Last Friday, June 2, I spent the entire day checking the mail. I’d preordered the new Roger Waters album—his first album of original rock material in nearly a quarter century—and was eagerly awaiting its arrival when I got notice from Amazon at about 7pm that evening that the delivery would be delayed, possibly until the following Tuesday. Being as I am, a married middle-aged man, this was going to be the highlight of my fucking week and listening to it on headphones, stoned to the gills, constituted most, if not the entirety of my weekend plans. Drats! Foiled again! My disappointment was palpable, but I googled the reviews to sate my curiosity only to read one critical appraisal after another of the most vaguely worded, tepidly positive sentiments. I’d seen the second (not including the dress rehearsal in NJ) show of Waters new Us + Them tour in Louisville, KY (more on this below) over the recent Memorial Day holiday weekend and the reviews I was reading didn’t really jibe with my expectations for the new album, having already heard a handful of the songs from the upcoming album played live and being blown away by how great the set’s new material was. It was difficult to tell what anyone really thought of it from the early reviews.

Rolling Stone’s reviewer was one of the worst offenders. The nearly pointless review of Is This the Life We Really Want? read as if he’d played the album once and dashed it off in about 15 minutes to collect a couple hundred bucks. (One commenter sighed “This review has zero substance. ‘It’s just Roger being Roger.’ Way to phone it in.”) One after another of these empty calorie reviews used the same words—“bitter,” “bleak” and “dystopian” prominently among them (and all referenced President You-Know-Who)—and indicated that good ol’ Rog was still up to his same old bag of tricks, etc, etc, etc. As the editor of a website like this one, I’m well aware of what lazy writing looks like and frankly nearly all of last Friday’s release date reviews of Is This the Life We Really Want?—at least the ones I read—smacked of it to my trained eye. In aggregate they equaled almost nothing useful. I wondered how it was possible not to have a strong opinion about a new Roger Waters album after so many years. Many of them, I imagine were written by underpaid millennials with only the dimmest idea who Roger Waters is, who were just cribbing from the press release.

The next morning the album was delivered before 10am and my weekend plans were back on.

Now don’t get me wrong, while anyone could be forgiven for assuming a priori that the first new release in decades from a 73-year-old multi-millionaire rock star would not necessarily be something to jump up and down about, by the time the first side was over I was completely gobsmacked, stunned at the darkly gorgeous poetry and sonic brilliance of the musical gold that had just been poured into my ears. I flipped it over for two even better, even more emotionally powerful songs. Riveting stuff. Oh sure, it’s true that not every new album by a septuagenarian rock superstar is going to be an instant classic, standing alongside their best work, but Waters’ astonishing and deeply profound Is This the Life We Really Want? is one, and does. I think it’s the best thing he’s done since Animals and I feel like that is saying quite a lot. This is a major event in pop culture. A big fucking deal with sirens blaring.

Now obviously, if you’re Roger Waters and you’ve got something (anything) to say, you (he) can say whatever you want, whenever you want and however you want to say it and a major media conglomerate will rush to exploit this to the hilt and squeeze every last bit of money they can out of your every utterance. Roger Waters and “the music of Pink Floyd” (as the current tour is billed) is a very big business—his multi-year worldwide The Wall Live trek is the highest grossing solo rock tour in history—but admirably, rather than put out one uninspired going-through-the-motions album after another like so many classic rockers of his vintage, Waters waits—25 years if he has to—to make sure that he’s got something important to say before going into the recording studio. No Sinatra covers for him. No Christmas albums. He’ll never record one of those awful “Great American Songbook” things. It’s just not going to happen. There is no squandered goodwill in that way between Waters and his fans. Since 1999 Waters has toured extensively, but without releasing any new material since 1992’s Amused to Death save for the recording of his French Revolution opera Ça Ira. After decades of playing the hits (and amassing a ridiculous fortune that’s managed to survive four divorces) the material on Is This the Life We Really Want? is just about the most potent musical statement imaginable for the Trump era, even if many of the songs were probably written and recorded before his surprise election. Perhaps the ferocious “Picture This” doesn’t refer directly to Trump, although it certainly seems like it does.

Picture a courthouse with no fucking laws
Picture a cathouse with no fucking whores
Picture a shithouse with no fucking drains
Picture a leader with no fucking brains

Top that! The song pulses and throbs like the best mid-70s Floyd barnburner, obviously quite purposefully and by deliberate design. Producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck) has surrounded Waters with a crack band of some of the finest musicians in America—among them Jonathan Wilson on guitar; vocalists Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig from Lucius; REM/Beck drummer Lenny Waronker, a Mason-esque octopus-armed pounder to be sure; and Roger Manning Jr. of Jellyfish on keyboards—with what seems to be the canny dual intention of simultaneously providing Waters with some inspired and well-chosen collaborators who bring their own magic to the table, and using this A-list crew to record what is probably the closest thing to a full-on Pink Floyd 70s headphones album experience as could possibly be hoped for (minus the obviously missing participants). The gorgeous string arrangements were done by David Campbell (Beck’s father, who Wikipedia tells me made his recording debut playing cello on Carole King’s Tapestry) and… wow… just wow. This album is just crazy fucking good on every level.

Continues after the jump…

 
Melanie Gaydos was born with a rare genetic condition called ectodermal dysplasia that hinders the normal development of teeth, nails, pores, cartilage, and bones. She also has alopecia, which prevents normal hair growth, and is partially blind due to malfunctioning eyelash growth causing damage to her eyes.

After a lifetime of weird interactions with almost everybody she met, Gaydos, who is now 28, made the decision several years ago to reject dental implants and wigs and show herself as she “really” is. That choice has led to a remarkable series of events including getting involved with the fashion world in a serious way. It is difficult for someone whose appearance is so unusual to connect with people, and the artificial adornments weren’t helping. Becoming more naked, both literally and figuratively, helped her express what she saw as her more “cool, comfortable, and creative” self.

In 2012 Gaydos appeared in a Rammstein music video, an experience that likely emboldened her to make the decision to try real modeling the next year. Her unusual appearance lends itself to the art of adopting personas that is so integral to a model’s necessary toolbox.

Gaydos has said:
 

I think people think I’m pretty fucking weird. When I go on a photo shoot, if there’s other industry models there, they normally don’t really know what to make of me, and they’re usually like “What the fuck is this?” It’s difficult for me in the fashion world because a lot of people think of me kind of as a gimmick, “Oh, she’s just being exploited for her differences….” People really have to talk to me and get to know me in order to, I don’t know, understand where I am coming from or see where I’m coming from.

 
This year saw the publication of True Style Is What’s Underneath: The Self-Acceptance Revolution by Elisa Goodkind and Lily Mandelbaum, who founded the websites StyleLikeU, in which Gaydos was featured prominently.

Melanie Gaydos’ Instagram account has more than 100,000 followers.
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…......

 
Tijuana Bibles were eight-page, hand-sized comic books featuring well-known cartoon characters, sporting heroes, and Hollywood film stars in a sequence of hardcore sexual shenanigans. They first appeared sometime in the 1920s as illustrated dirty jokes featuring squeaky clean comic strip characters like Tillie the Toiler and Jiggs and Maggie from “Bringing Up Baby.” The more straightlaced the character, the more outrageous the smut.

Their instant success led to far more explicit hardcore tales featuring famous movie stars like Mae West, Robert Mitchum, Dorothy Lamour, Greta Garbo, even Laurel & Hardy, alongside such well-loved cartoon figures as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Popeye and Betty Boop porking the fuck out of everything that moved. They were cheap titillation intended to arouse and (in their own way) educate the virginal. They were subversive and offensively humorous.

The name “Tijuana Bible” came from the mistaken belief these comics were produced south of the border and smuggled into the USA. They were actually produced and printed in the States by local artists and independent businesses who hid behind fake publishing titles like “London Press” and “Tobasco Publishing Co.” They were sold under-the-counter in tobacco shops, bars, barbers and bowling alleys at 25 cents a pop. Their greatest popularity was during the Depression of the 1930s, eventually petering out with the arrival of real porn mags in the 1950s. Tijuana Bibles are now considered by many comic book historians to be among the very first underground comix. More importantly, these cheaply produced comic books helped unfetter sex and sexuality from the weight of societal and religious strictures of guilt and taboo by making sex seem fun, natural, and something to be greatly enjoyed.

A man called Quinn has scanned a whole selection of these “politically incorrect literary gems” which can be viewed here.
 

 

 
More examples of Tijuana Bibles, after the jump..

 
I don’t know how legit this is, but apparently a kid-friendly swimming pool advertisement has been censored in Saudi Arabia with a woman completely photoshopped out and turned into a Winnie the Pooh beach ball! If you notice, shirts have been photoshopped on the children and the male in the pool, too!

According to BuzzFeed, the ad is very real and you can see the Tweet here or below.

للمسابح حصة كبيرة ضمن عروضات ساكو! لا تفوتوها وقوموا بزيارة معارضنا #الكل_للكلhttps://t.co/YwaR99o792 pic.twitter.com/qL16qJOmJr

— SacoOffers عروض ساكو (@Saco_KSA) June 4, 2017

 

 
via Anorak

 
Is this the perfect wake ‘n bake accessory? Possibly. You just have to dig cereal and weed at the same time. Many people do. The handmade pipe is called “The Breakfast Bowl.” It has a two cup volume for your favorite cereal (mine is Cap’n Crunch) with a “water pipe built into an inner chamber.”

The Breakfast Bowl Pipe is expertly handcrafted with superior borosilicate glass. The eating bowl has a 2 cup volume to satisfy the biggest appetites. The downstem and mouthpiece connect directly to form an inner chamber for the smoke. You’ll love our standard vibrant blue bowl piece, but it can be used with any 18mm piece. Our 9” bent tube mouthpiece is an impressive weight to round off the ultimate experience.

The unique design of the Breakfast Bowl Pipe allows whatever is in the bowl to assist with the cooling of the smoke that comes through the inner chamber.

I thought the coffee cup weed pipe was an inventive way to wake ‘n bake, but this pipe sort of takes the grand prize for your morning rituals.

The pipe sells for $85 here.

As a side note: If you’re on a diet, you can fill it with fruit instead.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Wake ‘N Bake: Coffee cup weed pipe

Model Betty Brosmer.
 
Like many models Los Angeles-born beauty queen, Betty Brosmer, got her start early, with her first photographs appearing in the Sears & Roebuck catalog in 1948 when she was just thirteen. A year later Brosmer visited New York City with her aunt and had the opportunity to pose for more photographs, one of which made its way to electronics company Emerson who used the photo in published advertisements in magazines across the country.

While she was still a teenager Brosmer received requests from two rather influential pinup artists—Earl Moran, who famously captured some of the earliest images of Marilyn Monroe (while she was still known as Norma Jean), and a man whose name is synonymous with the word pinup, Peruvian artist Alberto Vargas. That high-profile work would prompt Brosmer to make the move to New York City. While attending high school in Manhattan Brosmer would continue modeling, and her photographs would appear in numerous magazines as well as on the covers of sexy pulp novels. The young model was pursued by Playboy magazine, which ended up in a sitting for a shoot in Beverly Hills. But not in the nude as the magazine had hoped. The final photos were ultimately rejected by Playboy and I’m sure many of you will be disappointed to learn that Brosmer never did any nude photography during her long career, as she feared the images would be hurtful to her family, not because she thought it was dishonorable.

Although Marilyn Monroe is the most recognizable blonde bombshell of the time, it was Brosmer’s fair hair, face, and impossible eighteen-inch waist that made her the highest paid model of the 50s, and her image helped pave the way for both Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. In 1961 Brosmer married bodybuilder Joe Weider, the founder of the Mr. Olympia competition and mentor to former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a seven-time Mr. Olympia title holder. After that, Brosmer would drop her last name for Joe’s and subsequently end her modeling career. Betty would then go on to co-author a book with Weider in 1981 The Weider Book of Bodybuilding for Women as well as becoming a long-time contributor to Muscle and Fitness magazine, and an associate editor of the popular women’s fitness magazine, SHAPE. I’ve posted images of Betty (who still looks fantastic at the age of 82 by the way), below that must be seen to be believed.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
In case you haven’t heard, this summer marks the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Oh yeah, that’s right—you probably have heard. On this very blog, in addition to Richard Metzger’s glowing review of the recent reissue, there’s also the terrific report from our own Oliver Hall on the curious fact that his grandfather, Huntz Hall of the Bowery Boys, is actually one of the gallery of famous faces on the album’s cover.

Sgt. Pepper’s is a common choice for “Greatest Album of All Time” and lots of people get tired of hearing about it for that very reason. It was and is an undeniably influential album, however, and one proof of that is the sheer number of musical artists who have imitated its cover art, which was cunningly executed for the occasion by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth.

The first band to do a prominent parody of the cover, of course, was the Mothers of Invention, whose third album We’re Only In It For the Money took an unmistakably sneering attitude towards the Fab Four’s latest world-beating project. (They even got Jimi Hendrix to pose for it with them. That’s not a Hendrix cut-outs, it’s Jimi. Zappa put out an invitation to several others, apparently, but only Hendrix showed up.)

If you’re in a band and you don’t know what to do for your next album cover, you can try this: Spell out something in flowers in front of a drum head with some flamboyant text on it, while a throng of notables gathers and poses for an unlikely group portrait. Pink Floyd bootlegs. The Simpsons have done it. The Sex Pistols have had it done to them. Hell, even Ringo Starr has done it (kind of…..). If nothing else you get extra points for “taking on the rock and roll establishment” because nothing is more established in rock and roll than the Beatles and Sgt. Pepper’s.

There are literally dozens of albums that have used this trick, but we’re only showing a small selection. To single out two of my favorites: For the identically titled 1977 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which presented electronic covers of six tracks from the Beatles’ original, Jun Fukamachi reversed many of the elements in the cover, including having the crowd of personages “pose” with their backs facing the camera, all of which added up to an intriguing “backwards” concept. Meanwhile, Macabre’s 1993 death metal album Sinister Slaughter replaced the likes of Mae West and Gandhi with various serial killers and mass murderers.
 

The Mothers of Invention, ‘We’re Only In It For the Money’
 

Ringo Starr, ‘Ringo’
 

Jun Fukamachi, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’
 

The Rutles, ‘Sgt. Rutters Only Darts Club Band’
 
Much more after the jump…....

 
To celebrate 50 years since the August 5, 1967 release of Pink Floyd’s debut The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Kyle Shutt, the guitarist from Austin, TX’s foremost stoner/doom-mongers The Sword, is releasing a complete cover of that seminal psych/prog band’s most popular album, The Dark Side of the Moon—by far a more metal-friendly album to rework than Piper.

The idea came to me after getting baked and wanting to hear a heavy version of “Time.” I thought, why not just cover the whole album? After sitting down and working out some loose concepts, the arrangement for “Money” materialized and I realized that I could totally do this if I assembled the right band.  It felt a little strange messing with someone’s legacy, but I’m treating it as a celebration of one of the greatest bands to ever rock, a party that everyone is invited to.

 

 
This is far from a new move—baby’s-first-prog-metal band Dream Theater has covered the entire album live, and a CD and DVD were released in the mid ‘oughts. Here’s a YouTube link to a live performance that’s probably my favorite Dream Theater thing I’ve heard. Make of that nugget of praise what you will.

Much more after the jump…

You can get it here.
 
Just in time for summer, it’s… penis squirt guns! Lock and load ‘em, or maybe lock ‘em and shoot a load, I guess? These are definitely not for children. Do adults even play with squirt guns? Well, if you happen to know of anyone who do, I think I’ve found the perfect gift. Loads of fun?

I have no idea about their “squirt range.” There’s not too much information about these guns, which seem fairly self-explanatory. I’m merely letting you know that they exist. Who knew?

I’ve linked where to buy underneath each image. Fairly inexpensive, they are, these penis squirt guns…

You can get it here.
 

You can get it here.
 
More after the jump…

 
If you have any trouble remembering, 2016 was the worst year of our lifetimes, as it featured the deaths of Prince, David Bowie, Merle Haggard, Leonard Cohen, and George Michael but much more pertinently, a victory for the “Yes” vote in the U.K. Brexit referendum in June as well as the election of the worst human being we could possibly find to be U.S. President in November. It was a tumultuous year to be sure, introducing U.S. observers not only to the concept of Donald Trump as an undeniably important political figure but an entire panoply of abhorrent political figures in Great Britain, including anti-Europe demagogue/liar Nigel Farage and current PM Theresa May.

When the debate is dominated by scuzzy vulgarians like Rupert Murdoch and Boris Johnson, their opponents will be obliged to resort to satirical measures that are less than…. dignified. Not that satire is usually very august or lofty, but these nitwits and assholes call for special tactics.

This will probably work better if you’re in Britain, but if you want to put up a fake prostitution advertisement in your town square, only featuring the comely/disgusting image of David Cameron, Donald Trump, or Theresa May on it, I urge you to visit the Wankers of the World website, where you can get any of these six posters for fifty pounds each. That’s a little pricy, sure, but for just 10 pounds you can get the “Political Whores Flyer Pack,” a full set of all six flyers that even comes with “a ball of Blu Tack so you can stick them up in your local phonebox or work toilet.” 
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…