It’s all well and good to call for a social revolution – but when it comes right down to it what can you or I, as a single individual, do to really inspire change? It is not a simple question to answer. I often feel powerless against what seem like irreversible forces that wield power and have their own agendas. There’s no way I can talk to George W. Bush directly, much less the ultra-powerful heads of private industry who are even less transparent than our politicians. It feels like I’m in a card game playing with twos and threes while the dealer is playing with all the face cards and aces.
But revolution can start with each of us if we’re willing to take some small steps. Myself I have become a proponent of radical de-centralization of power. The closer we can keep our tax dollars to home the more likely we are to get accurate representation from our elected officials. Here are a few ideas.
You are What You Eat
One of the easiest and most essential things you can do is start paying careful attention to what and where you eat and drink. Make a point of frequenting locally owned eateries. Better yet eat at locally owned restaurants that get their food from local growers and suppliers. There is a growing slow food movement and we could not live in a better place to eat local produce. Everything grows here in this rich river loam!
Go Veggie!
I gave up eating meat a few years ago for a variety of reasons. First and foremost I feel badly for the animals that spend their lives living in squalor only to be slaughtered. But secondly I am skeptical about the safety of our national meat industries. Scathing books and exposes have been written on the subject but there is so much commotion that they are easily dismissed. But consider for a moment what has to happen with thousands upon thousands of animals living in impacted quarters. Antibiotics and steroids are used in tremendous quantities in order to keep the animals growing fast enough, large enough, and to keep them “healthy” enough to get from birth to slaughter. The antibiotics are what scare me. Without them diseases would decimate these herds and flocks of caged animals. It isn’t a natural way for animals to live and the common sense part of my brain tells me that cannot be healthy down the line for those of us who consume this industry –created product.
Think About It!
Sometimes we have to put on our blinders to deal with a society that is increasingly ethically out of whack. We have enough to worry about in our day to day life without having to ponder how the kid who sewed our underpants together lives or where the hamburger we just ate really came from. We don’t want to recognize that rain forest is being cut down to the tune of 80,000 acres per day in order to make grazing land for cattle. But this “necessity” to not think about things is just plain and simple avoidance. Think about how you live, make sacrifices where you can, and lead a more integrated and ethical lifestyle. Small changes will create a greater sense of well-being and balance.
Drive Less
We can talk bio-fuels and hybrids and carbon emission capturing until the cows come home but in the mean-time a very simple thing we can almost all do is drive less. Also keep your car tuned up and the oil changed. This increases mileage.
Cash is King
Buy locally and trade whenever you can. Deal in cash. I’m not saying you should avoid paying your taxes; that would be illegal. But our taxes are financing a dubious war and a renegade Federal Government. Now if only we could convince the Feds to stop spending money they don’t have.
Write Your Congressperson!
I write to Congressman Wally Herger on a regular basis and have also written to assemblyman Rick Keene, as well as Senators Barbara Boxer, John McCain, and Nancy Pelosi. I don’t even count the e-mails I’ve fired off to the White House – they don’t even pretend to care. But our local representatives have been very good about getting back to me in a timely manner. I don’t always agree with what they have to say but I appreciate that someone on their staff actually reads and takes the time to respond to my letters.
They’ll never hear you if you don’t make some noise!
Got any ideas? E-mail madbob@madbob.com
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Winter Soldier
War on Truth
In totalitarian countries what people can say is controlled by the government. Here we have the flag-waving nationalistic “patriotic” mob and a complacent media casually conspiring to censor unpopular speech.
I am frustrated by the backlash levied against Senator Barack Obama’s pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright for speaking truth. America is a country that was founded on racism. We came to this country, slaughtered and imprisoned the native population, then kidnapped people from Africa in order to do the dirty work. In this manner we accumulated more wealth and power than any nation in the world. It’s ugly but it is truth.
We are still practicing imperialism under the code name “globalism.” We still pay dark-skinned people pennies per day to do the work Americans refuse.
Reverend Wright says we bought the events of 911 on ourselves. There is accuracy in that statement. Our foreign policy has serious flaws. Things are being done in our names of which we have only vague awareness. This is the crux of democracy. Unlike a monarchy or a dictatorship America is meant to work as a “bottom-up” system of representation. We can’t shrug off the decisions of our leaders and claim we have nothing to do with them. We are the ones who put those people into a position of power and gave them the authority to represent us. So when our foreign policy is flawed it is valid for people to hold the American population accountable. Like it or not that’s the responsibility that comes with a democratic system of power. As such our duty does not stop at the voting box. We need to carefully follow the actions of our leaders and take them to task when they act irresponsibly in our names.
I’m not ashamed of America – but there are shameful episodes throughout our history. If we ignore them or deny them we will never be able to reconcile them.
Winter Soldier
A phenomenal conference was recently held called “Winter Soldier.” The first winter soldier took place during the Vietnam War when soldiers came forward to tell of what they did and witnessed while serving. Atrocities were exposed. Now we have a similar coming out with hundreds of veterans of the Iraq War coming forward to describe their experiences. I’ve been following some of the testimony and it is horrifying. The most disturbing thing is the callousness of our military command. As in any war the enemy is framed as sub-human and similar to Vietnam the drag-net term “enemy” is essentially expanded to include anyone we capture or kill. Soldiers testified of unloading hundreds of rounds into cars on the roads, being given order to take out any and all taxi cabs, and detaining Iraqi men even when they knew they were not the suspects they were looking for. It’s brutal, awful stuff. We can use all the clinical sounding terms we like: “enhanced interrogation,” “non-lawful combatant,” “counter-insurgency.” Terms obscure the bloody truth on the ground – the truth that we have invaded a country, killed hundreds of thousands of its citizens, and driven anyone with means out of the country. The truth is blood and body parts litter the streets and our soldiers are going to come back from this conflict all screwed up in their heads from killing civilians in a half-baked conflict dreamed up by ideologues in Washington D.C.
How many times do we have to enter into the same follies before we rise up as a people and say “ENOUGH?” Obviously someone is benefiting from these impossible conflicts but it isn’t you and I. There is an oligarchy in place, a small powerful group of incredibly wealthy people who are cynically using nationalism, religion, and racism to pit regular working people against one another. They are using fear to keep us complacent. Fear of war, fear of economic woe, fear of the other, the alien, the end. They keep our heads spinning so fast from one crisis to another that we never have the ability to unify and rise.
The Rising of the Moon
On Saint Patrick’s Day I sat on a barstool and drank Guiness with a woman from Northern Ireland. She talked about growing up in the sights of British guns. The Irish know how it feels to be on the receiving end of imperialism all too well. The Irish rose up.
It won’t happen of its own accord. If change is going to come about in this entrenched system that favors those who set it up it is going to take activism on the part of the many. It is going to take awareness and a conscious spirit of social revolution.
Here’s to the rebels.
Revolutionary ideas? E-mail me at madbob@madbob.com.
In totalitarian countries what people can say is controlled by the government. Here we have the flag-waving nationalistic “patriotic” mob and a complacent media casually conspiring to censor unpopular speech.
I am frustrated by the backlash levied against Senator Barack Obama’s pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright for speaking truth. America is a country that was founded on racism. We came to this country, slaughtered and imprisoned the native population, then kidnapped people from Africa in order to do the dirty work. In this manner we accumulated more wealth and power than any nation in the world. It’s ugly but it is truth.
We are still practicing imperialism under the code name “globalism.” We still pay dark-skinned people pennies per day to do the work Americans refuse.
Reverend Wright says we bought the events of 911 on ourselves. There is accuracy in that statement. Our foreign policy has serious flaws. Things are being done in our names of which we have only vague awareness. This is the crux of democracy. Unlike a monarchy or a dictatorship America is meant to work as a “bottom-up” system of representation. We can’t shrug off the decisions of our leaders and claim we have nothing to do with them. We are the ones who put those people into a position of power and gave them the authority to represent us. So when our foreign policy is flawed it is valid for people to hold the American population accountable. Like it or not that’s the responsibility that comes with a democratic system of power. As such our duty does not stop at the voting box. We need to carefully follow the actions of our leaders and take them to task when they act irresponsibly in our names.
I’m not ashamed of America – but there are shameful episodes throughout our history. If we ignore them or deny them we will never be able to reconcile them.
Winter Soldier
A phenomenal conference was recently held called “Winter Soldier.” The first winter soldier took place during the Vietnam War when soldiers came forward to tell of what they did and witnessed while serving. Atrocities were exposed. Now we have a similar coming out with hundreds of veterans of the Iraq War coming forward to describe their experiences. I’ve been following some of the testimony and it is horrifying. The most disturbing thing is the callousness of our military command. As in any war the enemy is framed as sub-human and similar to Vietnam the drag-net term “enemy” is essentially expanded to include anyone we capture or kill. Soldiers testified of unloading hundreds of rounds into cars on the roads, being given order to take out any and all taxi cabs, and detaining Iraqi men even when they knew they were not the suspects they were looking for. It’s brutal, awful stuff. We can use all the clinical sounding terms we like: “enhanced interrogation,” “non-lawful combatant,” “counter-insurgency.” Terms obscure the bloody truth on the ground – the truth that we have invaded a country, killed hundreds of thousands of its citizens, and driven anyone with means out of the country. The truth is blood and body parts litter the streets and our soldiers are going to come back from this conflict all screwed up in their heads from killing civilians in a half-baked conflict dreamed up by ideologues in Washington D.C.
How many times do we have to enter into the same follies before we rise up as a people and say “ENOUGH?” Obviously someone is benefiting from these impossible conflicts but it isn’t you and I. There is an oligarchy in place, a small powerful group of incredibly wealthy people who are cynically using nationalism, religion, and racism to pit regular working people against one another. They are using fear to keep us complacent. Fear of war, fear of economic woe, fear of the other, the alien, the end. They keep our heads spinning so fast from one crisis to another that we never have the ability to unify and rise.
The Rising of the Moon
On Saint Patrick’s Day I sat on a barstool and drank Guiness with a woman from Northern Ireland. She talked about growing up in the sights of British guns. The Irish know how it feels to be on the receiving end of imperialism all too well. The Irish rose up.
It won’t happen of its own accord. If change is going to come about in this entrenched system that favors those who set it up it is going to take activism on the part of the many. It is going to take awareness and a conscious spirit of social revolution.
Here’s to the rebels.
Revolutionary ideas? E-mail me at madbob@madbob.com.
Perjury
Another week another powerful democrat is under fire on charges of inappropriate sexual conduct. This time the target is Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick is charged with the ubiquitous charge of “perjury” stemming from an alleged cover-up of a romantic affair with a co-worker. Like disgraced New York City Mayor Eliot Spitzer Kilpatrick is considered a rising star within the Democratic party.
Could it be just a coincidence that these powerful democratic figures are being charged by administration-appointed prosecutors during the death throes of the Bush regime? Or is this a final cynical ploy on the part of the RNC to take out as many powerful democrats as possible as their own party crumbles after nearly two decades in power. If these are really politically motivated prosecutions I suppose the good news is that even the republicans aren’t convinced they can retain power during the next election.
I don’t know who to vote for this next go around but I know I am not voting for a continuation of the current policies because, from my simplistic point of view, they are not working very well. People say voting for Barack Obama is like rolling the dice but at this point I’m thinking “give me the damn dice!”
Hillary Melt-Down
The horror! The horror! In an incredible moment of hubris and incompetence Hillary Clinton has apparently completely fabricated an event in Bosnia that was meant to bolster her foreign policy experience. She claimed to have been dodging bullets on the tarmac after landing. It is a harrowing story but unfortunately it is completely false! Apparently Sinbad, the c-list comedian, outed the former first lady when he stated that the only thing he was scared of while on the same trip was where the next meal was coming from. It is never good when Sinbad is able to refute your story and in this case the damage could be insurmountable.
In about the only come-back available to her Clinton claimed she mad a mistake and that it showed she was human, which she added would be a revelation to some people. I personally think its too late to play that card but Clinton’s campaign has been in damage control (and some might say “damage affliction”) for the past couple of months and it is starting to look more and more like free-fall.
Politics is a Gross Game
Politics is one of the awful insidious toxins. I am a certified politics junkie. I can’t stand it and I can’t stay away from it. I know its toxic but I wallow in the slime anyway. I can’t help myself – maybe there will be a new rehab for my type someday. Imagine the meetings – oh my god.
Whoops, Our Bad!
Wow – now I’m reading that we “mistakenly” sent four electrical fuses to Taiwan that are manufactured to trigger the Minuteman strategic nuclear missile. This sounds like a leak to me – probably with the intention of letting China know that Taiwan may or may not have nuclear material.
Holy crap – to cap this thoroughly depressing run-down of the week’s politics it turns out that nearly 1 in 10 Ohioans are currently receiving food-stamps from the government.
The Tonya Harding Strategy
One politico has labeled Hillary’s only hope of taking out Barack Obama the “Tonya Harding Strategy.” It involves destroying Obama thoroughly, portraying him as an absolutely unacceptable candidate. The politico extends the analogy to include the fact that the tactic will destroy both candidates in the Presidential election – neither candidate would “get the gold.” Is Hillary willing to go to these extremes to win?
Have politics gotten to that point where the candidates on both sides are willing to sacrifice the good of the country for the good of their own party, ideology, and egos? Or maybe its always been this way. Personally I think we’ve reached a new and troubling low with the Bush administration’s willingness to play fast and loose with the letter of the law. They have demonstrated that no ethic is immutable when it comes to achieving their ambitions.
Hopefully whomever takes over control of the White House understands just how far we have started down that precarious slippery slope and pulls us back. We will need to tighten up restrictions on power for a time – put some handcuffs on whomever is sitting in the Oval Office. Things are out of control now but the beauty of our political system is that, as long as we do not succumb to complacency, things can change very rapidly.
Could it be just a coincidence that these powerful democratic figures are being charged by administration-appointed prosecutors during the death throes of the Bush regime? Or is this a final cynical ploy on the part of the RNC to take out as many powerful democrats as possible as their own party crumbles after nearly two decades in power. If these are really politically motivated prosecutions I suppose the good news is that even the republicans aren’t convinced they can retain power during the next election.
I don’t know who to vote for this next go around but I know I am not voting for a continuation of the current policies because, from my simplistic point of view, they are not working very well. People say voting for Barack Obama is like rolling the dice but at this point I’m thinking “give me the damn dice!”
Hillary Melt-Down
The horror! The horror! In an incredible moment of hubris and incompetence Hillary Clinton has apparently completely fabricated an event in Bosnia that was meant to bolster her foreign policy experience. She claimed to have been dodging bullets on the tarmac after landing. It is a harrowing story but unfortunately it is completely false! Apparently Sinbad, the c-list comedian, outed the former first lady when he stated that the only thing he was scared of while on the same trip was where the next meal was coming from. It is never good when Sinbad is able to refute your story and in this case the damage could be insurmountable.
In about the only come-back available to her Clinton claimed she mad a mistake and that it showed she was human, which she added would be a revelation to some people. I personally think its too late to play that card but Clinton’s campaign has been in damage control (and some might say “damage affliction”) for the past couple of months and it is starting to look more and more like free-fall.
Politics is a Gross Game
Politics is one of the awful insidious toxins. I am a certified politics junkie. I can’t stand it and I can’t stay away from it. I know its toxic but I wallow in the slime anyway. I can’t help myself – maybe there will be a new rehab for my type someday. Imagine the meetings – oh my god.
Whoops, Our Bad!
Wow – now I’m reading that we “mistakenly” sent four electrical fuses to Taiwan that are manufactured to trigger the Minuteman strategic nuclear missile. This sounds like a leak to me – probably with the intention of letting China know that Taiwan may or may not have nuclear material.
Holy crap – to cap this thoroughly depressing run-down of the week’s politics it turns out that nearly 1 in 10 Ohioans are currently receiving food-stamps from the government.
The Tonya Harding Strategy
One politico has labeled Hillary’s only hope of taking out Barack Obama the “Tonya Harding Strategy.” It involves destroying Obama thoroughly, portraying him as an absolutely unacceptable candidate. The politico extends the analogy to include the fact that the tactic will destroy both candidates in the Presidential election – neither candidate would “get the gold.” Is Hillary willing to go to these extremes to win?
Have politics gotten to that point where the candidates on both sides are willing to sacrifice the good of the country for the good of their own party, ideology, and egos? Or maybe its always been this way. Personally I think we’ve reached a new and troubling low with the Bush administration’s willingness to play fast and loose with the letter of the law. They have demonstrated that no ethic is immutable when it comes to achieving their ambitions.
Hopefully whomever takes over control of the White House understands just how far we have started down that precarious slippery slope and pulls us back. We will need to tighten up restrictions on power for a time – put some handcuffs on whomever is sitting in the Oval Office. Things are out of control now but the beauty of our political system is that, as long as we do not succumb to complacency, things can change very rapidly.
Zen and the Art of Punk Rock
South America Opts-in on the Fun of War!
There are some strange rumblings from South America these days. Columbia and Venezuela may be on the brink of open warfare depending upon who you talk to. Venezuelan President and general firebrand Hugo Chavez has compared Columbia to the “Israel of South America” after Columbian forces carried out an assassination in neighboring Ecuador. Columbian President Alvaro Uribe countered by accusing the revolutionary or terrorist organization (depending on your political POV) FARC of attempting to acquire nuclear material to create a “dirty bomb” and also accused Chavez of “funding genocide.”
I just feel like I’ve heard all this before.
Our own fear-mongering President George W. Bush then threw his hat in with Uribe and in bizarre irony stated that destabilization of the region is unacceptable. I don’t understand why it was perfectly okay to destabilize Iraq but the President isn’t returning my phone calls and now tough looking men in dark suits, sunglasses, and SUV’s with blackened windows have started making frequent drive-bys of my house. It drives the dogs crazy.
Will the Real Punk Rocker Please Stand Up?!?
The upcoming CAMMIE awards for local music have re-ignited the decades old argument of what really constitutes punk rock. It’s a fun debate but ultimately pointless –like arguing religion or politics. But I write about religion and politics all the time so here goes nothing!
For my two cents punk rock can’t be divorced from the time in which it arose. To understand the emergence of such a vial form of music you’ll have to take a ride with me back to the middle-1970’s. The “summer of love” was a fading memory and rock and roll had become a bloated parody of itself. Bands like Crosby Stills and Nash who had made their mark singing songs of peace, love, and idealism had grown into ultra-rich pampered and fat rock stars. The Rolling Stones were playing on stages so large you could barely see them with binoculars and the ticket prices were spiraling upward as every promoter and record executive grabbed a slice of the money-pie rock and roll had become. Disco emerged as a bizarre counter-balance to rock and roll. Don’t think about anything, just snort a lot of blow and dance the night away. Hang out with the beautiful people in the Studio 54. Everywhere you turned greed, complacency, and escapism had set in.
But then out seeping over the din of mediocrity crept the grinding buzzsaw of guitars, the guttural screams and shouts, banging drums, flying spit. It was coming from the rust-belt from bands like MC5 and the Stooges. It was coming from Cleveland, Ohio from the Dead Boys. It was coming from New York City in the form of the Ramones and it was coming from London, England in the form of the Clash and the infamous Sex Pistols. And that was just for starters. Bands from all over the place were getting on stage with minimal talent and minimal gear and singing songs about alienation and resentment. They created a scene for kids that didn’t fit in anywhere else and in the process they created a new style of music that has carried on from 1976 to this year 2008.
I have talked to many people from that time (I was only a small child when that screaming brat that is punk was born) and they all talk about the mind-altering experience that punk created. They talk about finally having a sense of acceptance where before there had only been ostracization. Whether seeing the bands play live or hearing them on underground radio stations punk was something new and refreshing to a music-craving audience that was being spoon-fed commercialized crap from a jaded industry.
Punk was a reaction – a powerful sucking boil in the river of music.
Punks before Punk was Punk
There have always been “punks” in the arts – artists and musicians that defied categorization and re-defined the rules. The jazz musicians from the 1930’s and 40’s were pretty punk, the flappers and the ex-patriots during the 1920’s, hell Mozart was pretty punk rock back in his day! There are too many “punk” artists to go into but just about everyone after David was breaking rules right and left. Van Gogh cut his ear off and mailed it to a girl he was in love with! Tell me that’s not punk rock!!!
Whenever there is an “establishment” there is bound to be a punk lurking in the shadows waiting for the opportunity to unsettle it.
But for now we may have to wait – the world is in so much chaos there’s hardly a clear establishment to rile against. Things will eventually settle down and then people will get conservative and complacent again and that will be when the next “punk rock” will emerge.
There are some strange rumblings from South America these days. Columbia and Venezuela may be on the brink of open warfare depending upon who you talk to. Venezuelan President and general firebrand Hugo Chavez has compared Columbia to the “Israel of South America” after Columbian forces carried out an assassination in neighboring Ecuador. Columbian President Alvaro Uribe countered by accusing the revolutionary or terrorist organization (depending on your political POV) FARC of attempting to acquire nuclear material to create a “dirty bomb” and also accused Chavez of “funding genocide.”
I just feel like I’ve heard all this before.
Our own fear-mongering President George W. Bush then threw his hat in with Uribe and in bizarre irony stated that destabilization of the region is unacceptable. I don’t understand why it was perfectly okay to destabilize Iraq but the President isn’t returning my phone calls and now tough looking men in dark suits, sunglasses, and SUV’s with blackened windows have started making frequent drive-bys of my house. It drives the dogs crazy.
Will the Real Punk Rocker Please Stand Up?!?
The upcoming CAMMIE awards for local music have re-ignited the decades old argument of what really constitutes punk rock. It’s a fun debate but ultimately pointless –like arguing religion or politics. But I write about religion and politics all the time so here goes nothing!
For my two cents punk rock can’t be divorced from the time in which it arose. To understand the emergence of such a vial form of music you’ll have to take a ride with me back to the middle-1970’s. The “summer of love” was a fading memory and rock and roll had become a bloated parody of itself. Bands like Crosby Stills and Nash who had made their mark singing songs of peace, love, and idealism had grown into ultra-rich pampered and fat rock stars. The Rolling Stones were playing on stages so large you could barely see them with binoculars and the ticket prices were spiraling upward as every promoter and record executive grabbed a slice of the money-pie rock and roll had become. Disco emerged as a bizarre counter-balance to rock and roll. Don’t think about anything, just snort a lot of blow and dance the night away. Hang out with the beautiful people in the Studio 54. Everywhere you turned greed, complacency, and escapism had set in.
But then out seeping over the din of mediocrity crept the grinding buzzsaw of guitars, the guttural screams and shouts, banging drums, flying spit. It was coming from the rust-belt from bands like MC5 and the Stooges. It was coming from Cleveland, Ohio from the Dead Boys. It was coming from New York City in the form of the Ramones and it was coming from London, England in the form of the Clash and the infamous Sex Pistols. And that was just for starters. Bands from all over the place were getting on stage with minimal talent and minimal gear and singing songs about alienation and resentment. They created a scene for kids that didn’t fit in anywhere else and in the process they created a new style of music that has carried on from 1976 to this year 2008.
I have talked to many people from that time (I was only a small child when that screaming brat that is punk was born) and they all talk about the mind-altering experience that punk created. They talk about finally having a sense of acceptance where before there had only been ostracization. Whether seeing the bands play live or hearing them on underground radio stations punk was something new and refreshing to a music-craving audience that was being spoon-fed commercialized crap from a jaded industry.
Punk was a reaction – a powerful sucking boil in the river of music.
Punks before Punk was Punk
There have always been “punks” in the arts – artists and musicians that defied categorization and re-defined the rules. The jazz musicians from the 1930’s and 40’s were pretty punk, the flappers and the ex-patriots during the 1920’s, hell Mozart was pretty punk rock back in his day! There are too many “punk” artists to go into but just about everyone after David was breaking rules right and left. Van Gogh cut his ear off and mailed it to a girl he was in love with! Tell me that’s not punk rock!!!
Whenever there is an “establishment” there is bound to be a punk lurking in the shadows waiting for the opportunity to unsettle it.
But for now we may have to wait – the world is in so much chaos there’s hardly a clear establishment to rile against. Things will eventually settle down and then people will get conservative and complacent again and that will be when the next “punk rock” will emerge.
Dystopia Weekend
Brave New World
I had a very strange weekend thanks to a couple of tremendous artists. The first was Aldous Huxley, the visionary author of “The Doors of Perception” (a gripping account of Huxley’s experience with mescaline) and “Brave New World.” I was supposed to have read “Brave New World” in high school but for whatever reason it didn’t stick. This may have been the first time I have read the book in over a decade and it blew my mind. Huxley’s vision of complete stability through “feelies” (pornographic movies), creating a fear of being alone with one’s thoughts, destruction of the family and encouragement of rampant promiscuity, and a healthy dose of a mind-altering substance called “soma” hits on about every point that George Orwell misses in the darker but no more terrifying “1984.”
Coincidentally the day I’d finished “Brave New World” Fritz Lang’s classic dystopian film “Metropolis” arrived in the mail. In spite of the fact that I spent four years of my life studying film this is another classic that somehow I managed to miss. If my mind was blown before it was decapitated by this incredible spectacle of silent film making. It confronts head-on the slavery and soul destruction of the industrial revolution and contrasts the lifestyle of the factory workers who live and work below ground and the ruling class who wear white and participate in games of sport and generally have a ball living in skyscrapers high above the bleak cityscape. The only thing Lang got wrong is that he ultimately ties the film up with a cobbled happy ending wherein the factory workers and the oligarchy end up shaking hands and reconciling their differences.
Lang’s film was produced in 1927 and Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1932. It is frightening how relevant both of these pieces are to our “modern” world. In fact it seems as though we are living in a dystopia that falls somewhere between the three visions of Lang, Orwell, and Huxley. On the one hand we have the paranoia, constant war, and government omniscience of 1984; while on the other we have the gross consumerism, the all-importance of immediate self-gratification, and the constant medication of Huxley’s Brave New World. And of course we have half the world living in utter poverty so that a small percentage can live like kings and queens. It is bananas.
The End of Porn as We Know It
Speaking of brave new worlds 2 Drink and I were lucky enough to get to perform at a going away party for Manny Gonzalez and “Paradise Lost.” The party bought all the freaks out of the woodworks. The entire “Gurp City” crew was in attendance including a three-fisting MC Oroville who performed a nice Karaoke-style rendition of his own material. Dr. Becky Sagers PHD took the mics and Handsome Gorgeous sat in with metal deities the Makai – how’s that for post-modernism? Speaking of the Makai those fellas are currently somewhere in Europe. Front-man Brandon Squyres gave me a run-down of all the various countries they are scheduled to hit but all I can remember is the Czech Republic and Amsterdam. I am exceedingly jealous. Someday I will go to Amsterdam and the odds are about 50-50 that I won’t come back.
A highlight of the evening for me was a conversation I had with Gurp City all-star Lord Facials a.k.a. former Synthesis contributor Corey Bloom. Corey is continuing his writing career and apparently having a bit of success writing for assorted magazines and maintaining an award-winning blog. Good job man. Let me know how that awards ceremony turns out.
I Love Writing
I really do. I also love talking about writing. A lot of people approached me last Friday to talk about this column and about writing in general. Hey if you out there reading this have any ideas or question or comments – please, drop me a line. My personal e-mail address is an easy one to remember – madbob@madbob.com.
Mosquitoes
Spring is springing and along with the warmer weather and the blooming bulbs I am being eaten alive by fat slow-moving mosquitoes. These pesky blood-suckers are buzzing around my home and office. No big deal – I’ll take the warmer weather even with the blood-suckers. I got enough of the red stuff to go around.
Here’s a fun little quote I just heard on a BBC radio program: “war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”
Have a great week!
I had a very strange weekend thanks to a couple of tremendous artists. The first was Aldous Huxley, the visionary author of “The Doors of Perception” (a gripping account of Huxley’s experience with mescaline) and “Brave New World.” I was supposed to have read “Brave New World” in high school but for whatever reason it didn’t stick. This may have been the first time I have read the book in over a decade and it blew my mind. Huxley’s vision of complete stability through “feelies” (pornographic movies), creating a fear of being alone with one’s thoughts, destruction of the family and encouragement of rampant promiscuity, and a healthy dose of a mind-altering substance called “soma” hits on about every point that George Orwell misses in the darker but no more terrifying “1984.”
Coincidentally the day I’d finished “Brave New World” Fritz Lang’s classic dystopian film “Metropolis” arrived in the mail. In spite of the fact that I spent four years of my life studying film this is another classic that somehow I managed to miss. If my mind was blown before it was decapitated by this incredible spectacle of silent film making. It confronts head-on the slavery and soul destruction of the industrial revolution and contrasts the lifestyle of the factory workers who live and work below ground and the ruling class who wear white and participate in games of sport and generally have a ball living in skyscrapers high above the bleak cityscape. The only thing Lang got wrong is that he ultimately ties the film up with a cobbled happy ending wherein the factory workers and the oligarchy end up shaking hands and reconciling their differences.
Lang’s film was produced in 1927 and Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1932. It is frightening how relevant both of these pieces are to our “modern” world. In fact it seems as though we are living in a dystopia that falls somewhere between the three visions of Lang, Orwell, and Huxley. On the one hand we have the paranoia, constant war, and government omniscience of 1984; while on the other we have the gross consumerism, the all-importance of immediate self-gratification, and the constant medication of Huxley’s Brave New World. And of course we have half the world living in utter poverty so that a small percentage can live like kings and queens. It is bananas.
The End of Porn as We Know It
Speaking of brave new worlds 2 Drink and I were lucky enough to get to perform at a going away party for Manny Gonzalez and “Paradise Lost.” The party bought all the freaks out of the woodworks. The entire “Gurp City” crew was in attendance including a three-fisting MC Oroville who performed a nice Karaoke-style rendition of his own material. Dr. Becky Sagers PHD took the mics and Handsome Gorgeous sat in with metal deities the Makai – how’s that for post-modernism? Speaking of the Makai those fellas are currently somewhere in Europe. Front-man Brandon Squyres gave me a run-down of all the various countries they are scheduled to hit but all I can remember is the Czech Republic and Amsterdam. I am exceedingly jealous. Someday I will go to Amsterdam and the odds are about 50-50 that I won’t come back.
A highlight of the evening for me was a conversation I had with Gurp City all-star Lord Facials a.k.a. former Synthesis contributor Corey Bloom. Corey is continuing his writing career and apparently having a bit of success writing for assorted magazines and maintaining an award-winning blog. Good job man. Let me know how that awards ceremony turns out.
I Love Writing
I really do. I also love talking about writing. A lot of people approached me last Friday to talk about this column and about writing in general. Hey if you out there reading this have any ideas or question or comments – please, drop me a line. My personal e-mail address is an easy one to remember – madbob@madbob.com.
Mosquitoes
Spring is springing and along with the warmer weather and the blooming bulbs I am being eaten alive by fat slow-moving mosquitoes. These pesky blood-suckers are buzzing around my home and office. No big deal – I’ll take the warmer weather even with the blood-suckers. I got enough of the red stuff to go around.
Here’s a fun little quote I just heard on a BBC radio program: “war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”
Have a great week!
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