Jesus is Vinyl: more insane LP propaganda.

LPCover Lover is a museum of insanity, a taste of just how far we've evolved as a species in the last 50 years.  Before VHS and cassette media, record publishers got to display their wares directly to the consumer on big flat bits of cardboard.  Record stores were all mini art exhibitions, only without a curator or even an auditor.  The closest you got to censorship was an individually applied strip of tape over some chick's boobs, and thanks to unlimited store access by schoolboys, that tape never lasted long.

What gets me is just how big the religious market was for records.  Every evangelicist and redneck choir pressed and sold big vinyl discs on the premise that customers would find paradise, healing and peace with every purchase.  The flip side of religion, of course, is that you need to throw in a little scare as well as salvation.  Only thing was, back in the '60s and '70s the only limit on Christian horror themes was the imagination of the producers.  As a result you ended up with some very confusing messages.

God of Blood & Doom

Unlike normal vampires, the Lord need only feed upon you once, puny mortals.

Aha! A cover covered in dripping blood to match the sanguine livery of His followers.  In this context the message of beholding lambs becomes less of an invitation and more of a dire, occult threat.

And this... this is just fucking depressing.  Who wants to be constantly reminded of mortality by these two?

Afraid that your city is about to get nuked?  Don't be, just join me and my two rapey mates here in the forest where the transparent arms of our poorly sketched Creator can embrace you.  Hell, why not invite your fat friend along for the ride?

The Cross and the Switchblade was an acclaimed story, no argument there, but why juxtapose a giant smiley Nicky face with what is clearly a brutal crime in progress?

Apparently God doesn't give a shit what drugs you do so long as you do them in his name.  I mean, look, the junkie is shooting up and holding open his Bible at the same time!  Now that takes Faith, brothers and sisters.

God vs E.T.

When the Truncated Penismen of Probos IX land on your extremely small jetty you better be ready to salute them.  In this inevitable scenario the Lord will then Saith unto Thee: "I never fucking created these wrinkly condom men, you're on your own, pal."

Do you the know the primary, defining difference between an accepted religion and a cult?  Motherships.  If your Pastor invites onto a flying saucer to spread the Word to Alpha Centauri then you're only one glass of funny-smelling cordial away from eternity.  Also, real religions tend to employ proper cover artists for their records.

When you play this record you will only hear the following, brief answer: "Nothing, no mention of spaceships whatsoever, because it's the fucking Bible, not a comic book.  Seriously, you had to buy a record to find this out?"  The next 23 minutes is just a track of Jesus laughing in your face.

Horrible Things in the Name of Your God

Look at the visage of horror in that black woman's face.  It's obvious that she's possessed and/or about to be lynched.  Lucky for her a local representative of the White Christ is on hand to answer a few questions about the plague of racial possession that was sweeping 1950's America at the time.  Sadly such brave preachers were eventually unable to exorcise the demons of Emancipation and Equal Rights in the end.

Oh what a surprise, this demonic host is also black.  I'm not sure what sort of device the creepy white exorcist is about to ram in this kid's mouth but it seems to have a power cable, which can't be good.

It is in fact the final confession of this troll to the little girl's family before they dragged him to the Chair.

Sorry, way too easy, people.  Next!

WHAT DID I JUST SAY!?

Welcome to the Church of Awesome

 See what you've missed, Gen Y?  Karate Church!
Who wouldn't want to see that?  I'm not totally clear what a 'Karatist' is, but it's probably a mix of karateka (the actual term for an exponent of the Japanese martial art) and a guitarist!  That means rock n' roll plus fists of soul, people.  I may not be able to tell you how this guy resolves the whole Angry Christian/Shinto-based fighting style angle but I'm pretty sure that he just chopped 6 Bibles in half.








Not to be outdone by Mike Karatist Cain, Sensei Evangelist Dean here just power punched the last two remaining pieces of the Holy Cross in one go!  Dissatisfied with normal karate, Father Blakeney prefers Kung-fu Karate, depsite them being two totally different things.  How does he do this?  Fuck you, pagan, that's how!

Forget The Forgotten

I found out what Christian Slater has been up to lately by trying to watch the pilot to the new crime drama, The Forgotten. 18 mins in and I had to stop. This show runs along a similar vein to Cold Case, Bones and the whole CSI "scientists who think they're real cops" kinda deal, only one step more ridiculous. In The Forgotten, the unlikely team of sleuths have about as much credibility as the team in Scooby Doo. Here's the premise: they are meant to be volunteers who dedicate their spare time to identifying unknown murder victims after the police give up on the case. Read that sentence a few times and you should come up with a few questions, the far from least important being "What the fucking hell?"



When the cops decide "Aw, fuck it, we'll never ID this corpse" they turn the case over to a bunch of unqualified, amateur citizens who have zero resources, no formal investigative training, not a forensic degree between them, and who only work out of hours due to their normal day jobs. If it was a show about volunteers helping to track down missing persons I could buy it, but we're talking about unidentified murder victims, murder being the one kinda case the cops are never meant to give up on.  That's kinda what 'no statute of limitations on murder' means.



And how do these private citizens go about identifying homicide victims that the cops can't? Website postings? Public awareness campaigns? Billboards? Fuck that shit. One's a sculptor who, using only crime scene photos of a decomposed, partially devoured corpse, faithfully reconstructs a bust of the victim overnight. Because, of course, cops don't know how to do that sort of thing, having never attended art college. Meanwhile, the rest of the team chase leads, question suspects and chronicle the circumstantial evidence because cops never ever do that shit themselves.



You know what the cops are like: they get to the crime scene, find a body and ask "So, does anyone know who this is and who killed her? No? Damn, we've hit a brick wall. Better hand this over to Christian Slater and some other well meaning citizens. Maybe they can solve it, though if they do we'll look a bit silly cos we're meant to be the experts when it comes to the whole 'solving crime' thing. Oh, and if they do find the killer the courts might go tell us to fuck ourselves for letting amateurs abuse all that evidence we just arbitrarily handed over for no good reason. Oh well."



It's almost as though US crime drama is trying to ret-con the good old days when the Hardy Boys and Jessica Fletcher were the only ones supposedly qualified to solve murders. They're already doing it with that show Castle (a true waste of Nathan Fillion, though Stana Katic is super hot) but at least it's still cop based. It was old and boring then, and now it's old, boring and quantifiably insane. The beginning of the 21st century saw crime shows go high-tech, but producers weren't satisfied with just the nifty tech bit, so scientists were given guns and ambiguous law enforcement powers too. Now you don't even have to be on the police payroll, not even as a janitor, to solve crime. But there's actually several good reasons why psychics, stage magicians, novelists, sculptors and Christian Slater aren't actually allowed to investigate fatal crimes in real life, one of which is their habit of ignoring the fundamental 5 step process employed by just about all law enforcement agencies in the Western world:



1. Investigate the scene: the first thing a detective or investigator does when they arrive at a crime scene is put their hands in their pockets. This is to limit the chance of them actually touching anything while they survey the place and stop other people who aren't specially trained forensic techs from fucking touching shit like bullet casings, the body, cigarette butts and the like.

2. Investigate the evidence: once all the scene evidence has been secured, the photos taken, the reports from the FOS (first on scene) cop compiled and so on the detectives then review that shit to keep in mind for step 5.

3. Interview the public: ie any potential witnesses, being careful to record their statements in detail.

4. Review all documentation: this includes all that stuff recorded from steps 1 - 3 (and subsequent 'lab reports'), as well as any other relevant records that may pertain to the actions and whereabouts of any viable suspects.

5. Interview the suspect: when, and only when, has all relevant and expected evidence been collated and consulted will the police actually formally interview their suspect(s). The possible perpretrator may have been apprehended at the scene or soon after, but they wont be formally questioned until all this other data has come in, because cops need facts to form those questions. Also, suspects hardly ever confess on the spot or even in interview rooms, especially in cases as complicated as murder.



The other bit with these shows - and crime fiction in general - is the emphasis on the 'true motive' of criminals. Police don't really give a shit about focusing on motives. In order to build a case they need to know 'where', 'when', 'who' and 'how'. The 'why' bit is almost irrelevant, either because it's really fucking obvious (eg: biker retaliation killing) or unfathomable (Spenser Spreekill hated the last Star Trek film so much that the audience had to die). Motive never mitigates pre-meditated murder so long as the suspect is culpable (they know murder is wrong outside of video games) and capable (their hands work well enough to operate a gun/knife/chainsaw).