I was gonna record a vlog to go with this (including a new song!). But, I didn’t get around to it. I’ll try to get it out this weekend, maybe. I have been digging through my old practice tapes and recording new demos for a couple of months now. I am not happy with a lot of it. But, you always have to dig through a lot of shit to find anything useful. Since I haven’t put out anything in a long time, I have been contributing to other people’s projects. I was asked by Uncle Ghoulie to provide some artwork and sounds to Truth Porn Militia – No Budget Radio Podcast. So, that is cool. I will be getting that out soon. There have also been some zines and other things requesting my input. So, I haven’t been completely unproductive, I guess.
I’m really beginning to wonder if maybe I should just give away my notes & artwork to let someone else make my movies. At least then they would get produced SOMEHOW. Tim Burton had almost nothing to do with making Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, yet his name is still in the title. He just gave his old sketchbook to another director and said, “Here. Knock yourself out.” Good idea? Bad idea? I don’t know. But, it looks like if I’m gonna produce it, it will likely be a few years until it it is done. Even if I cut costs to the absolute bone and it looks like dogshit, I don’t think I can get it done.
I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that I can get Theee Urban SpaceCat finally going this month. I should have enough raw material for a few issues already. I’ve been continually painting, drawing, recording, writing, etc. It really comes down to paying for putting it out there. I’ll deal with other expenses later, if it becomes necessary.
After over a year of keeping my stuff in storage, lacking enough funds, I recently had to let go of my storage unit. I have downsized a lot of it. So, at least I can fit everything in my grandmother’s garage (between the Christmas decorations and patio furniture). She gave me a nice bookshelf that was no longer wanted. So, I finally have somewhere to keep what is left of my vinyl LPs. I was very disappointed to realize how much of my collection that I’ve sold off.
She also gave me a free pizza promotional card that she got in the mail from Domino’s Pizza. I later brought the pizza back to her house. She, my nephew Michael, and I enjoyed a large deluxe. Mmmmmm.
I gotta finish cleaning up here, soon. There is an apartment inspection coming Monday. The landlord is making sure that no bed bugs have returned. Thankfully, the place has been pest-free for a year now. As a matter of fact, it was during the bug extermination last winter that I began renting my storage unit. So, it lasted one whole year.
I just got a small loan to cover my rent problem (last month’s check bounced!). I needed to pay two month’s rent and late/returned check fees IMMEDIATELY or I would get evicted. I’m not sure how much more financial Jiu-Jitsu I can pull off before it finally catches up with me. The van has a lot of mechanical problems needing fixing. I still cannot afford to put insurance on it. I’m risking jail time for driving without it (a misdemeanor in Michigan!). I’m in debt to my eyeballs to doctors & hospitals, credit cards, collection agencies, etc.
I set up a Patreon account. Maybe, I can find a little help from some folks, to fix my money situation. It is a long shot, I guess. But, what have I got to lose? I will post music, videos, and other stuff for patrons that won’t get released anywhere else. I’ll be adding more bonuses for supporters (t-shirts, stickers, magnets, flamethrowers, meat cannons, etc.) when I have them available. Any assistance is appreciated! Thanks.
This news is just shit-flavored icing on the shitcake.
Lemmy Kilmister has died, at the age of 70.
His birthday was just a few days ago.
Damn.
His health has not been very good for the past several years.
In fact he recently had to cancel a show in the middle of the first few songs, apologizing to the crowd who came to see him, because he was too sick to perform.
That was when I knew he would be gone soon.
An inspiration to thousands of fans, including me, the man was a rock & roll legend.
He never gave up.
He never sold out.
He always did whatever the Hell that he wanted to do, the way that he wanted to do it.
If someone didn’t like it, they could fuck off.
LOL.
Not only was he a hero to me and others for his music, but the way that he chose to live his life.
Life is funny sometimes. It lands some odd coincidences in my lap a lot, it seems.
I had never listened to The Clone Defects, although they have been around the Detroit scene for a number of years. I did not know that guitarist / vocalist Timmy Vulgar was also in a bunch of other local groups. He has been around the block as much as I have (and then some). I also did not know that he & I had met before, when he was in his first band The Epileptix. I still have their debut 7″ EP that I purchased from him. We talked about the band Chrome and guitarist Helios Creed a little bit. That is all that I remember from our encounter.
Anyway, I got an invitation on Facebook to see his most recent band Timmy’s Organism play at the UFO Factory next month. I did a little research, and dang! This is my kinda guy. Mostly, he plays a kind of psychedelic punk and employs the style of low budget freakishness that I am known for. If he ever needs a bassist, or wants to collaborate, I think I am up for it… if he is.
Don’t look at my ugly face.I Fixed My Mood Ring! I found an extra set of strings and replaced the old ones, FINALLY! They were deader than dead. They were Beetlejuice Night of The Living Dead. I cleaned-up the crud around the pickups while I was at it, too.Not everything was sold by my grandmother. I still had this one PA and the cabinets from the other one. I didn’t have anywhere to store the cabs. So, I donated them to my grandmother’s church.Three projector screens were also left behind. That is okay. I may still use them if I can get some projectors. The big industrial monochrome projector and stand got sold. But, it was only in green color. I would prefer to get full-color replacements. Also, the industrial projector was very big and heavy, requiring a steel stand to be put into position. I need something lighter and more portable.
“All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I’m an additive person—the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can’t see the connections, but they are there.” ~ John Zorn
“Cute, cool, and creepy”, is how I have been described by some folks.
Usually, I am classified by my contemporaries as an outsider artist-musician.
Davin Brainard (time Stereo) and Warren DeFever (His Name Is Alive) shared their observation about me that I don’t intentionally TRY to be perceived as weird, I just naturally AM, making comparisons to Wesley Willis and Daniel Johnston. I guess that I will just go along with those descriptions.
Outsider Artist / Musician;
Music, Art, and Zines
Videos, Movies, and Multi-Media
Voice, Tapes, and Noise
Bass, Baritone, and other Guitars
Keyboards, Computers, and Custom Instruments
Plunderphonics, Electronics and Junk Percussion
I enjoy creating what I refer to as “Prog-Punk Noise-Rock”, a strange pastiche of styles tied together. I have collaborated with plenty of other artists over the years with wide degrees of proficiency in many genres.
I have been obsessively into art and music my whole life; drawing, painting, playing with tape recorders and making noise. I built my first guitar from a badly beaten-up body & neck that I found in someone’s trash. A friend’s dad gave me the electrical guts from an unknown 1950’s guitar. Additional parts were improvised from pieces of found junk and purchased from a music store.
When I was a twelve year old kid, back in the 1980’s, I was just a runt of the Detroit hardcore punk / heavy metal scene . Lacking enough money to buy any good equipment, I purchased a cheap microphone at a pawn shop, built a homemade mic stand, and passed myself off as a vocalist. I sang in whatever groups that I could find, gaining experience and learning whatever that I could. Mostly, it was shitty cover bands, playing in basements, getting yelled at by uninvited drunks that we suck. Eventually, I improved my bass & guitar skills, playing in many short-lived groups that went nowhere.
I was a writer / photographer for The Jam Rag, a widely-read local music paper, while still a teenager and made friends with other artists along the way. During the 1990’s I was a cameraman, roadie, and occasional collaborator with Princess Dragon-Mom, Mog Stunt Team, His Name Is Alive, etc.. I also performed in a few experimental noise groups; Edible Audio (with drummer Mick Stone of 500 ft of Pipe)and Bionics (with John Nevermind of Fresh Farm Raised Catfish), etc.
The Island of Misfit Noise began in the summer of 1998 with only Mystic MarshaKat and myself. She played keyboards & guitar. I played bass & guitar. Both of us were former members of N2-Submission, backing band for The Impaler “Detroit’s Vampire Poet.”Our duo’s name changed a couple of times, before settling on the IOMN. Other musicians came and went during a period of 15 years, with she & I being the only constant members of the group. She also left in early 2013. MarshaKat and I remain friends. She may continue to assist in some capacity, just not as a full-time band member.
I resurrected the IOMN as a recording project in late 2014, with collaborators from Michigan to Australia. We exchanged material back-and-forth until some music was completed. The style that we made is very freeform. A few collaborators from the IOMN have joined me in other projects.
Island of Misfit Noise is an ongoing multimedia project, begun in 1998 as a musical group, with a constantly rotating membership. It has since expanded into music videos, film-making, performance art, and comic books. I will continue to add material to this as I go along, with additional collaborators.
Theee Urban SpaceCat (Cassette-Zine) is a publication of my artwork, ramblings, stories, correspondences, miscellaneous found objects, music, commentary, and anything else packaged with a cassette tape of my recordings (compact disc optional)… whatever they may be. It is an outlet for all of my artistic endeavors, combined into one package, modeled after decades of correspondence with my friends.
Mike Damn Nobody is my experimental noise project; incorporating tape loops, circuit-bending, custom instruments, and anything else available. Recordings are available on RecycleTapes (cassettes handmade from re-purposed materials) and digital download formats.
Painting, Drawing, Visual Art, etc.
This post was a little long, containing influences, gear, personal info, etc.. It has been relocated toAbout / FAQ / Press – Details.
Subscribe to this blog and I will show & tell you more about the past, present, and future. If you want to check out upcoming events or new stuff available, and get some freebies, add yourself onto the mailing list in the sidebar. There is also a Ko-Fi fundraising link there for anybody who wants to support my creative efforts.
Why All Religions Are Scams What is a “True Believer?”
A scam is defined as a claim that gives results that are something other than what was promised. The truth of the matter is that all religions are scams by virtue of the claims they make. Their core beliefs cannot be proven, and this includes the very existence of their gods, angels, demons, miracles, etc.
Christianity, itself, has failed to even prove the historicity of it’s central character, Jesus Christ, or the existence of his core group of followers that we know as the Apostles. The entire Christian religion is built upon a house of cards that is dismantled with ease. Islam has it’s own set of problems with this issue, and the inumerable gods and related doctrines surrounding other religions cannot be ignored as well. The problem with religions in general is that each one teaches theirs is the unadulterated truth without the benefit of evidence and cannot reconcile the difference between what they promise to deliver and what they actually do, ergo, scams.
The purveyors of religion have convinced millions of people to exchange the truth for a lie. Where the Abrahamic religions are concerned, believers have been duped into believing as truth the narrow-minded, ignorant, archaic ideologies of primitive, iron-age men who taught that imaginary beings bring about changes in weather patterns or cause diseases, natural disasters and birth defects in response to disobedience of fairy tale commandments and that it is perfectly normal to believe that a deity has granted their request for a decent parking spot over the wholesale starvation of millions of innocent children.
On Diplomacy
Yet atheists are asked to be diplomatic, tolerant and accepting of religion. While there is a place for diplomacy in certain situations when discussing the personal faith of individuals, it is painfully obvious that where religion as a whole is concerned, the diplomacy that has been fostered by many atheists has miserably failed. Atheists are not immune to emotional outbursts and polemic inspiration, and occasionally get incensed, enraged and just plain angy at some of the “god-given” commandments in the Bible and the Koran that when followed to the letter, result in the destruction of individual freedoms and loss of life. Religion is also directly or indirectly responsible for the vast majority of the wholesale slaughter, torture and terrorism that has been, and continues to be, inflicted upon humanity.
The Abrahamic religions may have peaceful attributes, but at their core, they are far from peaceful. They are poisonous, and cause otherwise intelligent people to act in ways that are antithetical to the positive growth of our societies. They foster discrimination, bigotry, unfair judgment and in extreme cases, cause otherwise sane people to rationalize and advocate sociopathic and psychopathic behaviors. The recent “Judgment Day” fiasco is a perfect example of this, and while there are many who accuse these particular wingnuts of being “False Christians,” they are able to justify their beliefs using the same Bible that even the most liberal, progressive Christians have sitting on their bedsides.
The fact remains that diplomacy only works when both sides are willing to compromise. While many people of faith are nice folks who generally keep their personal beliefs to themselves, when backed into a corner, they are not generally willing to compromise on the issue that affect the lives, livelihoods and personal freedoms of those who choose reality over the world of make-believe. Thus, there is a growing intolerance toward the prevalence of myths and legends being taught in the place of real sciences in the classroom, as well as Christian revisionist history replacing actual facts.
Atheists Speaking Out
While some unbelievers may choose to remain silent or non-confrontational, there are a growing number who have decided that the time has come to vocalize the truth that all religions are scams. The days of handling with kid-gloves those who have been deluded into believing that ancient myths, legends and fairy tales and giving them all sorts of accommodation are rapidly coming to an end. Someone has got to tell the kids that there is no Santa Claus.
Atheists are weary of trying to fight for acceptance in society and are increasingly unwilling to put up with being forced to accept the proliferation of what amounts to be the biggest Ponzi scheme in the known universe. Many unbelievers don’t feel any obligation to turn the other cheek and have chosen to leave the niceties, tolerance and accommodation to the diplomats.
——-
Al Stefanelli Georgia State Director, American Atheists, Inc
I really don’t understand howRay ComfortandKirk Cameroncan claim to be Christians — can we assume they follow the Ten Commandments? — and then proceed to lie with every breath.
It’s not just their ignorance about evolution. I think they actually have deluded themselves into think it’s some evil conspiracy.
I’m talking about knowing, purposeful lies.
To “celebrate” the 150thanniversary of the publication ofCharles Darwin’sOn the Origin of Species, Comfort is giving away 50,000 copies of the book at colleges across the country.
The catch is that he wrote a 50-page introduction that explains how evolution has no support, brainwashes people, and has a direct connection to Adolf Hitler.
Here’s the cover (we’ll get to the introduction in a moment):
See Comfort’s name on there?
No?
That’s because he left it off. Why? He wants to dupe people into readinghisversion of the book and the only way to do that is to deceive people about what he’s offering.
(I’m waiting for some atheist to try that tactic — give away free books which say “Holy Bible” on the cover but contain the entireSkeptic’s Annotated Bibleon the inside.)
Comfort/Cameron even made a promotional video for the ruse:
I count four lies from Cameron in the first 22 seconds.
He doesn’t even get the name of Darwin’s book right.
And, of course, there’s this line at the 4:30 mark:
“Remember: This is America. It’s still the land of the free, the home of the brave… and this is a life and death issue.”
… We can amass as many of these books as possible, remove the 50 page intro, and then donate perfectly good copies of ‘Origin of Species’ to schools, libraries, and Goodwill. We can actually make this into something positive.
If you are in college, then you are in a good position to help. Check your campus on November 19th, and if you see a group distributing copies of the book, then get as many as you can. Get a copy for yourself, ask if you can have extra copies for your friends, ask your friends to go ask for copies, and ask other people you see carrying the book if you can have their copy.
That’s non-intrusive and helpful. I like it! That is, if these books actually include the whole ofOn the Origin of Speciesand not some Comfort-ified selectively-edited version of it.