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!