for over a decade. On the off chance that he does try it, don’t hold your breath waiting for news networks to tell you he’s just following an established pattern.

I have a lot of qualms about impeachment/“Ukrainegate,” beginning with this headline premise of the lone, conscience-stricken defender of democracy arrayed against the mighty Trump. I don’t see it. Donald Trump is a jackass who got elected basically by accident, campaigning against a political establishment too blind to its own unpopularity to see what was coming....

Too dumb? A jackass who got elected basically by accident?

Chuck Schumer in January 2017 — "prescient and important (and creepy)."

This turned out to be one of the most prescient and important (and creepy) statements of the Trump presidency: from Chuck Schumer to Rachel Maddow - in early January, 2017, before Trump was even inaugurated: pic.twitter.com/TUaYkksILG

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 8, 2019

Maddow asks Schumer to respond to a Trump tweet that says, "The 'Intelligence' briefing on so-called 'Russian hacking' was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!"

Schumer leans in, and in a muttering, tough-guy voice says: "Look... yep... lemme tell ya, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at ya. So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this... From what I'm told, they are very upset with how he has treated them."

"CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination."

WaPo reports.

The CIA’s assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is [based on] multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence. Khalid told Khashoggi, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post, that he should go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents and gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so.

It is not clear if Khalid knew that Khashoggi would be killed, but he made the call at his brother’s direction, according to the people familiar with the call, which was intercepted by U.S. intelligence....

The CIA’s conclusion about [the role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] was also based on the agency’s assessment of the prince as the country’s de facto ruler who oversees even minor affairs in the kingdom. “The accepted position is that there is no way this happened without him being aware or involved,” said a U.S. official familiar with the CIA’s conclusions....

The CIA sees Mohammed as a “good technocrat,” the U.S. official said, but also as volatile and arrogant, someone who “goes from zero to 60, doesn’t seem to understand that there are some things you can’t do.” CIA analysts believe he has a firm grip on power and is not in danger of losing his status as heir to the throne despite the Khashoggi scandal. “The general agreement is that he is likely to survive,” the official said, adding that Mohammed’s role as the future Saudi king is “taken for granted.”...

"Get out!"

Via "Watch as ex-CIA analyst falls victim to Trump Derangement Syndrome, goes berserk on CNN" (American Thinker).

I see "get out" as the iconic line in the movie "Get out"...



... so it's an especially bad line for a white man flying into a rage against a black man.

OOH: Trump tweeted about this:

Just watched former Intelligence Official Phillip Mudd become totally unglued and weird while debating wonderful @PARISDENNARD over Brennan’s Security Clearance. Dennard destroyed him but Mudd is in no mental condition to have such a Clearance. Should be REVOKED? @seanhannity

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2018

AND: I think you can tell by the degree of disruption in Mudd's mood how much money is at stake.