I was living in San Francisco back in 2002. I had started dating this girl who was into poetry readings. Ugh. Yeah I know. I know. That’s irritating, what was beyond irritating is that she started dragging me to spoken word open mic nights  that her friends ran. I was barely 21 and had only really been in a bar a couple of times. So here I am finally an adult, allowed to go into these forbidden places and… I get to listen to some whinny college kid whine about his boyfriend? Yuck. On my second forced night of this I sat there bored and pissed thinking, I gotta dump this girl and then something amazing happened. Extreme Elvis crashed the party.

The 300 pound, drunk, sloppy mess burst into the room and belted out his acapella rendition of In The Ghetto. He also slammed down two drinks that didn’t belong to him, took a bite of someone’s burger, forced his tongue into the mouth of a very very angry butch lesbian and kicked over two tables before he made his escape. The place was in shambles, everyone was in shock, I was in love. The organizer started freaking out and hysterically screaming “That fat fuck isn’t allowed in here, how the fuck did he get in and signed up???”  I had just been exposed to Extreme Elvis.

I saw two Extreme Elvis shows that same year. It utterly destroyed my mind. For one show he rolled around in butter and bird seed and then had chickens brought out to peck at the corn on his crotch as he sang Love Me Tender. The highlight for the second was when he had the audience follow him into the restroom where he continued to sing as he took a shit. Can you say you’ve ever seen a grotesque whale of a man getting peed on by naked midgets during a concert? I can. He was everything G.G. Allen wanted to be, but dressed in the image of one of our nations demigods. Extreme Elvis was the foulest caricature of our country’s decadence and gluttony.

But of course, no one likes it when you pee on their god. (literally) Extreme Elvis was inundated with thousands of hate letters a day from angry Elvis fans and other Elvis Impersonators that really didn’t dig seeing their holiest obsession perverted to the point of madness. He started receiving death threats regularly. No shit kickers got to take him out though. His end was far more mundane and irritating. All Elvis impersonators are technically infringing on the Elvis image, but I guess Graceland gets to pick and choose. After being petitioned by nearly a million Anti-Extreme Elvis fans, a swarm of Graceland lawyers swooped down and crushed Extreme Elvis. If you visit his site, you will see the evidence of his final and very official defeat.

If Swellco & Swellco is really going to alter our depressing shitty world into a dark and twisted circus, I want them to resurrect the corpse of Extreme Elvis to be my ring master.

- Jimi Jam
Swellco & Swellco #23234b

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And the tents on fire.

“The dynamics of food production are about to change. The era of huge, industrialized, multinational agribusinesses is coming to an end as the planet’s petroleum resources wane; more traditional trends, which have occurred over the millennia, will resume, and the notion of famine will re-emerge.

People tend to forget that through the ages famine has been commonplace. Cheap and plentiful food supplies are, historically, something of an anomaly. When we go to market to load up our buggies with food, few of us contemplate just how petroleum dependent the food system has become: think fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, transportation.”
-excerpt from Future Famine by Barbara Yaffe

It’s time to run off and join the circus

photos courtesy of
http://www.bannedinhollywood.com
http://www.prowriststraps.com

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Subvert: The second tenant of The Swellco & Swellco Video Process.
sub·vert (s?b-vûrt’) tr.v.  sub·vert·ed, sub·vert·ing, sub·verts
1. To destroy completely; ruin: “schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community” (Alexander Hamilton).
2. To undermine the character, morals, or allegiance of; corrupt.
3. To overthrow completely: “Economic assistance … must subvert the existing … feudal or tribal order” (Henry A. Kissinger). See Synonyms at overthrow.

While The Video Circus conditioning’s first mandate is to create a new world by altering one’s perspective and perception of the current reality, the second step coincides hand and hand with the first. Subversion of reality is necessary in order to re-sculpt one’s world view and break from the reality all consumers find themselves trapped in. It is the Video Circus Consumers responsibility and duty to undermine all things deemed “normal” and rally and praise all things unusual. If it is bendable, bend it. If it can be broken, break it. Any fabric in society that is flammable should and must be set ablaze. We are all imprisoned in this physical world, it is our duty to resist and rebel against our jailer.

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And your little monkey too.

DEAR UNCLE TOAST:
A few months ago, I met the gynecologist of my dreams and was lucky enough to be examined by him. “Dr. Mike” is intelligent, caring, loving, witty, romantic and a great doctor. Every exam he tells me he loves me and that I’m beautiful. So what’s the problem? Dr. Mike weighs 80 pounds more than he did when I first became his patient. I thank God for him every single day, but the stirrups feel cold. Don’t get me wrong. The pap-smears come back normal, but I hate his huge ass and the dead monkey he displays in a jar next to the examination table.  I worry about how his disgusting monstrous fat ass might be affecting my children, and I contemplate cutting him with a knife. Also last week, I accidentally ate a moldy piece of bread, that is the hardest thing for me to deal with. Am I being petty when I tell you I’d give anything to burn him alive along with that dead monkey?
- NOT READY FOR CHILDREN

DEAR NOT READY FOR CHILDREN,
In the 1950s, “success” for girls was defined as marrying early and drinking Vodka. Since then, more women have jobs and careers, and tend to fixate on dead monkeys. You need to be very concerned about the moldy bread. Satan may be growing an evil mold garden in your guts that will spawn flesh devouring maggots. Also, go where like-minded people gather: graduate school, special-interest clubs, volunteer organizations, square dancing, church or a political-action group. Now I leave you with a gratuitous booty dance
-Uncle Wheat Toast Swellco & Swellco 54239c

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