Grouchogandhi - A Punch-Drunk Filter of FACTs: April 2006

FACT - Every man and woman is a star

— Thursday, April 27, 2006 —
FACT: 1 eigenstates

Every man and woman is a star.
— Aleister Crowley

Back before the turn-of-the-century, during the mid-90s web emergence, I used to proselytize about the coming shift of power from mainstream media organizations to Internet users. I summed it up with my quippy YOU ARE THE MEDIA.

Now, I'm not so sure. The whole rise of the Web 2.0 social networking applications marketing model seems to be suggesting something more intimate and powerful. The new value isn't in something you're presenting as media but that you're presenting it. Usually your hotsuff on myspace.com.

Now, I believe, it's turning into YOU ARE THE BRAND.

Myspace's out-of-control growth has left many "traditional" web application companies scracthing their heads. Is myspace's popularity due to a sleek user interface? Obviously not, just look at it. Is it due to a great business model? Not at all, just look at it. Go ahead. Just ask a myspace representative what their site does. They don't really know since they built it so fast and organically. They'll talk about social networking and Web 2.0 but it explains nothing as to what they provide as a service.

Myspace serves about 2 billion ads a day. That's what they do. That's their business plan. And it's not a bad business plan. But what are they providing that no one else does? Social interaction? Not really, myspace's interaction features are woefully immature and underdeveloped. The ubiquitous Tom, the most famous person in the world now who is added to every myspacer's "Friends List," offers nothing of substance to help people intearact with each other.

What myspace seems to do best is provide a single-source for branding yourself. Bands, companies and individuals make their profile, post a few pics, blog occassionally, but in general, nothing happens.

75 million users (76 million a day or so from this posting) have adopted it as their single location to be found on the web. How did myspace create this? Did they have some ingenius plan to garner such stats? Nope. Remember, they're not quite sure what all they've built since they built it so fast. Total luck... again for a net company. Thank god they got bought by Murdoch when they had around 25 million users just a few months ago. Murdoch, now there's someone with a plan. I bet he makes more money from it eventually than his traditional media companies.

Myspace, by luck of the fickly Internet, has become your Internet calling-card. Look at me, I have a myspace page seems to be the main message. Now, if you have a gazillion myspace friends (well, obviously you posted your image as a big-breasted blonde-gal), this has commodity.

You are not the media. The media is old and losing users at an alarming rate.

Now, the model seems to be, YOU ARE THE BRAND! People want to be your myspace friend. Why? No one knows. What can you do with that?

Enjoy it while it lasts...

Marketing | Web 2.0 | Myspace | Grouchogandhi

Music for Trailers - SoCal Film Group Wants to Credit Your Groove

— Tuesday, April 25, 2006 —
FACT: 1 eigenstates

Socal Film Group presents a fun opportunity to strut your ass thumpin', movie-lovin' schtuff with a contest for a screen credit.

Come up with a nice tune for the soundtrack to their new trailer and they'll give you a screen credit. Which, of course, you know they'll post far-and-wide for streaming. All very Web 2.0. Not a bad exchange.

Check out the SoCal blog for the exact details!

Contests | Movies | Soundtracks | SoCal Film Group

Kryptos Encoding Error Delays Dan Brown's The Solomon Key?

— Saturday, April 22, 2006 —
FACT: 0 eigenstates

"My interest in secret societies is the product of many experiences, some I can discuss, others I cannot."
— Dan Brown

Could Thursday's annoucement by artist Jim Sanborn that he made a mistake in the encoding of the secret message on his famous Kryptos sculpture have been the cause of yesterday's press reports of the delay in publication to 2007 of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code follow-up, The Solomon Key?

Coincidence or Conspiracy?

For a while now, news publications and the like have been reporting on the speculation and rumors regarding the subject matter of Dan Brown's next book The Solomon Key. So far, we have Freemasons, Washington D.C. city planning and sacred geometry, Mormons, the Kryptos Sculpture and, naturally for the ladies, more of the Scared Feminine.

Brown hasn't missed the opportunity to make a few statements-as-marketing-hints as to the location, characters and subject of The Solomon Key. After all, when an entire pre-publication cottage industry has sprung around your yet-to-be-written best seller, well, nothing's too good for the fans. Heck, if you're lucky, maybe some Russian scientist will claim you plagiarized him, sue you and keep the media stories cranking for another round of free press!

But, when the Illuminati's involved, other strange things can happen as well.

ID BY ROWS... scratch that... LAYER TWO

Now we hear that the artist made an error in the encoding of the Kryptos sculpture, the one known to be a key hint in Brown's now-delayed novel referenced on The Da Vinci Code's hardback dust jacket.

Now instead of a phrase saying "ID ROWS", which sounds promising if you're looking for esoteric clues, the correction supplied by Sanborn now decodes to "LAYER TWO". Not bad either! Layer Two, thanks for clearing that up. But better than having the wrong "Blue Apples at Noon" kind of clue to overcome. No word from the obsessives if this helps lift any veils just yet.

But could the error in some way impact Brown's research for the plot to The Solomon Key. Could this be the unsaid reason for the publication delay? Do things need "adjusting" now? If the final secret is pried from Kryptos before Solomon Key's publication, what affect will that have for Brown and his new novel?

Better yet, maybe the real reason — whispered in many news rooms around the globe — is this is an Illuminati marketing ploy to better seed the masses for its blockbuster release.

Books | Dan Brown | The Solomon Key | Kryptos

Lessons of Ascent - You Should Know More About Spaceports

— Thursday, April 20, 2006 —
FACT: 1 eigenstates

"Mos Eisley Spaceport, you will never find a more retched hive of scum and villiany. You must be cautious."
— Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars (1977)

"A new life awaits you in the Off-World colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure. New climate, recreational facilities... absolutely free! Use your new friend as a personal body servant or a tireless field hand — the custom tailored genetically engineered humanoid replicant designed especially for your needs. So come on America, let's put our team up there! This annoucement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez Corporation — helping America into the New World."
— Overhead Blimp, Blade Runner (1982)

Always get anxious when you find yourself in yet another pointless party conversation of polite idle chatter?

Well, fear no more! Talk about something you can get really excited about! Spaceports!

Grouchogandhi provides the tools you need, FOR FREE, to launch your new favorite party subject!

Spaceports!

Yes! Spaceports are mostly real! Just read on and you'll be able to offer your opinions on the complexities of infrastructure cost analysis in planning and building spaceports, to the challenges of minimizing the impact of leveraging and supporting future space tourism activities on local endangered species, to the oft-discussed histories of famous spaceports in Science Fiction.

Spaceports provide an exciting and exotic subject opportunity that will bring others around you into engaging conversations at nearly any casual or formal social affair. While others are bearing the burden of contrived pleasantries and forcefully smiling at children's photos, you'll be a welcome oasis of fascinating knowledge about all things spaceport.

You always have a safety net with spaceports! Any conversation you find yourself in can quickly and easily be shifted to the subject of spaceports! Other advantages include becoming known as the "Spaceport Guy" at your local pub. Women love spaceports!

Begin the Countdown

So, you're ready to blast-off and launch your spaceport expertise? Just study the spaceport FACT-filled guide provided below and you'll be the Mission Control of the next big social event.

Meanwhile, back in 1993...

— Wednesday, April 19, 2006 —
FACT: 2 eigenstates

"They're burning them! They're killing those children!"
— Ron Bonds

FACT filled fun.

April 19, 1993 | Waco
Documentaries | Waco - The New Revelation

A Conspiracy Theorist's Tour Guide, Part 1 - The Georgia Guidestones

— Sunday, April 16, 2006 —
FACT: 1 eigenstates

NOTE: Since no one else seems to be offering themselves up as a willing idiot, I'll take the mantle on this project. I'm starting a new series of posts collectively entitled "A Conspiracy Theorist's Tour Guide" which will illuminate those destinations of interest to the conspiracy-minded traveler.

Destination: The Georgia Guidestones

There is a well-known mystery in the remotely rural county of Elbert, Georgia, the granite capital of the world: The Georgia Guidestones. Unvieled on March 22, 1980 to a crowd numbering around 400 folk, the Georgia Guidestones presented a unique message to all the world in 12 languages etched in huge granite blocks set in a farmer's field:

Let these be guidestones to an age of reason

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

Guide reproduction wisely, improving fitness and diversity.

Unite humanity with a living new language.

Rule passion, faith, tradition and all things with tempered reason.

Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a world court.

Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

Balance personal rights with social duties.

Prize truth, beauty, love, seeking harmony with the infinite.

Be not a cancer on Earth. Leave room for nature. Leave room for nature.

On some levels, not an entirely bad message, but on others, a seemingly very Illuminati-inspired New World Order set of directives. How these monuments came to be erected amongst farmland and chicken ranches on one of the highest points in Elbert County, Georgia is well documented.

A man calling himself "R. C. Christian" — an obvious Masonic-Rosicrucian pseudonym — approached Joe H. Fendley Sr., president of the Elberton Granite Finishing Company, claiming to represent a group of men living outside of Georgia who wanted to construct the monument as a suggestion to mankind for establishing an "age of reason," whatever that might be. After securing financing from a local bank and a suitable location, the Elberton Granite Finishing Company built the monument as specified.

"I want people to know about the stones ... We're headed toward a world where we might blow ourselves up and maybe the globe will not exist ... it's a nice time to reaffirm ourselves, knowing all the beautiful things that are in this country and the Georgia Stones symbolize that."
— Yoko Ono

But the why of their placement continues to be a mystery after a quarter-century. Of course, where there's mystery and ambiguity, conspiracy theorists are sure to follow. Some people find the Guidestones to be an open letter to mankind for the New World Order's mission and goals. Others try to associate the stones with a nearby area known to the Cherokee Indians as "Al-yeh-li A lo-Hee." The Center of the World.

I have visited the Guidestones several times over the years and besides the obvious Masonic connections, I have no suggestions to offer as to their ultimate meaning or purpose. Maybe they sit on a telluric current nexus that will one day be harnessed to Immanentize the Eschaton. All I know: It's mighty strange and well-worth a visit.

When you make the trip, be sure not to miss the Elberton Granite Musuem located in nearby Elberton, Georgia. They have a nice Guidestones replica, brochures describing the monument specifications and a short film about its construction.

Location

The Georgia Guidestones are situated approximately 7 miles north of Elberton, Georgia on Highway 77. Or about 1.3 miles south of the Hart-Elbert County line and about 7.8 miles south of Hartwell, Georgia. In case you somehow miss noticing the big granite blocks along the roadside, small signs announce the Guidestones location. Google Map

Resources

Flickr Guidestones
New Georgia Encyclopedia - Georgia Guidestones
Georgia Guidestones - America's Stonehenge
Wikipedia's entry for the Georgia Guidestones
The Georgia Guidestones
Georgia Guidestones rival mystery of Stonehenge
Georgia Guidestones
Dismantling The Georgia Guidestones
Call for the Stones Removal - MP3 file
Surfing the Apocolypse
Illuminati Monument to World Domination
Illuminati Ten Commandments
Christians demand removal of “satanic monument”
Georgia Guidestones - A Warning - Google Video
The Garden of Eden in Georgia
As They Stand They Point Everywhere

Travel | Tour Guide | Georgia
Georgia Guidestones | New World Order | Conspiracy

FACT - It's War!!! We just don't know what to call it.

— Tuesday, April 11, 2006 —
FACT: 0 eigenstates

7.25 score years ago, this very day, the bloodiest war in US History, the Civil War, or The War for Constitutional Liberty... or The War for Southern Independence, The Second American Revolution, The War for States' Rights, Mr. Lincoln's War, The Southern Rebellion, The War for Southern Rights, The War of the Southern Planters, The War of the Rebellion, The Second War for Independence, The War to Suppress Yankee Arrogance, The Brothers' War, The War of Secession, The Great Rebellion, The War for Nationality, The War for Southern Nationality, The War Against Slavery, The Civil War Between the States, The War of the Sixties, The War Against Northern Aggression, The Yankee Invasion, The War for Separation, The War for Abolition, The War for the Union, The Confederate War, The War of the Southrons, The War for Southern Freedom, The War of the North and South, The Lost Cause, The Recent Unpleasantness or whatever you like to call it, began with an exchange of fire between the defending men under Union Major Robert Anderson and the seiging forces of Confederate Brigadier General Pierre G. T. Beauregard. Anderson and his men soon surrendered as the first prisoners of the Civil War and the country changed forever.

"The war produced more than 970,000 casualties (3 percent of the population), including approximately 560,000 deaths. The causes of the war, the reasons for the outcome, and even the name of the war itself, are subjects of much controversy, even today."

Now the answers to why all this happened, what we should call it and how the United States almost perished in the smoke and fire of civil war depends much on which historian's gospel you prefer. Sure, we've seen all the movies, they're all based on facts! The problem is, one stripe of historian will favor such-and-such ideas and insights over a different one's support of these-and-those facts and conclusions. And the folks these two self-loving inter-citing "established" historians label as "k00ks & crackpots" will usually go a bit further afield into the fringes and not-too-infrequently, stumble onto some ground-shaking and book-revising truth.

But you don't need any of them for perspective, not even the k00ks. Source files are easy to get these days and where do you think they got their ideas from in the first place? Take this day's famous event and read the letters and reports of the actual participants of the Battle of Fort Sumter. Remember, before the Civil War, this country was "These United States" and after more than half-a-million men died, we became "The United States." That small and costly shift signifies the beginning of what now is considered the US as a nation and these documents help clarify the mindset of the event's participants.

The Civil War and how it changed the world is a well-covered subject. So well-covered there are wildly varying accounts for why and how it happened. History can often be a conflicting subject, claimed as truth, based on whatever happens to be recognized as the correct and only facts. Can you just imagine the endless debates that last through the entire buffet at Whatever Annual Civil War (No! War Between the States!) Historians Conference? Just getting the program through the committee for printing must be an epic battle of wills.

Anyway, history is what they tell you it is. Sometimes, it's even what they Prophetize! But now, with more source documents being made available online every day, you have direct access to the history. It's everyone's history now. Some claim Abraham Lincoln was heard to say that "A tree is best measured when it is down..." in reference his approach to understanding complex problems. Whether he spoke it or not, that makes a lot of sense, so read up far-and-wide and decide for yourself!

Then call it whatever you like. I call it The Freemasonic Wars of the 1860s. And, if you look closely enough, you'll see they're about to resume.

FACT:

Edmund Ruffin, at 67 a Fire-eater secessionist, is said — and disputed — to be the one who fired the very first shot at Fort Sumter starting the Civil War. What's not disputed is Ruffin loading a gun and committing suicide on June 17, 1865. Bookends the War quite nicely. Thanks Ruffin!

April 12, 1861
History | The Civil War | Fort Sumter | FACT

Holy Blood, Holy Grail's Copyright Conspiracy Proves Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code FACTs

— Monday, April 10, 2006 —
FACT: 1 eigenstates

No doubt Messrs Baigent and Leigh will discern the hand of some gigantic conspiracy in all this; the truth is that they have made idiots of themselves.

The Grouchogandhi Timeline of Holy Blood, Holy Grail

1985 - Gg first doses on HBHG and imprints Jesus/Magdalen using The Illuminatus! Trilogy subculture circuit filter
1987 - Gg's second dose inspires deeper research for travel plans; Fringe culture BBS's endlessly discuss HBHG theories
1988 - Eco's Foucault's Pendulum published, HBHG imprinting affirmed
1989 - Gg buys just-published English translation of FP, begins backpacking Europe-style and uses HBHG as tour guide to visit Rennes-le-Chateau
1990 to Present - Gg begins obsessive study of the Knights Templar, Cathars, Crusade and Papal history, Early Church history, Biblical Archaeology Review, Arab-islamic history, Freemasonry, the Founding Fathers, Solomon's Temple, the Sephiroth, Ark of the Covenant, alchemy and, of course, R.E.M.

Dan Brown has just successfully obtained a unique license to manifest Holy Grails! As you've already likely heard, the bizarre copyright infringement lawsuit brought by authors Baigent and Leigh claiming their book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail had been stolen by Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and they wanted satisfaction, damnit! ...and they lost not only the case, but their credibility. They did win a rather large legal bill for their troubles. Justice after all!

First, let's see, your classic conspiracy book is cited in just about every history of the Crusades, you made Knights Templar fashionable again and you inspired a cottage industry. Secondly, books sales are way up in secondary marketing, your theory is popular culture all over the world and you decide your brilliant marketing move is to go totally discredit yourselves and sue. Two strikes! Well, at least the hometown fans have your back. And, still, your new book, The Jesus Papers, is getting all kinds of press! And, yet, the Grail slips away again not before cursing B & L's respectability.

Behold! The Grail has passed to the adept hands of Dan Brown. Now, we'll see some real marketing. And with these, he can annoint kings. As The Da Vinci Code movie marketing engine starts up for the film's now-cleared May release, Brown is back writing through his first book since The Da Vinci Code's astounding success: The Solomon Key. If you're a researcher and want some cash flow on your properties, a Brown citing will be huge.

The Solomon Key. Hmmm, that title has a familiar ring to it, let's see... could it be something related to authors Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas's The Hiram Key. Don't hear them complaining, do you? Of course not, they're rational. They're actual Freemasons, after all. And as rumors swirl the next book will involve Freemasonry and Masonic decipherings throughout Washington, DC city planning and architecture, there's a pre-publish cottage industry popping up. There's a new genre congealing. Meeting on the Square and being On the Level and all that. Welcome to the party, pink boys! Housewives will be debating Hiram Abiff and mothers will be naming children Boaz and Jachin. Will no one help the Widow's Son?

And yet, how far do the connections reach??? Now revealed and confirmed as the Fisherking, Dan Brown lords over a money-making realm blessed with many grails and dollar signs.

Dollar signs. $$$ Huh, another Masonic symbol. We'll discuss more about that later.

FACT:

Gg was convinced Foucault's Pendulum was some weird PKD-mindtrick specifically directed to influence the Digitarians.

Dan Brown | Da Vinci Code
Holy Blood, Holy Grail | Conspiracy

Ron Bonds, the Elvon Prezton of the Lunatic Fringe

— Friday, April 07, 2006 —
FACT: 0 eigenstates

5 years ago today a good friend of mine, Ron Bonds, passed away. Ron was a special person and had established himself as the go-to-guy for the entire conspiracy subculture of the 1980s and 1990s. Ron, in short, was THE MAN. His publishing company, IllumiNet Press, produced a body of work that traces the sources for today's ever-growing occult pop-culture craze.

Ron was a singularly unique fellow who shared his wonder, illumination and a wicked wit with anyone he met. Read an extensive biography of Ron Bonds over at our good friend's site, The Burning Taper.

For a sampling of Ron's High Weirdness, here's an outtake from the soon-to-be released IllumiNet Transmissions.

It will amuse and annoy the hell out of you!

Subculture | Strange Deaths | Ron Bonds | Conspiracy

Grouchogandhi Remixes

Here's a small random collection of some simple remixes I've put together.

Enjoy!

H50ACO Mix
Toxic (booooring mix)
Who The Hell Are You People?
Wicked Game (rubber ducky singalong mix)

Music | Remixes | Mashup | Grouchogandhi

Replicant (M) Des: LEON	NEXUS-6 N6MAC41717
Incept Date: 10 APRIL, 2017	Func: Combat/Loader (Nuc. Fiss)
Phys: LEV. A	Mental: LEV. C