Radio Pirate Artichoke: Fuck You and the Horse You Rode in on

The Last Will and Testament of Alexander Dragoumis

My name is Alexander Dragoumis and this is my last will and testament. I sense my end coming and I cannot help but feel blessed by Lady Fortune that my life will end by natural means. I have lived to see things no man should see, things I could not have hoped to see and retain my sanity. And yet I did. But perhaps that is not so fortunate. Maybe I should have lost my mind along with my naivete. Maybe then I would not have to carry this burden. But I cannot complain about what life dealt me.

I used to be a ruthless man in my youth. A greedy little runt. Never looking beyond bottom lines and personal gain and for that I am sorry. But for some things I do not apologise. I still find man to be a sorry excuse of a being. A bottomless well into which the hopes of gods are forever cast, never to return. I do not hate man, I pity him. For he is a feeble beast, capable of brilliant ascension and uttermost horror but seldom the clarity to choose wisely between the two. Pardon me reader if these seem the last ramblings of a faltering old mind. My mind is as youthful as it ever was though my body is weakened by time. I have lived through things I would not wish upon my bitterest of enemies and yet my mind has steeled itself and stayed strong. Or at least I think so.

As I said, I was a cold and calculating thing and it was this moral deformity that lead me into the line of work that made me a small fortune. In the shining glory of Smyrna and Constantinople I lived and worked in the dank shadows. I pawned off works of art to the highest bidder, effectively selling off the great culture of Asia Minor. At the time I may have rationalised what I did as providing a service to noble people that knew how to appreciate exquisite cultural artifacts but I see now that it would not have mattered what I sold and to whom as long the price was right.

It was this social degeneracy of mine that lead me to flee with as much money as I could the troubles of Smyrna. I should have burned in its flames. Cruel but fair is the judgment of our future selves and woe to the man that fails himself as an old man for he shall be cast into non-existence. I have to live with the things I did and I can only hope that in the balance of my judgment my evils will not outweigh any selflessness I may have shown. I fled to Athens and slowly resumed my loathsome work there with a fledgling gentry almost literally devouring anything I could bring over. It helped that some of my clients were military men. The imperialist Greek army did most of my dirty work while I was in Greece. Soon I had enough funds and influence to try and get back to Constantinople and maybe even Smyrna to build again my foul business.

I booked a ticket on the Orient Express and that was what condemned me and enlightened me. I have seen unspeakable horrors, O reader, the human form twisted and mutated until it is a mere mockery of its former self. Innumerable human lives treated casually as we treat dirt and dust. I looked into Insanity’s gaping maw and felt irresistible forces pull me in. I cannot pretend it was my resilience that saved me, nor my cunning, though I had plenty. It was sheer, dumb luck. I was a mere plaything in the infinite playroom of gods and though I was occasionally rattled, I was never broken.

On that damned train ride I met a group of what now only seems as a group of broken and insane folk. People that had been poked and prodded once too many by the gods, their minds now lesser than what they used to be. I cannot blame them now, I used to, for surely they suffered much more than I did. They never trusted me and how could they. Our lives became inexplicably entwined on that train after facing a vile creature which at the time terrified me but only because I did not yet know what was to follow.
I saved them and I am ashamed to admit that I felt vengeful that they did not recognise it. As if the goal of selflessness was profit. Such an imbecile I was. I helped them time and time again, facing unspeakable terrors with them until a horrible accident befell me and I was left with incurable wounds. They left me without a second thought and I must admit I blame them too for what I did next even though I take most of the responsibility. I betrayed them to enemies that then seemed inconsequential until I found out that bigger things were at stake than our little insignificant lives.

What fools men are. And our enemy was the biggest one. I took great pleasure in killing him and enjoyed it even more the second time around. I kept them safe from danger and they did not even know it, let alone acknowledge it. In the end, when I had stopped caring for my life we faced cruel, cavernous intellects beyond the planes that any mortal should ever be allowed to inhabit. Elder gods that no living thing should ever have to face no matter how heinous its crimes. And yet we survived.
I left them and everything else behind. No kind of normalcy could ever be expected after that. We never really became friends. Necessity kept us together and now I felt that I was needed elsewhere. Smyrna pulled on my soul and now I knew what I had to do. Since then I have dedicated my life making sure that no man will ever have to face what I did. I have uncovered every possible kind of artifact imaginable that channeled powers that should not be and made sure it would become unusable.

I am a man that has made his peace with how the world is and with himself. I hope I have redeemed myself and I hope I leave the world in a slightly better shape than when I found it. May no man ever see the things I have seen and if they do, may the gods grant them mercy in the form of insanity or a swift death.

Smyrna, 11th August 1953

Nicolas Lampert

Moar.

Sanjhih

It's futuristic. It's haunted. It's abandoned. It's the pod-town in Taiwan. More pictures here.

Post-Revolution Blues

I think I'm suffering from a light case of burn-out. Yesterday I practically pushed myself beyond my limits. I woke up at 7:30 in the morning, had a small and quick breakfast that was going to be my only meal for the next 12 hours. I traveled in a train packed with early commuters to the centre of Athens to meet with the people from my union. There we joined in solidarity with another union to block the entrance to a huge coffee shop that has been using and abusing its employees. That was an amusing way to wake up and start your day. After that we handed out a call for more people to join our union and joined another three unions to form a bloc that then marched all the way to the central square of Athens. I held the banner too.

I was hot, thirsty, possibly sunburnt already and a bit tired. I spent some time with the people I've met in the union and when shit started getting kicked, and they decided to leave, I stayed and watched and participated depending on the tides of battle I suppose. I inhaled cubic arseloads of teargas and various asphyxiants and thank fuck I was wearing a mask otherwise I may have been deadified by now. I came face to face with plenty a pig in all shapes and colours and I walked tens of kilometers.

We built and lit barricades, flung rocks, insults and other debris at cops and tried to protect ourselves and other people, some of whom didn't even want us there. That's the shittiest thing of all. To be treated like an unwanted servant. Fuck you lady. I didn't come here for you, I came here for me. I'm alive and you're still dead. Underneath the mask I'm smiling.

I met a lot of people, I like most of them and I was genuinely happy. I only had water and cigarettes, I was definitely sunburnt and dehydrated by the end of it, very dirty and tired but I was fucking happy. The explosions didn't scare me or the fire. That's not to say I wasn't scared. This was happiness resulting from fears being faced and defeated.

Today, I'm healing. Apparently the government will be changing but that won't change my life. Or the life of most other people. It'll still be "same shit, different asshole". And I'm kind of down today. I feel like a wild animal that has been caged for all its life, has tasted freedom for a day and then has been shoved back in its cage. I still have to find a shitty job to pay my shitty rent. But yesterday. O yesterday I lit fires.

Society of the Spectacle

In contrast to the logic of false consciousness, which cannot truly know itself, the search for critical truth about the spectacle must also be a true critique. It must struggle in practice among the irreconcilable enemies of the spectacle, and admit that it is nothing without them. By rushing into sordid reformist compromises or pseudorevolutionary collective actions, those driven by an abstract desire for immediate effectiveness are in reality obeying the ruling laws of thought, adopting a perspective that can see nothing but the latest news. In this way delirium reappears in the camp that claims to be opposing it. A critique seeking to go beyond the spectacle must know how to wait.

Guy Debord

The slogan ‘Revolution or Death!’ is no longer the lyrical expression of consciousness in revolt: rather, it is the last word of the scientific thought of our century. It applies to the perils facing the species as to the inability of individuals who belong. In a society where it is well known that the suicide rate is on the increase, the experts had to admit, reluctantly, that during May 1968 in France it fell to almost nil. That spring also vouchsafed us a clear sky, and it did so effortlessly, because few cars were burnt and the shortage of petrol prevented the others from polluting the air.

And Not a Single Fuck Was Given That Day

‘Hell Hath No Fury’: A Chronology of Genderfuck Insurrection

Hell hath no fury like a drag queen scorned.
- Silvia Rivera


The chronology below requires little introduction; the actions of all these rioters speak for themselves. Suffice to say that this chronology is a small attempt to address a fallacy in popular conceptions of insurrection—that insurrection is ‘macho,’ masculine, or that it reinforces gender norms. It should also address another fallacy in the commonly understood chronology of queer and trans resistance—the one that says “Stonewall was first.”
A note on language. Any terms we apply anachronistically will fail to reflect the ways these individuals and collectives identified. Moreover, we have first-hand accounts from none of these rioters, except some Stonewall and Compton’s participants. Since any language we choose for such a broad span of time, place and culture will be historically inaccurate, we just say genderfuck insurrection. It has the nicest ring to our ears.
Genderfuck is an active term; it speaks of a force that acts upon gender normality. This is more interesting to us than other terms that are passive and speak of identity, which attempt to freeze and quarantine gender transgression into special individuals.
Our tour begins in Greece, the cradle of democracy and the location of the most recent massive insurrection against the false hope of democracy…

390 – Thessalonica, Greece. Butheric, the commander of the militia, arrested a popular circus performer under a new law that punished “male effeminacy.” The people of Thessalonica, who loved the performer, rose up in rebellion and killed Burtheric. In response to the insurrection, authorities rounded up and massacred three thousand people.

1250 – Southern France. A small crowd of cross-dressed males pranced into the home of a wealthy landowner. They sang “We take one and give back a hundred,” and ignored the protestations of the lady of the house as they looted the estate of every possession.

1450-51 – Cade’s Rebellion in Kent & Essex, England. Led by the “servants of the Queen of the Fairies,” the peasants broke into the Duke of Buckingham’s land and took his bucks and does.

1530 – ‘New Spain.’ During his campaign of conquest against communities of resistance in western portions of “New Spain,” Spanish conquistador Nuño de Guzmán wrote of a battle. The very last indigenous warrior taken prisoner after the battle was, in the conquistador’s words, “a man in the habit of a woman” who had “fought most courageously.”

16th century – Europe. Urban carnivals throughout Europe integrated cross-dressing and masks as key elements. The festivals were organized by societies of unmarried ‘men’ with trans personalities. They were called the Abbeys of Misrule, Abbots of Unreason, ‘Mére Folle and her children,’ and others. During festival, they would ‘hold court’ with mock marriages and issue coins to the crowds. They made fun of the government, critiqued the clergy, and protested war and the high cost of bread.

1629 – Essex, England. Grain riot led by ‘Captain’ Alice, who was trans.

1630 – Dijon, France. Mére Folle and her Infanterie went beyond throwing carnivals and mocking elites. They led an uprising against royal tax officers. As a result, a furious royal edict abolished the Abbey of Misrule.

1631 – England. Riots again enclosure led by ‘Lady Skimmington’ drag mob.

1645 – Montpellier, France. Tax revolt led by La Branlaire, who was called by a term for masculine women.

1720 – The Caribbean Sea. Untold numbers of trans pirates sailed across the open seas in the Golden Age of Piracy. It was not altogether uncommon at the time for “women” to “pass as men” while sailing in the navy, on mercantile ships, and as pirates. The two most well-known trans pirates of the era are Read and Bonn. They sailed together with Captain John Rackham, and their stories are known from when they were put on trial for piracy. They were said to be the most fierce and courageous fighters in their crew. Like most pirates, they were faggots.

1725 – Covent Garden Molly House Rebellion, London, England. Since 1707, the Societies for the Reformation of Manners carried out systematic attacks on London’s queer underground. More than 20 “molly houses” were raided by police in London and many “mollies” (mtfs) publicly dragged and hung for cross-dressing. But on one day in 1725, the police attempted a raid of a Covent Garden molly house, and the crowd of mollies, many in drag, fiercely and violently fought back.

1728-1749 – Toll Gate Riots in England. “To cite but four examples, toll gates were demolished by bands of armed men dressed in women’s clothing and wigs in Somerset in 1731 and 1749, in Gloucester in 1728 and in Herefordshire in 1735.”

1736 – Edinburgh, Scotland, “the Porteous Riots, which were sparked by a hated English officer and oppressive custom laws and expressed resistance to the union of Scotland and England, were carried out by men disguised as women and with a leader known as Madge Wildfire.”

1760s – White Boy commons restoration movement in Ireland. The ‘White Boys,’ a peasant guerrilla group who called themselves ‘fairies’ and did mischief at night, were a central feature of the rural class war. They destroyed enclosures, sent threatening letters to elites, reclaimed properties seized by landlords, and freed bound apprentices. They were finally put down by armed force. Their spirit inspired the formation of the ‘Lady Rocks’ and ‘Lady Clares’ in the 1820s and 1830s, and the later Ribbon Societies and Molly Maguires—all were involved in Ireland’s anti-enclosure and anti-colonial struggles and all cross-dressed.

1770s – Beaujolais, France. ‘Male’ peasants dressed as women attacked surveyors assessing their lands for a new landlord.

1812 – ‘General Ludd’s wives’ loom riot, Stockton, England. One of the early Luddite Rebellions against the Industrial Revolution was led by “General Ludd’s wives,” two cross-dressed workers. The mob of hundreds broke windows, stoned the house of Joseph Goodair, a factory owner, and later set fire to his house. They destroyed the products in the steam loom factory, smashed the looms and burned the factory to the ground. The rioting went on for four days until it was stopped by the military at Stockport, and then broke out again at Oldham.

1820s – Ireland. The ‘Lady Rocks’ militant Irish resistance group active; inspired by the White Boys, they wore bonnets and veils.

1829 – The War of the Demoiselles in the Pyrenees. A peasant uprising against restrictive forest code in which the peasants cross-dressed.

1830s – Ireland. The ‘Lady Clares’ militant Irish resistance group active; inspired by the White Boys, their ‘official’ costume was cross-dressing.

1839-1844 – Welsh Toll-gate Riots, carried out by ‘Rebecca and her daughters.’ One well-documented instance was on May 13, 1839. At dusk, a call of horns, drums and gunfire are be heard across the western Welsh countryside. Armed male peasants, dressed as women, thunder up on horseback, waving pitchforks, axes, scythes, and guns. As they storm the toll gate their leader roars: “Hurrah for free laws! Toll gates free to coal pits and lime kilns!” These demands are punctuated by a cacophony of music, shouts, and shotgun blasts. The rebel troops smash the toll barriers and ride away victorious. They call themselves “Rebecca and her daughters.” The Rebeccas are active for four years in Wales, leading thousands of cross-dressed “daughters” in the destruction of turnpike toll barriers. They receive widespread popular support.

1843 – Militant resistance group the ‘Molly Maguires’ active in Ireland. Inspired by the White Boys, the word “Molly” was the vernacular equivalent of what we might call “queen” today.

1959 – Cooper’s Donuts Riot, LA Los Angeles, May 1959. Police attempted a raid on Cooper’s Doughnuts, a late-night hangout for drag queens, butch hustlers, street queens and johns. The cops demanded IDs. The queers fought back. Doughnuts and coffee cups become projectiles. Fighting spilled out onto the street. The cops, taken by storm, called for backup. Rioters were arrested and the street was closed off for a day.

1966 – Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, San Francisco, August 1966. Compton’s Cafeteria, an all-night hangout for drag queens, and hustlers in the Tenderloin neighborhood. The restaurant management called the police on a group of young queens who were being rowdy. A police officer who was used to roughing up Compton’s regulars grabbed a queen. She threw her coffee in his face. A fight broke out. Plates, trays, cups, and furniture were thrown. The plate-glass windows of the restaurant were smashed. Police called for backup as the riot took the street. The windows of a cop car were smashed and a newspaper stand went up in flames.

1969 – Stonewall Riot, New York City, June 28. The police conduct a ‘routine’ raid of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. They began to round up trans people, drag queens and kings to be arrested for cross-dressing, which was illegal. Hostility grew and grew until an officer shoved a queen, who responded by hitting him on the head with her purse. The crowd became fierce. Cops were pelted, first with coins and then with bottles and stones. When a bull-dyke resisting arrest called to the crowd for support, the situation exploded. The crowd tried to topple the paddy wagon while the police vehicles got their tires slashed. The crowd, already throwing beer bottles, discovered a cache of bricks at a construction site. Cops were forced to barricade themselves inside the Inn. Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. Rioters ripped up a parking meter and used it as a battering ram. The mob lit garbage on fire and sent it through the broken windows; squirted lighter fluid inside and lit it. Riot police arrived on the scene, but were unable to regain control of the situation. Drag queens danced a conga line and sang songs amidst the street fighting to mock the inability of the police to re-establish order. The rioting continued until dawn, and for the next four days. Crowds filled the streets and smashed more cop cars, set more fires, and looted stores.

1970 – New York City. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, veterans of the Stonewall riots, formed the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). Marsha and Sylvia opened the STAR house for homeless drag queens and runaway queer youth to stay in. The house mothers hustled to pay rent so their kids wouldn’t have to. The youth, in turn, stole food to bring home. STAR linked up with the Young Lords, a revolutionary Puerto Rican group, and with the Black Panther Party.

http://gendermutiny.wordpress.com/

Devastation

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