Julian Cope's Japrocksampler blog

COOP says:
Packshot I've been enjoying Julian Cope's highly-recommended new book on Japanese 60's/70's freak/psych/noise rock very much, and I'm just beginning the process of tracking down some of the music therein (and so far, it is just as crazy and interesting as described!) For someone with a 20-year+ music addiction, it is a great thrill to be turned on to a whole chunk of great stuff that you previously knew nothing about.

Anyway, I just noticed that Mr. Cope has a companion website, with a full A-Z encyclopedia of artists and albums. If the sight of all those crazy LPs doesn't whet your appetite, you deserve to listen to the new Britney Spears CD instead!
Link to Japrocksampler blog, Link to buy Japrocksampler book

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Rise of ayahuasca ceremonies in USA

Gina Piccalo wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Times Magazine about ayahuasca ceremonies in Southern California. People pay $200 to have ayahuasqueros come to their house and guide them through the psychedelic ritual.
200802051057 (Photo by "Ayahuasca in San Francisco" released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)

For them, the vision-inducing elixir made from Amazonian jungle vines and leaves opens doors to parallel realities where mystical creatures reign. Because ayahuasca must be exactingly prepared and administered to achieve the desired benefits, a cadre of itinerant shamans such as Truenos has emerged, roaming the U.S. to host marathon candlelight ceremonies in yoga studios, private homes and remote open spaces, and charging as much as $200 a person for each session.

The concoction itself is said to taste so vile that most people fight their gag reflex to swallow it. Devotees liken the flavor to forest rot and bile, dirty socks and raw sewage. Vomiting is so common that indigenous shamans often refer to the ceremony as la purga, or the purge. And ayahuasca can severely test the commitment of its followers: The potion often reveals its celebrated wisdoms only after repeat encounters. The payoff, adherents say, can be life-altering. Debilitating illnesses such as chronic depression or addiction may disappear after just one session, some say. Others say they shed their egos for a night, finally seeing their lives with a startling clarity.

With that kind of reputation, ayahuasca has predictably intrigued celebrities known for charting the supra-conscious: Oliver Stone, Sting and Tori Amos have sampled it and openly discussed their experiences. “It’s quite an ordeal,” Sting told Rolling Stone in 1998. Amos talked on BBC Radio 4 in 2005 about how she envisioned having a love affair with the devil during one ayahuasca encounter.

In Peru, ayahuasca ceremonies are so common that the nation’s tourism bureau tracks the number of visitors seeking the sacred brew. But no one needs to travel to Peru to experience ayahuasca in 2008. A community, shepherded by ayahuasca shamans, has begun to emerge in the United States. It initially established itself in New Mexico. And now—in an act of psychedelic entrepreneurship and under the aegis of his spiritual and religious society, Aurora Bahá—Truenos is bringing the ayahuasca ceremony to Southern California.

Link

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MediaSentry has been acting as a private investigator to the RIAA in file-sharing lawsuits...without a license

The RIAA has employed a company named MediaSentry to act as a private investigator in targeting users of Kaza and other P2P networks in its file-sharing lawsuits? The problem? MediaSentry isn't licensed to act as a private investigator. Read more.
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Galactic Civilizations II: big budget game, no DRM

Clayton sez, "This awesome game company is releasing their second title using a blissfully elegant DRM free system. The game installs from the DVD, then you play the game. No DVD required in the tray, no internet connection. The Code Key that comes with the games allows you access to updates, patches, extra content, and the free ability to simply download the game to any computer should you lose your disc. Considering the crappy DRM on BioShock last summer, this is a huge step forward. The link containts their no nonsense understanding that to truly avert piracy, you must make your product worth buying, not loaded up with non user friendly DRM. These guys really deserve some credit. The game, a Turn Based, RTS strategy hybrid set in space, looks fantastic too."
With Galactic Civilizations II, we put no copy protection on the CD. But to get updates, users had to use their unique serial # in the box. That’s because our system is backed by TotalGaming.net’s unique SSD service (secure software delivery) which forgoes DRM and copy protection as we know it to take a more common sense (I think so anyway as a gamer) approach of just making sure you are delivering your game to the actual customer.

Any system out there will get cracked and distributed. But if you provide reasonable after-release support in the form of free updates that add new content and features that are painless for customers to get, you create a real incentive to be a customer.

Link, Link to buy Galactic Civilizations II

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Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends on Google Video

Picture 6-45 Weird Weekends was a BBC2 show (1998-2000) about weird people and weird movements in America: UFO hunters, survivalists, white supremacists, habitual Vegas gamblers, porn actors, swingers, and so on.

It was hosted by Louis Theroux, son of writer Paul Theroux. A few days ago I downloaded a bunch of episodes of Weird Weekends from Google Video, and I have been enjoying them as much as any television I've ever seen. Even the ones I didn't think I'd be interested in (infomercial inventors) were fascinating.

Theroux is funny without being obnoxious, and his sense of curiosity is strong enough to make him ask potentially embarrassing but profoundly revealing questions of his subjects. The people Theroux interviews immediately feel comfortable around him because he is so friendly and non-threatening, which makes them open right up to him. (The only time I've seen anyone get mad at him was when he was interviewing a white racist skinhead family and he refused to tell them if he was Jewish or not.)

He also wrote a book in 2005 called The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures, where he goes back and visits the people he interviewed on his program. I just bought it but I'm going to hold off reading it until I've finished watching all the episodes.

Here are the videos I found (some are from later shows called When Louis Met... and another show called Louis and...). Each one is about an hour long, and you can download them to your iPhone or computer if you want to watch them offline: Survivalists, Neo-Nazis, Westboro Baptist Church, Porn Industry, Black Supremacists, Swingers, Body Builders, UFO Hunters, Apertheid Diehards in South Africa, Legal Nevada Brothels, Thai Brides, Gangsta' Rap, Hypnosis, Televangelists, Demolition Derby, Off-Off Broadway, Wrestling, Vegas, Enlightenment, San Quentin State Prison

UPDATE: Jesse Thorne of Maximum Fun interviewed Louis for The Sound of Young America last year. Here's the interview.



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