Disinformation, the raddest website for all things underground, has been around since 1996, back when the World Wibe Web was a great resource for outlaw and underground information. These days, the Web is a great resource for celebrity gossip and baking tips, but Disinformation is still around and more relevant than ever. Disinformation has weathered the mass deaths of its fellow too-cool-for-school web destinations by adapting to the ever changing landscape of "new media." When megacorporations were throwing money at all things dotcom, Disinformation took money from one of the largest media companies in the world (the AT&T-owned TeleCommunications, Inc); then, when TCI's CEO read the uberunderground .COM and turned it .DOA, Disinformation took money from roaring 90s wanna-be-IPO Razorfish.com; and finally, when the whole dotcom fiasco went nuclear, Disinformation had already yoinked enough blood money to buy itself back and start making books and DVDs. Talk about gettin' it while the gettin's good…

Along the way, Disinformation stumbled its ass into TV production with a TV-magazine on, of all places, the UK's Channel 4 TV network. Disinformation's foray into prime time television featured such mainstream topics as hermaphrodite porn and sex slaves. Thanks to Channel 4's savvy marketing plan to program Disinformation as the follow-up to Ally McBeal (a perfect fit, since Calista Fuckhead is just a zombie-freakshow-in-a-suit), the outsider media show lasted for two censor-bashing seasons and even got picked up by the SciFi Channel in the US. Fuckin a. Did I mention these Disinformation folks know how to wag the doggie?

Disinformation has released the TV show as a 2-DVD set which is a must-have for anyone with even a passing interest in outsider music & art, conspiracy politics, and extreme porn. The 480 minute compendium is hosted by monochromatic hipster & website founder Richard Metzger… though he's no relation to softcore impresario Radley Metzger, one look will leave no doubt that he shares a bloodline with Phantasm's The Tall Man.

Metzger is the mad genius behind Disinformation, so his presence as TV show host is akin to a post-goth Frank Purdue. Like Frank's experiments on how to build a better genetically-engineered chicken, Metzger is experimenting with how to build a better media-engineered uber-niche. More Hot Topic than Trash & Vaudeville, Metzger's vision for Disinformation is Anarchy Incorporated… a media mainstreaming of counterculture. The idea being that, if counterculture is a Temporary Autonomous Zone at best, then why not expand it into the mainstream while it still has balls? Whether being a subculture salesman is the same as being a spineless sellout is your call (well my call, really), Metzger's just gonna keep doing what he's doing and letting us armchair quarterback him all we like.

Here in UnitShifter-land, we're backin' Metzger and his Disinformation. For one thing, the counterculture he's exposing is so 90s that it's almost retro-subversion and thus right on time for mainstream America. Yeah, Genesis P. Orridge, Joe Coleman, Kembra Pfahler, and Adam Parfrey are all badasses, but we stopped consuming their products back in '96. And, I mean, Robert Anton Wilson and Kenneth Anger? Aren't they dead yet? How else are any of these elderly bastards gonna make a living if not on SciFi Channel? Nevertheless, they're all pretty rad and we want them to make their livings, so props to Metzger for offering a counterculture retirement plan.

Now, don't get me wrong, Disinformation isn't all a bunch of old fogies. They've got Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Jim Marrs… uh, that's a posse of gray panthers with a mean age of 102 (and that's one mean age, I tell ya). When exactly did the counterculture become a bunch of old white dudes? But, hell, it ain't Disinformation's fault that the toughest outlaw-thinkers these days happen to be stodgy old curmudgeons. They still kick ass, and, fuck, we dig the 90s. In fact, the Disinformation TV series is kind of like VH-1's "I Love the 90s" but for subculture aficionados.

Suffice to say that Disinformation was the raddest web destination around, and now it's the raddest anti-corporate vertically-integrated media conglomerate around. We should all be so lucky.

DISINFORMATION DVDs
Disinfo TV Series	R.I.P.: Joe Coleman	Outfoxed