During an ad-break for VideoHits last week my friend Adrian and I, both very hung over from the night before encountered a chocolate bar commercial endorsed by someone I would consider to be one of the twentieth century’s most iconic celebrities. Nothing out of the ordinary there I hear you say except, that is for the fact that this particular celebrity is dead and has been dead for over thirty years. The advertisement in question for Mars Bars included the footage of a late Bruce Lee, shirtless and skin glistening in sweat at his peak physical prime and utilising the latest in computer imaging like techno voodoo has the dead kung fu master with his lightening fast reflexes eat one of their chocolate bars with their chocolate-malt nougat centre, covered in a layer of caramel and coated in milk chocolate… I was livid and quickly lept to my feet in indignation.
To many of us the idea that we will be remembered after we die holds a central part to our spiritual lives, our motivation to procreate and get up in the morning, hell the ancient Egyptians believed that if people forgot who you were after death you would suffer a second one. But no need to worry, that is providing your name keeps getting mentioned, allowing you to party in the afterlife to you ba's content and similarly celebrity status holds a key to immortality. Think Mozart, Shakespeare and Leonardo Da Vinci and you have a few members of what could be classically termed immortals. Now Bruce Lee is just a modern day entrant and he's not the only one. Indeed celebrity status met dizzying new heights in the twentieth century and for some being dead was an excellent career move, in 2004 Forbes Magazine published a list of the world’s top ten earning dead celebrities to which unsurprisingly Elvis Presley took top billing and it can be argued that, and I will attempt to minimise the schmaltz, that the use of their images, music, artwork etc with all the cash that come from it functions in keeping their memories alive (so to speak). And fair enough. Concord Moon LP, a company owned by Linda Lee Cadwell and Shannon Lee Keasler (wife and daughter of Bruce Lee) hold the name and likeness rights for Bruce Lee and through the non-profit organization The Bruce Lee Foundation has this stated intention. The foundation’s mission statement says that they intend to “enrich lives, open minds and break down barriers through the active proliferation of Bruce Lee’s legacy of undaunted optimism in the face of adversity, unwavering humanism, mental and physical perseverance, and inspirational presence of mind toward the betterment of our global community.” This apparently involves selling chocolate bars and whether the man in question would have objected or seen this as furthering his legacy I am not in a position to answer however it opens an ethical question as to whether the images of the dead should be sold and leached off to build a company’s brand identity or shift units especially when a company’s philosophy or product is seemingly incompatible with the person or the lives that they led.
A perfect example is the Street’s Magnum Swinging 60s promotion that my friend pointed out to me there in my living room mid rant, where Streets introduced nine new Magnum flavours, all with a 1960s theme, among them were Jami Hendrix, Woodchoc, John Lemon and Cherry Guevara. Now I could understand an Andy Warhol flavour (suggestions?) but what exactly is it about the lives of John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix or god forbid Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara that lends their posthumous support for tackily themed ice creams?
With the maturing of digital imaging technology and techniques in what I feel is becoming close to a virtual necromancy, where it is increasingly possible to have the dead talk and act as though they were still among the living. A situation where the dead are forced against their will, ripped from their peace to sell sell sell products and promote brands incongruent with the lives they lived: at the best distasteful and on the other extreme a form of electronic purgatory. Surely it would be more appropriate to attach the strings to those monsters of history like Hitler, Stalin and maybe Idi Amin and have them dance and make fools of themselves or maybe even have them apologise for all the wrongs they’ve done but then there’s no money in that, no parasitic brand can leach their je ne sais quoi and synergise.
Also:
Dan Glaister, Dead stars who rain money on the living. The Guardian 9 April 2005.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
my last two dollar coin
I spend my lunch breaks alone and while I know this sounds awfully anti social well that's me I suppose, but really I just like to wander the city streets listening to my ipod thinking and humming to myself and am happy not to be bothered. And yesterday while doing this, standing at the lights near parliament waiting to cross I saw one of those AIDS trust fundraisers across the road just waiting there wanting to make me feel guilty for just passing by, looking all innocent and goodly made me rush rationalise why I wasn't going to drop a coin into her bucket. Look I give to them here and there, I even volunteer goddamn it and I mean solidarity and all but when you reduce it down to its basics I just don't know anyone who's positive and while that's not the limits of my generosity it is a deciding factor when handing over my last two dollar coin.
It was just then that an African couple, possibly Sudanese thinking I recognised the lady from Footscray, with their little boy approached the AIDS fundraiser in her plastic bib, the man stumbling around in his pockets for change as the pedestrian light went green playing some salsa hit by Ismael Rivera from the 1950s. The man took his son by the hand to cross, turning seemingly annoyed that his wife wasn't with him only to then smile with broad enthusiasm when he saw that she was hanging back rummaging through her purse for more change.
I don't mean to comment here on their financial situation even if it is true that many African migrants, especially those from places like Sudan are here in Australia because they have experienced extreme deprivation of their human rights but merely to say that I saw in a short seconds glance that to some people the statistics that I read about on BBC world are really a part of a plague that is of an irreducible immensity and even here in Melbourne on this sad cold and wet thursday of a horrible immediacy.
Regardless of all this and the fact that all I had to do was just get more money out of the wall I still didn't give up my last two dollar coin.
It was just then that an African couple, possibly Sudanese thinking I recognised the lady from Footscray, with their little boy approached the AIDS fundraiser in her plastic bib, the man stumbling around in his pockets for change as the pedestrian light went green playing some salsa hit by Ismael Rivera from the 1950s. The man took his son by the hand to cross, turning seemingly annoyed that his wife wasn't with him only to then smile with broad enthusiasm when he saw that she was hanging back rummaging through her purse for more change.
I don't mean to comment here on their financial situation even if it is true that many African migrants, especially those from places like Sudan are here in Australia because they have experienced extreme deprivation of their human rights but merely to say that I saw in a short seconds glance that to some people the statistics that I read about on BBC world are really a part of a plague that is of an irreducible immensity and even here in Melbourne on this sad cold and wet thursday of a horrible immediacy.
Regardless of all this and the fact that all I had to do was just get more money out of the wall I still didn't give up my last two dollar coin.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
memed in
Thanks goes to Richard for the tag. The game's rules are this:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
Now technically the closest book was El Principito, a spanish translation of that french classic Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, however as there was no page 123 I had to therefore settle for the book underneath it, the controversial Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.
Here we go:
'It was the Devil,' he says aloud to the empty air, making it true by giving it voice. 'The last time it was Shaitan.' This is what he has heard in his listening, that he has been tricked, that the Devil came to him in the guise of the archangel, so that the verses he memorized, the ones he recited in the poetry tent, were not the real thing but its diabolic opposite, not godly, but satanic. He returns to the city as quickly as he can, to expunge the foul verses that reek of brimstone and sulphur, to strike them from the record for ever and ever, so that they will survive in just one or two unreliable collections of old traditions and orthodox interpreters will try and unwrite their story, but Gibreel, hovering-watching from his highest camera angle, knows one small detail, just one tiny thing that's a bit of a problem here, namely that it was me both times, baba, me first and second also me.
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
Now technically the closest book was El Principito, a spanish translation of that french classic Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, however as there was no page 123 I had to therefore settle for the book underneath it, the controversial Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.
Here we go:
'It was the Devil,' he says aloud to the empty air, making it true by giving it voice. 'The last time it was Shaitan.' This is what he has heard in his listening, that he has been tricked, that the Devil came to him in the guise of the archangel, so that the verses he memorized, the ones he recited in the poetry tent, were not the real thing but its diabolic opposite, not godly, but satanic. He returns to the city as quickly as he can, to expunge the foul verses that reek of brimstone and sulphur, to strike them from the record for ever and ever, so that they will survive in just one or two unreliable collections of old traditions and orthodox interpreters will try and unwrite their story, but Gibreel, hovering-watching from his highest camera angle, knows one small detail, just one tiny thing that's a bit of a problem here, namely that it was me both times, baba, me first and second also me.
Monday, August 14, 2006
midwinta protest
I went to that midwinta protest outside the VIC-state parliament on Sunday with a friend from work; we'd decided to add our shiney faces to the crowd demanding some public and legal recognition of our relationships should either of us ever find ourselves in one. It was my friend's first protest and well .... I'd been to a few here and there but nonetheless there were some first times there for me as well, such as the sight of a rather hansome hombre signing (AUSLAN) with a lisp and all those miniture purebreed such-and-such yap-yaps that only homos would think to bring to a political action. The crowd was bigger than I thought it would be with theage.com citing over 2,000 awashed in red, balloons and clothing. I wore red boxer-briefs beneath but kept this fact to myself.
On Wednesday last week in my lunch half-hour I'd walked past an anti-abortion protest on the steps on parliament and the day before that a freedom of speech protest that was nothing but a cover for various right-wing church groups who were fighting for the right to slander muslims. I stood there on Sunday, sun bright and sky cerulean with a satisfied grin on my face that our protest outnumbered theirs combined and then some. I was particularly moved by one minister who spoke on behalf of those christians who took Jesus' message about inclusion to heart, inviting gay men and women (single and in union) into the fold. It was nice to see the words of hate and exclusion and their adherents were down in the stats for once.
Labour and Liberal representatives were there and they skipped oh so merrily around the issues, voicing their support with one hand for the removal of discrimitory legislation but conveniently omitting the fact that both their parties oppose any formal recognition of same-sex unions: anything that resembles an adam and eve not adam and steve. The Greens were unequivocal and the Democrats took the middle ground.... but were we all there? There was something or someone missing... maybe?
Maybe it was the more outlandish among us, who were coming down from their saturday night... the drag queens were all sleepy heads in bed leaving it to the socialists, the red block to lead us into what was a very convoluted chant. Now don't get me wrong I like socialists, in fact I have my little secret activist boy fantasy but sometimes I feel as though they think the year is 1968. Let say they lack the pizzazz, the kitch, the glitter, and glam that I felt we needed as we walked into swanston street gawked at by so many happy snappy tourists.
Well... that said. Canada, the UK and various EU states have enshrined same-sex relationships on their books, are we so backward? If not now then when and will I have a boyfriend? I ask you.
On Wednesday last week in my lunch half-hour I'd walked past an anti-abortion protest on the steps on parliament and the day before that a freedom of speech protest that was nothing but a cover for various right-wing church groups who were fighting for the right to slander muslims. I stood there on Sunday, sun bright and sky cerulean with a satisfied grin on my face that our protest outnumbered theirs combined and then some. I was particularly moved by one minister who spoke on behalf of those christians who took Jesus' message about inclusion to heart, inviting gay men and women (single and in union) into the fold. It was nice to see the words of hate and exclusion and their adherents were down in the stats for once.
Labour and Liberal representatives were there and they skipped oh so merrily around the issues, voicing their support with one hand for the removal of discrimitory legislation but conveniently omitting the fact that both their parties oppose any formal recognition of same-sex unions: anything that resembles an adam and eve not adam and steve. The Greens were unequivocal and the Democrats took the middle ground.... but were we all there? There was something or someone missing... maybe?
Maybe it was the more outlandish among us, who were coming down from their saturday night... the drag queens were all sleepy heads in bed leaving it to the socialists, the red block to lead us into what was a very convoluted chant. Now don't get me wrong I like socialists, in fact I have my little secret activist boy fantasy but sometimes I feel as though they think the year is 1968. Let say they lack the pizzazz, the kitch, the glitter, and glam that I felt we needed as we walked into swanston street gawked at by so many happy snappy tourists.
Well... that said. Canada, the UK and various EU states have enshrined same-sex relationships on their books, are we so backward? If not now then when and will I have a boyfriend? I ask you.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
i hugged a heater for warmth and got burnt
I am on my third set of pain killers today and my head just won't quit from hurting. I think it has something to do with the wisdom tooth that's pushing through the gum way back there in my food hole. Every year it does this... well at least the last three and reliable as ol' faithful, I say, come winter my mouth begins to swell and I start chewing check. But then as I get round to making an appointment with the dentist the pain dissipates and the inflammation goes down and I am made the fool and feel the hypochondriac.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
the writing on the wall
"The lamb's teeth will be sharpened"
- scrawled on a rotting fence just east of Christchurch (city of churches), New Zealand circa 2004.
- scrawled on a rotting fence just east of Christchurch (city of churches), New Zealand circa 2004.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
jogging on
My shorts are too short and tight I think to myself as I attempt to keep some semblance of pace as I jog around princes park. I hear the shocked and amused thoughts of those I pass in my head; the paranoid psychotic voices are always hard to filter out even when I am exercising but then again where else to go but inward. Strange weird swirly visual effect.
I find myself dwelling on a conversation I had with a friend of a friend last week at some homo party held regularly under inflation nightclub in geddes lane in the city. I sip on my vodka lemon/lime spritz spouting my usual crap, nonsense that comes out whenever I am nervous... which is most of the time. Imagine standing on the Bolivian plains of El Salar de Uyuni (something I hope to see next year) the world's biggest salt lake wearing pitchblack motorcycle goggles, the kind Tom Waits would be proud to wear... stillness and blinding light reflecting on the pure white lake contrasted by a deep breath of blue sky above. I say if only I could find the optometrist crazy enough (oh my, my poor myopic eyes) , say with the vision to undertake my patronage. Turning to me he grins in his sheepish way and without detectable venom "did you realise I stopped paying attention about five minutes ago." I am taken aback. Fuck you too I think and shut my mouth.
Disolve to a small cafe, a scene in which I sit with my soy latte retelling this to a friend; still a little put out by it all. His eyes light up, incredulous that someone had sought to shoot me down about this and we build together on my little fantasy stimulated by caffiene and we both dream of mad optometrists in lab coats surrounded by diodes as lightening flashes through tubes above.
My foot lands in a puddle on the path and mud splashes up my leg but I keep jogging.
I find myself dwelling on a conversation I had with a friend of a friend last week at some homo party held regularly under inflation nightclub in geddes lane in the city. I sip on my vodka lemon/lime spritz spouting my usual crap, nonsense that comes out whenever I am nervous... which is most of the time. Imagine standing on the Bolivian plains of El Salar de Uyuni (something I hope to see next year) the world's biggest salt lake wearing pitchblack motorcycle goggles, the kind Tom Waits would be proud to wear... stillness and blinding light reflecting on the pure white lake contrasted by a deep breath of blue sky above. I say if only I could find the optometrist crazy enough (oh my, my poor myopic eyes) , say with the vision to undertake my patronage. Turning to me he grins in his sheepish way and without detectable venom "did you realise I stopped paying attention about five minutes ago." I am taken aback. Fuck you too I think and shut my mouth.
Disolve to a small cafe, a scene in which I sit with my soy latte retelling this to a friend; still a little put out by it all. His eyes light up, incredulous that someone had sought to shoot me down about this and we build together on my little fantasy stimulated by caffiene and we both dream of mad optometrists in lab coats surrounded by diodes as lightening flashes through tubes above.
My foot lands in a puddle on the path and mud splashes up my leg but I keep jogging.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Graduation Day 2002
On 14 February 2002 I stood with maybe a quarter of a million other people protesting the coming invasion of iraq and the Howard government's tacit (yet nonetheless full) support for it. I left work early and had driven in with friends joining an ocean of equally angry bemused citizens who were like me wholly unconvinced by the justification for any military action. Weapons of Mass Destruction? When was the last time you heard someone say that? If feels redundant now to even bring it up, the once sexy acronym rolling of my tongue. Terrorism? Well I could never understand how dropping bombs on a country the other side of the planet was supposed to make me feel safer. Why should I feel safer anyhow when some American 'smart' bomb detonates in someone else's living room fire and concrete... when isn't it better I feel a little bit nervous and let the owner of said living room continue watching the arabic equivalent to pop idol? Freeing the Iraqi people? From what? Saddam? According to BBC online an average of over one hundred Iraqis die now every day because of the violence. Yes we freed them alright. Freed them from this mortal coil.
Graduation Day: 20 March 2002. I woke up early to clean the house getting things in order for my little afterparty, my mum out shopping getting a few last minute supplies. The TV was stuck to the ABC watching the coverage and waiting for the expected... and when it came I stood in the hallway scrubbing brush in my hand, mouth open and tap running. The Americans were bombing Baghdad and I flooded my bathroom and bedroom.
Why did we go to war again? I'd like to say I told you so as if anyone was ever listening to me but that would denote some self satisfaction. I don't feel any. I would also like to tell you all the best way forward but I don't know, only that things look pretty fucked up and I am sorry for that.
Graduation Day: 20 March 2002. I woke up early to clean the house getting things in order for my little afterparty, my mum out shopping getting a few last minute supplies. The TV was stuck to the ABC watching the coverage and waiting for the expected... and when it came I stood in the hallway scrubbing brush in my hand, mouth open and tap running. The Americans were bombing Baghdad and I flooded my bathroom and bedroom.
Why did we go to war again? I'd like to say I told you so as if anyone was ever listening to me but that would denote some self satisfaction. I don't feel any. I would also like to tell you all the best way forward but I don't know, only that things look pretty fucked up and I am sorry for that.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
deep-fried exorcism
The other night I witnessed (in a dream of course) the exorcism of a plate of french fries. Now I don't know the difference between one sort of potato chip from the next let alone one possessed by the devil... so I thus referred such prodding and pocking, decifering and deciding to the experts: the priest and laymen and laywomen who stood around the table that 'lay' this plate and its chips upon. I was just about to discover, truth revealed if the oil the chips were fried in had been unholy cursed when I was abruptly woken by my alarm... time to get ready for my office nine to five I said to myself, wrenching my tired body from beneath the covers.My friend Darren who told me tonight, in response to this story that I have some of the strangest dreams around.
I tend to agree.
the last I dreamt
Saturday, June 24, 2006
STFODC
I was at dinner with friends last sunday: shanghai dumplings off china town. A cheap and no-frills restaurant where melbourne's young creatives are increasingly drawn to dining by the low prices and chance of experiencing the authentic... that is until everyone else finds out about it and they are forced to move on like "Brunswick street used to be a community man, a hub of creative energy but now its soul is dead" unaware they are actually the cause of it.
Tim, the guy who did visuals for my friend's band Low Rise Estate, grabbed my camera. I had taken a few choice shots during their set at Loop and having finished my mushroom and veg dumplings was entertaining myself by pointing my camera at those left eating. He proceeded, most expertly to highlight its technical shortcomings and how other cameras more favourably compared (undoubtedly his). Satisfied that his male posturing had impressed he handed the camera back and began telling us about some new organisational technique that people on the web were buzzing about... I tuned out as he began as images of more entertaining telecommercial testimonials flashed infront of my mind.
What? I said, drawn back in. What the hell is a PAA Hipster? I asked. He brought out a wad of palm size sheets of paper held together by an bull clip, grining and like that yankee carpetbagger he called it macaroni. Apparently PAA stands for personal analogue assistant and is a technique being promoted by none other than google's Tom Limoncelli. This technique involves, now hold you breath: writing your thoughts down on paper.
Your kidding, right? I asked. It's brilliant and it really works. It clears valuable cerebral real estate for other thoughts, he said that now he doesn't have to think of things, he can think about things; upon which his dinner arrived and distracted, he accused the waitress barely maintaining composure, of bringing dumplings uncooked. You want them deep fried? She asked seemingly a little confused and without a hint of sarcasm. I was given the impression that she was unaccustomed to customer complaints.
I say to all you PAA Hipters out there: STFODC! It stands for stating the fucking obvious dumb cunts! It is actually called a notepad and not some exotic plant from the amazon that until the drug giant Pfizer discovered it only a few naked indians had heard of it.
It makes me want to punch myself in the head.
Tim, the guy who did visuals for my friend's band Low Rise Estate, grabbed my camera. I had taken a few choice shots during their set at Loop and having finished my mushroom and veg dumplings was entertaining myself by pointing my camera at those left eating. He proceeded, most expertly to highlight its technical shortcomings and how other cameras more favourably compared (undoubtedly his). Satisfied that his male posturing had impressed he handed the camera back and began telling us about some new organisational technique that people on the web were buzzing about... I tuned out as he began as images of more entertaining telecommercial testimonials flashed infront of my mind.
What? I said, drawn back in. What the hell is a PAA Hipster? I asked. He brought out a wad of palm size sheets of paper held together by an bull clip, grining and like that yankee carpetbagger he called it macaroni. Apparently PAA stands for personal analogue assistant and is a technique being promoted by none other than google's Tom Limoncelli. This technique involves, now hold you breath: writing your thoughts down on paper.
Your kidding, right? I asked. It's brilliant and it really works. It clears valuable cerebral real estate for other thoughts, he said that now he doesn't have to think of things, he can think about things; upon which his dinner arrived and distracted, he accused the waitress barely maintaining composure, of bringing dumplings uncooked. You want them deep fried? She asked seemingly a little confused and without a hint of sarcasm. I was given the impression that she was unaccustomed to customer complaints.
I say to all you PAA Hipters out there: STFODC! It stands for stating the fucking obvious dumb cunts! It is actually called a notepad and not some exotic plant from the amazon that until the drug giant Pfizer discovered it only a few naked indians had heard of it.
It makes me want to punch myself in the head.
Monday, June 12, 2006
jesus is coming... loudly
Seriously kids, if the words gay and jesus put side by side on a page makes you a might bit uncomfortable, then the sentence "he slowly began to stroke my rod" is unlikely to anything to allay this anxiety. So if this is the case then I strongly suggest that you don't click on the hyperlink below.
http://www.jesus21.com/poppydixon/sex/gay_jesus.html
http://www.jesus21.com/poppydixon/sex/gay_jesus.html
west bank story
Check this out! This article entitled "Queen Hussein" gives a snapshot into the lives of two gay men living in the occupied territories and appeared in the lefty rag Monthy Review earlier this month (orig. translated from the Hebrew edition of Haaretz).
Queen Hussein
Queen Hussein
Friday, June 09, 2006
what i wish i'd said
It's always the way that you think of something really witty to say five or ten minutes after having the conversation. Some side that would have stung or back hand so fabulously devised and delivered that your cool quota is spent in one blow...
I was booking a ticket today for the opening screening of Renaissance at the Nova:
- We only have three split tickets left so you'd be sitting by yourself.
- That's fine.
- I can only get you a seat on the front row, either on the extreme right or the extreme left.
- If I realise they are the same thing do I get to sit in the centre?
(what I really said: well I better take the extreme left then... hehe)
But I suppose I come out sounding a dick either way.
I was booking a ticket today for the opening screening of Renaissance at the Nova:
- We only have three split tickets left so you'd be sitting by yourself.
- That's fine.
- I can only get you a seat on the front row, either on the extreme right or the extreme left.
- If I realise they are the same thing do I get to sit in the centre?
(what I really said: well I better take the extreme left then... hehe)
But I suppose I come out sounding a dick either way.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
666
Did you know that fear of the number 666 is called hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia? No?
Does anyone else feel that the only reason that 20th Century Fox decided to remake Omen, a film that cost a reported $52.4 million was for the sole purpose of releasing it on the 6 June 2006?
Does anyone else feel that the only reason that 20th Century Fox decided to remake Omen, a film that cost a reported $52.4 million was for the sole purpose of releasing it on the 6 June 2006?
Monday, June 05, 2006
this things a party... Grandmaster Flash @ the Forum 3 June 2006
Whatever it was, it was the best fun I've had at a live event in six months. Flash if nothing else played the crowd so well he even managed getting my most stolid of friends shaking their booty in what was as much a history of hip-hop as dance party. "I made the decks into an instrument, no one else can say that" Flash proclaimed with out a hit of humility as he took us deck by deck educating the uninitiate in the ways of hip-hop, beginning with some old-school beats mixing through tracks from the 70s and upwards from Gangstarr and Snoop Dogg to Phil Collins and Nirvana, he said that hip-hop knows no discrimination be it "pop, rock... black, white, Australian or Japanese, when I play it, it's all hip-hop."
Through our journey Flash gave props to lost friends, dead hip hop greats such as Big L, Easy E, TuPac and Notorious B.I.G, addressing the crowd "if you see see someone that you miss... that you remember... that you love then I want you to make some noise" repeating as each image swirled up on the projector screen in cheap digital effects stolen it seemed from a powerpoint presentation.
Noise I made and dance I did as we hit level three paying tribute to the four pillars of hip-hop: the graffiti, the breakdance, MC and most importantly the DJ... counting them off with his fingers. But with a patch of floor so sticky it nearly stole my shoe, unnecessarily agressive security and Flash's increasing frustration at sound levels the show lost a little of it's earlier momentum which was nonetheless powerful enough to carry me all the way home still buzzing.
(props go to my friend Aaron who also assisted in getting me home)
Through our journey Flash gave props to lost friends, dead hip hop greats such as Big L, Easy E, TuPac and Notorious B.I.G, addressing the crowd "if you see see someone that you miss... that you remember... that you love then I want you to make some noise" repeating as each image swirled up on the projector screen in cheap digital effects stolen it seemed from a powerpoint presentation.
Noise I made and dance I did as we hit level three paying tribute to the four pillars of hip-hop: the graffiti, the breakdance, MC and most importantly the DJ... counting them off with his fingers. But with a patch of floor so sticky it nearly stole my shoe, unnecessarily agressive security and Flash's increasing frustration at sound levels the show lost a little of it's earlier momentum which was nonetheless powerful enough to carry me all the way home still buzzing.
(props go to my friend Aaron who also assisted in getting me home)
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
what's wrong with me? seriously
How come I can enter into near empty pub and within minutes have a woman introduce her good self, interrupt whatever I was doing and sit down at my table but I struggle to even get a guy to speak to me at a gay bar? And when a guy does come up to me he turns out to be straight... but... what goddamn kinda wrong signals am i sending out? What strange pheromone is seeping out my sweet glands? I mean how the fuck in the stretch of one evening at q&a (local gay night-standing for queer & alternative) of the two guys who approach me one is so clueless (and straight) that he didn't realise he was in a gay bar-wanted to talk to me about some chick he'd scored- and the second wanted to pick a fight with me for being a screaming poof .... ?
What am I trying to tell myself? Would I have made a better hetero? Christ!!! Yes god, maybe you were right.
Postscript: Admittedly the young lady did then tell me that if her boyfriend saw us together he ... well it's not like he'd beat me up or anything, not if he only saw us together... but that's not the point... seriously I am not happy!
What am I trying to tell myself? Would I have made a better hetero? Christ!!! Yes god, maybe you were right.
Postscript: Admittedly the young lady did then tell me that if her boyfriend saw us together he ... well it's not like he'd beat me up or anything, not if he only saw us together... but that's not the point... seriously I am not happy!
Monday, May 29, 2006
oh my gay lord its vodou!
In Haiti the lwa or loa, the spirits of vodou, leave their home beneath the ocean, bas de l’eau to walk the earth and commune oh-so personally with us through the act of possessing. During a service, held often in a hougan or mambo’s (priests and priestesses of vodou) house in a room called the peristyle (vodou chapel) where music, dance and sacrifice swirl around a central post that represents the universe the lwa chooses and then rides a person like one rides a horse, taking the reigns and guiding them this way and that way to the beat of the drums; there they demand, promise and prophesise, dance and cavort, there they swear and say dirty crude things to offend and titillate. Joan Dayan wrote that from a Western vantage these gods of vodou might appear to lack a certain grandeur or transcendence, surrendering themselves to the “spectacle of ceremony with a kind of rough immediacy,” as the lwa of the dead particularly, not tied to a mortal coil nor suffer its tiresome consequences engage in animated exaggerated sexual behaviour, that is much comic as it is erotic, as the Gede (the dead) dance the banda, thrusting their hips to a staccato beat.
Sidestep:
Thus travelling throughout the transcendental realms of the multiverse in my search for a true gay lord I journey to the Caribbean and find an island deep in as much the violence of the past as it is the present. Haiti, a land shrouded in the myths of hollywood zombie movies and technicolour CNN television coverage of its violence and political unrest. Vodou has gotten itself a bad name, whether through the media and church attempts to discredit it, colonial and neo-colonial slander perhaps or maybe it’s sometimes close relationship with the island’s nastier side of sorcery for sale, I don’t know. Regardless vodou is a religion that traces its roots back to Western Africa and was brought to the Caribbean with slavery and thrived despite it or even because of it and is practiced often alongside the christian faiths, primarily catholic who consitutute about eighty percent of the population with little (if any) perceived contradiction with gods from Africa often portrayed using the same christian portraits they do the saints.
Well… it is not exactly the place you’d expect to find some homo-friendly god or religion; where priests and priestesses practice their faith and their sexuality with little moral prohibity. Mambo Racine Sans Bout, an initiated and ordained priestess of Haitian vodou writes that gay men and women though “rigorously excluded from Protestant congregations, and frowned upon in Catholic services” find in vodou an outlet for spiritual expression. Saying that there are a higher percentage gay people at vodou ceremonies and in the priesthood than represented in the general population, knowing of a few peristyles in Port-au-Prince that have congregations where being gay is an entry requirement. While not unknown the priestess continues, homophobic attacks in Haiti are not on the level that they are in other parts of the Caribbean, like Jamaica that have seen mob attacks and killings. Although male machismo is as high in Haiti as it is elsewhere in the region a high level of bisexual activity may point to why it doesn’t easily translate into violence against gay men (lesbians are another story).
Sidestep:
Erzulie Freda, a powerful and important lwa of the Rada nation who was born in Dahomey and brought with the boats that carried the slaves to the new world; Freda is portrayed as the epitome of grace and has the airs of virginal mercy that can be seen in the eyes of Mother Mary. She is fair skinned and very beautiful and is often seen wearing fine jewellery and is the lwa of ideas, hopes and aspirations and is often said to hold a special place in Her heart for gay men who inturn place Her as their met tet (ruling lwa). Yet She is also a woman says Bob Corbett on his Haiti page, who walks with “a saucy sway to her hips”, a lwa who is pleasure loving, taking delight dancing kissing and caressing men. Mambo Racine Sans Bout says that the gay men in Her sway dance wearing the fine colourful dresses that She loves. Thus like nowhere else in Haiti or in the Caribbean for that matter they may openly flirt with other men. Indeed it is in vodou ceremonies she says that gay men are above all prized as dancers combining their athletic prowess with the “voluptuousness of women.”
Contrasting the feminine Freda is that of Her Petwo sister Erzulie Dantor, a strong black woman who was born in the brutality of slavery in colonial Haiti. An enemy of Freda, it is said that the scars that adorn her black face were obtained battling Her pale and delicate sibling. With her Dantor carries knives that she willing to draw in the defence of the vulnerable, deploring violence against women and children and will seek vengeance upon the men who abuse them. While married with children she is said to lie with both men and women in her bed and is seen as something of a patron to lesbians.
Vodou is a religion born out of and in reaction to poverty, slavery and life times of suffering and as Joan Dayan argues, the lwa of vodou do not sit high, detached up in heaven but live, love, hate and suffer with their people. They do not stand above us in some glow of moral puritanism, nor is there a priest to stand in the way of communion simply because of the partner you sleep with... gasp.
Disclaimer
*I have not been to Haiti nor have a witnessed a vodou ceremony so my apologies if I have anyway misrepresented vodou, its believers or the lwa themselves. I promise you it has not been my intention.
References:
Websites:
- Richard Ammon, Gay Haiti 2003, Global Gays
- Mambo Racine Sans Bout, The Vodou Page:
Sex In Vodou
Homosexuality In Vodou
- Bob Corbett, Bob Corbett’s Haiti Page
NOTES ON CENTRAL LOA
- Kevin Filan, Ezili Danto: Single Mother with a Knife, Widdershins, vol 9 issue 5, 2006
- Wikipedia, Haiti
Essays:
- Joan Dayan, “Vodoun, or the Voice of the Gods”, Sacred Possessions: Vodou, Santería, Obeah and the Carribean, 1997, pp. 13-36.
Sidestep:
Thus travelling throughout the transcendental realms of the multiverse in my search for a true gay lord I journey to the Caribbean and find an island deep in as much the violence of the past as it is the present. Haiti, a land shrouded in the myths of hollywood zombie movies and technicolour CNN television coverage of its violence and political unrest. Vodou has gotten itself a bad name, whether through the media and church attempts to discredit it, colonial and neo-colonial slander perhaps or maybe it’s sometimes close relationship with the island’s nastier side of sorcery for sale, I don’t know. Regardless vodou is a religion that traces its roots back to Western Africa and was brought to the Caribbean with slavery and thrived despite it or even because of it and is practiced often alongside the christian faiths, primarily catholic who consitutute about eighty percent of the population with little (if any) perceived contradiction with gods from Africa often portrayed using the same christian portraits they do the saints.
Well… it is not exactly the place you’d expect to find some homo-friendly god or religion; where priests and priestesses practice their faith and their sexuality with little moral prohibity. Mambo Racine Sans Bout, an initiated and ordained priestess of Haitian vodou writes that gay men and women though “rigorously excluded from Protestant congregations, and frowned upon in Catholic services” find in vodou an outlet for spiritual expression. Saying that there are a higher percentage gay people at vodou ceremonies and in the priesthood than represented in the general population, knowing of a few peristyles in Port-au-Prince that have congregations where being gay is an entry requirement. While not unknown the priestess continues, homophobic attacks in Haiti are not on the level that they are in other parts of the Caribbean, like Jamaica that have seen mob attacks and killings. Although male machismo is as high in Haiti as it is elsewhere in the region a high level of bisexual activity may point to why it doesn’t easily translate into violence against gay men (lesbians are another story).
Sidestep:
Erzulie Freda, a powerful and important lwa of the Rada nation who was born in Dahomey and brought with the boats that carried the slaves to the new world; Freda is portrayed as the epitome of grace and has the airs of virginal mercy that can be seen in the eyes of Mother Mary. She is fair skinned and very beautiful and is often seen wearing fine jewellery and is the lwa of ideas, hopes and aspirations and is often said to hold a special place in Her heart for gay men who inturn place Her as their met tet (ruling lwa). Yet She is also a woman says Bob Corbett on his Haiti page, who walks with “a saucy sway to her hips”, a lwa who is pleasure loving, taking delight dancing kissing and caressing men. Mambo Racine Sans Bout says that the gay men in Her sway dance wearing the fine colourful dresses that She loves. Thus like nowhere else in Haiti or in the Caribbean for that matter they may openly flirt with other men. Indeed it is in vodou ceremonies she says that gay men are above all prized as dancers combining their athletic prowess with the “voluptuousness of women.”
Contrasting the feminine Freda is that of Her Petwo sister Erzulie Dantor, a strong black woman who was born in the brutality of slavery in colonial Haiti. An enemy of Freda, it is said that the scars that adorn her black face were obtained battling Her pale and delicate sibling. With her Dantor carries knives that she willing to draw in the defence of the vulnerable, deploring violence against women and children and will seek vengeance upon the men who abuse them. While married with children she is said to lie with both men and women in her bed and is seen as something of a patron to lesbians.
Vodou is a religion born out of and in reaction to poverty, slavery and life times of suffering and as Joan Dayan argues, the lwa of vodou do not sit high, detached up in heaven but live, love, hate and suffer with their people. They do not stand above us in some glow of moral puritanism, nor is there a priest to stand in the way of communion simply because of the partner you sleep with... gasp.
Disclaimer
*I have not been to Haiti nor have a witnessed a vodou ceremony so my apologies if I have anyway misrepresented vodou, its believers or the lwa themselves. I promise you it has not been my intention.
References:
Websites:
- Richard Ammon, Gay Haiti 2003, Global Gays
- Mambo Racine Sans Bout, The Vodou Page:
Sex In Vodou
Homosexuality In Vodou
- Bob Corbett, Bob Corbett’s Haiti Page
NOTES ON CENTRAL LOA
- Kevin Filan, Ezili Danto: Single Mother with a Knife, Widdershins, vol 9 issue 5, 2006
- Wikipedia, Haiti
Essays:
- Joan Dayan, “Vodoun, or the Voice of the Gods”, Sacred Possessions: Vodou, Santería, Obeah and the Carribean, 1997, pp. 13-36.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
quote of the day
Walking down the steps into missinglink today, searching for Wheat album I couldn't find at JB I stumbled on an instore performance by grind band Fuck... I'm dead. Surrounded by a sea of black metal t-shirts and long unkept hair I stuck around and listened to a few songs, when lead singer Jay Jones said to the crowd "if you don't like someone, set them on fucking fire." Take of this what you will... but I shook my head and left the store, suffice to say I didn't get my CD.
halley's comet and a luminous trail of sentimentality
I remember my dad waking me in the early hours of the morning, and with stern prodding and despite my several determined attempts to fall back asleep he suceeded in getting me out of bed. It was 1986 and we were driving down an unsealed road in our '76 Holden Torana, binoculars on the passenger seat and my siblings and I in the back. I was six years old. We were to witness the comet that Edmond Halley had named and had last visited this bright blue globe in 1910 and wouldn't be back for another 76 years or so for its fifth flyby since Halley had spied it through his telescope. By all projections I'd be lucky to see it again.
My father has been dead now for about 15 years and like many father-son relationships it was a distant one. My father was an academic who spent most of his time in his room slash study and many of my memories about him involve a kiss to a face covered in stubble, as I had quietly interrupted him and his work to say 'night'. Someone recently told me that the love of a father is different to that of a mother but that it could nonetheless be found beneath all the anger, derision and disappointment aimed at his fat sad son. And then sometimes I think maybe Freud was right.
You know I even thought about telling him? It was less than a year before heart failure threw him to the ground. I was eleven and my grandmother was staying with us and in need to accommodate the Empress Dowager in our modest homestead my father and I were sleeping in a caravan we'd hired and parked in our driveway. I think it was really my brother who was supposed to sleep there instead but there had been an argument and a fight, with my father and brother falling into each other so clumsily and my mother screaming for them to stop... well perhaps this is why my father was sleeping out in the caravan and not in the house.
I was in bed and reading when my father came in. The book was about some ecologists fighting poachers in deep dark Africa, sort of a dumbed down 'Gorillas in the Mist' for children where justice and universal good sense prevail. Instead of the murdered researchers bodies being found their heads split by Hutu extremists who would go onto pile the land and rivers of Rwanda high with the bodies of their Tutsi neighbours.
I lay there nervously with the words sitting on my tongue but I said nothing, either because I was scared of how he would react or simply incapable of fully articulating my feelings at that age, I don't remember. But the lights went out in silence and I fell into sleep.
We left the car in a gravelled car park and made our way to the oval. The air was that kind of frigid that sets your skin taught so as to remind you of the boundaries of your self and the outside atmosphere and we stood still and looked up into the universe above and to be honest, even with the assistance of the binoculars I don't remember seeing very much at all; unable to tell the comet from the stars. Maybe there were too many clouds or too much light pollution but I was tired and unimpressed. So we headed back to the car with my father in silent irritation and whether he was angry at the comet or me I don't know.
I could of course try and recall this a little differently, construct an alternative memory to exist alongside this one where I was really awestruck by the sight through the binoculars of this streaking sliver of light. With my father crouched next to me helping me hold the binoculars, speaking in a soft warm tone explaining how this comet travels through cold dark space being warmed by the light and love of the sun that gave birth to it, causing it to stream and sparkle like the magnesium fire on top of your birthday cake. Crossing these skies striking fear, awe and joy into the hearts of many men, reminding us of our place in the world and those things that are really important.
I understood not a word of it yet given how much I saw of him I enjoyed just being near him and in hindsight am grateful to have had moments like this however fleeting before he too disappeared into the night.
My father has been dead now for about 15 years and like many father-son relationships it was a distant one. My father was an academic who spent most of his time in his room slash study and many of my memories about him involve a kiss to a face covered in stubble, as I had quietly interrupted him and his work to say 'night'. Someone recently told me that the love of a father is different to that of a mother but that it could nonetheless be found beneath all the anger, derision and disappointment aimed at his fat sad son. And then sometimes I think maybe Freud was right.
You know I even thought about telling him? It was less than a year before heart failure threw him to the ground. I was eleven and my grandmother was staying with us and in need to accommodate the Empress Dowager in our modest homestead my father and I were sleeping in a caravan we'd hired and parked in our driveway. I think it was really my brother who was supposed to sleep there instead but there had been an argument and a fight, with my father and brother falling into each other so clumsily and my mother screaming for them to stop... well perhaps this is why my father was sleeping out in the caravan and not in the house.
I was in bed and reading when my father came in. The book was about some ecologists fighting poachers in deep dark Africa, sort of a dumbed down 'Gorillas in the Mist' for children where justice and universal good sense prevail. Instead of the murdered researchers bodies being found their heads split by Hutu extremists who would go onto pile the land and rivers of Rwanda high with the bodies of their Tutsi neighbours.
I lay there nervously with the words sitting on my tongue but I said nothing, either because I was scared of how he would react or simply incapable of fully articulating my feelings at that age, I don't remember. But the lights went out in silence and I fell into sleep.
We left the car in a gravelled car park and made our way to the oval. The air was that kind of frigid that sets your skin taught so as to remind you of the boundaries of your self and the outside atmosphere and we stood still and looked up into the universe above and to be honest, even with the assistance of the binoculars I don't remember seeing very much at all; unable to tell the comet from the stars. Maybe there were too many clouds or too much light pollution but I was tired and unimpressed. So we headed back to the car with my father in silent irritation and whether he was angry at the comet or me I don't know.
I could of course try and recall this a little differently, construct an alternative memory to exist alongside this one where I was really awestruck by the sight through the binoculars of this streaking sliver of light. With my father crouched next to me helping me hold the binoculars, speaking in a soft warm tone explaining how this comet travels through cold dark space being warmed by the light and love of the sun that gave birth to it, causing it to stream and sparkle like the magnesium fire on top of your birthday cake. Crossing these skies striking fear, awe and joy into the hearts of many men, reminding us of our place in the world and those things that are really important.
I understood not a word of it yet given how much I saw of him I enjoyed just being near him and in hindsight am grateful to have had moments like this however fleeting before he too disappeared into the night.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
a giant wombat & me
For the last week and a half maybe I've had nightmare after nightmare. Almost every night a new one. It is getting to a point where I am beginning to wonder about my own mental state.
On sunday night I dreamt that I had angered a giant wombat. Perhaps it was a Diprotodon australis or a some great and terrible animal spirit of the land. Maybe it was both, I don't know but what I do know is that he took a particular disliking to me and for whatever reason he wanted me dead or at least severly crippled.
I ran from him as fast as I could to my house, the one that I grew up in. There an assortment of friends and family waited for me and as I told them of my plight one by one they made there excuses: shopping to be done, rock concerts to be seen, new countries to visit and they left me, abandoned me.
Meanwhile the great Diprotodont recruited many other animals to his cause, to aid him in my destruction. And they gathered around my house; a keen labrador stood by his side: his able lieutenant.
I rang every number I had on my phone in desperation: no answer, can't talk, too busy. I thought of places to hide, doors I could lock but a sense of finality gripped me and my stomach dropped. A wombat the size of a truck could easily smash any door, any lock, any wall that I might put between us.
I was grade A fucked.
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