It gets worse for Ed…

No, really:

Oh dear. I’m sure Ed Sheeran is a lovely chap who normally and correctly finds Stephen Yaxley-Lennon abhorrent, so surely he realises just how terrible this looks for him… funny that, as far as I can see, Ed hasn’t repudiated the cunt, though. Depeche Mode shut down Richard Spencer immediately, so why not you, Edward? Admittedly he’s probably afraid of saying anything publicly at the moment, but a statement telling Yaxxers to go fuck himself would actually be something people would appreciate from him…

Max’s muesli

For someone who was apparently all over the late 60s art scene and a major part thereof, I’m surprised that I can’t remember ever having heard of Peter Max (who’s just left us aged 88) before now:

Max began his career in graphic design in the 1960s and his swirly, colorful, instantly recognizable designs epitomized the era’s “flower power” art. But thanks to his prolific output and fun, accessible style, Max’s work remained well known and popular well into the 21st century.
He described his own work as “always on the side of the peaceful nature. I don’t discuss in my paintings negative things, I don’t dwell on it in my mind and don’t dwell on it in my canvasses.”
Max was the official artist for the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the Indianapolis 500, the World Cup, the World Series and many other events. His art appeared on a Boeing 777 airplane and a Norwegian Cruise Line ship. His portrait subjects ranged from US presidents to Taylor Swift.
But in his first flush of success in the late 1960s and early 1970s, his mural-like tableaus of flowers, the cosmos and cartoonish figures – all in vivid colors such as turquoise, orange and neon green – seemed to be everywhere. Dorm room walls were plastered with his posters. Household furnishings such as clocks and bedspreads sported his designs.
He even created covers for the Manhattan Yellow Pages, a business phone directory distributed to millions of people. Max himself was featured on the cover of Life magazine in 1969, his trademark dark, bushy mustache framing a hearty grin. […]
By the 1960s, Max’s bold, unique style was a hit with ad agencies, publications, the corporate world and in pop culture, leading to a booming commercial business. “My work was really, I would say, almost exploited,” he said. “It was on mugs, it was on bedsheets, it was on dresses, it was on silks and scarves and ties – 70 product lines.”

DJ Food has a bunch of Peter Max art at his blog, in which he describes Max as pushing himself as a brand and being “arguably better at it than Warhol”, which is quite an accolade in its way. And yet I still don’t remember ever hearing of him before now, and of the Max art on the DJ Food blog the only one I even vaguely recall seeing before is the Evergreen magazine cover (probably on Tumblr years ago). Anyway, John Coulthart has been reposting an assortment of Max-related stuff over on BS…

…and THIS, I must say, is what has me interested. Cos not only did he get his art on the packaging, he’s credited with “developing” the product itself, whatever that might mean. I don’t know what he actually had to do with that side of things, but I kind of love the idea of it anyway. Maybe Campbell’s should’ve got Warhol to do something like this for them…

Sheer(an) stupidity

I have very little occasion to talk about Ed Sheeran, but since his current tour has fallen apart in kind of spectacular fashion, well, I’ve got one now. This began a couple of days ago when Macklemore, one of his opening acts, said bad words on stage:

Macklemore has been dropped from the remainder of the US leg of Ed Sheeran’s Loop tour, after the American rapper drew headlines for saying “free Palestine” on stage at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
In a brief speech between songs on 4 September, the Grammy-winning artist told the audience he wanted the people of Gaza and “the occupied West Bank” to know “we have not forgotten about them”, prompting a petition from the Israeli American Council demanding his removal from the tour. […]
Macklemore, long an outspoken supporter of the rights of Palestinians and those in Gaza, delivered the remarks at his first appearance on the Loop tour on 4 September. “A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: ‘Free Palestine,’” he said in a two-minute speech. “I said: ‘Free Palestine!’ I want those words to be loud and clear, so that people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them.” […]
Macklemore explained that the decision came after a week of “difficult conversations” with Sheeran, a friend of 13 years whom he considers a “brother”, though “as I told Ed multiple times on the phone, our friendship can’t change my responsibility to tell the truth about what happened.” According to Macklemore, Sheeran was under pressure from stadium owners rallied by Robert Kraft – the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots and their Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where Sheeran was next slated to play – to drop Macklemore from the tour, lest the English singer be barred from their venues. “Ed was in a fucked up position,” the rapper wrote. “He knew it. His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it had never been before.
“What I said at MetLife I have been saying on stages around the world for almost three years,” he added. “So why is it an issue now? Because now I’m sharing the stage with one of the biggest artists in the world, in some of the biggest stages in America.”

In acknowledging that this bullshit isn’t really Sheeran’s fault, Macklemore is being far more generous to him than I think most people would be. Cos ultimately, though Ed was placed in an undeniably difficult position, he did still cave to the pressure… he probably stood to lose millions of dollars if he didn’t, I know, but, well, with the news that his other opening acts and his own backing band have all quit the tour in protest as well, he’s clearly going to do that anyway now. Hard not to feel sorry for him in some respects, but if he’d shown a bit more spine he’d be in the same position financially but he’d still be respected to whatever extent he was before all this (however little that may admittedly have been).

Look who’s back

To everyone’s surprise, Mitch McConnell turns out to be alive after all:

US Republican Mitch McConnell has returned to the Senate for the first time in three months, looking noticeably more frail than before he was hospitalised in June.
Mr McConnell’s lengthy absence from the Senate generated a flood of criticism and online speculation, as he initially remained quiet for weeks about his condition.
The 84-year-old senator eventually disclosed a month later that he had been “briefly unconscious” due to a fall in his home and had also been treated for mild pneumonia.
He briefly addressed reporters from a wheelchair outside the Senate chamber, smiling but speaking slowly and with some difficulty. […]
Reporters and photographers were told by Senate staff not to take video of his remarks in the second-floor hallway, even though video is often permitted in that area. Still images were allowed.

That seems like an odd stipulation, but he seems to be in enough different positions in the photos I’ve seen that he is plausibly alive and mobile in spite of everything. I just don’t understand this determination of his to finish his term, which I don’t think I realised was actually coming to an end in January and he’s not contesting it again; he’s an octogenarian in clearly terrible health, he’s obviously not fit for work, no one would begrudge him not returning to the senate and just finally taking “early” retirement. It would be better for him too. But no, his commitment to doing evil—cos he’s not there to do good, let’s admit it—is apparently just that strong… bah.

Substack still has a Nazi problem

A while ago I posted about Substack’s Nazi problem, and, well, nearly three years later nothing uch has changed from what I’ve seen:

Oof. Now, let it be said that not every creator on Substack, not even the righ-leaning ones, is a Nazi. OBVIOUSLY. There are good and useful people using the service, even if Substack’s algorithm has hitherto been determined to hide them from me in favour of the complete gits. And the latter do seem to come in various flavours. You get the ordinary person who just wishes things were less shit (which I think describes an awful lot of people these days). You get the conservative who’s accepted some amount of progress but not happily. You get the aesthetic nostalgists mooning over what they see as the lack of beauty in the world (these are people I’m wary of, cos I’ve encountered several of them on Tumblr whose outward passion for classical art and so forth concealed some hideous political beliefs). You get the more hardcore capital-T Traditionalist for whom the passage of time itself is evil and why aren’t things more like they were in the far past we wish existed but probably didn’t. You get the “SAVE THE WEST!” reactionaries and racists for whom the problem is “Abdul” and/or Jews, liberals, women, etc.

And, frankly, you get the overt neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

I’ve actually been considering using Substack as a side-project of sorts, now that I’ve taken down the old Important Images series posts (for reasons you may wish to guess at), I’ve lately considered doing that over on Substack. Now I really don’t know if I should or if I even can. It bothers me that some people I actually know use it for their work, but I don’t feel like I can judge them cos I am sure the good users on there outnumber the bad ones. And I do know that, yeah, there’s probably right-wing shitheads being hosted by WordPress just like I am, and I still use WP without that bothering me. (Hypocrisy, moi?) I’ve shared Tumblr with any number of white supremacists (1488 of them, perhaps? Ho ho!), and, well, look at FB and Twatter… I’m almost certainly overthinking all of this, because I am me and that is what I do best, but that doesn’t change that Substack still has a Nazi problem. And as long as the Nazis are making bank from posting on there, and as long as Substack are getting their cut of that, they’re always going to have one. Bah.

Grey Room #15

I think I’m giving up the hosting of the show. I’ve said before that the previous incarnation of the podcast was done radio show style with back announcing, etc, but I eventually got sick of doing that cos it was extra effort that made it less fun… it’s OK if you’re actually doing it live, obviously, but I don’t, so it just feels kind of forced. And there don’t seem to be many people on Mixcloud (he said, as if he’d explored it fully) actually doing their stuff radio-style unless they’re actually doing them as live radio shows (or live on Twitch, as one show I follow does) before posting the recording on Mixcloud. And I’ve never liked the sound of my own voice (why did you spend so many years in radio, then, DICKHEAD?), so I suppose I should save other people from having to listen to it too… Anyway, here’s this week’s setlist:

1. Chelsea – I’m On Fire (1979)
2. Husker Du – The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill (1985)
3. The Church – Electric (1983)
4. Algiers – Hour of the Furnaces (2020)
5. Manic Street Preachers – Love’s Sweet Exile (1992)
6. The Soft Moon – Insides (2012)
7. Nitzer Ebb – Smear Body (1987)
8. The Afghan Whigs – 66 (1998)
9. Adorable – Homeboy (1993)
10. The Jam – Funeral Pyre (1981)
11. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – And I’m Aching (2003)
12. The Prodigy – Climbatize (1997)
13. REM – Finest Worksong (1987)
14. Mogwai – Remurdered (2014)

Obviously

Convicted sex offender offered opening prayer at rally for GOP Senate nominee in North Carolina

A pastor kicked off a recent campaign stop for Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee for Senate, with a prayer that asked God to bestow “integrity and honesty” upon the event and to right wrongs “hammered down on the conservative movement.”
The prayer was hardly unusual by North Carolina political standards. What was surprising was the man who delivered it. Pastor Daimon L. King is a registered sex offender, twice sentenced to prison for convictions involving children, according to state and court records. […]
Whatley’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview. In a statement, campaign spokesman DJ Griffin said Whatley did not know King and the event “was NOT planned nor organized by the Whatley campaign nor did the campaign invite any of the guests.”
He emphasized that King had been “invited by the hosts,” which he identified as the Craven County Republican Party.

OK,  so someone in the local branch of the Republicans is fine with having a convucted sex offender be part of the show. That doesn’t make the situation any better REALLY, does it? And then, because the article has been edited by someone not paying attention to their job in writing and/or editing it, we get this:

King’s prayer and Whatley’s association with the former GOP official Harvey L. West Jr., the other convicted sex offender […]

The WHAT now?

Since March, Whatley has been dogged over his ties to West, who served as a congressional district committee chair in the state GOP when Whatley was chairman.
West, a former small-town police officer, was convicted of five counts of indecent liberties with a child and served six years in prison, corrections records show.
In 2012, news outlets reported on his conviction, forcing West to step down as an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention.
At the time, West denied he had committed the offenses and said that he had pleaded guilty to avoid the risk of spending decades behind bars, The Associated Press reported. He is no longer required to register as a sex offender. […]
West also said he was familiar with King’s convictions and warned others in the party about associating with the pastor when he was considered for a GOP position. “I just said, ‘Hey, y’all might want to take a look at this,’” said West.

OH it just keeps getting better, doesn’t it? Michael Whatley, incidentally, is the guy we saw just a couple of days ago getting the date of a certain American national tragedy wrong; I must say I wasn’t expecting him to reappear here so soon, and certainly not in THIS manner. And yet I’m not surprised somehow either…