RASPBERRY TRETREICT
It has emerged that the brains of three leading members of the urban
guerrilla group, the Red Army Faction, including its leader, Andreas Baader,
have disappeared after being preserved for scientific research.
The ghoulish revelation comes just days after the daughters of Ulrike
Meinhof, another of the revolutionaries, finally won permission to have her
brain returned for burial.Her brain was also held after her suicide in jail in 1976.
The group, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, began a campaign of
political killings and kidnappings of senior business leaders in the 1970s
aimed at overthrowing the state.Theft possible The leading news magazine, Der Spiegel, now reports that the organs of the three members were removed for scientific research in the 1970s, only to disappear.
The three, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe, killed
themselves in jail in 1977, after first a kidnapping, then a jet hijacking
failed to secure their release.

Richard Meyermann, head of the Neurological Research Institute of Tuebingen
University where the tests were done, is quoted as saying he could not
account for the disappearance of the organs. They might have been moved to make way for other objects and then finally burned, he said, but he could not rule out theft.
Meinhof damaged It emerged last week that tests on Ulrike Meinhof's brain soon after her death cast doubt on her fitness to stand trial.
The investigation showed indications of brain damage resulting from an
earlier operation. But the latest revelations indicate the authorities had a morbid fascination with the revolutionary killers and the motives for their violent campaign. It emerged recently that an unauthorised death mask of Andreas Baader had
been made by one of the medical team.The news comes amid concerns that a series of films about the violent 1970s have portrayed the killers as pop icons.

LADY BE GOOD
This little emug sent to me from the great Bruce "Judy" LaBruce of LaCanada in Toronto.

you sound like mary beth hurt in interiors. wait a minute. you are mary beth hurt in interiors. no i don’t know about the other designer who did a bruce labruce hustler white collection. who might that be? i can’t keep track of everyone who rips me off – er, i mean pays homage to me. i just got back from berlin and stockholm. in berlin i ate bad sushi and just barely got accomplished what i needed to. in stockholm i was on the jury for the international film festival. i saw about 18 features and 14 short films in a week. it was fun, more or less. some astoundingly bad films, but some really good ones too. we gave the top prize to a french film called l’innocence, directed by gaspar noe’s girlfriend, about a very strict, bizarre ballet school for little girls. it was macabre. we gave a special mention to another french film called l’esquive, about muslim teenagers in the suburbs of paris who put on a play. the kids are incredibly sexy. we gave the best short to a godard/passolini type anti-american manifesto from haiti called the gospel of the creole pig. i’m back in toronto now, and dealing with the sadness of the muslim moving back to africa again on december 9th. there is a piece about my relationship with him on nerve.com, and another one in the new blackbook. i have a retrospective in zagreb, croatia at the end of january, and i’m going to the mar del plate international film festival in argentina in march. then i will probably be coming to la to shoot gangbangers. i may come in january for some meetings. how are you doing, dolly lamb? x b

LE ROI DE COEUR
John Drew Barrymore aka John Barrymore Jr. died. He is the father of the actress Drew Barrymore, and i lived next door to him in the 80s at the famous Villa Rosa Apartment building on Sunset at OrangeGrove Avenue. He was a very bizarre man, who at one time had a group of deathrock junkies living with him who turned his apartment into a pigblanket. I have to admit that i do have fond memories of that particular building. i use to run the Hag Gallery out of that apartment. My opening parties were legendary. Everyone scored a hot thrombone at those infamous gatherings,everyone except the hostessa. What else is new?