The reason I’m only displaying the inside of these Funkadelic album covers is that’s where all the fun was. One Nation Under a Groove was the album that sent both Pedro Bell and Funkadelic into the mainstream, but also gave rise to a lasting enmity between them and Warner Bros. Records.

Wet Epic Debauchery is a pseudo-religious mythological story Pedro added to his art for the liner notes for Funkadelic’s Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On album (1974)

There are philosophical and technical aspects of Neuerotica that I wanted to explore in another introduction I’d been working on, necessary to understand Neuerotica’s purpose. Instead, it will be published as an editorial in December, if not sooner.

Since you found your way here, I’m going to assume that you realize that Neuerotica is strictly NSFW. If you joined us early in our relaunch, you’ve only seen a mere glimpse of what’s to come (no pun intended). The rest of you should be perfectly acclimated by now. But the home page and our name had to be a strong hint. No? Bear in mind that it will get “worse,” depending on how you feel about that kind of content.

I first want to address my use of AI-generated images and explain why I utilize AI. I do not use any AI program to make our memes and propaganda. In recent months, I have found that they are perfect for purposes of the latter (more will be explained in detail later in this introduction). Most of the AI images (some of which I purchased), I’ve either altered using Adobe products (and other methods) or reduced the AI-ness from them to give each one a new context, relevant to Neuerotica’s purposes.

Except for these paragraphs, you can read each section in any order you wish.

Hey BBY!

Read this graphic novel, and it will blow your mind.

Knock Knock Bitch

Rumors, slander, and libel are an intrinsic facet of politics here in America and abroad. Within that last decade, we’ve seen these things take monstrous and destructive form. Today, however, we find ourselves facing the same volatile conditions Americans faced during the 1950s Red Scare.  I’m not making the situation any better with the content we publish. For the past ten years, we’ve seen political speech go from ambiguous to “alternative facts” to bald-faced lying in the media and to American citizens. This is the doing of one man whose disingenuous words have spread throughout the country like an STD in a frat party.

President Donald Trump and the most inept sycophants ever in the history of the United States try to bash democrats by calling them “radicals”. Radical? Seriously? If they were radical, Trump would be in prison right now. MAGA only throws that word around because they know that it terrorizes their base, making them think the worst of the opposing party. Democrats aren’t in the habit of doing anything radical, but that doesn’t stop the right from telling and believing these lies. 

One night, these words came to mind: “not a satanic socialist sex cult”. It was a real WTF moment, but also a holy shit, that’s so fucking cool moment. Too bad I had already come up with a tagline for Neuerotica years ago, because I’d have run with this instead. That line was prompted by thoughts of the right (and to an extent, the left) might think about Neuerotica. Believe me when I say that those accusations (or similar) are coming. MAGA has proven itself all too willing to believe conspiracies.

People are beaten or killed for their political leanings of late. Once the accusations fly, people get riled up. The political climate in this country is as volatile (if not more so) as it was during the Red Scare of the 1950s. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover terrorized American citizens with his campaign against “communism” (it’s interesting that what is taking Trump and his ilk to do, Hoover did alone and more efficiently). The difference in tactics between Trump and Hoover is that Trump needs only to speak (or “tweet”), and his base will promptly attack any one of his detractors. 

I say all this to say that, if everything goes right the way they should for Neuerotica, I expect trouble to come knocking on my door. I’ll have to answer it, but believe me when I say that I will be prepared. It won’t be the first time that someone has come gunning for me. I’ve been “dead” more times than I can remember. 

The Electric Spanking of War Babies

So, what is this all about, you ask?

I don’t want to fight the power; I want to obliterate it. As I write this, President Donald Trump is fighting a court order to release funds for SNAP benefits that 42 million Americans rely on to feed themselves and their families (with Thanksgiving fast approaching). This is despicable. Trump and his administration (during both terms) have proven time and again that they care nothing for the people of the United States, the wealthy being the only exception. They take pleasure in our suffering and our deaths, while they live in luxury and gorge themselves on a thousand-dollar-per-plate of food. So, how do we fight against such powerful enemies of the people? We do whatever it takes to beat them back and beat them down.

Neuerotica started with an idea designed to bring together a congress of young, marginalized, and unconventional creatives under our umbrella, where their unique talents could be amplified and broadcast worldwide in ways that have never been done before. Not satisfied with simply offering a platform for budding artists, I wanted to build something that created controversy, not for the sake of doing it, but to raise such a cacaphony of young voices that the sound would crush the predatory minders of the institutions of capitalism and fascism; the enemies of the people. While all subversive artists are welcome here, Neuerotica was built for angry, young creatives who suffer under the boot of The State, whose dreams of a good and happy life are smashed before they’re even adults. It’s long past time for the Baby Boomers (and their viral mentality infecting younger generations) to step off or get kicked off.

Though Neuerotica is theoretically based on a concept (inspired by Miley Cyrus) I began working on in 2014, it was Gen Z who helped me return to it and make it happen (In fact, I believe the name was subconsciously inspired by Ayesha Erotica, whom I had become a fan of at the time). The hyperpop artists I listened to through the pandemic opened up a new world to me. I learned about a genre of music and subculture that had completely flown under my radar, and the experience was amazing.

This wild journey broke me, and I felt that I had awakened for the first time in my life. Everything began to make sense. The greatest gift given to me by Gen Z during that time would have to be learning how to navigate my autism (with a co-occurrence of ADHD). For most of my life, I learned from elders; this was the first time that a younger generation had informed and impacted my life on that scale. Once I began working on the concept for Neuerotica, I was determined to use it to do what I could for Generation Z and all future generations. It’s the least I can do for a generation that gave me one of the best times in my life, and it’s also the right thing to do.

None of us had a say in being born, yet children are born every second of every day, many of them into the worst conditions you could imagine, out of the womb, and into hell.

There’s an old axiom that says “the pen is mightier than the sword”. Well, so is your art. There is great power in youth, but our capitalist world, which currently borders on fascism, stifles that power and your creativity. My responsibility (and the responsibility of other adults) is to break the chains and kick in the doors. Your responsibility is to take what the world owes you. I want you all to run, only slowing down to walk when caution is necessary. Elders will tell you that the world owes you nothing, but they couldn’t be more wrong. You were literally dragged kicking and screaming into this life that you never asked for. You deserve to be heard, you deserve to be respected, you deserve all that this world has to give, and maybe more. I just want to give you all a fighting chance to get at least most of it.

For a long time, I’ve always thought of young people as though they were characters who have powerful latent abilities, but are unaware of them. Suddenly, one day, an event triggers their powers, and they’ve become OP. Whether or not it happens (or happens for everyone), this is what I sincerely hope Neuerotica can do. How I intend to do all of this is far too complicated to get into here. Suffice it to say, you will all know once I’ve published the details.

Before the Hyperpop time of my life, I was having a different kind of time of my life experience. As I mentioned earlier, I had intended to publish an e-magazine similar to Neuerotica in 2014. What turned me away from it was my job at one of the most luxurious buildings you’ve ever seen. I turned my fledgling subversive magazine into a luxury periodical. Without getting into details, I’ll just say that it changed my life as well as my lifestyle. Until the COVID-19 pandemic.

It killed my luxury mag, since there really wasn’t much in the luxury world happening, so everything moved at a crawl at that point, then eventually petered out. Shortly after that, the events I mentioned in the previous section above happened, and I decided to put my e-magazine and talents to better use (if you find it of any interest, you can read about the transition by following this link to an editorial I wrote in 2022, and updated in November 2025.

There’s another editorial that I published that explains the philosophy behind Neuerotica, which goes to the core of Neuerotica’s being and purpose and reason to be. It dives into the connection between subversive politics and subversive art, chiefly art of an erotic nature. Without this article, I fear that Neuerotica will be seen as no more than juvenile titillation.

Having said that, the idea to merge socialist ideals with (mostly erotic) art came from the sphere of hyperpop musicians. The lyrics in these songs were the most raunchy songs I had ever had the pleasure of listening to. They put rappers such as 2 Live Crew and Lil’ Kim to shame. The other part of the equation came from social media, where discussions about Socialism and socialist ideas were espoused. I decided to combine both elements in my development of Neuerotica.

But, I have to be honest when I say that the idea didn’t come from me. It came from a popular album cover artist who was a big brother to many young, aspiring male African Americans (myself included).

It Ain’t My Fault

(self-portrait of artist and propagandist par excellence, Pedro Bell)

WTAFunk?

How I became friends with Pedro Bell is a story for another time, since it has no bearing on the subject.

Before he began working with punk and new wave bands, Pedro was the album cover artist for Funkadelic, a band that was part of the P-Funk empire of multiple bands and musicians run by P-Funk Maestro George Clinton. Funkadelic combined funk and psychedelic music to create their own recipe. Their music was subversive more than anything that existed at the time, using metaphors and Ebonics to create a coded language that would be understood by the residents of ghetto communities. A year after contacting George Clinton, Pedro began doing art for the band’s promotional items, press kits, and show posters. With the release of Funkadelic’s fifth album (Cosmic Slop), Pedro began what would be a long partnership with Clinton and the P-Funk Mob.

What grabbed me about Pedro’s artwork was not only his art but also his cryptic narratives that filled nearly every corner of every album cover, barely leaving a space unfilled. His writing mirrored his notorious trippy art in that both were an amalgamation of politics, religion, spirituality, government policies, horror, science fiction, and… eroticism.

His artwork helped Funkadelic sell more albums, of course, but it also had people talking about the bizarreness of his work and the hidden essays within the art and liner notes. When I was younger, I worked as a graphic designer, but I had my own personal style of art since I was a teenager. Later, when I started roaming the aisles of vintage record shops and found a treasure trove of old Funkadelic albums, I attempted to mimic Pedro’s style just for the hell of it. Eventually, I went back to doing what I did best.

When Pedro died in 2019, I never got around to writing a eulogy until 2024, two years after Neuerotica’s debut you can read it here, if you like). I was still stuck in the same web design style that I used for my luxury e-mag, and it didn’t occur to me that I needed a design that reflected the kinds of content I’d be publishing. When I decided to pull Neuerotica out of its year-long hiatus, I racked my brain to come up with a design. When I happened to glance at the thumbnail of the article I had written about Pedro Bell, I knew that his style of art was what I needed.

By the time of Neuerotica’s pre-opening, I had created something that (I believe) Pedro would have been impressed with; It was a modern take on his art. It was beautiful! But it turned out to be too much. This is a website, and they don’t accommodate the same amount of space as record album covers did back in the day. Since then, however, I’ve reduced the amount of graphics on the home page, but still retained enough to have that Pedro Bell influence running through both Neuerotica and the memes I’ve created that are an extension of the e-mag and serve as propaganda.

It’s only been a few months since Neuerotica’s debut, so I’m still studying Pedro’s art for inspiration as to how I run Neuerotica. I wish my “big brother” and friend were still around to see what I’ve done here. I’d like to think he’d be proud of me.