Only some criminals have cachet

SEATTLE, Washington - The biographical page* of the Bantam paperback version of Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers states the following:

One of the most provocative literary figures of the twentieth century, Jean Genet - like Villon and Rimbaud - is in the great French tradition of the writer-criminal.

Should the writer be the only criminal that we romanticize in this way? I guess combining writer and criminal results in something interesting to us. I've tried to think of another example:

Milkman-criminal

The chef-criminal
The secretary-criminal
The therapist-criminal**
The engineer-criminal
The barista-criminal
The endocrinologist-criminal
The sculptor-criminal
The seamstress-criminal

Nothing seems to be working.

* I'm trying to find out what the biographical page of a book is called, without success.

** This one has potential, if you include Freudian psychoanalysis, which was one of the great frauds of the 20th century. I don't know if "therapist" instead of "analyst" is a correct term for those charlatans.

(Alleged) West Seattle pimps took notes from American Pimp

SEATTLE, Washington - From the 1999 Hughes Brothers documentary American Pimp, pimps in response to the question of what "cut" their prostitutes get:

Schauntte: "What cut they get? Oh no. They ain't get no cut."
Charm: "No percentage."
Bishop Don Magic Juan: "Zero Percentage."
Payroll: "Zero."
Kenny Red: "A bitch of mine better not keep a dime."
Fillmore Slim: "None. None."
Danny Brown: "If one of my women had proven to be stronger than me, a better manager than me, then she could have been the leader. But I was the master of the house, I was the leader of the program, so all the money came to me. It wasn't like I had part of the money, she had part of the money - that's like, a divided situation."

And now in an trial that opened yesterday of an alleged West Seattle pimp:

Clark is accused of pimping out three women, including two girls, through a prostitution ring run by a West Seattle gang, the West Side Street Mobb.

That, [Prosecutor Sean]O'Donnell told jurors, is Mobb with two Bs.

"Mobb is spelled M-O-B-B, and it stands for Money Over Broke Bitches," O'Donnell said. "And you will find that money is a recurring theme in this case. …

"You will find that this gang has an almost singular purpose. Money, money, money."

On the Roman Polanski situation

You know what happens to nosy fellows?

SEATTLE, Washington - When the French government bails out on you, that usually means your goose is cooked - at least that's what Roman Polanski should be thinking right now.

Now, I have not exactly been calling for Polanski's head on a spear for the last fifteen years, so I've asked myself - should I have been doing just that?

If you asked me two weeks ago, "why did Roman Polanski flee the United States?", I would have said something to the effect that he kinda-sorta got down with a just-short-of-legal girl, and it came to light, and he left rather than deal with the static.

Polanski in fact had negotiated a guilty plea in 1978 on "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor"; when you read that it kind of settles the issue of whether he had sex with her. So perhaps I have simply been Jedi mind-tricked whenever reading old accounts of why he left the country. Not even old accounts: the story linked above, written today, puts it thusly:

He is accused of having unlawful sex with 13-year-old Samantha Gailey in Los Angeles in 1978, before fleeing the country and spending the intervening period as a fugitive, mainly living in Paris.

That's a bit of a tinted view of the facts, and I suspect everything I've casually read about the circumstances of his flight had a similar ring.

The word "rape" had not entered my thinking, but if it had, I think I (like Whoopi) would have assumed it was a-few-weeks-short-of-legal rape, not "rape rape."

Once you read the details of the legal wranglings, and Gailey's testimony, it certainly puts Polanski in a rotten light. Sounds like "rape rape".

Now, I have also thought about taking a more libertarian perspective on this - specifically, the fact that Gailey has stated that she'd like the dogs called off. Crimes, even a person-on-person crime, are technically regarded as crimes against the state (Polanski v. California, as opposed to Polanski v. Gailey), so Gailey doesn't really have such power. Should she? It is a mainstream libertarian position that her wishes should override the wishes of the state?

Are we (through the government) sticking our nose where it doesn't belong? As Polanski himself said - "You're a very nosy fellow, kitty kat. Huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows?"

Turns out, it doesn't seem to be - I can only find evidence of the most hard-boiled anarchists (and a few Hollywood types) clamoring for a reduced role of the state. Mainstream libertarian opinion (if I may use the term) is much more sympathetic to the government than usual in this matter.

Don't believe that a WA income tax will only tax the "rich"

SEATTLE, Washington - The politicians are scraping around for new revenue sources in Olympia, but at least for the moment they have shelved the idea of creating a state income tax on people earning above $250,000 per year.

Now, you're welcome to think that the state should have an income tax (although it would probably drive people like me from the state). There are legitimate pros and cons. But you're a straight-up sucker if you think such a tax would continue to only be levied on the "rich" going forward.

Look at the history of the federal income tax for guidance on this. The first federal income tax created after the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913 only applied to income above $3,000 (which if you do the math is almost $65,000 in 2008 dollars). The bottom rate was 1% (ONE Percent!), going up to 7% for income above $10,000,000 in 2008 dollars. Given the $3,000 threshold, less than two percent of American households paid any income tax at all at that time.

This tax was pitched as just grabbing a bit from the very very rich, those who could afford it, just as the proposed Washington income tax has been pitched.

Interestingly, when the 16th Amendment was being debated, there was talk of putting a 10% hard cap in the amendment. This was rejected, because it was considered absurd, a total howler, that the income tax rate could ever rise that high. (See here). In fact, by 1918 (under wartime conditions) the top rate had blown right through the inconceivable 10% barrier all the way to 77%.

State governments can't wage war as a justification for raising taxes, so they just institutionalize big spending increases and new programs in good times and then start cooking up ideas for ways to take more money to pay for these things when things sour. This phenomenon is discussed in detail in the excellent cover story from this month's Reason magazine.

Of course, every last penny of the government spending (in programs that sometimes did not even exist a few short years ago) is alleged to be indispensable, crucial to the functioning of a civilized society, kids will be starving in the gutters if anything is cut, etc etc.

Did N.W.A. lift lyrics from Vladimir Nabokov?

SEATTLE, Washington -

From Nabokov's Bend Sinister, 1947:

She sat with parted lips, slightly moving her tightly crossed thighs, producing a tiny sound, soft, labiate, with an alternate crepitation as if she were rubbing the palms of her hands which, however, lay idle.

'Chirruping like a poor lone cricket,' she said.

Portion of "Parental Discretion Iz Advised", from N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton, 1988:

Fuck the regular, yo as I get better the
bitches wanna trick and go stupid up on the dick
So I get 'em hot, thinkin' they're gonna get it
As they sit, rubbin' their legs like a cricket

"The World Loves Obama" Watch

SEATTLE, Washington - For anyone who's had their head sufficiently far up their ass to think that all the enmity directed at the USA from other countries was because of the previous occupant of the White House, and that all will be roses because of the current occupant of the White House - some reality checks are coming in.

Venezuela's Chavez calls Obama "ignoramus"

"He goes and accuses me of exporting terrorism: the least I can say is that he's a poor ignoramus; he should read and study a little to understand reality," said Chavez, who heads a group of left-wing Latin American leaders opposed to the U.S. influence in the region.

Report: Iran Dismisses U.S. Outreach as a 'Slogan'

President Obama intends to press ahead with efforts to open a dialogue with Iran despite an apparent setback yesterday when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme religious leader, dismissed U.S. overtures as a “slogan” offering no real change
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He added: “If you are right that change has come, where is that change? Make it clear for us what has changed.”

Atlantic City political circus getting national attention

SEATTLE, Washington - The most recent Atlantic City corruption sentences are so noteworthy, they got front-page treatment on the Drudge Report and a mention on KJR's Groz with Gas earlier this week.

A hooker and a Baptist minister having sex in a seedy motel room, where a camera was hidden in a clock radio. A videotape delivered to a radio talk show host by someone wearing oversized glasses, a fake beard and surgical gloves.

Even by the flamboyant corruption standards set by Atlantic City's government over the decades, this was one for the books.

Former City Council President Craig Callaway was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for his role in setting up council rival Eugene Robinson with a prostitute in a motel room and secretly videotaping the encounter.

Some of the details of Callaway's nefarious plot:

In 2006, [Callaway] rented two rooms at the Bayview Motel, a nondescript lodging outside Atlantic City.

According to an FBI agent's court testimony in June, co-defendant Floyd Tally placed a camera hidden in a clock radio inside one of the rooms. A video recorder was set up in the adjacent room.

The agent said Callaway and his brothers, Ronald and David, paid a prostitute between $150 and $200 to lure Robinson to the motel and perform a sex act on him.

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Prosecutors say Callaway and the others confronted Robinson with the tape and told him it would be released to the media if he didn't resign.

The article mentioned some of the spectacular recent history of Atlantic City politicians:

As recently as 2006, one third of the nine council members were either in prison or on their way. One incumbent councilman is awaiting trial next year for his role in the Callaway sex video case.

In 1989 and 1990, four council members and the mayor were indicted in a bribery case. Only one councilman and the mayor, James Usry, were convicted.

The mayor before Usry, Michael Matthews, was a good childhood friend of my father before growing up, becoming mayor, and being sent to the federal hoosegow for 15 years after pleading guilty to extortion.

Craig Callaway also made headlines in 2002 when, at a city Democratic Committee meeting, his brother Jihad (yes, Jihad Callaway) pulled a knife on a supporter of one of Mr Callaway's opponents.

O.J. Simpson found guilty - of carrying a bad manpurse

SEATTLE, Washington -



photo from Celebslam

Roundup of Indians in the news

SEATTLE, Washington -

In Mumbai, a court recently used the results of a brain scan known as a Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature as evidence to convict a woman of murder:

After placing 32 electrodes on Ms. Sharma’s head, investigators said, they read aloud their version of events, speaking in the first person (“I bought arsenic”; “I met Udit at McDonald’s”), along with neutral statements like “The sky is blue,” which help the software distinguish memories from normal cognition.

For an hour, Ms. Sharma said nothing. But the relevant nooks of her brain where memories are thought to be stored buzzed when the crime was recounted, according to Mr. Joseph, the state investigator. The judge endorsed Mr. Joseph’s assertion that the scans were proof of “experiential knowledge” of having committed the murder, rather than just having heard about it...

In Greater Noida, Delhi, a mob of laid-off factory workers killed the CEO:

Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, a manufacturer of car parts that has its headquarters in Italy, died of severe head wounds on Monday after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said.
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A spokesman for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said: “Such a heinous act is bound to sully India’s image among overseas investors.”

In Durban, South Africa, a comment an Indian made to a white man at a urinal about comparative penis size led to three men getting gunned down:

A worker at the bar, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, said a customer of Indian origin had remarked to a white customer while they were both at the urinal in the bar that his penis was bigger than that of the white customer.

"After both men returned to their friends, the two groups began swearing at each other before the group of five Indian men left the scene and all returned with firearms. They opened fire and three guys died on the spot.

Blue Man Group can't wear saggy pants in Flint, MI

SEATTLE, Washington - Relevant-in-another-era Flint, Michigan is putting a fresh interpretation on their disorderly conduct and indecent exposure statutes that will allow them to wage war on saggy pants. This should put Flint back on the map.

Best of all (as several Reason commenters noted), the Detroit Free Press graphic explaining the new interpretations has put the saggy pants and exposed buttcracks on shiny blue humanoids, presumably to steer clear of any racial prejudgment regarding who might be more likely to be "sagging".

Looks like Anne Hathaway snitched on her boyfriend

SEATTLE, Washington - Anne Hathaway's very-recently-ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri is in the hoosegow, and one of his friends is speculating that Hathaway snitched on him. It would figure, a chick living high on the hog on her boyfriend's dirty money then selling him out as soon as things sour.

"It makes sense," the friend said. "She's referred to as his former girlfriend in the indictment even though her spokesman never confirmed they broke up."

Hathaway, who is not identified by name in the criminal complaint, split with Follieri shortly before his arrest last week. He is charged with posing as an agent of the Vatican to fleece investors out of millions.

Shady Vatican-related investment schemes - wasn't this the plot of The Godfather Part III?

Found at I Don't Like You in That Way

Murderous schemers going far afield for targets

SEATTLE, Washington -

The "I'm not acting guilty, I'm just a genius" defense doesn't work for Hans Reiser

SEATTLE, Washington - Superstar software hacker Hans Reiser was found guilty of first-degree murder on Monday for killing his wife Nina, who disappeared in October 2006 and whose body has never been found.

The most interesting part of this was Reiser's defense strategy, which was reported in the Washington Post in February and for which I have a certain soft spot in my heart. Reiser engaged in all sorts of red-flag behavior in the immediate aftermath of Nina's disappearance, including purchasing books on murder, removing the passenger seat from his car (which also had soaking-wet floorboards), not taking part in the search for Nina, and rolling around with $8,000 in cash and his passport for no good reason. This looks like suspicious behavior to most of us, but according to Reiser's counsel, Reiser is so smart, so disconnected from how his actions may be perceived by others, so wrapped up in his tortured genius, that he didn't think about how all of this perfectly explainable behavior made him look guilty:

"Being too intelligent can be a sort of curse," defense counsel William Du Bois said. "All this weird conduct can be explained by him, but he's the only one who can do it. People who are commonly known as computer geeks are so into the field... He's a very difficult person. It's very difficult to represent a genius."
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[in Silicon Valley], Hans Reiser's actions appear fairly reasonable, at least to people who spend much more time with computer code than with other humans.

"It strikes me that a lot of coders have a somewhat detached view of the world, and it's reasonable to assume that Hans might not even have stopped to think about how things looked," said Rick Moen, a local area network consultant in Menlo Park.

Reiser's very smart father chimed right in on this theme:

"His undergraduate thesis is on how if you change the perspective, the reality is different," said Ramon Reiser, the defendant's mathematician father, folding a pair of pants in the courtroom hallway as he waited to testify.
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"When you look at it, would Hans Reiser turn a hose on a car to wash it? Absolutely, his mother told him to get that car cleaned up," the elder Reiser said.

"I and my brother -- maybe it's genetic -- have driven our cars without the front seat. It's really convenient."

If I'm ever on trial in the future, I want to say right now - I've been using hair dryers like that since I was 10 years old, Your Honor.

Been goy so long it looks like Jew to me

SEATTLE, Washington - Prostitution is the quintessential entrepreneurial activity - its practitioners will do whatever it takes to serve the market. Turns out, in nineteenth-century France, this involved dark-haired gentile prostitutes playing the role of 'The Jewess' - apparently the demand for Jewish prostitutes exceeded the supply.

Did part of the role-playing involve a Jewish mother opening the door during sex and berating the couple - "WHAT, CAN'T YOU FIND A NICE JEWISH BOY? I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE SCHTUPPING A GENTILE BOY! THE SHAME!"?

Listen, you tax-avoiding degenerates

NEW YORK, New York - I've noticed an increase in Google searches directing users to my discussion of Redemption Theory in the last week. It's bad enough that you people are considering a wacky conspiratorial scheme to avoid taxes - it's worse that you've procrastinated until the second week of April to do it.

This Week's News regarding genitals and athletics

SEATTLE, Washington -

• Use an electric razor next time: Cyclist Tammy Thomas is currently on trial for perjury regarding testimony she made during the investigation into the BALCO steroid distribution ring. A tester testified last week that when he went to find Thomas to collect a urine sample, she had shaving cream on her face.
  
• "she needs more of ze punishment!": The head of the Formula One racing governing body, Max Mosley, is being pressured to resign after revelations that he engineered a Nazi-themed orgy with five prostitutes. Mosley at first acknowledged an orgy but denied any Nazi role-playing, but the evidence may be catching up to him.
  
• What, it's been used for thousands of years: China's Olympic athletes and their promoters are concerned about positive drug tests this summer, so various ancient performance-enhancing concoctions have been put on the prohibited list, including turtle blood and deer penis.
  

Minor league baseball team plans Eliot Spitzer promotion

SEATTLE, Washington - Minor league baseball teams are known for running wacky promotions to publicize their product - everything from Osama bin Laden bobblehead dolls to free popsicles in honor of the cryogenically frozen Ted Williams. The latest "innovation" is the planned "Eliot Spitzer Night" by the Macon Music, a minor league team in Georgia:

The Macon Music is capitalizing on the outgoing New York governor's prostitution-related downfall, by serving up a "Eliot Spitzer Night." The man once known as "Mr. Clean" is invited to throw out the first pitch at the June 13th game, although he hasn't RSVP'd.

A South Coast League official says anybody named Eliot, Spitzer or Kristen, the alleged call girl, will get $1 off admission.
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And since Spitzer was described as "Client No. 9" in FBI documents, the ninth fan will get a prize. So will the 871st fan to buy a ticket, because that's supposed to have been Spitzer's Mayflower Hotel room number.

heard on The Jim Rome Show

Mary Carter Paint has hidden its tracks

SEATTLE, Washington - I said in a previous post that I wanted to take a look at a 1976 Rolling Stone article that discussed the Mary Carter Paint company, to see if it had any new information or better-documented sources compared to what I have already read on the topic. Not only did the article contain some factual errors that I easily spotted, but the portion of the article that I cared about was retracted by Rolling Stone in 1977.

I was hoping for detailed source documentation, but instead I just got references to "CIA sources" when discussing the evolution of Mary Carter Paint:

Mary Carter Paint, according to CIA sources, was a CIA front group. It had been set up by Thomas Dewey and Allen Dulles. In 1958 Dewey and some friends bought controlling interest in the Crosby Miller Corporation with $2 million in CIA money from Dulles, who was still CIA director. A year later the Crosby Miller Corporation merged with the paint company. During the Bay of Pigs operation in 1960 and 1961, according to CIA sources, Mary Carter laundered CIA payments to the Cuban exile army.

I'm always skeptical when a relatively low-level detail like this (setting up a front company) is credited to the top guys in an organization. It reeks of name-dropping - like Bill Cooper's writings on the alien-government alliance in Behold a Pale Horse.

The article goes on to discuss how the CIA morphed Mary Carter Paint into Resorts International and it became a "conduit for hiding money it sends to counterinsurgency groups in Central in South America."

After suffering through reading this at the library on microfiche (in negative, of course), I find out that Rolling Stone retracted this portion of their story in 1977 after being sued by Resorts International:

Rolling Stone in 1977, after being legally challenged by Resorts, retracted a story that CIA Director Allen Dulles was majorly involved in the buyout. Quoting CIA sources, Kohn wrote that in 1958 Dulles gave Dewey and Thomas $2 million in CIA money to set up a front company. With it they supposedly bought Crosby-Miller Corp, which merged with Mary Carter a year later. In its retraction, Rolling Stone noted that while it respected Kohn as a researcher, Resorts International had shown the magazine persuasive evidence that Kohn had been wrong or been misled by his sources.
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During the early 70s, Resort International/Mary Carter's activities were occasionally cited in the left-wing press as evidence that it had been carrying out CIA business. When similar allegations appeared in a Las Vegas newspaper, Resorts --- as in the case of Rolling Stone --- threatened suit and won a full retraction. (source)

In addition to this retraction, I saw some very simple factual errors regarding Howard Hughes that anyone who has read 9 books about Hughes would spot immediately. The photo-reconnaissance plane Hughes was developing during WWII for the government (and in a prototype of which Hughes had his disastrous 1946 crash) was the XF-11, not the F-11 as the article states. The article calls Hughes's medical charity the "Hughes Medical Foundation"; its correct name is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, that's what it was called when it was formed in 1953 and it still exists and it's still called the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Perhaps Rolling Stone retracted these things too, but I don't want to pore over microfiche to find out.

While I'm on the topic of microfiche - perhaps the library, instead of shelling out for misused flat-screen TVs, should find some technology that lets the user view a negative microfiche in positive form. Viewing a negative is only useful when looking at pictures of the Shroud of Turin.

Sounds like Wesley Snipes joined the Moorish Republic

SEATTLE, Washington - Just a few days after I discussed the crackpot theories and cryptic court statements of the adherents of Redemption Theory, I may have stumbled upon Redemption's first celebrity devotee - actor Wesley Snipes.

Snipes's trial for defrauding the government recently kicked off in Florida. He was indicted in 2006, so we've known for some time that he had some interesting ideas on taxation; today in court portions of a letter he wrote to the IRS after the indictment sound like plays from the Moor/Redemption playbook.

In the 600-page declaration signed by Snipes and sent Dec. 4, 2006, Snipes said he had "no ill intent or malice" and didn't want to evade any lawful requirement to pay taxes. But he went on to say the government had "no lawful authority to impose any kind of criminal sanctions."
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Snipes declared he had no taxable U.S. income, making the IRS Form 1040 "absolutely the wrong form for me to file." He also claimed taxes withheld were "stolen funds."
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The document also warned the government's "illegal collection action" would result in "significant personal liability" for those involved.

He did everything but "fire" the IRS and try to reclaim the funds of his "straw man." He also made this threat, which his lawyer claimed was not a threat:

"Warning - pursuit of such a high profile target will open the door for your increased collateral risk," Snipes wrote. "I certainly don't believe this is in your best interest and can be avoided."

Snipes's accountants apparently tried to use the "861 Argument" on his tax returns, which is an attempt to exploit an alleged statutory loophole to avoid tax. If you're having trouble sleeping you can read the Wikipedia page that discusses various tax protester arguments.

Found via Drudge Report

UPDATE Snipes was acquitted of fraud but found guilt on some more minor charges of failing to file tax returns.

Homework assignments on Mary Carter Paint

SEATTLE, Washington - In the footnote of one of my posts on the Tropicana gaming license denial in Atlantic City, I noted the rather suspicious fact that Resorts International, the company that opened the first Atlantic City casino in 1978, was the Mary Carter Paint Company only a decade earlier. Paint companies typically don't open casinos. The orthodox explanation is that the company (which was based in Florida in the 1960s) expanded into real estate, which led to acquiring property in the Bahamas, which became casinos, thus they were pros at this thing by the time gambling was legalized in New Jersey.

Various authors that I have read have put a more insidious spin on this. Charles Higham, in Howard Hughes: The Secret Life, says the following:

He [Hughes] made a deal with the CIA, which owned Mary Carter Paints, an improbably named "front" company, to let him buy the operating rights to Mary Carter Paints's Paradise Island Casino, Hotel and Ocean Club. The founders, in 1958, of Mary Carter Paints were Thomas Dewey and Allen Dulles, at a time when Dulles was head of the CIA and shortly before Dulles obtained Maheu's assistance in attempting to kill Fidel Castro, with Hughes's tacit approval... In 1963, the CIA linked up with mob connections through Mary Carter to support fascist governments in South America. By 1964, Robert Kennedy... was aggressively exploring the Hughes-Moe Dalitz-Sam Giancana-CIA-Mary Carter Paints-Nassau connections.

In his source notes Higham says that this came from "files of the Watergate hearings."

Higham may not exactly be a bedrock source of information, as The Secret Life details alleged homosexual activity of Hughes, including longstanding affairs with Tyrone Power and Cary Grant, and essentially alleges that Hughes died of AIDS, even though Hughes died in 1976, he essentially ceased sexual activity in the 1950s, and documented AIDS infections were extremely rare in the US before 1980.

The Money and the Power by Sally Denton and Roger Morris says:

Formerly the Mary Carter Paint Company, which was widely considered to be a CIA front that laundered payments to the Cuban exile army in the early sixties, Resorts International now owned several Bahamian casinos and was thought to be dominated by [Meyer] Lansky.

The source notes for that list Masters of Paradise by Alan Block as the source.

An old conspiracy mailing list post states that the CIA-Dulles-Mary Carter connection was documented in the May 20, 1976 issue of Rolling Stone.

The next time I'm at the library, I'll check out that copy of Rolling Stone (which also has an interview with Marlon Brando!) and look into things further. All of the sources above probably funnel to the research in the Rolling Stone article.

UPDATE I have followed up on this.