Monday, February 14, 2011

Doctor Steel



Doctor Steel (full name, Phineas Waldolf Steel), is an American musician located in Southern California, popular in the Steampunk, Goth, and Rivethead scenes. He has performed on rare occasions with a "backup band", claiming that a fictitious robot band had malfunctioned. Shows have incorporated puppetry, multimedia and performances by female members ("Nurses" and "Scouts") of his street team, The Army of Toy Soldiers. Steel has begun breaking into the mainstream media, having made a brief appearance on the Tonight Show, been interviewed by Suicide Girls as well as numerous genre magazines and podcasts and been the subject of an article in Wired Magazine regarding allegations that Dr. Horrible had copied his style. Steel has frequently been cited as an archetypal example of Steampunk music.

Stage Persona
On stage, and in all public performances and interviews, Steel maintains the fictitious persona of a mad scientist bent on conquering the world and becoming the future World Emperor. The fictitious Dr. Steel was a former toymaker who, in a fit of rage over being fired for creating drastic designs such as babies with buzzsaws for hands, burned down the factory he worked at and was committed to a psychiatric institution. The back-story relates that Steel escaped the sanitarium and retreated to a deserted island laboratory, where he became bent on world conquest in order to create a "Utopian Playland" where his toy designs could be enjoyed. As a mad scientist, Steel is obsessed with conspiracy theories, giant robots, baking cupcakes and "mind control cookies", and experimenting with hamsters.

In appearance, Steel draws on the mad scientist archetype, dressing in a white PVC lab coat (with comically large black buttons), black PVC gloves, black boots, shaved head, sinister goatee, and antique welder's goggles. When not in his "mad scientist" costume, Steel typically dresses in a very aristocratic neo-Victorian steampunk style, while still retaining his goggles. He has never been seen without the goggles.
(source)

To find out more about Doctor Steel, please visit his official website at:
www.doctorsteel.com

The John Trudell Page

This page was created by doc haynes as a tribute to a great man.
Very few of the words on this page are my own and with good reason, 
as this mostly is a place for people to learn what John has said and done.
John Trudell has expressly given his permission to freely share his works.

APPALOOSA PICTURES AND BALCONY RELEASING
PRESENT
T R U D E L L

A film about legendary Native poet and activist John Trudell.



"My goal is very simple: to communicate the human
experience at a level that human beings can recognize and
relate to. That may be a personal statement. It may be a
political statement. But whatever it is, it all comes from the
same point of reference: the experiences we share as
peoples of this planet." ~ John Turdell



Running time 80 minutes
Directed by Heather Rae
Produced by Heather Rae and Elyse Katz


S Y N O P S I S

TRUDELL follows the life work of Native American poet/activist John Trudell. Filmmaker Heather Rae has spent more than a decade chronicling his travels, spoken word and politics in a poetic and naturally stylized manner. The film combines archival, concert and interview footage with abstract imagery mirroring the coyote nature of Trudell himself.

Incorporating years of work, 16mm and Super 8 film, video, and archival footage, TRUDELL begins in the late sixties when John Trudell and a community group, Indians of All Tribes, occupied Alcatraz Island for 21 months creating international recognition of the American Indian cause and birthing the contemporary Indian people’s movement. The film goes to Alcatraz, returning to what John refers to as his “birth.” From Alcatraz we follow John’s political journey as the National Spokesman of the American Indian Movement (AIM)--this work making him one of the most highly volatile political ‘subversives’ of the 1970’s with one of the longest FBI files in history (over 17,000 pages.)

In 1979, while protesting the US government’s policy on American Indians, John burned an American Flag on the the steps of the FBI headquarters in Washington DC. Within a matter of hours his pregnant wife, three children and mother in law were killed in a suspicious arson fire on a Nevada reservation. This ended John’s involvement in organizational politics. He spent the next four years driving America in a car given to him by his friend and fellow activist, Jackson Browne. It was during this period that John’s voice as a poet began to surface. His gift as an orator carried him through his pain and he found a new way to represent his manifesto and cause.

In 1983 he began to put his words to music with the help of Kiowa guitar legend, the late Jesse Ed Davis, and Jackson Browne. Even his early recordings reflect an articulate sensibility and eloquence about the state of the world, moving him into the realm of social theorist and philosopher. John does not adhere to a dogma or school of thought but has created his own diatribe based in experience, having lived through and taken part in some of the most turbulent American political events of the past century. In an interview with Native actor, Gary Farmer (Dead Man), he referred to Trudell as “the Native people’s prophet of these times, our Socrates.” Trudell’s musical and film career have led him to work with the likes of Robert Redford (Incident at Oglala), Sam Shepard and Val Kilmer (Thunderheart), Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Amy Ray and more recently Angelina Jolie, who produced his current album, Bone Days.

The film combines interviews with his allies from the entertainment community, the ‘movement’ days, and his friends and family with archival footage, concert footage from all over the world and abstract imagery. TRUDELL is intended to be a film that steps outside of traditional forms, even for Native films, and explores a figure of our contemporary history in a way that fairly represents the evocative nature of his work and significance.

"I’m not looking to overthrow the American government, the corporate state already has."
John Trudell

"He’s extremely eloquent…therefore extremely dangerous." 
FBI memo









Short Biography of John Trudell


John Trudell is an acclaimed poet, national recording artist, actor and activist whose international following reflects the universal language of his words, work and message. Trudell (Santee Sioux) was a spokesperson for the Indian of All Tribes occupation of Alcatraz Island from 1969 to 1971. He then worked with the American Indian Movement (AIM), serving as Chairman of AIM from 1973 to 1979. In February of 1979, a fire of unknown origin killed Trudell’s wife, three children and mother-in-law. It was through this horrific tragedy that Trudell began to find his voice as an artist and poet, writing, in his words, “to stay connected to this reality.”


In 1982, Trudell began recording his poetry to traditional Native music and in 1983 he released his debut album Tribal Voice on his own Peace Company label. Trudell then teamed up with the late legendary Kiowa guitarist Jesse Ed Davis. Together, they recorded three albums during the 1980’s. The first of these, AKA Graffiti Man, was released in 1986 and dubbed the best album of the year by Bob Dylan. AKA Graffiti Man served early notice of Trudell’s singular ability to express fundamental truths through a unique mix of poetry, Native music, blues and rock. Since that time, Trudell has released seven more albums plus a digitally re-mastered collection of his early Peace Company cassettes. His 2002 CD, Bone Days, was executive produced by Academy Award winning actress Angelina Jolie and released on the Daemon Records label.



His latest double album, Madness & The Moremes, showcases more than five years of new music and includes special Ghost Tracks of old favorite Trudell tunes made with legendary Kiowa guitarist Jesse Ed Davis. This internet only release offers a full range of classic Trudell poetry – there are lyrics filled with penetrating insight and others with knock out humor, all put to some of the best music Bad Dog has ever made together. Madness and The Moremes is available now on www.johntrudell.com



In addition to his music career, Trudell has played roles in a number of feature films, including a lead role in the Mirimax movie Thunderheart and a major part in Sherman Alexie’s Smoke Signals. He most recently played Coyote in Hallmark’s made for television movie, Dreamkeeper.




KRIS KRISTOFFERSON AND THE HIGHWAYMEN

JOHNNY LOBO 1992

 Once upon a dusty reservation
 Somewhere in the land of sitting bull
 Johnny Lobo played with fire and dreamed of open spaces
 Locked inside a heaven gone to hell
 All the dreams were gone but not forgotten
 Murdered like the holy buffalo
 But Johnny Lobo knew the rules and grew into a warrior
 Fighting for his people and his soul
 Oh...... Johnny Lobo
 Oh...... Johnny Lobo

Loaded down with lessons that he carried
 Home from Viet Nam to wounded knee
 Johnny Lobo burned a flag he knew had been dishonored
 Paid the price for thinking he was free
 Someone set his house on fire, burned it to the ground
 With his wife and children locked inside
 Later when the bitter tears were falling to the ashes
 Something good in Johnny Lobo died
 Oh...... Johnny Lobo
 Oh...... Johnny Lobo

In a darkened corner of a tavern
 Burning down old memories again
 Johnny Lobo stares into the smoke and dream of clouds
 Running like wild horses with the wind
 Holy phoenix rising from the ashes
 Into the circle of the sun
 Johnny Lobo's warrior heart was burnished in the embers
 And the battle's just begun
 Oh...... Johnny Lobo
 Oh...... Johnny Lobo

(by Kris Kristofferson)
 



JOHN TRUDELL
I WENT SO WILLINGLY



JOHN TRUDELL

OUT OF THE BLUES  



JOHN TRUDELL

CRAZY HORSE - THE ORIGINAL VIDEO

 Crazy Horse

We Hear what you say
 One earth one mother
 One does not sell the earth
 The people walk upon
 We are the land
 How do we sell our mother
 How do we sell the stars
 How do we sell the air

Crazy Horse
 We hear what you say
 Too many people
 Standing their ground
 Standing the wrong ground
 Predators face he possessed a race
 Possession a war that doesn't end
 Children of god feed on children of earth
 Days people don't care for people
 These days are the hardest
 Material fields material harvest
 decoration on chains that binds
 Mirrors gold the people lose their minds

Crazy Horse
 We Hear what you say
 One earth one mother
 One does not sell the earth
 The people walk upon
 We are the land
 Today is now and then
 Dream smokes touch the clouds
 On a day when death didn't die
 Real world time tricks shadows lie
 Red white perception deception
 Predator tries civilizing us
 But the tribes will not go without return
 Genetic light from the other side
 A song from the heart our hearts to give
 The wild days the glory days live

Crazy Horse
 We Hear what you say
 One earth one mother
 One does not sell the earth
 The people walk upon
 We are the land
 How do we sell our mother
 How do we sell the stars
 How do we sell the air

Crazy Horse
 We hear what you say

Crazy Horse
 We hear what you say
 We are the seventh generation
 We are the seventh generation

Credited Trudell/Sahme (aka Quiltman)
 John Trudell spoken word




JOHN TRUDELL
CRY YOUR TEARS

For more information please browse the following links





They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

(This quote is attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.).



I think of that quote, when I listen to the anguish in people's words about how they are now seeing the government. The government has decided that a new group of undesirables is needed and many people are feeling that they are it. The new group is unhappy. Where was the anguished pleas for fair treatment when it was a "red man" that the government felt was expendable? Would you have marched to Selma with King to enforce your opinion that the "black man" is not expendable?
Few people seem to realize, that so long as we condone and allow our governments to oppress any group, we empower and encourage them to oppress all groups, even the one we are in.
I guess it all boils down to this; if you are not actively striving to end government oppressions of everyone, including groups you may not like or agree with, then don't expect anyone to cry for you, when it is your turn in the box.





What the Bleep Do We Know?

First released in theaters in 2004, What the Bleep Do We Know? went on to become one of the most successful documentaries of all time. Now distributed in over 30 countries, it has stunned audiences with its revolutionary cinematic blend of dramatic film, documentary, animation and comedy, while serving up a mind-jarring blend of Quantum Physics, spirituality, neurology and evolutionary thought.
http://www.whatthebleep.com/




What the Bleep Do We Know!? is a 2004 film that combines documentary-style interviews, computer-animated graphics, and a narrative that describes the spiritual connection between quantum physics and consciousness. The plot follows the story of a deaf photographer; as she encounters emotional and existential obstacles in her life, she comes to consider the idea that individual and group consciousness can influence the material world. Her experiences are offered by the filmmakers to illustrate the movie's thesis about quantum physics and consciousness. The 2004 theatrical release of the film was followed by a substantially changed, extended DVD version in 2006.

Bleep was conceived and its production funded by William Arntz, who co-directed the film along with Betsy Chasse and Mark Vicente: all three were students of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment. A moderately low-budget independent production, it was promoted using viral marketing methods and opened in art-house theaters in the western United States, winning several independent film awards before being picked up by a major distributor and eventually grossing over $10 million.
Source: Wikipedia)

Terence McKenna

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American writer mainly on the subject of psychedelic drugs and their role in society, and existence beyond the physical body. He was also a public speaker, psychonaut, ethnobotanist, art historian, and self-described anarchist, anti-materialist, environmentalist, feminist, Platonist and skeptic. During his lifetime he was noted for his knowledge of psychedelics, metaphysics, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, mysticism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, biology, geology, physics, phenomenology, and his concept of novelty theory.


Terence McKenna -- Why Drugs Are Illegal




Terence McKenna -- End Times




Terence McKenna -- Birthing of the Soul




Terence McKenna -- State of the Stone

Terence talks about how the teachings of science compares with those of Alchemy and the psychedelic experience. Recorded in 1995.




Terence McKenna -- Culture Is Not Your Friend




Terence McKenna -- The Psychedelic Experience




Terence McKenna --Dreaming Awake at the End of Time 1998




Terence McKenna -- Reclaim Your Mind




Terence McKenna -- The Last Word
This film is dedicated to the work and play of Terrence McKenna, on the fractal edge of time, 1946 - 2000.




The "Stoned Ape" hypothesis of human evolution

McKenna hypothesized that as the North African jungles receded and gave way to savannas and grasslands near the end of the most recent ice age, a branch of our tree-dwelling primate ancestors left the forest canopy and began to live in the open areas outside of the forest. There they experimented with new varieties of foods as they adapted, physically and mentally, to their new environment. McKenna also called last glacial period hominids "fruit eating" in what he calls a gender-equal "paradise [...] the golden age of humanity" that he dated as ending 10,000 years ago. However, the most recent ice age, also known as the Last glacial period that stretched from 110,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago, when meat-eating, biologically evolved Homo-Sapiens were already in Europe. Capability for language, present in the human FOXP2 gene was already developed.

According to McKenna's hypothesis, among the new food items found in this new environment were psilocybin-containing mushrooms growing near the dung of ungulate herds that occupied the savannas and grasslands at that time. To support this hypothesis, McKenna referenced the research of Roland L. Fisher. The cited work by Fischer does not mention paleo-anthropology, Africa, or the ice ages. Echoing Fisher on the effects of psychedelics, McKenna claimed that enhancement of visual acuity was an effect of psilocybin at low doses, and supposed that this would have conferred an adaptive advantage. He also argued that the effects of slightly larger doses, including sexual arousal, and in still larger doses, ecstatic hallucinations and glossolalia — gave selective evolutionary advantages to members of those tribes who partook of it. There were many changes caused by the introduction of this psychoactive mushroom to the primate diet. McKenna hypothesizes, for instance, that synesthesia (the blurring of boundaries between the senses) caused by psilocybin led to the development of spoken language: the ability to form pictures in another person's mind through the use of vocal sounds.

About 12,000 years ago, further climate changes removed psilocybin-containing mushrooms from the human diet. McKenna argued that this event resulted in a new set of profound changes in our species as we reverted to the previous brutal primate social structures that had been modified and/or repressed by frequent consumption of psilocybin.

Novelty theory

One of McKenna's favourite topics is Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy, according to which, the universe's matter progresses from the state of disorganized complexity to the state of organized complexity:

...the story of the universe is that information, which I call novelty, is struggling to free itself from habit, which I call entropy... and that this process... is accelerating... It seems as if... the whole cosmos wants to change into information... All points want to become connected... The path of complexity to its goals is through connecting things together... You can imagine that there is an ultimate end-state of that process—it's the moment when every point in the universe is connected to every other point in the universe.
—McKenna, Terence ♦ A workshop held in the summer of 1998

The higher the organized complexity of a particle aggregate, the more pronounced its wave-like component:

I've always felt that biology is a strategy, a chemical strategy, for amplifying quantum-mechanical indeterminacy into macrophysical systems called living organisms, and that living organisms somehow work their magic by opening a doorway to the quantum realm through which indeterminacy can come. And I imagine that all nature works like this, with the single exception of human beings, who have been poisoned by language.
—McKenna, Terence ♦ Hazelwood House Trialogue

In its wave-like phase, a quantum does not have a spatial position and exists as an omnipresent momentum identical with time itself:

The imagination is a dimension of nonlocal information.
—McKenna, Terence ♦ A Few Conclusions About Life

In sleep, one is released into the real world, of which the world of waking is only the surface in a very literal geometric sense. There is a plenum—recent experiments in quantum physics tend to back this up—a holographic plenum of information. All information is everywhere. Information that is not here is nowhere. Information stands outside of time in a kind of eternity—an eternity that does not have a temporal existence about which one may say, "It always existed." It does not have temporal duration of any sort. It is eternity. We are not primarily biological, with mind emerging as a kind of iridescence, a kind of epiphenomenon at the higher levels of organization of biology. We are hyperspatial objects of some sort that cast a shadow into matter. The shadow in matter is our physical organism.
—McKenna, Terence ♦ New Maps of Hyperspace

Just like most of us enjoy a much closer relationship with our television sets than we do with our neighbours, parts of the universe become nonlocally interconnected not directly but through the Earth's biosphere, which acts as the informational hub (due to its amplified virtual, wave-like component—information). When the Earth's biosphere will have accumulated the critical amount of information, the universe will become sufficiently interconnected to turn into a reality-warping Elysium. The hyperspace of the universe's nonlocal information (the "superconducting Overmind") is, by definition, in a single quantum state; in order to fuse with that single quantum state and attain absolute psychokinetic control over the universe, the human species needs to become genetically singular by being reduced to a single couple of the most imaginative people, whose tantric union is the ultimate goal of the universe's existence—the Eschaton:

What is happening to our world is ingression of novelty toward what Whitehead called "concrescence," a tightening gyre. Everything is flowing together. The "autopoetic lapis," the alchemical stone at the end of time, coalesces when everything flows together. When the laws of physics are obviated, the universe disappears, and what is left is the tightly bound plenum, the monad, able to express itself for itself, rather than only able to cast a shadow into physis as its reflection. I come very close here to classical millenarian and apocalyptic thought in my view of the rate at which change is accelerating. From the way the gyre is tightening, I predict that the concrescence will occur soon—around 2012 AD. It will be the entry of our species into hyperspace, but it will appear to be the end of physical laws accompanied by the release of the mind into the imagination. <...> The transition from earth to space will be a staggeringly tight genetic filter, a much tighter filter than any previous frontier has ever been, including the genetic and demographic filter represented by the colonization of the New World. <...> The object at the end of and beyond history is the human species fused into eternal tantric union with the superconducting Overmind/UFO.
—McKenna, Terence ♦ New Maps of Hyperspace

According to McKenna, the final period of the universe's informational evolution began on 6 August 1945 and will end with a point of "maximized novelty" by 22 December 2012:

I’ve been talking about it since 1971, and what’s interesting to me is at the beginning, it was material for hospitalization, now it is a minority viewpoint and everything is on schedule. My career is on schedule, the evolution of cybernetic technology is on schedule, the evolution of a global information network is on schedule. Given this asymptotic curve, I think we’ll arrive under budget, on time, December 22, 2012.
—McKenna, Terence ♦ Approaching Timewave Zero November 1994

(Source: Wikipedia)