Money for Nothin'...

"...and chicks for free."

Ground Control to Major Tom | Take your protein pills and put your helmet on | Ground Control to Major Tom | Commencing countdown, engines on...

Indeed. We’re investigating Sixpack Chopra and others of his ilk here and things are turning decidedly ugly. While we dilly dally over tech trash like Google Talk, podcasting, desktop search and other trivia, the crystal gazers, lizard people, Rapture ravers, Pat Robertson, suburban voodoo children and their evil spawn are taking over the world.

One glance at Google News or Mystic Bourgeoisie should convince you of this.

If the United States, where five percent of the world’s population guzzles 25 percent of its wealth while slouching towards a Bethlehem of its making—see Iraq, is incapable of looking after its artists, spiritual leaders and bargain-basement gossip mongers, what does the future hold if not Sixpack Rampant?

Only one man can turn this evil tide.

From the Jesus Bunker beneath the Table Mesa Shopping Center in Boulder, Colorado, author, Web guru, moral crusader and all-round nice guy Father Christopher has, with his lackeys Chris Locke (stenographer), RageBoy (suicide-bombing intern), and a horde of EGR Irregulars (see also blogroll at left), waged a relentless war on the narcissistic tyranny of our ghastly new age.

War, as you know all too well, costs money. And FC, as you know, has none. Support our troops today and secure the oil reserves tomorrow, you low-rent bastards. Send your filthy lucre now!

Me? I am an African. I have nothing. In short, the spirit is willing, but the fiscus has a leak.

This is Major Tom to Ground Control | I'm stepping through the door | And I'm floating in a most peculiar way | And the stars look very different today...

Note Given my shameless tone, I thought it wise to exclude Canadian Doug Ord's site, Lear's Shadow, from this gentle request for pecuniary largesse. However, money knows no shame and Ord's work is too valuable to not be included in an appeal for spondulics to finance servers, research, writing and bandwidth.

And, uh yeah, while you're about it, why not drop Tom Feeley over at Information Clearing House and Paul Thompson at Cooperative Reasearch a couple of dimes or several thousand dollars?

Remember, without these people and countless others like them, the Web would have no value at all. We'd all be playing golf with Deepak Chopra.

"Here am I floating round my tin can | Far above the Moon | Planet Earth is blue | And there's nothing I can do."

David Bowie | Space Oddity

Finding democracy...

Now you see this one-eyed midget | Shouting the word "NOW" | And you say, "For what reason?" | And he says, "How?" | And you say, "What does this mean?" | And he screams back, "You're a cow | Give me some milk | Or else go home"



Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you | And then he kneels | He crosses himself | And then he clicks his high heels | And without further notice | He asks you how it feels | And he says, "Here is your throat back | Thanks for the loan"

Because something is happening here | But you don't know what it is | Do you, Mister Jones?

Bob Dylan | Ballad of a Thin Man

Troop Withdrawals

The presidential calendar.

reel and unreel

placebo ergo sum

We are posthuman — our theories tattooed on the flesh of our bodies, stamped and branded, not merely as symbols of aesthetic affiliation, but rather as something dangerously equivalent — symbols of belonging and defiance. And it is this particular paradox — of defiant belonging — can be so dangerous precisely because the two are now equivalent: futile resistance in an age of unverifiable self-fashioning.

Consider the hypothesis: If I didn't already know myself I might well fail to recognize myself in my own reflection.

The self has never had a reliable face, nor any face a reliable self. And it is the technology of reflection through which this fundamental self-deceit is reflected back to us — bodies now tattooed only with the alienting futility of nihilism itself.

[...]

Consequently, if Foucault — as an already self-alienated individual — can come to the conclusion that individuality is already self-alienated, is his declaration self-revealing or prophetic? In other words, is the fate of the posthuman to return, not to the redundancy of humanist fantasies of autonomy, but rather to the re-realization that humanity was only ever a phase in its cultural development? And, in this spirit could we not assert that: to be human is to be alienated; to be posthuman is to be self-alienated?

placebo ergo sum — I am born into posthuman destiny.

It is an already normalized self that now confronts itself as already normalized. Yet no longer is there any hope of recovery, for it is not as simple as to attribute contextual development as the root of self-formation. Lacan posits a "nature" in contrast to Foucault's "nurture," and yet the result is the same. Doubly depersonalized, the myth of autonomy has always already been the spectre of the myth of biology.

"These reflections [on the workings of the mirror-stage] lead me to recognize in the spatial captation manifested in the mirror-stage, even before the social dialectic, the effect in man of an organic insufficiency in his natural reality — in so far as any meaning can be given to the word 'nature'."

But it is also precisely here, in this attribution of essence — this attribution of a non-human (alienated) nature to all things human — that the truly sinister side of Lacan comes out. For if the spectre of autonomy under the sign of Foucault begins to look somewhat like a social conspiracy, under the sign of Lacan this conspiracy is precisely genetic. Betrayed by our own bodies into not-being, the mirror stage becomes the literal stage upon which the fantasy of existence is acted out.

The mirror-stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation... [and] which will mark with its rigid structure the subject's entire mental development.

Consequently, a question: what would Lacan see when he looks in the mirror? For if the fantasy of autonomy resides with the spectral double — the self-alienated ego — are the words of Lacan not precisely the words rather of his reversed reflection? And if Lacan himself is and must be seen as exactly self-alienated to the same extent as everyone else, which Lacan do we hear when he speaks? The answer is obvious: we hear the posthuman Lacan, the doubled Lacan. This is necessary since, as a biological theory, the "mirror stage" does not allow for a privileged recovery, nor for even the possibility of "inside knowledge" of one's a priori alienation. In fact, Lacan's theory itself is a better answer to "how we became posthuman" than any other: we became human through self-alienation, we became posthuman through (re)recognition of our own humanity as myth. Lacan's voice is not the voice of (human) alienation, but rather that of (posthuman) belonging. more...

Ted Hiebert | The Lacanian Conspiracy

[from CTHEORY via the incomparable Mark Woods]

Croissants

"Where are you now my fingerprints?" Photo: Eddie Adams

Built in the 1930s, ours is a three-floor, three-building complex set in a horseshoe—two blocks perpendicular to Main Road and the other, set slightly higher on the slopes of Table Mountain, overlooking the Cape Flats in the far distance.

We face the road across a large, immaculate garden.

With spacious, plant-filled balconies, wooden window frames, and an air of timeless solidity, the white and beige complex, served by six wide, wood-panelled stairwells—over any of which one might find a well-fed cat standing guard, is cut off from the hurly-burly of city life (the traffic, gas station, restaurants, taxis, hookers, takeouts, Laundromat, DIY store and passersby) by large trees and a high, densely foliaged security fence.

It's a relatively luxurious complex. We have one of four three-bedroomed apartments on the first floor. Large, high-ceilinged rooms bathe in the warm glow of wooden floors and thick walls, and a sun offering light both sides of the day shields us from the outside world.

Even the bathroom is panelled and boasts a Victorian bath and a shower.

After six months, the apartment feels homely. The walls, hung with Java prints, Sotho carpets, family and vendor art and, in the hallway, laminated 'struggle' posters from the pre '94 era (I call it the Chris Hani Memorial Hall) remind us of where we live.

We seldom use the sitting room, an easy assembly of throw-covered couches, prints, straw mats, African memorabilia and art prints focused on the god of old, the 'home theatre system'. The room's good for watching movies or putting up overnight visitors, but little else.

With a door leading to the balcony and white French doors opening onto the inner hallway, I've expanded available space using mirrors. When the curtains are open, the hall mirror reflects the green-laden branches of the garden's large, bowering, seventy-year old centrepiece, a gnarled but rudely healthy tree.

The kitchen, with its separate entrance leading down a narrow stairwell—also presided over by obese, Sphinx-eyed cats—to the gated, circular drive, is our living space of choice. It's an extraordinarily large, well-fitted mix of muted peach and subdued blue and serves as a dining room, study, meeting place and cooking space.

But it's not where you'll usually find us.

Because I don't allow smoking inside the house we, unlike other residents of the 36-unit complex, tend to gather in garden chairs on the walled balcony flowing out and over the garden. A mix of regular cigarettes and verdant plant life finds me on the balcony at any time between 05:00 and 02:00, monitoring the shifting shades of the passing day.

Dominated by bird-filled trees overlooking terraced lawns and flowerbeds boasting a profusion of indigenous and other flora (hydrangeas and white roses), the garden is strictly demarcated by monkey stone-paved pathways, a sundial set in 1937 beneath the shade-giving tree and, further up, a fountain.

Tended by a full-time West African gardener, a gardening service and several Kenilworth dowagers, it offers more than a sense of seclusion.

It's an ecosystem in its own right, a natural world cycling the seasons, impervious to human intrusion. As I smoke, drink tea or coffee, or tend pot plants on our balcony, I find it difficult to believe that, in the early '30s, before the sundial was placed and traffic on Main Road grew too heavy, it served as a cul-de-sac offering parking to residents.

It's closed in now.

Today, most of the trees fronting the property, with the exception of a copse shading the block opposite and an ancient oak still boasting splashes of canary yellow, have lost their riotous New England rusts and reds. The winter-withered branches of most expose us, for now, to Main Road and the commerce attending the faux village architecture of the buildings opposite.

But this exposure is seasonal and will not last. Besides, just down Kenilworth Road, running down and away from us and the pre-existing cul de sac, a 100-foot fir marking the doctors' surgery stamps nature's authority on the area and the distant lights and smog of the Cape Flats.

It's quiet at 05:00. The star-filled sky covers the lighted street and our black-windowed complex in sleep. Beyond the raised voices of the pump jockeys at the gas station and the muted glow of the slow-changing traffic lights up the road, peace holds sway. It's a good time to wake up, smoke and drink tea.

The birds tend to rise to the rhythm of the sun. Come sunrise, a warm luminescence lights the Eastern sky and the far-off mountains, and squadrons of birds follow set routines and flight paths, taking to the air in predictable patterns and manoeuvres, circling to catch the new day on their sun-tipped wings or following the contours of the roofs in darting flight.

Others rise and fall effortlessly from various levels of the trees which, as the dawn fades before the sun, are surrounded by swarms of butterflies. In summer, when the warm walls and lush garden are washed to a green somnolence, this is another world, another time, and another place.

I like it.

"The beauty of an Equinox moon is beaten only by its shading the coast in silver nitrate. We blew up a lot of fireworks, shot rockets out to sea, and burnt sparklers in the dunes that night. Scattered clouds gave the sky a canopy effect and inverted the whole scene. Looking at and through the multi-coloured layers of cloud, we felt as though we were glimpsing the world from galaxies and billions of light years away. Some mentioned acid. But there was none. It was just a remarkable sight."

Last Sunday morning, around 09:30, my wife and I were sitting on the balcony listening to Neil Young as we drank mugs of freshly made Mocca Java. The rain had abated, the clouds had cleared and the sky was a deep dark blue. It was about 20 degrees Celsius; another balmy Cape winter's day.

Sunday morning is a particularly quiet time, most Capetonians choosing to sleep in, go to church, or do the household thing. Apart from a few solitary cars and one or two passersby, the street and sidewalks were deserted. Even the birds, having done their thing, were quiet. Sitting on the balcony that morning, drinking coffee and listening to good music, I realised I had everything I had ever wanted.

I was at peace with the world.

Beneath us, the security gate clicked and swung shut on oiled hinges. I could see one of my neighbours walking slowly along the path towards the sundial and the turn-off to his block—why is it nobody walks on the grass in places like this? He'd been up to the 7-11 and cradled a bag of groceries in his one arm.

In the other, he carried a bag of croissants.

"We have no croissants," I remarked to my wife.

"No, we don't," she answered, sipping her coffee.

"Don't worry. I'll sort it out," I said, putting my mug aside and standing.

"Where ya going?" she asked me with a sigh.

"No place special. I'll be back in a tick," I replied making my way through the sitting room towards the front door and the steps leading down to the garden.

Walking into the sunlight and the quiet warmth of the garden, I saw my neighbour about to enter the building opposite.

"Oy! Wait up," I called. He turned. I motioned for him to stop and jogged over to him.

"Hi," I greeted him.

"Morning," he replied. "How're ya' doin'?"

"Great," I responded. "It's just that we've no croissants and I see you have several."

"So?" He tightened his grip on the bag of freshly baked bread, the smell of which had begun to tease my nostrils.

"So give them to me."

He looked at me disbelievingly. "Give them to you?"

"Don't play dumb. You heard what I said. Give them to me now."

He looked pissed off. "Look, I don't know if this is your idea of a joke, but it's Sunday morning. You can go fuck yourself."

It was my turn to be pissed off. "Christ! Who do you think you're speaking to? I've asked you politely to hand over your croissants and this is the way you respond? Fuck you, buddy. Give me the damned things or else."

"Or else what?"

I didn't speak. I drew my revolver and shot him in the head. He fell to the ground, dead. His groceries scattered across the path and a couple of oranges, bright against the green lawn, rolled into the gutter. I picked up the bag of croissants and made my way back up to our apartment.

My wife had changed the music. Lord Randall had supplanted Neil Young and I saw that the sky had turned red.

"I've got the croissants," I called out to her. "I'll just warm them up in the microwave."

"Thanks," she replied. "I'll have a smidgeon of butter on mine."

"Okey dokey. Could you turn that music up a bit?"

"Sure," she answered and, as she did so, I noticed through the kitchen windows that a scarlet mist had begun to fall.

I refilled our mugs and carried our breakfast out onto the balcony. Someone had cleared away the body and scattered groceries.

"Ah, that smells good," she commented.

"Sure does," I replied, handing her a mug while surveying the garden beneath. The butterflies, a swirling horde of orange and red, were circling the old tree in the centre of the garden. Its branches covered the sundial, the sky grew increasingly dark, and I lost all sense of time.

A couple of crows swooped in to perch on the roof opposite and, high above, gulls caught between the two coasts of our peninsula cawed their dissatisfaction.

As the music reached a crescendo, I smiled. "This is a wonderful place, y'know? We couldn't really ask for more."

"I guess not. You having a croissant?" she asked, smiling back at me.

"No thanks," I responded, reaching for my gun.

Texas Radio...

Stormy weather... [Sea Point, Cape Town]

I wanna tell you 'bout Texas Radio and the Big Beat | Comes out of the Virginia swamps | Cool and slow with plenty of precision | With a back beat narrow and hard to master.

Last night, ‘round midnight, my daughter and I stood on the balcony watching curtains of rain sweeping across Main Road under the yellow street lights—swathes of swirling, sworling water, lifting, rising and falling on an unseen wind, forming crazy patterns and vortices—fast-moving auroras bathing the buildings beneath in a moon-glow of bouncing, cascading water. The slow-lit cars swished past, reminding me of the intro to Texas Radio and the Big Beat.

And I fell into the sleep of the just and the dead.

Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance | Others, mean and rueful of the Western dream | I love the friends I have gathered together on this thin raft | We have constructed pyramids in honor of our escaping | This is the land where the Pharaoh died.

It should've been cold this morning, but it wasn't. The clouds cleared to great white mushrooms drifting across an endless blue-black sky. The warm wind, now south of north-west, whipped the large evergreens to a salad-tossed frenzy and scrubbed the road to a dry strip of steel-grey certainty. With the stars staring down, it seemed we were living on the top of the world.

The Negroes in the forest brightly feathered | They are saying, "Forget the night | Live with us in forests of azure | Out here on the perimeter there are no stars | Out here we is stoned - immaculate."

I drove into the city in a cloud of cigarette smoke and a cacophony of sound—a collection of the great blues men and women singing their upbeat solitude. "You gonna leave me, baby...I gotta find me someone else." Mine's a low, chunky car and I drive it fast, especially on De Waal Drive. This morning, I drifted in like a train on the sweep of well-known rails, allowing the neon glow of electric mayhem, now washed by a pale-rinse, milk-white dawn to rise and fall with the rhythm of the day.

Listen to this, and I'll tell you 'bout the heartache | I'll tell you 'bout the heartache and the loss of God | I'll tell you 'bout the hopeless night | The meager food for souls forgot | I'll tell you 'bout the maiden with the wrought iron soul.

Much as I loathe their gauche glare, there's something comforting about the lights shattering the dark of a well-watered mountain so lush its dark secrets and looming foliage crowd a windscreen broken by the warmth of red and rust and the occasional blur of blue or green. There's a mystery and a magic to moving, weaving, dancing through all this, watching it unfold before one's eyes, switching lanes, shifting down, feeling the car respond to every twist and turn.

I'll tell you this | No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.

People are shadows at times like these, half-shaped forms becoming what they pretend to be during the day. They're courteous too, as if the creeping madness of yesterday, a fog of dos and don'ts, musts and can'ts that led them to early nights and drop-dead sleeps, has dissipated. Even the guys at the inner-city traffic lights look rested, and smile.

Other people are okay. They have things to do and they have their problems too.

Now, listen to this, and I'll tell you 'bout the Texas | I'll tell you 'bout the Texas Radio | I'll tell you 'bout the hopeless night | Wandering the Western dream | Tell you 'bout the maiden with the wrought iron soul.

The Doors | Texas Radio and the Big Beat

[June 1, 2005]

Dead Pope Fixes U.S. Grand Prix

In a remarkable return to form, the late Pope John Paul II (aka 'The God Father') came good on his blessing of the Scuderia Ferrari team late last year (see post below), handing eight-times world champion Michael Schumacher and team-mate Rubens Barrichello an unlikely one-two victory at the United States Grand Prix earlier today.

With a ten-point haul at the Brickyard and a new car due for the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours in two weeks' time, Schumacher must again be considered a championship contender.

Ferrari's remarkable victory, ostensibly made possible by the non-participation of fourteen cars running Michelin tyres (ruled unsafe by the manufacturer), is viewed by many as a sign that the ongoing struggle for control of the Jesus Bunker—between JPII, Father Christopher and God's Rottweiller, Ratzo, is not yet over.

Needless to say, this sleight of hand by JPII further cements my faith—and reputation as a good Catholic boy down at the Jesus Bunker.

"The bastard," howled Father Christopher, slumping in his pontifical chair. "How'd he do it? I mean, this is fucking unprecedented."

My Spiritual Guide and Mentor (SG&M) looked decidedly sick. But he is not alone. I smirked. "Indeed. But, then again, we know he is prepared to work in mysterious and decidedly twisted ways."

The late Pontiff is known to favour Schumacher—as is Ratzo (a German), but Father Christopher has put his considerable resources on a battle between Raikonnen and Alonso.

Who will come out on top? God alone knows.

Good Catholic Boys

"In the name of Father Christopher..."

Imagine there's no countries, | It isnt hard to do, | Nothing to kill or die for, | No religion too, | Imagine all the people | living life in peace...

George W. Bush | Imagine

Back at the Jesus Bunker, Father Christopher (he who was, is, and always shall be) gave me an almighty smack across the back of my head. "You dumb fucking bastard!" he screamed. "How the hell can you ask the ex-Pope to bless Schumacher?"

Being a Good Catholic Boy (for that is what I am), I gave him an honest answer. "Indianapolis. It's the American Grand Prix Sunday and Schumacher needs all the help he can get. He's bleeding. Alonso and Raikonnen are beating his head against the pit wall. They show no mercy."

Honesty is always the best policy. Father Christopher calmed down.

"But this was six months ago. Ratzo was busy mixing up the medicine at the time. And look at those cokeheads," he said, pointing at the coke-snorting cardinals backing the late Pontiff. "It's a crying shame. And why Indianapolis? Why not some other Godforsaken place where they drive these things round in circles?"

"It was the only way I could get him to bless the car. 'He's a German, Lolek,' I told him. 'He's headed into Bush country this June.' It worked. You know how Lolek despised Bush. He never forgave him for invading Iraq."

"Yeah?"

"So he blessed the car and, by extension, Schumacher and the whole team. We're looking at Barichello taking second place."

Father Christopher's face turned purple. His eyes rolled and he started foaming at the mouth. I reached for his coffee and cigarettes, but was too late. He gave me an Almighty kick in the groin and I dropped to the floor, blind to everything but the pain searing my dignity.

"You stupid, stupid fuck," my Spiritual Guide and Mentor raged, putting one of his liturgical boots into my ribs. "Who do you say that I am? Am I not your Spiritual Guide and Mentor?"

"Unghhhh..." was all I could muster.

"Well, then, what the hell did you go to the Pole for? I can tell you right now that Schumacher's doomed. He will not win Indianapolis or the championship in 2005. It's time he had a rest. I'm playing the Spaniard off against the Finn this year."

Urrrgghh..." Writhing on the floor, I offered no answer.

"Besides," explained Father Christopher in a calmer voice. "There are far larger things at stake here than some Grand Prix."

I looked up as my SG&M yanked me to my feet by the collar and threw me into a high-back chair. "Like what?" I asked.

You must remember that although the Pope is Christ's representative on Earth, my SG&M is, when all is said and done, Father Christopher. He is (much like the arguments attending his nature) himself, his scribe Chris Locke, and the Jesus Bunker's resident suicide bomber and gardener, RageBoy.

In short, he is an Eternal Mystery. He outranks things of this world; and the Vatican, if anything, is of this world. This is something all good Catholic Boys and Girls accept with equanimity, grace and outstretched palms.

"Bush," answered FC sadly. "The man's a dumb cunt. He needs our prayers far more than your over-moneyed German sports-car driver."

"Formula 1..."

"Whatever. Thing is, this fucking retard in the White House is going to take us all down with him. We can't allow it to happen."

(Like the British monarch, Father Christopher tends to use "we" instead of "I', but he does so for different reasons.)

Now, should you feel I might be erring on the side of blasphemy here, piss off. I'm not. When I say I am a good Catholic boy, it is because it is so. Besides, it is in Father Christopher's nature that he will pray for the sinner rather than the saint; the most vile and evil sinner, in this instance and century, being George W. Bush.

"So what are you going to do about it?" I asked.

Father Christopher gave me one of his all-knowing sneers. Sneering comes easily to the omniscient. "What do you mean, 'What are you going to do about it?' Christ, man, I've already done it. It's a done deal. Signed, sealed and delivered."

"Eh?"

Two days ago I made Frank a cardinal and sent him off to Rome to fetch Ratzo."

"Wha...?"

"Yeah, fuck, why not? He is after all, a Good Catholic Boy, a blogger and a hard man to boot."

"But Frank's a..."

"So what if he's a Quaker? We Catholics are extremely tolerant. Besides, he's one of us now. I bought him a hat this morning."

"A hat?"

"A Deluxe Pope Hat."

"From Gammarelli's?"

"Nah. I was looking at some merchandise over at Paradise Costumes and found one for him there. A white and gold one. At $29.50 they're a snip."

"But Ratzo?"

"He didn't want to come." Father Christopher sniggered. "In fact, that's what all the girls say about him."

"So how'd you get him here?"

"In the Jesus Jet. Y'know the Germans. They're big on ceremony, titles and large planes. I gave him a ring and told him His Eminence Frank Cardinal Paynter of Madison was flying over with a Black Forest Special. I then asked him to say Mass for the fool in the White House. He fell for it immediately."

"A Black Forest Special?"

"Turkish migrant worker. Coal miners usually."

"Oh."

"Yeah. But we're not prejudiced."

"No, of course not."

"I always did like Eminence."

"Eminem."

"Whatever."

One thing about a kick in the groin. It puts you off thoughts of sex altogether and perhaps it was this that made me smell a rat.

"Ratzo," chuckled Father Christopher.

There's no second-guessing the fucker.

"Well," I sneered (I felt I owed it to myself), "It's a pretty tall story."

My Spiritual Guide and Mentor glowered. "Do you doubt my word?"

I felt a cold draft at the back of my neck. "No, not at all."

"You do, you little shit," barked Father Christopher, turning on his heel to make his way out of the room. "This audience is over. I've an important meeting with Sister Levinia and Saint Annie down at The Love Clinic. If you need proof Ratzo said Mass this morning for the asshole running this broken hovel we call home, head over to Cardinal Paynter's place. He has the pictures."

I did.

You should too.

Somehow my having had JPII bless Schumacher's car for Indianapolis tomorrow now seems rather tame. Cardinal Frank has beaten me to the big story yet again. And he has the pictures to prove it.

And yes, I hope George W. Bush chokes on it.

And the coloured girls go, doo doo doo, doo ...

George W. Bush | Walk on the Wild Side

The Plot to Kill the President

"Just kidding..."

After Ian Fraser, a journalist, Mail & Guardian columnist (Fraser's Razor has long been a must-read) and a blogger, suggested killing South African president Thabo Mbeki, the paper hosting his blog entry pulled it and he was visited or telephoned by heavies from the state security apparatus (the police, military intelligence and the National Intelligence Agency).

Fraser appeared somewhat perplexed by the authorities' reaction. In his original, "...deeply felt attempt to creatively and artistically form a morally and socially persuasive Argument..." our intrepid blogging journalist wrote (material lifted from Jo'blog):

I don't have this reaction with everyone, but Mbekhi (sic) really has what they call in Afrikaans, a 'moer my gesig' - I mean he looks like an extra crispy unwiped bottom that's found a suit and stubble to disguise itself in. And his vice president Zuma - I have to admit, looks very much like those creepy old guys you see in bad '70's gay Swedish porn, begging for someone to urinate on them.

This was back in May sometime, before Mbeki fired Jacob Zuma as his deputy owing to his ties to convicted criminal Schabir Shaik. I've not read the rest of the blog entry and so cannot comment on it. However, if the above is a fair sampling of the whole, hmm... Or as Jo'blog asks, "Dude, are you on crack?"

Fraser defends his position well, offering a lengthy dissertation on Swiftian satire and social / political activism using art as a medium. I would, however, suggest to our hot-water blogger that, for lessons in satire of any kind, he might do far worse than availing himself of any number of the Happy Tutor's diverse and creative services; pain is always a pleasure at Wealth Bondage.

Fraser allegedly has the support of the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), an organisation that feels his case merits it (and, coincidentally, shares much of its history with the Mail & Guardian). As he puts it, the FXI "...believes in my right to have expressed myself." I'm sure it does Ian. More, "...they feel its (sic) a freedom of speech issue." Feeling, feelings, feelings...

Look, I feel I'm giving Ian Fraser a hard time here and I don't really wish to. But, c'mon, if you live by the sword, be prepared to die by it. Explaining his satire, Fraser draws an analogy (I'm not correcting grammar or spelling here—this was clearly written on the run):

If a child is walking, and begins to approach a dangerous cliff edge, (and is seen as being clearly in danger.) You yell a warning. Is it sane to consider punishing the person who yells at the child, to step away from the edge?

No, Ian, it's not, but yours is a poor analogy. Look, much as I admire Mbeki and hope we can wangle him a third term, I've had my differences with the guy. Early in 2002, reacting to our slow introduction of an AIDS strategy, I entitled a blog entry Fuck Thabo? Not a Chance.

Although I felt no threat, I did feel the need to explain that header in August of that year, using reasons similar to yours. "Now this is, after all, Africa and we do not malign our leaders lightly. But AIDS is not a subject to be treated lightly and Thabo Mbeki, who represents those leading the country, the country as a whole, and me, will not get off lightly."

I'd say such a heading is more appropriate to your analogy. Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Before boarding a flight from Jo'burg to Cape Town, would you test airport security by jocularly claiming to have a bomb on you? Be it serious, satire or delirium, the state has a duty to investigate material calling for the death of public or any other persons, especially when backed by ad hominem verbal assaults (even then, Thabo's alleged thin-skinned reaction to criticism does not come into it).

In short, were you not tapped on the shoulder by the authorities, they'd not be doing the work for which we pay them—and we'd have real cause for concern. So, yeah, if you in any way indicated the death of the president might be what one could consider a good thing, you screwed up. Admit it. Such an admission will, when all is said and done, add to your lustre as a blogger, a professional and a hard man to boot.

Any blogger should follow the advice given Ian by fellow blogger Jay and visit the EFF's recently published Legal Guide for Bloggers. More, they should read Donna Wentworth's introduction to it at Corante and follow the links.

Frank Paynter points to others (including Denise Howell, The Happy Tutor, our Chief Blogging Officer, David Weinberger and Halley Suitt) publicising the guide, which Donna—no stranger to hijacking, hence the analogy above—describes as "...a collection of FAQs aimed at helping the average blogger understand her rights in the face of legal threats that most people don't even understand."

A Lucid Moment on the Lost Highway

"I like to remember things my own way." [Fred]

i know where you're taking me | i shouldn't go but you're wrenching dragging shaking me | turn off the sun pull the stars from the sky | the more i give to you the more i die

"A structure that begins and ends at the same moment in time, with a debt to the Mobius strip (or to "Pulp Fiction"), is another intriguing feature. But the film has more of these touches than it has explanations. Eventually it raises the overwhelming possibility that nobody is entirely in the driver's seat."

Janet Maslin New York Times February 21, 1997

Twenty-first Century noir horror? Parallel identity crises? A world where time is dangerously out of control? Lynch certainly asks more questions of his audience than most, but publicity for the open-ended Lost Highway is, like most things, misleading. Unless, of course, the excitement implicit in such teasers exists only in our heads—where Lynch does his best work and time, space and perhaps life itself are, as Einstein described them, entities brought into being by clocks and measuring sticks.

If the director of Mulholland Drive offers us 'parallel identity crises', it is to illustrate the separation of our and others' perceptions of our many conflicting and complementary selves. Lost Highway—while it mirrors itself—reflects life, and all the characters in it are one; in this instance and for want of a conventional character lead, Fred Madison. We all, to a degree, live Leonard Cohen's Secret Life. We are all as much Fred Madison as we are Dick Laurent, Pete Dayton, Andy, cops, hoods or Pete's goofball friends. We are all Renee as much as we are Alice or Sheila. We are all right and we are all wrong.

And we are all the Mystery Man, the deaths head lending a storyline of dynamic tension to our lives. Everybody and nobody is in the driver's seat. For most, life is lived in shades of darkness, a confused melange of broken memories. Left to travel the Lost Highway blindly, we do the best we can, piecing the road markings we discern unreeling before and under us into a single, coherent line. Do we travel the road or does it travel us? Lynch suggests life is less about the journey than it is about those undertaking it. Given the arbitrary checks and balances of real and unreal, we are the dreams that drive and, frequently, destroy us.

In Lost Highway, Lynch offers, not a lengthy, obfuscatory dreamscape of surreal meanderings, but a glimpse into a momentary lucidity only a loss of control driven by passion brings. It does not matter whether or not the film's protagonist, Fred Madison, kills his wife—metaphorically or otherwise. Lost Highway focuses entirely on the instant in which Madison might or might not decide to do so. Ultimately, as the characters making up his being merge and meld, he comes to accept her as a part of himself.

I smile when I'm angry. | I cheat and I lie. | I do what I have to do | To get by. | But I know what is wrong, | And I know what is right. | And I'd die for the truth | In My Secret Life.


"You'll never have me." [Alice]

you make me hard when i'm all soft inside | i see the truth when i'm all stupid-eyed | the arrow goes straight through my heart | without you everything just falls apart

Whereas in Mulholland Drive (his later excoriation of Hollywood and paean to women) Lynch condenses decades and broad concepts to a sad moment of suicide, he uses Lost Highway to dissect and extrapolate (through an intertextual weaving of the viewer's and the protagonist’s perceptions) a single, defining moment to explore the infinite probabilities of our—and Fred Madison's—humanity.

Somewhere along the Mobius Strip of his life, Madison loses his way and discovers his capacity for life.

Might he have resorted to violence and butchered his wife? It's unlikely. More than the many devices Lynch uses to map the neural pathways of Madison's psyche (videotapes, electricity, cameras, light, the Mystery Man), characters populating his inner world allow us understand his moment of possible madness. This is a film of human longing, perceptions, and needs that cannot be met. Only gross simplification would mistake Lynch's vision and Badalamenti's haunting score as celebrations of violence and death. Yes, Lynch exploits explosive energies, but he does so more to illustrate repression than he does to unleash chaos.

It is his embodiment in Renee, his wife, of all that he desires that drives Madison to the edge of insanity and himself. At the beginning and at the end of the film, itself a mockery of time and meaning, Madison is told Dick Laurent, a self-absorbed, compulsive lowlife with a passion for violence—and the only character bearing Lynch's initials, is dead. Laurent (aka Mr. Eddy), a generous psychopath who, after beating a hapless motorist to pulp on Mulholland Drive lectures him at length on road safety, is Madison Unchained. With the Mystery Man, he plays an increasingly important role as the movie and the moment unfold. In Laurent, Fred becomes the once and possible monster who would abuse, dismember and devour Renee so that he can possess her—and all she represents—absolutely.

The more he wants, however, the less he gets.

Hold on, hold on, my brother. | My sister, hold on tight. | I finally got my orders. | I'll be marching through the morning, | Marching through the night, | Moving cross the borders | Of My Secret Life.


"I hate ridin' in this fuckin' car." [Pete]

my blood just wants to say hello to you | my fears want to get inside of you | my soul is so afraid to realize | how every little bit is left of me

Nine Inch Nails | The Perfect Drug

Madison's appreciation of Laurent and, by extension, the Mystery Man, is his dubious salvation. He is innately aware that violence and death are inextricably linked to passion and life and this awareness affords him opportunity to comprehend the ghastly potential inherent in his (and Renee's) unfettered selves. If he is to experience a longing for anything deeper than experience and possession, it is the Laurent within—rather than his wife—he must subdue. In a sense, if he is to live, he must die.

And he does so. A couple of times. Flipping perceptions every which way, Lynch shows us drawn to darkness and our own ends like moths to light. Is Pete Dayton dead? Is Fred Madison dead? Strangely, they are more likely to be so than either Laurent or the Mystery Man. But, in a film of this nature, what is and what is not are choices more than realities. And, where death is portrayed as life, surely the former is preferable—and here, Rammstein’s contribution to the soundtrack comes to mind?

Madison knows he cannot take ownership of another as he wants to (witness the broken frenzy of his early sax solo and the extraordinary sex-dream with Alice at the close). But it is when he releases his wife that he finds himself. Only Laurent, who epitomises a disinterested violence, is capable of turning his passion and yearning for life to a callous indifference to death. As Madison's moment plays out, the movie's minor characters, lesser versions of the Mystery Man and Laurent, segue through his psyche as possible pasts, futures or aspects of himself.

It is with Laurent's end, at Madison's hand and with the help of the Mystery Man (death invited), that the instant of crisis and the film pass into the ephemeral realm of violence unrealised. His momentary lucidity over, Madison is left—for now and perhaps always—to continue his life as we are ours, travelling a Lost Highway, hounded by shape-shifting illusions of ever present and always elusive realities.

"At its best the movie is a visual poem about desire and jealousy. 'You'll never have me,' the Arquette character (Renee, Alice, someone else looking the same - I can't quite remember) says towards the end. The movie is about those desires that can't be quenched - the hunger to possess another person - and how they distort the mind."

Quentin Curtis, The Daily Telegraph, August 22, 1997

I bite my lip. | I buy what I'm told: | From the latest hit, | To the wisdom of old. | But I'm always alone. | And my heart is like ice. | And it's crowded and cold | In My Secret Life.

Leonard Cohen | In My Secret Life

marry me

alive and kicking since June 13, 1991...

kiss me pretty
in the morning
when the sun drips golden dew
and the rain that fails the night
leaves the concrete moist
after a night of licks
and sweatings

the sweat of the lonely
bandaged
pours into crystal eyes
when the night fades
you know the feeling of evening
against your hands

yes, we smite your innocence
the barbed-wire rust eaters
in your mouth
drink the turpentine
and feast on your thoughts

[dirty and obscene]

and lace strangles your girl in the cage
makes her beautiful and blue
what a lovely color for her eyes
oh god help me
make her blue

[my rope had snapped]

long before i realise she is not breathing
the dream i had the other night
stands in a jar
alone and fading

and the girl
she's lying on the floor
cold and pale
alive and well
in sickness and in health
till death do us part

an ode to the cigarette in your mouth
that glides along your lips
you run your fingers
down the velvet gown
of your lover
pressed against a wall

bodies entangled

leather words strap her to the bed
and many miles
we walk
to rescue
your violence

in red and white

and the girl still lying in her white
crusty floors to feed upon
my trigger pulled
and red colors
filled her eyes
let me suckle your pierced nipple
the baby in the womb of a whore

something had to turn out right

and she's lying on the floor
cold and pale
alive and well
in sickness and in health
till death do us part

Catt

Happy fourteenth birthday, Catt. We love you and we're extraordinarily proud of you.