You are strongly urged to click on the image.
Agence-Vleeptron Presse (A-VP) is famed throughout the 5-Planet System and the Dwingeloo Galaxy for our in-depth, nonpareil, whomp-butt analytical coverage of USA foreign and military policy, so we subscribe to Rolling Stone.
When the mag started arriving at our Summer Residence in the heart of the Great Boreal Deciduous Hardwood Forest, S.W.M.B.O. initially dismissed it as some sort of mutant hybrid of a porn mag and a teen Bad Taste & Bad Behaviour guide, featuring musical freakazoids most of whose moments in the Sun were brief as they rocketed to oblivion.
The magazine is packed from page 2 to the back cover with tobacco (chewing tobacco and snuff as well as our old favorites, cigarettes) and every alcoholic beverage sold to thirsty Youth that's milder than the higher-proof Everclear. Sex toy, fruit-flavored lubricant and sexual novelty ads are discretely reserved for a section toward the rear, as are currently permitted intoxicant-related paraphernalia ads.
Ad-wise, the whole thing looks a lot like Brecht und Weill's City Mahagonny, themed for Teens and College Youth -- well, a lot like Pleasure Island, the Fun Park Pinocchio wandered into when he fell in with Bad Companions. (It's a lot like Lenny & Spike's Zero-Friction Vodka Punk Thrill Park on Planet Hoon, "a Planet with Some Laws.")
Then she began reading the National Affairs stories.
El Surpiso: Rolling Stone has, since its inception, featured the most important, most courageous, ballsy-est analyses of USA policies and politics -- starting with the remarkable Nixon-era reportage of Hunter S. Thompson. RS more regularly erupts with volcanic and ultra-controversial scoops than The New Yorker.
RS 1108/1109 (a double issue -- it's summer, lots of rock tours to cover) was a particular challenge to S.W.M.B.O., for visually æsthetic reasons. When she's not reading the McChrystal story -- a real Page-Turner and genuine Hair-Curler and Eye-Popper -- she stashes the mag in dark corners of the house so visitors will not see that Bob subscribes to Lady Gaga porn.
The McChrystal story says: Who, exactly, is our USA-picked NATO coalition military commander in Afghanistan, and what kind of whack-a-doodles are this West Point officer & gentleman and his extraordinary inner circle? (They believe Paris, France is too gay.)
The cover and the ads say: Let's get real shit-faced on a cornucopia of substances, put on unfathomably talentless music at ear-shattering volumes, and fuck.
I love Rolling Stone and have for decades. I can ignore the "rock journalism" with ease. The liquor, drugs, tobacco and sex -- well, so far, I haven't sent away for any product they advertise, not even 1 t-shirt.
(Well -- the Vaporizers are pretty cool, but pricey.)
But trust me, the Lady Gaga cover pinups notwithstanding: The National Affairs and Politics are The Best. The Best. Kilometers beyond everyone else who claims to cover this beat.
The rest of USA political, economic and war (we're involved in 2 long Asian ones at the moment) coverage is spun, distorted, ass-licking dumbkopf vapid inane Low-IQ softball Larry King silliness compared to RS (and, oh, okay, from time to time The New Yorker).
Please Leave A Comment -- particular all you Females out there -- about Lady Gaga, her Music, her Statement to her Sisters, her Philosophy, her Life Meaning. Moi, I am just a hairy, smelly old guy and am largely Clueless about these matters.
(Lady Gaga is an alumna of NYU -- the School of the Arts, in Greenwich Village. I am a pænalumnus of NYU, but Uptown, in the Bronx, the long-extincted Stanford White Greek Revival campus.)
But BUY THIS ISSUE! Read the McChrystal story, which rocked the world this week and got a 4-star Army war commander general fired! (Obama just allowed Stan to retire with his 4-star rank -- that's a lot of great golf and deep-sea trophy fishing money.)
Check out how they teased the McChrystal saga on the cover. Did they even realize what the fuck they had? The cover is 95% Tits, Ass and Pussy, with 5% cocktease to a story that blew the crap out of our Rapidly Lost but Endless War in Afghanistan. 5% cocktease to the loudest, nastiest confrontation between a President of the United States and a Commanding War General since Truman fired the megalomaniac frootloop MacArthur in mid-Korea.
There is a Struggle for the Soul of this magazine -- and it's more fucking fun than professional tag-team co-ed wrestling. May it never be resolved, may this magazine Jell-o Wrestle over what the fuck it is and wants to be for centuries.
And you can look at the cover, too, while you read about McChrystal while you're on the toilet.
Welcome back, Lady Gaga! Adios, General McChrystal!
BONUS PIZZAQ!!! 3 slices, shallots, garlic, aged mozzarella:
Who's the other babe, the cartoon babe in the upper left? This is Big News, too!
6 comments:
It's Princess Diana of Themyscira.
Princess Diana of WHERE?? I thought she hung out on ?? Island.
okay, 2 slices now, and the 3rd when you cite me this Themyscira place.
Hiya Mike! Hiya Amy! Sup with youse guys? send me e-mail. (Or post Family Goings-On, fotos, etc. here.)
Oh Wonder woman is getting a new outfit. Yawn.
http://bazonline.ch/kultur/buecher/Wonder-Woman-legt-Kniestiefel-ab/story/16905581
Themyscira, also known as Paradise Island. Princess Diana was the daughter of Hippolyta. Pretty much everybody knows her -- as patfromch noted -- Wonder Woman.
Okay, Mike gets all 3 slices, AND tho he crossed the finish line 2nd, PatfromCH gets 3 slices too -- it's a new costume and makeover for the 69-year-old Amazon Princess Diana (or Diana Prince, her nomme de human when among us mere mortals).
Pat -- you YAWN at WONDER WOMAN???
Back in the days when comic books cost 10 (US) pennies, she flew an invisible glass airplane that she controlled by just Thinking, and in nearly every adventure, some Human Male Villain had tied her up in a chair. Being tied to a chair was a regular occurence in the life of Wonder Woman.
She always managed to get out of the ropes, and then she would toss her Magic Lasso around the nasty Male Villain.
She's Greek, but everybody (women-only of course, like Planet Mollyringwald) on Paradise Island says "hola!" to each other.
orry for yawning but the comic books that we got were different from the Marvel / DC universes, if they were available at all. I do remember that the local store used to sell Superman and Spiderman comics and I didn't like them very much.
Central Europe, especially France have a long standing tradition of comics, i. e. Asterix, Tintin etc. Action Hero comics were always a bit strange, I could never relate to them, probably because we have a different cultural view on these things. It was only later that I realized that comics can be art. Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, The Freak Brothers, Frank Miller, that italian bloke whose name I can't remember right now and Lone Wolf and Cub (samurai comic). Oh, and Neil Gaiman.
Please apologize for dissing Wonder Woman. Action Here comics were never really a mass phenomenn in Europe.
Post a Comment