On Peaceful Protest

From: Samba Drumming Instructor
To: All

Dear All.

Hopefully by now you will all be aware of what's happening in just about every major city across Europe and the States: New York financial district has been occupied now for 16 days, on occasion there have been thousands of people gathered and it's growing by the day, but the mainstream media has tried to keep this and all the European protests against corporate greed quiet. If they've covered any of what's going on they've just been rubbishing it and claiming the whole thing is just a bunch of misguided idiots with no coherent argument and no unified objectives. A few days ago however the 'protesters' issued this statement: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8o3peQq79Q&feature=player_embedded. It's very moving, please listen to it and email it out and re-post it on facebook.

It's happening everywhere, there are thousands coming out onto the streets in just about every capital city, but corporate/mainstream media doesn't want you to know. Next Saturday (15th) it's starting in London. Let's go!!!!!!!

P.S. - By the way I didn't mean with drums. x

From: Toast
To: Samba Drumming Instructor

Why not?

We could make a rhythmic protest of it.

After all, I've never seen any uniformed authoritarian bash in the skull of a protester who was wearing a Number Two Surdo. Besides, with a well-placed defensive manouevre of the drum, one could quite easily deflect the fascist swing of a truncheon right back into the face of the wielder. Therefore, inadvertantly, the policeman in question will have actually participated in the demonstration - sonically, for all to hear. Instantly, he will be rejected by his colleagues, like a bee who gets stung to death by his brothers after giving the wrong directions to the pollen. Hell, we may even bring him over to our side. Forgive and forget, and all that.

Just as long as he doesn't bruise the skins by swinging too hard.

A perfunctory conversation with Mr. Dursley about the matter of confirming a meeting time.

Durs: We're aiming for 6.30 tonight aren't we?

Me: We are. I shall appear to you as closely to that time as humanly (not spectrally) possible.

Durs: Lovely! I shall adjust the flat's atmosphere to Earth normal in time for your arrival.

Me: Sploonberbenak. (Gliese581Dian for 'Thanks')

Durs: Your customs are strange to me, Lizard man, but your race's rule over us has been an undeniable success.

Me: It is customary for us to thank the inferior humans when they accommodate our needs without forcing us to resort to violence. You have abided by this rule, and, therefore, you deserve my gratitude (in this instance).

Durs: Thanks! I voted for your people in the top secret Amphibia vs. Insecta ballot of 2009 to elect our favoured Earth Overlords. I voted for you, because your Emperor seemed like an approachable people person, while the Insect Emperor called me a bigoted woman for saying that I disliked his mandibles.

Me: By mentioning the Insecta you have offended me. Upon my arrival at your residence this evening you will be vaporised.

Durs: Well vaporisation is any invading Reptilian's prerogative and, while I personally disagree with this course of action, it is not my place to question the greater intellect of my Reptilian rulers. Since you seem determined to carry out this vaporisation, I just thought that I would apologise in advance for being unable to vote for your people in the 2012 elections. I will place a large rock to the right of my front door, for you to cool off on, following my vaporisation.

Me: I will bring a ballot paper upon which you can mark your vote prior to your vaporisation. I will then submit the vote upon your behalf next year. Please make sure the rock is placed in a refrigeration unit for at least 1 hour before my arrival.

Crank

The films which I like the most usually contain a defining moment: a line of dialogue, or a scene which neatly encompasses the ethos of the entire movie in an easily-digestible chunk. Like popcorn.

In 'Crank', this moment comes shortly after the main character - a hitman called Chev Chelios - has finished conducting a meeting with a crimeboss in a swimming pool. Soaking wet, Chelios is trying to get into a taxi. But the taxi driver refuses the fare because he doesn't want his cab soiled. Chelios takes exception to this, so he drags the driver from the vehicle and throws him to the ground. For an instant, Chelios is unsure of what to do: he isn't thinking straight because he has a heart-full of fatal, adrenaline-suppressing 'Chinese Sh*t' with which he has been injected by his arch-nemesis. On top of that, he is on the run from the police and the mob. By assaulting the taxi driver he has kept his adrenaline up, but his conspicuity too. The crowd watch him with mounting suspicion, ready to alert the authorities. Chelios looks at the driver. He is of Southern Asian descent. Chelios looks back at the crowd. They are White Americans.

Chelios has an idea.

He points at the driver and yells 'Al-Qaeda'.

Then Chelios steals the taxi and leaves.

At this point the crowd begin to panic. Some flee. Others attack the stricken taxi driver. More join in. Then, an old lady grabs the driver's leg. She twists it as hard as she can, and it breaks with a crunch.

This scene tickled me. I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was due to Chelios's jet-black appraisal of the situation, and the means by which he applied his prejudices against American Culture to his predicament with such anti-social success. Or maybe it's because I like the idea that an old lady could break the leg of a grown man with her bare hands, purely by strength she could only muster in a fit of jingoistic rage. Either way, I was not expecting such black satire from a potentially-brainless action film, which, on the surface, is exactly what Crank appears to be: man gets injected with fatal drug by nemesis. Man can only stay alive by stimulating adrenal gland. Cue action set-pieces of steadily increasing ridicule. Simple.

But, using this basic central premise, Crank inadvertantly transcends its narrow action movie credentials to explore much greater themes. It explores the psyche of a man who is forced to suffer an existential crisis. A man whose relationship with his environment is altered beyond his control. Chelios finds himself a refugee from his preferred state of being. And, like most refugees, he wishes to return home. But he is told very quickly that this is impossible, and he must accept that even his continued survival is nothing more than a luxury afforded to him - by his ability to explore and understand his own stimuli.

Did I mention that this film stars Jason Statham?

Anyway, this revelation sets Chelios upon a journey into himself. By necessity he abandons all fear of consequence in an effort to discover what excites him. He embraces impulse: he takes drugs. He forces a medic to defibrilate him. He commits robberies. He listens to 'Achy Breaky Heart' whilst he grabs a car steering wheel and almost shakes it off its mountings. He Christ-rides a police Harley Davidson into a busy restaurant to the genteel strains of Everybody's Talkin' by Harry Nilsson - a song about feeling detached from ordinary human interaction. And it is absurd and beautiful. A bizarre Freudian pastiche.

A side-effect of the life-affirming death serum is that it gives Chelios a raging hard-on, perhaps due to his body sensing imminent expiry: the primal need to propogate the species. This urge leads Chelios to his lover, Eve. But, when he sees her, rather than consummate his passion immediately, he feels a different impulse: to tell the truth. To face the possibility that when he reveals he is not a video game programmer but a hitman, Eve will leave him. This seems to be the only impulse in the film over which he hesitates. The only consequence of which he seems genuinely afraid. And it is strangely touching.

Still, reveal this secret, he does. But Eve won't accept the truth. As they leave her apartment Chelios protects her from some hired goons of whom she is unaware. Absently she reveals that she hasn't taken her birth control pills. Once Chelios and Eve escape into busy streets, Chelios's heart weakens again. More adrenaline is needed. To get it he knows that he must follow his impulses: he must copulate with Eve immediately, in public, to generate the life-saving adrenaline he needs. But first, chivalrously, he questions her trust in him, which she reassures. Then he asks her to have sex. At first she refuses. Then, reluctantly, she complies. They make love on a bustling sidewalk. Suddenly a bus full of tourists appears. Their flashbulbs go off. Unexpectedly, Eve abandons herself to the moment. She makes a sacrifice of her dignity along with his so that Chelios might live. Eve bellows her encouragement to him. 'I'm alive' he shouts. And, he is - at the very apex of life: a creature of pure animal instinct, throwing off the shackles of ethereal social expectation to perform the hyper-real act of creation in the face of imminent death. And in the midst of all this, the public look on, impressed, almost as if they understand the gravity of the moment.

Some might say that this is smuttery: just a flimsy excuse for a gratuitous sex scene. In fact, the whole film is just one big flimsy excuse for a lot of gratuitous scenes. After all, this film stars Jason Statham - a man not known for playing great existentialists. These questions were not on his mind when he read the script. He probably just chuckled to himself as he flipped the pages over, thinking about how he always wanted to play a character who deliberately burns his hand in a waffle iron.

Some might say that I am reading into things - far too much.

But I like reading.

It gives me an adrenalin rush.

It makes me feel alive.

Dragon's Den: Garden of Eden

"Welcome to Dragon's Den. I'm God. What's your name?"
"You ought to know. I'm Jesus. I'm your surrogate son."
"Could you at least try and play along, just for the cameras?"
"Right. Sorry. Umm. I'll crack on then. I have a couple of ideas. One is
for a sandal that allows you to walk on water. It's called 'Sea Legs' and
the other is for a fish and a loaf that feed thousands of people."
"What's that called?"
"I haven't thought of a name yet."
"Why should I invest?"
"The Sea Legs will be good for crossing seas, like, say Galilee. The other
one would basically solve starvation."
"Have you built any prototypes?"
"No. I thought you could sort that out."
"Fair point."
"So, what do you think then?"
"I like your ideas. But how about this: we don't put them into
mass-production."
"What? Why?"
"We build prototypes just for you. Then you go out and use them. People
hail you, my son, as a miracle worker. They follow you. We build a religion. Make money that way."
"Isn't that a bit cynical? Wouldn't it be better to sell products that
benefit everyone? Didn't you hear what I said about solving starvation?"
"No repeat business."
"Wow. You really aren't very nice."
"And for that reason, I'm out."

lol

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Dead in the Water

Bin Laden is dead. After ten years on the run, evading the might of the western war machine, his blood was finally spilled in Pakistan, in a luxury military compound, possibly on the floor of a bedroom with bad carpets, if the grainy camcorder footage of the murder scene coincides with the spoken narratives on the rolling news networks. No-one seems to be sure. But it's probable: they say he wouldn't surrender, so he was shot by the insurgent Navy Seals and dumped in the sea. They played judge, jury and executioner, and it is entirely fitting that they should have done so, given Bin Laden's record for playing those same roles himself.

He had a pretty good run of it as Public Enemy Number One. He ascended to that position after a successful internship of murder and oppression of those whom he believed to be not aligned with his ideology. A grossly misguided man, he quite clearly saw the ills of western civilisation, but sought to overcome them in the most unhealthy way possible. On a fraction of the American defence budget, he waged war upon the most powerful nation in the world and succeeded because, terrifyingly, he was a man of considerable intellect.

The September 11 attacks in 2001 were his magnum opus, and they were conducted because Bin Laden believed that they were justified retaliation for American-Israeli actions in Lebanon. He believed that he should 'punish the unjust the same way and destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women.'

But, like any fighting of fire with fire, there is a risk of the fire getting out of control. That loss of control resulted in Gulf War II, in which thousands upon thousands of civilians were killed when George Bush went into Iraq to hunt Saddam Hussein – partially on the proviso that he was sheltering Osama Bin Laden. This was never proved to be the case. But, regardless of whether or not he was hiding there, Bin Laden set alight the touchpaper for the conflict. He waved the red rag in front the Texan Bull and made him charge into the china shop. And, for all the damage it did, for all the human lives it cost, Bin Laden himself bears a responsibility.

Since the September 11 attacks he had been as good as retired, delivering the odd video message to remind us that he was still alive. But, other than that, there was little news of him performing atrocities. The reins of power have most likely been passed to some other fanatic. Someone else who shares an ideology which Bin Laden popularised through staging events of horrific theatre. This policy of indoctrination by staging acts of terrible drama will be his legacy. His will to undertake the utterly reprehensible. This, and his detestable, talismanic infamy.

So, now he is dead, and world leaders are coming on the TV to express their relief at the news. At ground zero in Manhattan people are laying flowers. There are girls in cowboy hats cheering. People are chanting USA, and saying that it's over - whatever 'it' is. We should let there be peace, they say.

'Justice' says a cute blonde in Times Square. 'We love New York City.'

Spawn of the Devil

If any film deserves the right to have its name in the dictionary under the definition of B-Movie, it's the 1972 horror epic 'Frogs'.

The plot, of course, is of only cursory relevance. But for the sake of those who give a flying proverbial, it follows the story of disabled millionaire Jason Crockett, played by Oscar-winner(!) Ray Milland, and his be-flared family who live in a palatial mansion somewhere in the swamps of Okefenokee. They are partial to a bit of careless pollution. The titular Frogs take offence to this kind of behaviour. So they wage war upon the Crocketts, and all who associate with their frog-hating kind.

But you don't really want to hear about that. What you want to hear about are the meticulous production values that mark out this film as a seminal example of the genre.

Gasp in amazement as you see a man in a wheelchair pull a revolver on a snake which is hanging from a chandelier. I say 'hanging', but what I really mean is 'being held by a human hand'. I know this because I can see it. Watch through your fingers as another man stumbles into a greenhouse, closes the door behind him, then fails to notice as a score of lizards (somehow) follow him inside to loiter around menacingly amongst plant pots on shelves. See how they knock over open bottles vaguely labelled 'Poison'. Shudder as the man chokes to death on the fumes. Howl in terror as seagulls swoop down on a garden to scare some protagonists - not because breadcrumbs fly across the screen in an effort to lure them. No. Definitely not. Then scream for your life as another man wrestles an alligator which has had its mouth taped shut.

And all the while, the Frogs look on; leering at the mayhem they have caused without having to take a single human life themselves, because the Frogs rain down their justice with the most chilling power of all: telekinesis.

Frogs: you'll croak. To death.