Mencken Likens Trial to a Religious Orgy, with Defendant a Beelzebub
Intro. song: “Can’t Make a Monkey Out of Me” Outro song: Sippie Wallace “Devil Dance Blues”
Notes: In the intro to the Mencken piece, the joke is that the book became a huge success, and the film is completely lost. Nerdy, yes, but the jokes just go downhill from here.
The two songs featured in this episode were supposed to be on the next one, but in all my arranging it seems I’ve switched them around. Not that you’d know that without me mentioning it here.
Impossibility of Obtaining Fair Jury Insures Scopes’ Conviction, Says Mencken
Intro. song: Sam Lanin “Yes! We Have No Bananas”
Outro song: Eddie Cantor “If You Knew Suzie”
Notes: Starting with this episode, I have “jokes” about corrections for the local newspaper. All of them are pulled from the paperback “Press Boners”, edited by Earle Temple. It was printed in 1967, a paperback original from Pocket Books.
Mencken Finds Daytonians Full of Sickening Doubts About Value of Publicity
Intro. song: Green Bros. Novelty Orchestra “Yes! We Have No Bananas” Outro song:Lee Morse “Yes, Sir! That’s My Baby!”
Notes: Thanks to AmSci, ChristianChildAbuse, Diabologue and Cosmodromium and everyone on facebook who “shared” the show link for the support. Please blog, tweet, “share” and digg these shows.
I haven’t given historical background info in the blog posts because I’m working under the assumption that visitors/listeners will at least have a basic understanding of the event. If not, or if you wanted to know more, they just recently invented a research tool called “the internet”, it’s cool, I’m on it.
I do want to make one additional note though. I just obtained the first 5 issues of H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan’s “The American Mercury” (Jan. – Mar. 1924) . In Vol.1 No. 2 there is an article debunking osteopathy, and it began with the following quote:
Despite our remarkable advance of knowledge, nonsense is ever becoming bolder and more rampant: it is pre-eminently a time of fads and crazes, and the question as to how people are to be brought to their senses grows urgent. - W. Duncan McKim
Welcome to the first installation of an ongoing series of reports on the Scopes Trial in Dayton Tennesee in 1925, exactly 85 years ago! The trial was the first in the US to be broadcast on the radio. Those recordings no longer exist, but we will be releasing a podcast every day that Mencken published an article in the Baltimore Sun. Relive the trial in real time through the words of one of America’s greatest and most prolific writers.
Intro. song: Coon-Sanders Nighthawks “Hong Kong Dream Girl”
Outro song: Ted Weems “Somebody Stole My Gal”
Notes: The radio was a new medium. I’ve had a hard time finding examples of radio shows from the time, but these podcasts aren’t created to be true to the period. All of the music was from 1925 or prior, and were popular hits. The trial itself was broadcast live, an historical first, but no recordings of it exist.
We’re Considering Suicide this episode with Catholic reactionary and author Andy Nowicki.
Since our discussion ran quite long, I’ve left out any discussion that didn’t pertain to the book and begin the show with a reading from the first part of his book titled “Diary of a Suicide”. Those three pages of his novel will give you a clear understanding that Andy is not competing in the market with such dreck as the Left Behind series or other eminations of shitty pop culture eminating from the unironic, low-brow modern Evangelical media machine.
In his epistolary novel, Considering Suicide, Andy Nowicki gives voice to the forgotten man, the man for whom “the death of affect” is no postmodernist amusement, but something experienced acutely — as a profound loss to be mourned. When the pillars of tradition and faith yield to fracture and every higher purpose is thrown to chaos, such a man is left to look into the abyss that remains. Such a man is left to suffer. Such a man may act. Or react.
For this forgotten man, one question will intrude without irony:Â Is life worth living?
Got a problem with something I’ve said on the podcast? Got an angle not discussed?
Call (218) 666-UAVH and leave a voice mail. Since my shows are once a month give or take, I’d like to have a “call in” show where I compile listener responses and my added commentary in the in-between. Keep it under 3 minutes and think about what you’re going to say before you call. Identify yourself, your blog, or keep it anonymous. If I get enough calls, I’ll do a special show, if I get one or two, I’ll slip them into the regular show. If your call lacks substance and seems like you were more interested in plugging your website than commenting, it won’t be aired. You can comment on the most recent or even a previous episode.
The interview, final recording and mixing for this podcast were completed Between Thursday, April 15th, and Sunday, April 18th, 2010.
Steve Sailer, blogger and author of “America’s Half-Blood Prince” sat down with host Kevin I. Slaughter for a discussion about the president and other concerns. From bullfighting to Modern English, the conversation covered a number of topics outside of Human Biodiversity, sometimes shortened to HBD, but we covered that as well. The sound of the interview is a little wonky. It was recorded on location and I tried to clean it up but it’s not up to the level I’d like. I do have a better method of location interview recordings though, so the next one should sound better, assuming I get to use that method…
Before that are a few items of interest, two very short excerpts from two books – one being Pentti Linkola’s Can Life Prevail? – A Radical Approach to the Environmental Crisis“, from the folks at corrupt.org. After the interview I read a selection from Robert G. Ingersoll that I recorded for infidels.org. I’ve volunteered to record a few written pieces by Ingersoll for their archives after hearing David Driscoll from American Freethought mention it on his podcast. This is the one of three that I’ve recorded so far, and it’s about 7 minutes long. The title is “Should Infidels Send Their Children to Sunday School?” and it was written in the latter half of the 1800′s. I guess the recording will be available in the “library” section of the site, but I’m not sure when.
Got a problem with something I’ve said on the podcast? Got an angle not discussed?
Call (218) 666-UAVH and leave a voice mail. Since my shows are once a month give or take, I’d like to have a “call in” show where I compile listener responses and my added commentary in the in-between. Keep it under 3 minutes and think about what you’re going to say before you call. Identify yourself, your blog, or keep it anonymous. If I get enough calls, I’ll do a special show, if I get one or two, I’ll slip them into the regular show. If your call lacks substance and seems like you were more interested in plugging your website than commenting, it won’t be aired. You can comment on the most recent or even a previous episode.
The interview for this podcast were completed in October of 2009, final recording and mixing were completed Wednesday, January 20th, 2010.
e-mail at: podcast@underworldamusements.com
and of course, our website is UnderworldAmusements.com
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Thank you Rob for the following quote/review:
“The “alternative right” is an interesting place. It’s full of people who are united by very little except for a common rejection of the current reigning cultural consensus: egalitarianism, universalism and a belief in unlimited human progress. Even in the alternative right, some people stand out as especially eccentric…”
Though it was a transient post on ye olde Facebook, I think it’s one of my favorite lines about the show, or it’s host, yet.
John Derbyshire, author of the new book We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism, sat down for a discussion of atheism and conservatism, math cranks and more in our first proper episode. Your host Kevin I. Slaughter discusses the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy and touches on the myth of the noble savage by way of a quote from an author stolen from an interview on the Skepticality Podcast and by lifting a passage from Pinker’s The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. We also hear an archival recording of HL Mencken discussion his philosophy of drinking, and a plug for the new UA release Laffs & Juggs.
In addition to the books, he has over three and a half decades of journalism and reportage under his proverbial belt. A selection of the magazines and newspapers he’s written for: Nat. Review, NYT, Boston Globe, Weekly Standard, Mathematics Magazine, Wall Street Journal and many others. He’s contributed to National Review Online, V-Dare.com and the New English Review websites.
compiled by Christopher R. Mealie & Kevin I. Slaughter
570 pages, 5.5″ x 8.5″, paperback
Laff your way back to a time when making light of sex and class differences was not punishable BY LAW.
Featuring comics, naughty photos and lots of really bad jokes from the 1960′s. Over 560 pages of vintage material!
Including an introduction by photographer and archivist Christopher R. Mealie, editor of SexCats (Goliath Books).
Click the “Download” link at the top of the post for a free 48 page PDF!
Your host tells the real story of a relationship that begins on 6-6-06 and culminates in a Satanic Wedding that starts in Baltimore on 9-9-09, and ends in at the HR Giger Museum in Gruyère, Switzerland, featuring an interview with dark surrealist artist HR Giger!
(podcast is above, though some rss readers may not display it, please visit the original post to listen)
In the interviews aired so far, I’ve usually edited them, sometimes heavily. This was the first interview done in person, and it was recorded with a single portable recorder (Blue Microphones Mikey attached to an iPod classic), and it’s not as easy to edit as the phone interviews where the two voices are recorded separately. So, you’ll hear a minimally edited interview, warts, nervous laughter and all.
Baltimore
Switzerland
We had plans to release the first episode proper on Halloween, but the story and interview that it leads up to take up a whole hour by themselves, so we ditched the 30 minutes of other stuff to release another special!
Before that are a few items of interest, two very short excerpts from two books – one being Pentti Linkola’s 
John Derbyshire
In addition to the books, he has over three and a half decades of journalism and reportage under his proverbial belt. A selection of the magazines and newspapers he’s written for: Nat. Review, NYT, Boston Globe, Weekly Standard, Mathematics Magazine, Wall Street Journal and many others. He’s contributed to 
