COLD NEWS #24

A BRIEF HISTORY OF COLD SOUP

In the beginning there was soup.

Somewhere between the Federalist Theatre of the Great Depression and the “free speech zones” of the Bush Depression, Cold Soup was born.

We were conceived in the heat of anti-war politics and the need to vent the rampant Bush Derangement Syndrome, so common amongst our friends. Our first major effort was, “The Long-awaited, Much Anticipated, Carlrove Goes to Hell.” In case the real Karl Rove noticed, we could deny it was him that we really wanted to send to hell.

Along the way, we covered “Hunting with Dick Cheney,” “Guarding the Queen (two rifle wielding hippies guarding a fourteen-foot sensemellia plant), Beckett, Austin, Murat/Sade, Monte Python, and an original take on Frankenstein (except our monster wore a giant potato suit). The Scottish play’s witches made an appearance as environmental harbingers, and we attempted to demonstrate the French Revolution with a chopped head of cabbage as King Louie.  West Side Story was reprised by oldsters on walkers, and Maria danced under our street light.

Staged efforts, or stuff we had a script for, were rare. We started out with more spoken word performers including Alice Lovelace, Rupert Fike, Theresa Davis, Betty Ann Wylie, Deb Hiers, Priscilla Smith, Tony “Paleo Poet” Martin, and Stefen Miko.

Stuff we had a script for was performed by the likes of Joe Kelly, Bob Watkins, Madeline Saint Romain, Greg LoCorto, Melanie Von West to name many. In 2008, Clay Spurz brought full-time music, with real amplification. Craig Rafuse did the “dead” and joined us as a shooting star. Along with these folks came the dancers Mariann Sanderson and Lori Teague.

Most performed on a front porch stage of about six square feet before an abundant audience of 25. Donna (Kitchen Goddess) Rutherford dished a wide variety of cold soups and sweet desserts that would make your pancreas say “howdy.” Lesly Fredman directed this maelstrom of talent and sang like a bird. And I, the Shit-Hammer of Sophomoria, dropped the Cold News.

To date, we’ve developed fans. We haven’t gotten underwear  with house keys thrown at us, yet, but over the decade we’ve overcome obscurity, self censorship, and Homeland Security. Mission Acomplished.

COLD NEWS #23

God and Cheeseburger

ICARUS REPORT

Craig is my esoteric consultant and head librarian.  He’s my go to source for info on stuff most “sane” people are not aware of, or can’t relate to.

Guitarist, “dead” aficionado, and collector of funky print, he is into numerology, astrology, and the real meaning of the Wizard of Oz.

I don’t know if he ever came back from the tunnels of his mind after an extended tour of Oz, but to listen to his cerebral adventures, the gravitas of secret meanings in numbers, “not my forte,” masonic meanings, Illuminati behind the curtains, etc., was inspiring in his determination to fathom, go deeper, a mini sub of curiosity in the Marianas Trench of the most esoteric.

The first thing he turned me onto was a book called Psychic Dictatorship USA ($14.95). I still he was thinking about this as an initiation to constructive paranoia or a stress test of sorts, but whatever his intentions, the end result was my Neo Moment.  I took the red pill and started on my trek across the “desert of the real.”

For people who look for anything, their car keys, lighters that magically disappear in clear sight, or, of course, their reading glasses still sitting where they left them but rendered invisible because of excessive familiarity, “looking” itself is an exercise with leg weights on. The harder you search for meaning or any other thing, the old saga goes, the harder it is to find.

Psychic Dictatorship USA ($14.95) was delivered like a turd on a platter.

A.     I didn’t know about sciences’ invasion and occupation of what George Orwell called the inviolate psychic space, the citadel of personality.

B.     Had I not been presented with this fait accompli of unconscious manipulation I would have placed all of my suspicions in my file 13 to be ignored. But,

C.     It became as inescapable as a summons from the Thought Police.

Once the chink in my protective armor of denial was exposed by the wedge of secrets, all my givens were taken, and I popped out of Alice’s looking glass, one shaken neophyte. But that was just the beginning.

Then came The Lone Gunman, JFK, Oswald as a mythic assassin, Masons, evil and good, Jesus as a survivor, Elvis as an FBI informant, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix still living in Switzerland, the unsuccessful coup against FDR, and the successful coup of George W. Bush. The Bushs’ death cult, satan worshippers, Dick Cheney as America’s Rasputin, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11, Queen Elizabeth as alien lizard, Nazi vegetarians still out to conquer the world, and the CIA in charge of everything.  All very bleak and darkly humorous. Craig was into it up to his super ego’s armpits.

His library, Craig’s Wonderland, had 16 books on JFK’s murder, Acid Dreams, smart UFO’s books, more stuff Oz World, inter-dimensional travel, time travel, mind control experiments (nasty brain candy for suspicious brains), cyborg assassins (they’re here), CIA, NSA, FBI, and every other three-letter secret department known and unknown.  To look at all these books full of “what the facts” moments let up whatever portion of my brain that wasn’t controlled.

I saw his own brand of order, cause and effect, like any collection of an intelligent obsessive compulsive out to dig up the facts.  Facts that not only fly into the face of reality, but land in its eyes and persist in making its presence felt.

Stuff happens, it’s true, but when that stuff perseveres as an unstoppable itch, first just a slight awareness, then as a cherry red irritation that won’t go away, you have to ask why. When the sultry aroma of a hidden agenda wafts over me I want to know why.

When I walked out of Craig’s world, I was past contradiction.  All my conspiracy theories were reinforced, but I knew a steady diet of this paranoiac regime would lead to, as that famous syphilitic philosopher Fredric Nietzsche would say, it will either drive you mad or lead you to a degree of insight only the truly mad enjoy.

That’s why I admire Craig. After this tsunami of alternative facts washed over him he came out as the sanest person I know. Without the slightest hint of pretension or pontification, he has navigated the darkest seas of hidden meanings. I could and would join in my own search.

I started researching the gritty government mind control programs of the 60’s and 70’s.  Expanded into the real matrix of managed reality, TVs, UFO myths, how does it all fit in to a unified field theory of known unknowns?  A unified theory of the alternate universes of agendas pursued by social engineers, propaganda passed off as reality by people in cults, Skull and Bonesmen, Illuminati, as always the high over the low.

After 14 years of this weird neophyteness, I was also a competitive chess player during that time, I grew to appreciate the Theory Conspiracy Theory (as far as I know this theory is my own).  The Theory Conspiracy goes likes this, a CIA operative, for example, published a secret report on a UFO crash in New Mexico.  Of course, there is no UFO crash, but a rumor is initiated when another CIA operative “discovers” the report. Thus, the rumor becomes a myth, then becomes a shibboleth of a UFO cult and takes on a life of its own.  The conspiracy becomes a communicable disease and the theory is the virus that caused it. The agenda of those who perpetuate these cultural myths is always the same, spread the disease, then sell the antidote.

But that is just a theory, like gravity. The rest is just inadvertent fact. When the CIA started its mind control programs following World War II, their intention was to enslave the human spirit to their will.  In the process of their successful scientific research, they inadvertently validated religious views on the existence of the soul.  So the question, “Is there a soul?,” has been answered by scientists bent on enslaving it. Ironic yes?

Like all tantalizing information, it’s just a byproduct of a narrative, or glibly dismissed as irrelevant by those pursuing another agenda.

Is there a spirit? Yes there is.  You can see it when you look into a mirror, or think like Buddha, or read about Jung’s collective unconscious. Science even admits to it, but you’ve got to dig for it.

Is there a god?  Every established religion is sure that there is, but it is their business to be certain. Before monotheism, before single gods ruled the religious narrative, people had house gods, tree gods, hunter gods, underworld gods, water, fire, earth gods, individual deities who carried their own identities and narratives. Gods and religions were personal, and they were real to their believers; thus, they existed.

Their identities were distinctive yet universal to the religious reflex, the need for a divine connection with the unseen and mysterious.

Starting when the Vatican went all medieval on Galileo, because he thought outside the Bible, religion and science have opposed each other.  Early scientists were excommunicated or worse, because their observations didn’t match up with hide bound dogma.

Since then, in the 21^st Century, science and religion have grown to resemble each other. “God particles” have collided with religious conviction and the battle for control of humankind’s inner space continues but with a decided advantage to the scientific narrative.

Religion views the afterlife, Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, Hades, Valhalla, ad infinitum, as a given. Science gives us the third law of thermo dynamics, which states that energy is neither created nor destroyed, describing a world without end.  All alpha without an omega.

In sum, I would like to report that we are neither created nor destroyed, that the space between origins and destinations is circular, the universe is pretty much in your head and we all possess the divine spark that is both liberating and confining, the balance between belief and knowledge remains. Sounds like karma to me.

COLD NEWS #10

PROFILES IN PROFILE

WillardMittRomney (in one long run-on sentence)

Draft dodging, Ayn Rand loving, cognac-swilling schmoozologist to the really rich, 47% hating, survival of fewest possible, billionaire by other means, magical trickle down faerie

Non-fact spewing robot or obfuscating modular conviction unit

Loves America, but hates Americans, self deporting off shoring tax evader who would gladly pay more taxes if someone  really really made him, some of his best friends are women and corporations are women too, biggest Bain for the buck, but now just a Bain in the ass.

MEMORY HOLE #11

MEMORY HOLE #10

COLD NEWS #9

THE USUAL SUSPECTS: A PARABLE

Andy Mellon, such a decidedly friendly name for the misanthropic man who put the Pluto in plutocracy. “Pluto” being the Greek god of the underworld and “-tocracy” being the ruling elite.

Andy owned most of Amerika, the richest land in all of the world. Andy owned towns, factories, farms, ships, and banks. He owned most everything worth owning. He literally set the gold standard for owning stuff.

While America grew poorer during the Great Depression, Andy grew richer. He was worth more than the entire country. While half the people were homeless, Andy resided in castles. While the majority had little food, Andy held Roman bacchanals for his friends.

Andy was not a generous kind of guy; in fact, he was more “a don’t owe you a turd on Christmas” kind of guy. Once, his goddess Ayn “The Merciless” came to him in a dream and told him to kick those beneath him further down. Ayn said, “believe in yourself and only yourself.”

So Andy did. He compounded his worth daily and walked among the poor house, soup line masses like a Darwinian god. In his mind, he was the crown of his own creation. Ayn had justified his greed and gave him direction along the path to his manhood, and he would be foolish not to follow.

But even as Andy got his hubris on, Fate, as it usually does, was making other plans. Despite his position and power, he was still only a man. People need a village. He was only a member of a cult.

True, it was a very rich and influential cult, including the generals of sado-capitalism, J.P. Mortgage,  Pres Bush, and Henry “the Ford,” friend of Adolf, to mention only a privileged few. They were also followers of Ayn “The Merciless” and her teachings of selfishness.

When Fate acts, it is often ironic. Sometimes it gives you all you need, sometimes more or less, but there is usually an ironic twist involved. In Andy’s case, it came when he discovered he was just a man. No more intelligent or stupid then most and definitely not demigod material.

The biggest downer for Andy and most sobering was the realization that the social contract Ayn had derided as a show of weakness for the powerful, still held him in sway. When he died, he shared the most common bond with the most common people. The bond was as strong or weak as love or hate but still the connection was undeniable from egg to genome: “No man is an island.” He was far from a self-made man.

Memory Hole #9