Rod Pitman On Always Keeping A Passport

Always keep a passport and a phalanx of attorneys in your pocket; you’ll be fine. Kohel Haver and I first met as volunteers on the board of a non-profit organization that was a cover for a black ops project known as the “Frequency Fence”. This bio-neurological, electromagnetically induced form of mind- control blocks the higher sensory abilities. With the discovery that electrical power generating stations and household appliances were being utilized to “broadcast” electromagnetic distortion and create a perceptual mental chain- gang, I felt all our good work was looking rather grim.

A good attorney is both vile and pernicious, but the downside is they are all infected with Bagnarians’ disease. A world-class proctologist at Oregon Health Sciences University described the symptoms as “virtually undetectable” until the infected become totally consumed by their own asshole. It makes a simple outbreak of meningitis pale in comparison. Regardless, Kohel and I have gotten along like two innocent men in a maximum-security cell. My hysteria and hallucinations increased as it became more apparent that things were turning really wrong with the recurring theme being ‘botched civilization.’ Kohel kept reminding me that he was not a criminal attorney [I think he meant his activities were limited to petty crimes and misdemeanors] and ended most of his sentences with “I don’t want to know.” Unfortunately, this was less than reassuring with sweet dreams not to be.

Kohel initially struck me as a chubby, bon vivant prince. A cross between a man dressed as a woman trying to get on the life boat, and Elmer Fudd in Khakis bearing automatic weapons. Don’t get me wrong, maybe not the last of the buffalo, but a sexy beast none-the-less. With the detachment of a chrysalis he was quite the conversationalist, leaping off the starting block by quoting one or several of Boetcker’s “Seven Rational Crimes”; 1. I don’t think. 2. I don’t know. 3. I don’t care. 4. I am too busy. 5. I leave well enough alone. 6. I have no time to read. 7, I am not interested. This was usually accompanied by a reptilian licking of the lips in concert with his eyes darting suspiciously back and forth as if searching for some ill-imagined furtive move. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and venture to say these “mannerisms” were more simian in nature, possibly a holdover from the bend in his genetic road map.

When Kohel asked me to make a contribution towards his venture into this written nether world, my bibliophobia aside, the paranoia ran deep. I initially thought he was banking on the notoriety of my capital crimes and RICO violations to spark enough search engine cross-references and subsequent book sales to propel his disenfranchised children through Ivy-League universities, The more I contemplated this, the less reasonable it seemed. What became self-evident was the pressing question of; In this mental prison of the malicious, snooping, interfering, and self-righteous, who can you trust more than a cell mate? He may be confused about a number of things, but one thing is for sure, after our mutual dealings with a group of rubes who were totally lacking in humor, charity, and common human decency, he would never enlist me to push dogma, as we both know all too well, that is where all intellectual activity ceases.

Whatever Kohel’s motivation might be in having me cough up this hairball, any good that may come of it is a double-edged sword. Imagine the fear that must course through the veins at night as he ponders what I may have “nicked” in this little prequel that could come back to haunt him. Forget the fact that my participation immediately brands him as a leper with his colleagues. I’ve been scape-goated and demonized by a lot worse, but now that the attorneys are running Hollywood, his including my preamble in this book may put the whole legal profession at risk. My expose on their cabalistic language, Masonic handshakes, corrupt judges, insider deals, etc., puts the whole idea of a bar ethics committee [what an oxymoron] in question.

Maybe Kohel figures; “What difference does it make anyway?” Worse case he might be opening himself up to more professional jealousy. It’s like the Gideon’s filing a copyright suit against King James. Maybe I need to give him more credit. After all, one has to be pretty fluid to move freely between the uptown “professionals” and the downtown villainy. As you can see, I used the term professionals loosely. It’s always been my experience that whenever the subject of “lack of professionalism” is brought up [which is bound to happen when the assassins see my name] that usually indicates someone trying to “snow the snowman” by getting you to “assume the position”, hoping that’s where everyone’s eyes are as the accuser perpetrates his criminal act under the guise of “professionalism” or good sensibility and “proper” codes of conduct acceptable within the community.

Call me crazy, but I bet there’s an attorney right now filing suit against this textual tantrum: John and Jane Doe vs. Kohel Haver, et. al., [I’m assuming I’ll be covered under his malpractice policy] “Judge, this writing is both the perpetrator and the victim’s cerebral DNA sample exposed.” If they take it before a hanging judge and flash him the cryptic hand signal, he’ll grant a temporary injunction “For Texas and Miss Lilly”. Then they can sort out who the plaintiffs are in this class action lawsuit later.

I’m sorry to say that the subject of this book is an exercise in compromised nihilism that collapses every time it seems like it makes any kind of sense. I suggest Kohel contact a good sex mag and cut a deal to intersperse his text with pictures of mutually supportive subject matter. Even though it’s hard to tell where the impetus for this manifesto starts or leaves off, giving credit where credit is due, [no pun intended] we are taken to the abyss of rather droll subject matter, then adeptly brought back to question the existence of authentic ideas in a manner that begs to ask the carnal question as to what reality does the concept of intellectual property being proprietary conform?

Just because this is a daunting task, don’t let that be a deterrent to your education. One thing I can tell you, there is nothing here that is predictable. In a world where the paternalistic instincts of an entertainment attorney can easily spill over into the paedophile, one cannot help but get the many paradoxes found in the subject matter, as well as the underlying feeling of propriety mixed with dirty thoughts such as those that might be aroused by meeting the children’s teacher in a porn shop. I’m not knocking the profession here entirely. In Kohel’s case, I suspect he at least has a higher class of client than his “slip and fall,” divorce, or, heaven forbid, corporate law compadres. Speaking of which, when his legal amigos hear the horse hooves through the intellectual property doorway, they will undoubtedly all cry out “¿Quien es? ¿Quien Es? (Who [or I should say, Who’s there?] is it?) If they like the answer they will send someone a bill, otherwise it’s Bat Masterson in a new suit, it’s a lawsuit, and you’ll have one in the morning.

With this bible of Kohel’s in one hand and creative license in the other, “the suits” get their necessary platitudes as mechanisms for a capitalistic order in this “karma sutra like” instruction manual, and the artist gets some relief for the anxiety and panic caused by their hip-hopish, maniacal, knee–jerk mistrust of conformity. Makes for a nice literary symbiosis, however the relationship drawn here is both enigmatic and complex. On the one hand you are “keeping the allowance” coming for some, [so they can buy more milk and crayons], while allowing others to have the freedom to keep dreaming their psychic visions of car crashes without the fear of infringing on copyrights.

Enough of the big words, let’s put on some garlic, grab the mirrors, a cross and drive a stake in this puppy. Apologies all around, but Kohel didn’t hand me this task because I mince words. Watch out if you have some sort of a monolithic God crush this preamble is not meant as a testament towards good loosing to evil, but in a landscape so spiritually barren, Lennon’s quote; “God is a concept by which we measure our pain.” becomes easily believable to those on the fence. This is not a book of prayer, and, subsequently, where one may previously have viewed art as something aesthetic, it quickly takes on such a nightmarish hue and covetous overtone, that if Old Testament King David’s art was his “Secret Sin,” then Bathsheba’s pregnancy would be the proof of her plagiarism. Moses could sign for the sequel, then make a comeback with a few new commandments. Better hide the tablets, but for now, the jury is out.

Like a preface to some Aleister Crowley children’s story, with the knowledge you learn from here forward, you can never go back. After various deliberations, I forced this summary, which I’m afraid, underplays the ways in which this tome becomes a camera obscura. Without Hollywood, [which is now run by attorneys] there would be less of a need for this book. Here is a group who’s ethical compass is so lost they write their own movie reviews. Now I will take the opportunity to point out the doublespeak madness that comes with the subject matter. Here we have humans pointing at other humans and saying “You’re the Karaoke Singer”, “No, you’re the Karaoke singer”. “You can’t steal from me what I’ve worked so hard to steal from others without even asking.” It’s ridiculous. Theft may be the highest form of flattery, but ultimately, it usually boils down to who has the pawn ticket.

So let’s elevate this whole debate a little, while at the same time reducing it in simplicity to playing both sides of a game of Go. My answer to an intellectual property theft conviction is this; Get a noose. The attorneys are already trying to figure out who owns the intellectual property rights to our public executions so they can put together a distribution deal. We can put these “intellectual property criminals” to death in some equivalent of a public square, and I will guarantee, above and beyond anything the “Right to Lifer’s” have to say, it will be a real deterrent. Have these live executions run first on CSPAN. Then sell the rights to a cartoon cable channel with the proceeds going to a national “Scared Straight” program. And… with good prime time ratings now practically requiring sexual frission combined with blood lust we can run an “intellectual property rights executions compilation extravaganza” with laughs for the whole family. I’m not saying a few innocent people won’t slip through the trap door, but I think the marketing and pr people can spin it as “the price of democracy.” In any case, the price is right.

If someone hires Robert Shapiro to “litigate” the infidels, the defendants can have a Johnny Cochran moment, or visa versa. I can hear Johnny now, reciting some Cartesian monologue about “What is reality anyway?” or “Even a fool knows, you can’t own parts of the moon. You see, the people in Hollywood think they are all geniuses. What they don’t realize is that true genius is the ability to recognize it in others. But then again, “the Business” is a secret society that can’t tell a joke much less a good story, and all their scripts and suicide notes sound the same. This is a direct result of God’s just anger against their evil, cutting them off from His goodness and the good movies that would otherwise be intrinsically theirs if they had not traded the quest for moral beauty (righteousness) for the moronic, insane privilege of defining “good film” on their own, ultimately self-destructive, terms.

You may think that all rationality has broken down at this point, so I’ll introduce this quasi-abstract theorem to get us back on terra firma. Godel’s proof: “A mathematical proof that under a specified consistency condition, any sufficiently strong formal axiomatic system must contain a proposition such that neither it nor its negation is provable and that any consistency proof for the system must use ideas and methods beyond those of the system itself.”

Better yet. Quoting from Wheeler’s Recognition Physics: Nothing exist until it is observed. Use that if you are the plaintiff, or show the “art” has been altered seven percent if you are the defendant. There’s my free jailhouse lawyer advice. Who’s a shameless faker? It’s like my own bar-b-q sauce or salad dressing. ‘Guaranteed’ to expose any posing miscreant Scaramouch.

I’m not just trying to baffle with bull here. “There is no such thing as science fiction, only science fact.” I want to say Arthur C. Clarke, said that, but if the spirit moves you, send Kohel an email if I’m wrong. Haver addresses the same concept here as scènes à faire. (“There is nothing new under the sun”). Currently, human evolution is such that our brains, as they exist now, unable to originate, or comprehend an original idea in this or any other parallel universe. I accuse alien replicants and other board members of this as if it’s a heinous crime, knowing full well it will fry what little is left of their cerebral hard drives. Ain’t I a stinker? One might think I’m obsessively dragging for bodies in this swamp, but this is the area that deserves every bit of attention and the book would be weightless without it.

In America [and probably in other places too], anyone can sue for anything. In L.A. it’s a corporate plot line. Whether they are right or wrong, it’s akin to being nibbled to death by a duck. What I’ve addressed here in a rather laborious manner, you can use as a tool. A guideline. It’s good. Too good, actually. First it seems useful and then reality kicks in and it’s horrible. Horrible and sad. If you want the be–all end-all, send Kohel a retainer check.

Rod Pitman – A New Series Of Stories

Veteran film producer and director Rod Pitman introduces a new series of stories from his work with the classic artists of the 1960’s and 70’s. Rod is an award-winning film and television producer airing over sixty (60) shows as well as creating entertainment programming for Warner Bros. Records, Warner Bros. Television and MTV. His work has been featured internationally at the British Film Institutes’ London Film Festival, and the IDFA International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, with distribution including NETFLIX, Amazon, iTunes & Hulu.

So many of those classic moments and clips of all of our childhood musical heroes were given to us through Rod’s eyes. What follows is an excerpt from an introductory interview about the early motivations for a career that played out in front of us all. Giving us the images that would shape a generation.

In 1968 or thereabouts I was going to school at Martha Turner Reilly grade school in Dallas. I remember arriving there in 1966 and the textbooks were from the infamous Texas Schoolbook depository in downtown Dallas. I remember being in my English class (the teacher’s name will come to me) and she was “issuing” kids their textbooks. So, when she set the book on your desk you were instructed to open it and on the inside of the cover on the left was where you “put your name” in the book. There was like a template where people had been writing their names from the first person that had the book forward. Even at nine years old I was astonished by what I saw . . .

There were people who I knew from the community whose parents were in the book. That was when my critical thinking kicked in and I went uh oh, what’s wrong with this picture? Immediately I realized I was being taught from books that were written in the late 20s and early 30s? How could this be? What I realized later in geography, sociology and history classes was that the books had an obvious tone and tenor that had to do with a mythological America that was being written to conform to a narrative that was not really, well, the truth. One of the best examples was the actual story of the formation of Texas as a state and things like the Alamo. And then there was Davy Crockett and everything else you could possibly imagine. The only person missing from these fairy tales was John Wayne.

That’s when I realized “If I am going to ‘live’ both metaphorically and literally I have to get out of here”. Go west young man. 36 months later I lucked out and my parents decided to move back to The Golden Gate as my paternal grandparents had sold the ranch in Saratoga, California and my father needed and wanted to be close to his parents as they were heading towards glory.

And who was the first ‘adult’ I met when I moved back to the Bay Area? Sonny Barger the President of the Oakland Chapter of the Hells Angels.

You see, what had happened was in 1968 at M.T. Reilly School there was a 6th grade music class taught by this woman that looked like someone’s great grandma named Mrs. Pocklington. David Kerely was in this class as was Sharon Dalern (sp?). Now Sharon was a friend of mine, as was Barton Drake and Becky Boone. I would go over to Sharon’s house and it was striking. Like a film set. In the living room was a giant velvet painting (remember those? Think Elvis) that stretched the length of the sofa in the living room. It was Sharon’s mother in either a nightgown, lingerie or both. Let’s call it sultry. And on the floor of the living room was a motorcycle in pieces that her father was working on. There was also a vibe. Very Americana at the time.

You see, before meeting Sonny Barger, the President of the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels, I played Pop Warner football for the White Rock Rebels football team. We won the state championship and were scheduled to play the national championship in Fontana, CA. We were going to play the game and then go to Disneyland. The families of the team we were playing hosted the players from out of town. Which was interesting in and of itself. There were velvet paintings and motorcycle parts on the floor. The mother called me into her room and said out of nowhere, “I want to tell you something” . . . “Fontana has one claim to fame, we are the birthplace of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club”. At eleven I found this to be surreal. Then she said “I have a present for your mother.” She gave me a “jewelry box” made out of a Redwood tree. I can see the box like it was yesterday. The last time I saw it was in my mother’s bedroom in her jewelry drawer. I believe it was later sold in a garage sale. Man, I wish I had that box.

So, back to miss Pocklington’s music class. The thing that I liked the most about Sharon was she had fortitude, a mind of her own and she was easy on the eyes. Every Friday we had a musical version of show and tell where kids in the class would bring their vinyl records in and play one of their favorite songs.

Sharon brought in a Steppenwolf album. The track that she played was Suki Suki Sue. The lyrics sounded like this. Let it (guess what) hang out baby, let it hang out nah, nah, nah, nah, let it hang out baby, do the Baltimore jig, or something like that. I like doing it from memory. Then the chorus was suki, suki, suki, suki, suki, suki, Sue! The funny thing was. Hilarious actually, it sounded like they actually (which I am sure they did) sang; “suck me, suck me, suck me, suck me, suck me, suck me Sue!”

Well, needless to say Mrs. Pocklington nearly had a stroke. She dashed to the record player and I think scratched the record trying to get the needle off to that loud sound of the needle being dragged across the vinly. The whole class had huge smiles on their faces. It was one of the best music lessons I ever had. Steppenwolf.

I was into photography from an early age. I took my camera, grabbed David Kerely and said let’s go when the bell rang. The window behind Kerley was Pocklington’s class on the day of the musical cultural event horizon!

The next year there was another event. Down the road was a drive in movie theater called The Lone Star. We never actually drove in because we were under age and the Lone Star only showed pornographic movies at the time. But we would steal Kent McKinney’s mother’s blue mustang (we were 12) and drive over and park in a lot on the other side of the fence just far enough back for a full close up view of the screen. That was the beginning of my becoming an amatuer gynocologist. I am glad I did not answer that calling (my parents wanted me to be a doctor) because it would have ruined it for me. Too much of a good thing. You need balance and need to take everything in moderation.

But there was another drive-in. And for the life of me I can’t remember the name. But we had heard that there was a cool new movie coming out that we wanted to see. So, Kent’s sister Michelle drove, Kent was in the front of the Mustang and I can’t remember who the three were in the back and then myself and two others were in the trunk. That’s how we did it back then. So, we had our Annie Green Springs wine, a matchbox of birdseed, grass stems and oregano that Kenny Hill had sold us for $3, pretend pot and several packs of Marlboro cigarettes. Ready to go!

Once the sun set and the twilight set in . . . the movie started. Again, motorcycles and Steppenwolf;