Build Date: Thu Jan 30 05:30:36 2025 UTC
You know, these beers are only the beginning...
-- El Snatcher
Intergalactic Arcosanti
1999-07-14 20:20:39
So, I first heard of this Arcosanti on "Real People" back in, like, 1978 or something. I think they sent that weird guy named "Skip" out to Arizona to harass these poor hippies who were building a new, ecologically sound and self-sustaining city. It came on right after the dog with three legs.
Arcosanti is REAL WEIRD. I guess the deal is these freako hippy folk decided to make a big ol' crazy desert house (kinda like Burning Man, but all year) out in the deep shithole evil desert of Arizona. It was crazed and hot and bad there, and there were giant poison reptiles the size of a ICE CREAM TRUCK, with big FANGS dripping fiery venom, but that didn't stop these people, because they were on a MISSION.
At least, this is what I gleaned from Skip, the blond guy from "Real People."
Anyways, they had this super-crazy meth-thin Italian guy with a real bad desert burn like a prospector who would keep them all going by regaling them with crazed ideas about architecture and ecology and apocalyptic fervor and adobe and cactus and stuff. I guess he got them moving pretty well, because by 1978 (only a few years after they'd started) they'd built a few good buildings and were able to play host to smarmy talk show guys like Skip.
So, I figured that these Arcosanti people were all dead now or on crazy sand drugs sleeping on the streets of Phoenix, and their building would be destroyed, and some bad rednecks would be selling fireworks and T-shirts out of a trailer on the spot. Hell, it just goes to figger, doesn't it?
But NO! They are still around, alive and kicking! And their crazy city, too. I can't believe it! Apparently they have made a FORTUNE selling those crazy windchime bells that your weird New-Agey aunt has a ton of on her back porch, with little coyotes and cactuses and stuff on them. So they could keep their CRAZED VISION in the desert ALIVE. You have to give them credit, man.
T O P S T O R I E S
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
The Once & Future King of Dust
Only The Onion could have acquired Infowarts. (More...)
Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk... (More...)
Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch
True or false? The answers await us in that magical land where all truths are revealed -- the internet. (More...)
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
Three Days and 25 Spocktails: A Cautionary Tale
Johnnie Royale picked me up from the dental surgery. I felt warm, safe, cradled in the anathesia's loving embrace. The pharmacy downstairs gave me a bottle of Vicodin and a few instructions: take it with food, don't mix with alcohol, don't operate heavy machinery. I put it in my pocket and we left. "Do you want to go home, or do you want to go to a bar?" asked Johnnie. (More...)
Brother Wayne Lays Down the Truth
Flesh interviews Wayne Kramer of MC5. (More...)
The Walken / Country Bear Conspiracy
As has been recently reported in the PDJ, Christopher Walken, evil s00per villain extraordinaire, will be appearing next month in Disney's newest release, The Country Bear Movie. Always playing some wicked and very disturbed badass in movies like Sleepy Hollow, Illuminata, The Prophecy I, II, III, Pulp Fiction, Batman Returns, The Milagro Beanfield War, A View to a Kill, The Dogs of War, Heaven's Gate, and The Deer Hunter, Walken is unsuprisingly a big favorite in the PDJ news room. (More...)
The Ancient and Correct Sake Ceremony
Many Americans have learned to appreciate the delicate, sophisticated flavors of Japanese food and drink, along with the beautifully refined rituals of Japanese dining. San Francisco, as a gateway between East and West, has especially benefited from the flowering of Eastern consciousness in America. It is hardly possible to walk down the street without stepping on somebody's sushi. (More...)
There are two kinds of Assmen in this world. Wild, hairy assmen, who put stickers that say things like "Why Be Normal?" all over their trucks and drink Corona beer and wear fezzes at parties for attention; these are the Assman Desperados. Our job is to ferret them out and expose them. (More...)
The One I Feel Sorry For Is Joses
We've had a lot of Jesus coverage lately here at the PDJ. But let's face it, we're not exactly cutting-edge in this subject area. Jesus has been making headlines for, oh, I guess it's a couple thousand years now. Jesus is a very strong brand. Jesus has a lot of mindshare. (More...)