The following year, Osterhout put together his first-ever band, Purple Geezus, and enlisted the Workdogs as his rhythm section. Williams joined up soon after. Not long after the group's debut, Osterhout, along with writer/scenester Carlo McCormick, conceived their own religious sect, which they named the Church of the Little Green Man. With Osterhout at the pulpit, the Dogs became his musical henchmen and Williams the church organist. "Choir rehearsal is something the public will never know about," says Williams. "It was an event that only the inner circle of the church and the Workdogs will ever know about -- the creation of the rhythm and the state of mind that had to be archived by the participants before the rites could take place."

The Weekly Sunday night services quickly drew a large congregation, who burned a buck for admission. Fervent worshipers also turned out for Purple Geezus and Workdogs shows on other nights of the week. Their reputations grew, and though Purple Geezus eventually fizzled, Osterhout remained a Workdogs admirer. "I really like their whole concept of the rhythm section being the front people, having the traditional 'front people' being expendable, that the Workdogs are a rhythm section for hire, approaching it as a conceptual art piece, rather than a typical band with 'Let's get a record out, go on tour and get famous, those kind of things, they don't have any of that. They continue to play and stay at the same conceptual level -- it's amazing to me that those guys still do it with such consistency."

When I was at UT Austin an Iranian artist did an installation at a local gallery that was constructed such that the visitors had to walk on top of a U.S. flag to see/pass thru the installation. Somehow he survived.

I'm not sure what would happen in today's climate, in which even in SF artists and gallery owners are subject to physical attack by actual fascists (as opposed to "blogofascists".)

- mark 7-01-2006 2:12 am [add a comment]

What--someone did the piece Dread Scott got famous for before he got famous?

I'd be curious to know more about this earlier affront to our values. Just passingly, though--not sure the idea merits extensive research.
- tom moody 7-01-2006 3:06 am [add a comment]

I did a little googling, but couldn't find anything. I'm pretty sure it was covered by the Daily Texan, but their on-line archives don't go back that far. This happened over a decade B.W. (before web).
- mark 7-01-2006 6:10 am [add a comment]

Yesterday's Senate debate on flag desecration showed that Democrats are as clueless as ever about who they are and what they should stand for. Case in point, Hillary Clinton's ongoing attempt to rebrand herself as a red state friendly DLC Dem by supporting a bill that would have criminalized flag desecration while still holding on to her liberal bona fides by voting against the Constitutional amendment banning it.

[....]

And it wasn't just Hillary. Kerry, Biden, Boxer, Durbin, Kennedy, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Obama, and Shumer all also voted against the amendment but for the criminalization bill because, according to the Times, "Democrats who voted for the [bill] in effect bought themselves the right to claim that they had voted against flag desecration, potentially inoculating themselves against possible charges of lacking patriotism in a general election campaign." In other words, they earned the right to declare that they actually voted against flag desecration before they voted "for" it (by voting no on the amendment). Yep, that's exactly the kind of pragmatic thinking that "wins elections for Democrats

Feinstein voted for the amendment, because, you know, in a state that elected Boxer in a landslide, you can't be too careful. One of my gripes with her is that she seems to always have her eye on "greater aspirations", e.g. being Veep. Hillary has the same problem, only worse. Just be the best damn senator you can be, represent your constituents, and quit pandering to the yahoos.
- mark 7-01-2006 7:13 pm [add a comment]