Prozac People

I'm sick and tired of you. Yeah, you. The one that feels the need to maintain equal distances from everything. The one that is absolutely certain they are the voice of reason. All of you. I'm tired of your smug superiority and the obvious conviction that you are somehow more educated, more knowledgeable than me, than us.

No, I don't care that I sound fanatical to you. Why would I, since you so obviously confuse fanaticism with passion/pathos. I care a little that you call me stupid, or ignorant, but not because I value your opinion, no. I care because it is frustrating to be called that by idiots.

I can't, in good conscience, suffer you anymore. Your opinion is no longer a valid one. It is not informed and as such is not important. I know that if it were up to you, the world would be a flatness with no end in sight. You would playfully joke about political correctness while meticulously upholding it, all the while using it as a mantle for your various inequities.

I know that if I let you have your way, there would be no ups or downs. If we let you have your way, we would have to suffer not only you but the endless violences of our daily lives. It would be miseries all the way down and you would make us feel guilty about the way we felt, thought, talked and acted. Really, I know that if you could, you would probably medicate us.

So, I suppose this is my very roundabout way of saying, fuck you rationalists. You can suck my hairy irrational ass.

What Is To Be Undone

The hate and the violence in my heart, you put it there. All I am doing is trying to get rid of it. Every stone, every hit, every smashing thing, every barricade on fire carries a little hate with it. A tiny bit of violence that you gave me without asking me if I wanted it. So now you're getting it back.

And one day, when it has all left me. I will realise that I have no more hatred to give. No more violence to return to you. I'll probably cry.

Death to Art Critics

Fuck Roger Ebert. Yes, fuck him. Fuck film critics in general. Some people hate artists because they're pretentious or arrogant. I don't, they're just fools. But art critics. Oh. They are the parasite that feeds off the fool. And everyone else. They survive by trying to convince people that their opinion weighs more than anyone else's. And while they try to convince everyone else they also convince themselves. So they slowly adopt the appearance of a judge, condemning or praising a piece of creation based on their own, oft ill-informed, subjective criteria.
I fucking hate art critics. And most of all film critics. They have even developed their own dialect which they try to make more and more exclusive so that people will feel more and more stupid for not being privy to their secrets. In essence, it is yet another glorified boys' club.
Not to mention they diss films I like and praise some of the dullest, most uninspired shite that was ever shat into creation. So yeah. Fuck them.

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.

Words Don't Work

They don't, do they? Not always. Just when it's most important that they do work, they fail. Consider the use of words in arguments. From personal experience and from what others have communicated to me over the years words are never enough to shift someone's worldview. And how could they? We grow up in complex systems which give rise to well rooted, ingrained ideas. You think a well thought out, well researched and well presented argument is enough to change that? Fuck no! That would be reasonable.

Look at the world around you, it's full of ideas that shouldn't exist. Control, hierarchy, oppression, prejudice, domination, authority. But these ideas exist and it looks like no amount of argument is going to change that. So if words aren't any good, what's left? Actions I hear you cry in my head, and can you please stop it?

Actions affect the tangible world and everything in it. But what happens if what you want to eradicate an idea? Not make it vanish, because that would deny people choice. Not matter how idiotic an idea may seem you have to be able to choose not to follow it to make the result worth anything at all. What good is it to not be a racist if there's only one race or not be a sexist if there's only one gender? Crude examples I know but the reasoning behind them is sound. But what happens if you want to reveal the shittiness in an idea? To make it clear for everyone to see and to make it a horrible choice. Surely that would be enough to make an idea wither and die, right?

To cut a long story short, I want to know how we can kill ideas. Words don't seem to work and actions have an equally long history, if not longer, of not working. So consider this a call for developing an armoury for fighting ideas. We need it.

Pigs in Blankets

That’s what Doug Stanhope called the imaginary charity gig he did for police officers fallen in the line of duty. That opener should have got rid of the cop sympathisers among you and for those of you reading still on the fence here’s another one, more succinct and one that leaves no doubt about where I stand on the issue of police. I shit on the grave of fallen police officers.

But seriously, let’s analyse this lest we make ourselves look as dumb as the pigs. The first and extremely common argument about cops, living or dead, is that they are people like us. Ha! I say to thee. Let’s just find out. I’m not going to quote the numbers that show the grief and malignancy caused by cops, oh no, because you can argue numbers. In fact, I’m not going to refer to anything you can argue about. Instead, I will talk about things that no matter how good a debater you might think you are (even a master debater, heh) you will have to accept as general truths or otherwise reveal what an idiot you are. So without further ado, what makes us human?

The common things among all people are our fundamental human needs. These, according to the school of "Human Scale Development" developed by Manfred Max-Neef and others (Antonio Elizalde and Martin Hopenhayn), are seen as stemming from the condition of being human. They are subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity and freedom. For the time being we can ignore subsistence, protection and understanding, not because they’re not important or for any silly reason like that but because they’re not really unique to us humans. Animals fulfill these needs every day so I don’t think we can use them as something that makes us stand out as humans. The same is probably true of affection but I chose to leave that in, if only slightly facetiously, in order to poke further fun at the argument that “cops are people just like us”. So let’s pick at each of them one by one.

Oh look, the first one is affection. Do I really need to analyse that? Is there anywhere on this planet where cops are known for how sweet and cuddly they are? No, I didn’t think so. They might have a deep need for affection that they hide very, very well but it is most definitely something that does not go well at all with their role and it is probably stamped on early on, either at a young age in their family or later on in their training or maybe even both.

Next up is participation. This may appear to be somehow fulfilled by the illusion of police being an integral part of society but nothing is further from the truth. Cops are elitists. They are their own special little boys’ club. More importantly though they exist because society is elitist and it wants to stay that way. The haves are protected from the have-nots and those higher up on the hierarchy need someone to do their dirty work and manage the chaos created by those lower down. For all intents and purposes, there is no organisation more segregationist than the police. And that is most likely true on an individual level. We’ve all seen and heard of “corrupt” cops but when was the last time you heard of a cop fighting for the rights of immigrants, or women, or children, or animals? Even if by some miracle you did find some, they would only highlight their rarity. The only thing cops are interested in participating in is the police and its purpose.

To show you that I am not prejudiced however, I will give them leisure. Although I don’t believe that one is limited to humans either, it is I feel a connecting point among absolutely all humans. Everyone, absolutely everyone, wants a break once and a while no matter how much fun they’re having with a task. Not even machines can run forever.

Creation. This is my favourite. I’m going to let you do the thinking for this one though because I feel it illustrates my point perfectly. What is it that cops create? What do they make? No, really, think about it. That’s right, absolutely fucking nothing. They are a bunch of bloodsucking parasites.

As far as identity goes, please no more, this is too much. The police, as much as any other kind of army, wants you to be a number not a person. They want individuality set aside and they want each cop to work like a well-oiled cog in the machine of state-sponsored repression. There is no identity in the police, you are whatever your commanding officer tells you you are. If cops need to find an identity then they’re looking in the wrong place.

And last but not least, freedom. I don’t know how to talk about this one without laughing. Seriously, I need to argue about this one too? Get the fuck out. Police for freedom would really be like fucking for virginity.

So that’s one stupid argument down, about a million more to go. Let’s take a break now, fulfill our need of leisure, possibly the only thing that we and the pigs have in common and we’ll come back with even more cop-apologist bashing.

Normal?

People from the (rapidly splintering) "mainstream" of society in Europe and the United States today, take a peculiar pleasure in considering themselves "normal” in comparison to legal offenders, political radicals, and other members of social outgroups. They treat this “normalcy” as if it is an indication of mental health and moral righteousness, regarding the “others” with a mixture of pity and disgust. But if we consult history we can see that the conditions and patterns of human life have changed so much in the past two centuries that it is impossible to speak of any lifestyle available to human beings today as being “normal" in the natural sense, as being a lifestyle for which we adapted over many generations. Of the lifestyles from which a young woman growing up in the West today can choose, none are anything like the ones for which her ancestors were prepared by centuries of natural selection and evolution. It is more likely that the “normalcy” that these people hold so dear is rather the feelings of normalcy that result from conformity to a standard. Being surrounded by others who behave the same way, who are conditioned to the same routines and expectations, is comforting because it reinforces the idea that one is pursuing the right course: if a great many people make the same decisions and live according to the same customs, then these decisions and customs must be the right ones. But the mere fact that a number of people live and act in a certain way does not make it any more likely that this way of living is the one that will bring them the most happiness. Besides, the lifestyles associated with the American and European “mainstream" (if such a thing truly exists) were not exactly consciously chosen as the best possible ones by those who pursue them; rather, they came to be suddenly as the results of technological and cultural upheavals. Once the peoples of Europe, the United States, and the world realize that there is nothing necessarily "normal"’ about their “normal life", they can begin to ask themselves the first and most important question of the new century:

Are there ways of thinking, acting and living that might be more satisfying and exciting than the ways we think, act and live today?

The Guy with the Mustache is Dead

The evil twin has been vanquished. It was consumed. Its powers absorbed. Like the zygotes, splitting then one enclosing the other. Cain killed Abel by endocytosis.

Motherfucker, I ate the other embryo.

Mr. Freeman

Put a Fence Around This

Okay. Let's get some things straight. This is going to be a rant about intellectual property, copyright, filesharing etc. If you like the first two and have "moral" or otherwise issues with the last, go on, get the fuck out of here.




















Cool, now that we got rid of the dimwits. I hate the fact that all proponents of intellectual property base their otherwise idiotic and very easily countered arguments on their own cynicism. I read this expose of this dickhead on the website of an artist that I really like going on about how the reason we're downloading free music is because "people want as much free shit as possible". Go fuck yourself dude. This guy claims that the human desire for resonance with the natural world as expressed through music in combination with another deep seated desire, that of not being exploited - because if working to produce shit you can't afford isn't exploitation then I don't what is - is "really" just plain ole greed. Oh you great delver of the human soul, tell me more, tell me why I'm stealing shit I can't afford.
Tell me oh white male privileged one, tell me, why do I do the things I do? Why do I not get a jobby, work all day and then at the end of the month dish it all out for the records I like? Why?
It's true that if you can put a fence around something then you can sell it, and recording music has done just that. It's put a fence around something seemingly elusive, human inspiration. But the insult here isn't the fact that people want to get paid for something they've created, even though we can argue that they are most definitely asking to be paid much more than they deserve (you didn't create that music in a vacuum dickhead, you had influences, are you paying them royalties? no didn't think so). What gets me is the notion that they're special. That somehow, this "artistic and creative" caste of people deserve better than the rest of us "labourers" and clearly their precious gem of creation is worth a significant fraction of our sacrificed time, space and health.
This person then goes on to, in his mind at least, take the piss out of the Pirate Bay because they ask for donations at the end of their documentary after having dissed money and it's corrupting influence or whatever. Goes to show how the privileged middle-class mindset works. "If there's money in there somewhere you are no better than us, come wallow in the pigshit and don't speak out of turn."
Now, I'm not going to try and counter all the supposed arguments he uses in his attack of free sharing of content which is thinly veiled as "starting a dialogue", whatever dickhead, the ones I covered are enough for now, and they have all pretty much been countered by people nicer, smarter and bigger than this asshole. I will say this though, it has been PROVEN that free sharing of content doesn't harm the capitalist system, which is a shame if you ask me. At best it helps us get some of our lost lives back, it means now we can spend some of our shitty salaries on more creative things than DVDs and records that we will watch and listen at most once. It means that we can start making content ourselves and threaten this creative elite that trembles at the thought of its precious work exposed in the eyes and ears of someone that DIDN'T PAY.

Let me close with a call for people to continue sharing content and put their efforts, time and money into more creative outlets. Make your own film or record. It can be done. It is done. Everyday. Some of the best movies and records I've seen are results of dirt-cheap, no-budget creative efforts. Fuck the guy who said DIY is dead. He is dead and no-one's told him yet.

And to everyone who thinks that by throwing their two-cents about why "filesharing is bad, m'kay?" they can still change something: The content has been downloaded guy. We don't need justification to make ourselves feel better. I know you like to stroke yourself at night thinking we cry ourselves to sleep, tormented and guilt-ridden about stealing the fruits of your genius, but here's the newsflash. We like stealing from you. We are the happiest thieves alive. The content has been downloaded. It is down and there is nothing you can do about it. So either you can find a new way to be creative under the new circumstances, or you can stay the whiny fuck that you are, crying "my monies, my precious monies!" Either you help make a new world, or you are obsolete.

The clown is down.

It's only funny if it's in metric...

Right. So me and some friends that I haven't seen for some time, got together and were talking smack. And we came up with the singular, most effective way to ruin your child's life. And make them hate you. Forever and ever. And ever. And this is by giving them the appropriate name. Now listen as I impart my wisdom. This is our imaginary child's full name:

Fontleroy Felix Edward Lloyd Arthur Titus Ignatius Optimus Smythe-Boddington.

or as known by friends: Font F.E.L.A.T.I.O. Smythe-Boddington.

Go on. Ruin your child's life.

Treatise on subconscious futility and windproof cake

I had my birthday a few days ago. On my cake there was a candle. And I blew it out but it came on again. So I tried again and again and the damned thing kept lighting up on its own again and again. At first I thought, hey that's pretty neat, it's a windproof candle. But then I thought a bit more and it hit me: Why the hell does anyone need a windproof cake-candle? Do you take your cake in a hurricane? Perhaps in a wind tunnel? Do you streamline your cake?
Hmm... That's an interesting concept. Cake slipstream.

We have failed. We have let ourselves down. We have postponed our happiness because we need more time to search for it. Oh well, whatever, nevermind.