S. Clay Wilson, R.I.P. (1941-2021)

An excerpt from Sam Whiting's 2-10-21 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE obituary entitled "S. Clay Wilson, Ingenious Underground Comix Artist, Dies at 79," which offers an overview of S. Clay Wilson's artistic career, from the underground comix movement of the 1970s all the way to the 21st century:

Back in the maximum-outrage years of underground comix in the 1970s, S. Clay Wilson was known for the Checkered Demon, a short and stubby antihero who wore checkered pants as he busted the heads of bikers, pirates and lowlifes, to the delight of readers of Zap, Yellow Dog, Arcade and other anthologies.

A uniquely San Francisco character and brilliant illustrator, Wilson had a long career using Dicks Bar in the Castro as his mailing address, message center and appointment place. Wilson outlasted Dicks, and he outlasted underground comix before finally dying, on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 7, at his home on 16th Street, half a block from the Dicks location.

His death was announced by his widow, Lorraine Chamberlain, in a series of rambling Facebook posts that began, “He’s gone. At 4 p.m. yesterday. I sat next to him all day yesterday, telling him stories … one of arriving here in a crowd of topless women on Pride Day.”

Wilson had been bedridden for two years because of the lingering effects of a traumatic brain injury he suffered after either a fall or a mugging while drunkenly walking home from a friend’s home on Nov. 1, 2008. At that time, he was found in the pouring rain, facedown between two parked cars.

He came out of a coma after three weeks and drew comics for Zap while still in the hospital. He’d lost his capacity for clever dialogue but kept trying to draw until his cognitive skills declined. He was 79.

“Wilson was a one-of-a-kind original guy,” said another one-of-a-kinder, Ron Turner, publisher of Last Gasp Books and Comics. “Nobody could imitate him. What looked like a jumbled mess on the page was always a smoothly told tale" [...].

“Wilson will go down as one of the boldest cartoonists in art history,” [said Patrick] Rosenkranz [author of a three-volume series titled “The Mythology of S. Clay Wilson"]. “He outdid all of his predecessors in his depiction of sexual deviation, mutilation and perversities of every stripe. But gallows humor was at the heart of all of it. There was something funny happening in the middle of the picture and you had to search to find it.”

To read Whiting's entire article, click HERE.

G. Gordon Liddy on FRESH AIR

From Phil Helsel and Julie Goldstein's 3-30-21 NBC NEWS obituary for Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy (1930-2021):

G. Gordon Liddy, the political operative who supervised the Watergate burglary, which brought down President Richard Nixon, died Tuesday, his family said. He was 90.

Liddy's family said in a statement that he died Tuesday morning at his daughter's home in Mount Vernon, Virginia. It did not give a cause of death. His son, James, said that the cause was not related to Covid-19, and that he had been dealing with Parkinson's disease.

Liddy was one of the organizers of the 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the office building with the name that would forever be linked to one of the biggest political scandals in American history.

The five burglars were caught. Money and other links would lead from the burglars to others, including Liddy, a former FBI agent, and to the White House.

Nixon resigned in 1974 in the face of an almost-certain impeachment and conviction.

Liddy was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in 1973 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Years later, he declared, "I'd do it again for my president."

You can read Helsel and Goldstein's entire article HERE.

I recommend listening to this 1980 interview with Liddy conducted by Terry Gross of FRESH AIR. What follows is a relevant excerpt, which gives the listener a valuable peek inside the mind of a professional "Dirty Trickster" who considered his crimes "illegal" but not "morally wrong" simply because he was following orders handed to him by the president of the United States:

TERRY GROSS: When do you believe that a person is above the law? Is a person ever above the law?

G. GORDON LIDDY: No, a person is never above the law so long as one understands what the law is and certain maxims about the law. First of all, I believe that what Cicero said is correct. The good of the people is the chief law. The question logically next to him is, well, who's to say what's the good of the people, you know - you, Gordon Liddy? Well, certainly not.

The person who is chargeable with that responsibility is the president because he's the one who is elected by the people [...].

GROSS: So if a president says, yes, I think it's a good idea to bug Democratic National Committee headquarters, or, yes, I think it's a good idea to assassinate a person, then, in that case, it becomes as if it was legal because you've gotten the corroboration...

LIDDY: Well, no. It doesn't become - we've got to distinguish here because you're getting into a legal area and a technical area, and I think it's important for us to distinguish. I was engaged in two different kinds of work when I was at the White House. One was, in my judgment, legal. It involved national security and not politics, and that was the activities of the Odessa Group when we were, for example, trying to determine whether Daniel Ellsberg was a romantic loner of the left or whether he was an agent of the KGB.

Now, that, in my judgment at that time, the state of the law at the time was clearly legal. On the other hand, when I was no longer with the Odessa Group and we were engaging in a political campaign and seeking political intelligence, clearly what was done was illegal but not wrong - morally wrong [...].

GROSS: I'd like to get back to the separation that you made between what's legally and what's morally wrong and what's legally and morally OK. One of the things that you were considering doing when you were trying to monitor Daniel Ellsberg was to put LSD in his soup before a speech that he had to give.

LIDDY: Right. That had been approved from above as a technique to disorient him. Right.

GROSS: Now, where does it fit into in the spectrum of...

LIDDY: Well, elsewhere...

GROSS: ...Legality and morality?

LIDDY: Yeah, no problem with that either because had Ellsberg been a political opponent, I would say that that would have been wrong. Ellsberg was not a political opponent. Ellsberg was someone who was stealing and had stolen highly classified information. And when one does that, when one puts oneself in the posture of an enemy or an antagonist of the state, one really ought not to be surprised when the state strikes back. It's the same situation as the thing we had in the '60s. When you, you know, riot and burn and things of that sort, you ought not to be surprised when the National Guard is called out, and you get yourself shot. You're asking for it. And I don't have any problems with that at all.

GROSS: When you, G. Gordon Liddy, put acid in someone's soup, or when you consider attempting to assassinate someone, that is different than a person who has had a fair trial, which is the demands in this country. It's something we cherish. In one case, you're taking the law in your hands, and you are being the arbiter of what's right and what's wrong and what's legally correct, what's morally correct.

LIDDY: No. You see; the difference is...

GROSS: In another, it's an organized system with checks and balances in it and either a jury or a judge. Is that correct for you to be...

LIDDY: No. If I were a gas station attendant, your argument would make sense. But I was working for the president of the United States. And the difference is, as I think I may have mentioned - Cicero said the chief law is to go to the people. And laws are inoperative in war.

WIDOW OF THE AMPUTATION & OTHER WEIRD CRIMES

Today marks the official publication day of my sixth book, WIDOW OF THE AMPUTATION & OTHER WEIRD CRIMES (courtesy of Eraserhead Press). Through the miracle of synchronicity, Crossroad Press will be releasing my seventh book, BELA LUGOSI'S DEAD, later this same week...but for now, please celebrate this April Fool's Day by picking up a copy of WIDOW OF THE AMPUTATION & OTHER WEIRD CRIMES, a collection of four novellas that explore the madness of murder through the warped lenses of urban noir, science fiction, horror, and experimental fantasy.... 

Click HERE to buy a copy now!

Yokota Ghost Hunter Club

From Erica Earl's 3-18-21 MILITARY TIMES article entitled "Air Force Chaplain Cleanses Yokota Air Base Homes Where 'Odd Things Occur'":

The headquarters of U.S. Forces Japan may also be home to supernatural activity, according to a couple who claim to help anyone dealing with paranormal disturbances to rid their homes of unwanted spirits.

Chaplain (Capt.) Lance Brown, of Yokota's 374th Wing Staff Agency, and his wife, Karen Brown, who is working on a master's in counseling, have been performing home cleanses, or anointings, for the past eight years in homes where "odd things occur."

Supernatural activity is reported so often at this base in western Tokyo that it inspired a Facebook group, Yokota Ghost Hunter Club. Its members post about paranormal phenomena they've experienced at their homes and workplaces.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

BIGFOOT FAMILY

From Leyland Cecco's 3-15-21 GUARDIAN article entitled "Canadian Lobbyists Attack Netflix Children's Film for 'Anti-oil Propaganda'":

The animated film Bigfoot Family has come under fire in Canada – but not because of its stilted dialogue or confusing plot.

Instead, a government-funded lobbying group has targeted the movie – a fantasy epic featuring a human family whose father is Bigfoot – on the grounds that it “peddles lies” about the oil and gas industry.

The Netflix film, panned by critics, centres on an energy company’s nefarious scheme to detonate a bomb in a pristine Alaska valley to flood it with crude oil.

Although the film is set in the US, the Canadian Energy Centre, funded by the province of Alberta, has launched a campaign against the movie, which it says “brainwashes” children with “anti-oil and gas propaganda”.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Beware of Books!

1) From Otis Houston's 3-19-21 PERSUASION article entitled "Beware of Books!":

If we expect literature to fix social problems, we wrongly imagine it as a wrench that might twist the world into a more pleasing position. This is to misunderstand art, which challenges and expands our sense of the world, rather than simplifying it. Art forces us to see with complexity. In return, we must accept that no easy solution awaits. Profound writing is never just an answer.

To read Houston's entire article, click HERE.

2) From Brock Clarke's 3-17-21 LIT HUB article entitled "On the Case for Meanness in Fiction":

What is good for you as a person is often bad for you as a writer. People will tell you that this not true, and some of the people who will tell you that are also writers, but they are bad writers, at least when they try to convince you, and themselves, that the most important thing for a fiction writer to have is compassion.

To read Clarke's entire article, click HERE.

3) From Rebecca Jones' 3-1-21 BBC report entitled "Sir Kazuo Ishiguro Warns of Young Authors Self-censoring Out of 'Fear'":

Young authors may be self-censoring because they worry they will be "trolled" or "cancelled", according to celebrated writer Sir Kazuo Ishiguro.

Sir Kazuo, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017, warned that a "climate of fear" was preventing some people from writing what they want.

He said they may be concerned that an "anonymous lynch mob will turn up online and make their lives a misery".

He told the BBC: "I very much fear for the younger generation of writers."

The 66-year-old said he was worried that less established authors were self-censoring by avoiding writing from certain viewpoints or including characters outside their immediate experiences.

"I think that is a dangerous state of affairs," added the acclaimed author, whose works include The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go.

To read Jones' entire report, click HERE.

4 Proud Boys Charged With Conspiracy

From Ryan Lucas' 3-19-21 NPR report entitled "4 Proud Boys Charged With Conspiracy Over Jan. 6 Capitol Riot":

Four alleged leaders of the Proud Boys have been indicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol over allegedly conspiring, including in discussions on encrypted messaging apps, to obstruct the certification of President Biden's Electoral College victory.

The indictment unsealed Friday charges the defendants — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zach Rehl and Charles Donohoe — with six counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of law enforcement, destruction of government property and conspiracy.

According to the indictment, Nordean is the president of his local Proud Boy chapter in Washington state; Biggs is a Proud Boy member and organizer in Florida; Rehl is the president of a local chapter of the group in Philadelphia; and Donohoe is the president of his local Proud Boy chapter in North Carolina. Nordean and Biggs had previously been charged by complaint.

The defendants are the latest with ties to the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, to face conspiracy charges over their alleged roles in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.

To read the entire report, click HERE.