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July 30, 2008 - Wednesday Emo Self Tagging! Category: MySpace Okay, so Moshy did the Emo blog and came a little short of Emoish, and Sharpie did the Emo blog and came out not remotely Emo... so, I've tagged myself to do the Emo blog too (Sadly, I'm anticipating being more Emo than one is supposed to be on this thing... but hey, I've been working flat out for four days and I need a nice relaxing fun time kinda blog - so deal with it!) 1. I'm beginning to realize that my boobs... … shouldn't exist... but kinda do (that's scary!) 2. I'm beginning to realize that my job... … sucks ass and I'd rather be poor and a slave to the welfare system than a slave to the ecenomic growth construct (myth) 3. I'm beginning to realize that when I'm driving.... … wait,... baby, I'm so fucken emo I don't drive.  I'm on so many anti-depressants that I can't concentrate on the road. 4. I'm beginning to realize that I need... … to come off a lot of the afformentioned medication (and probably reading glasses) 5. I'm beginning to realize that I have lost... … any respect for consciouness as a positive driving force of humanity. 6. I'm beginning to realize that I hate it when... … I speak, having formulated a concept almost perfectly in my head, only to have it come out in some half assed, semi-explanitory and completely UNverbose sentences.  (I'm considering not speaking, and have been for a long time, but it's a very hard thing to give up!) 7. I'm beginning to realize that if I'm drunk... … STOP!... There's absolutely nothing new for me to realize about being drunk - hence not drinking anymore. 8. I'm beginning to realize that money... … is the weapon of choice for humankind's greatest enemy - consciousness! 9. I'm beginning to realize that certain people... … probably deserve a place on Earth even if I don't think they have any real raison det're. 10. I'm beginning to realize that I'll always be... … isolated in my little world of understanding things that those around me seem to blissfully ignore - and vehemently deny when they can't ignore! 11. I'm beginning to realize that my best friend... … was the only person in my life (who wasn't a family member) who meant anything to me and now that she's gone there's not even a close second (only a sea of distant thirds) 12. I'm beginning to realize that my mom... … is as unhappy as I am, but lacks the abilty t express it creatively. 13. I'm beginning to realize that my cell phone ... …is an enemy.  I hate it when it rings. (I keep it on silent and screen all my calls) 14. I'm beginning to realize that when I woke up this morning.... … that I was looking forward to indulging in rampant consumerism. 15. I'm beginning to realize that last night before I went to sleep... … I was worried quite needlessly about telling my boss that I want to leave my job (he understood quite well, and is, all in all, a rather nice guy) 16. I'm beginning to realize that right now I am thinking about.... … probably never going to be mentally or physically healthy again! 17. I'm beginning to realize that my dad... … may mean well, but still has a tendency to be a complete fucking asshole. 18. I'm beginning to realize that when I get on Myspace... … I've sold my integrity to the lowest bidder! 19. I'm beginning to realize that today... … I have a headache, and no amount of paracetamol and codeine will get rid of the fucker! 20. I'm beginning to realize that tonight will be... … good if I find the time to watch Apocalypse Now (which I've been meaning to rewatch for some weeks) but a big ass downer otherwise. 21. I'm beginning to realize that tomorrow I will... … take a break from work and start working on my book.  (Seriously, I'm writing a book) 22. I'm beginning to realize that I really want to... … try and discover whatever great artforms and styles there are to discover in this era - and then practice them! 23. I'm beginning to realize that the person who is most likely to repost this... … will probably only do it cause Moshy and Sharpie did (Woe is me!) 24. I'm beginning to realize that life... … is purposeless (which could bring up an oxymoron since I'm writing a book about False Purpose) 25. I'm beginning to realize that this coming weekend... … I will probably be working.  26. I'm beginning to realize that the best music to listen to when I am upset is.... … Einsturzende Neubauten.  I find it impossible to stay upset in the face of great art! 27. I'm beginning to realize that friends... …are not really as important as people make out and usually just give you more headaches than they're worth! 28. I'm beginning to realize that this year... … I'm losing the last of my illusions and I'm fucking glad about it! Okay... so there was my expedition into Emo land. Disclaimer:  If any of the above statements reflect a state of Emo, I wholeheartedly claim that I am not an Emo and that Emo's have copied me (and in the process, infringed ..right!) Love and Kisses  xx Zaphod Currently listening : Scatology By Coil Release date: 2000-11-13 10:19 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment June 7, 2008 - Saturday That’s Entertainment! Category: Life Being an out-of-work film maker (I do work, I'm just not making my own films at the moment), and having studied several years ago as a fine artist and dabbled in the realms of music (and would quite like to again), I've for some time had this nagging question hovering over me whenever I see what's in the charts or what's at the top of the box office any given week: What's the point of going to all that trouble to get your voice heard if you have nothing interesting to say? Yes, I know the immediate answer to this question is the simple dynamic of supply and demand.  Average Joe and Jane citizen out there don't want to "think" while relaxing to another Meg Ryan rom-com, etc.  I remember even my brother, a person of rather considerable intelligence (who actually used to be on here as Mr. Belligerent among other names), who shares a love of the band System of a Down with me, said he hates "political" music and when I asked how he could possibly like SoaD then, he simply said, "I just don't listen to the lyrics". That's pretty much the state of it for Joe and Jane.  Even if they like the beat or like the plot, they carefully sheild themselves of it's inner content and just swell in the peripherals.  But, I've long stopped giving a fuck about Joe and Jane.  To contemplate the apathy of society for too long is a sure fire fast track to the exit via the bullet train. No, what I'm more concerned about is the,... ahem, "artists" themselves.  I'm sure quite a few of us have tried our hands at playing in a band at some point in our youth (or did I just happen to hang around with a lot of rock star wannabes?), and if I'm wrong on that generalized statistic, I'm sure I'm pretty safe in saying most of us have walked out of a film feeling pretty unfulfilled despite the fact the $50m were spent on special effects and $20m went to the lead actor alone.  And the point I oriniginally meant to make is that both industries are fucking hard to get into.  Sadly we're still living in a world where, if that's the life you want, good looks will get you at least a third of the way there.  Okay, but what about all those ugly fuckers in the directors chairs making multi-million dollar films?  Surely they didn't fuck their way to the top? Anyway, who cares how they got there... they're there.  They actually made it.  That's the point.  And when you're on the world stage like that, you should have something to say.  But most don't.  And what's worse, the less you have to say, the more you're rewarded.  And the more famous you are, the more your publicist will tap you on the shoulder whenever he thinks you may be about to say something that's "not fit for general consumption". Anyone who makes a political film has to tred the fine line of not being "too anti-American" - especially if they're NOT American!  (Look at the backlash Lars Von Trier recieved since Dancer in the Dark)... as such, most political films end up being homoginized and whittled down, and if the film maker gets accused of taking a negative stance on American foreign policy they must emphatically deny it - think Speilberg after he made Munich! (which wasn't a very good film anyway, and one only has to look at the vomit inducing American flag "book ends" in Saving Private Ryan to see where his heart and his balls lay!)... even P.T. Anderson, my favorite director of all time - living or dead - has had to keep fairly tight lipped about any connection to his latest film, There Will Be Blood, and Amercian global domination through oil interests. And beyond that, anyone who really goes on the attack is considered "arthouse" or "alternative" (even though in the music world, "alternative" now means nothing more than pop with power chords!).  Remember when hip-hop used to mean something?  Remember when Public Enemy could shake you out of your comfortable middle class suburban life - if only for the duration of the song?  Nowdays it's all about bitches and ho's and gettin rich slingin dope (although P.E. still rock my world - you should check out their new album if you haven't already - one of their best since 'Fear of a Black Planet'!) Now, I'm not saying there's no place for mindless music and cinema.  FSM knows I love some of it just as much as the next schmuck.  But in moderation please... it can't dominate the popular consciousness.  It's all part of the grand plan I guess - make people forget that they're being fucked over and they wont rise up against you! (Yes, I'm exagerating in a conspiracy tone for effect!) But, it all comes back to the original question, which I'm at a loss to answer, which is, beside the obvious (fame and fortune), why do the artists go down this road in the first place? Sadly, fame and fortune is probably the only answer... Thanks Americunt! You even managed to Coca-colanize the arts. Peace W(xy)Zee 9:45 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment May 8, 2008 - Thursday For just one dollar a day... Category: News and Politics FOR JUST ONE DOLLAR A DAY! I don't venture out often, but it seems these days that whenever I do I'm confronted with an army of marketeers all vying for my $1 a day to (insert charity of choice).  Obviously the actual foundations are finding it hard to get money on their own steam, so instead, they constantly employ disingenuous – though often fresh faced – thought wranglers.   Several years ago, when I was living in NSW, I took a trip into Sydney for a production meeting.  While at the train station, I get into a conversation with a "representative" of the World Wide Fund.  After a half an hour of talking about low budget film making and maybe two or three minutes of conversation devoted to the actual "mission statement" of the WWF, I walked away realising that I'd just signed away $30 a month to this organization.  I didn't mind so much, essentially falling into the well set trap of "well, I've thrown my bit of money at the problem so I can rest easy at night".   So, each month $30 is deducted from my already pretty depleted credit account and this goes on for several months until I realise just how far in debt I am on that account – not that much, but I was living on a welfare benefit at the time and every cent pretty much counted.  So, I read through the contract and – in the very fine print – I'm told that there's no one I can ring to cancel my subscription.  Nor is there anywhere on a website that I can do so.  I had to do it by good ol' snail mail (In the techno age, snail mail being your only option automatically rings the "this is SUSS" bells!!).  So, I write a letter (well, type and print) and send it off, asking for my subscription/donation to be cancelled.  Next month, it was still taken from my account.  Another letter, next month – same thing.  By this time I wasn't even using my credit account as I didn't have the means to replace what I took from it.  And this goes on and on until finally my credit account is cancelled.  The next time the WWF payment was due, I received a letter in the mail saying, "as per your request, we have cancelled your subscription…".  In actual fact it was, "oh fuck, we can't suck any money out of this sap anymore, and oh, look, he sent us some letters, so let's honour them and then we're safe if we get taken to court" (which there was no way I could afford anyway, so they were pretty safe from anything but idle threats). Now, while I can't accuse WWF of single headedly shutting down my credit account, which then led to the account being bought by a debt collection agency (the subject of which would make for a very long, completely separate post – but let's just quickly sum up that debt collection agencies are the legal equivalent to the mafia, complete with standover men) – there were several frivolous purchases of my own that led my credit card to get quite low in the first place, and let's not forget the fact that the banks that issue such cards (or separate credit agencies if not a bank supplied card) actually want people to get well below zero on their account or else it wouldn't be a profitable enterprise.  Essentially, people like myself, who care very little for money and care even less for keeping a check on my earnings and purchases every week, are prime targets for said companies, so I can't remove the blame entirely from myself – it's a symbiotic relationship of which I was as much a part of as the financial leeches.  Anyway, back to the opening of this paragraph, WWF weren't the sole reason my account was cancelled, but they played a large part, given that they were the only company (apart from the bank) taking money out of the account for the last six months of it's existence.  As a result, I have NO trust what-so-ever in any marketing company pimping charities. For a long time afterwards, I would just avoid them, and if I happened to fall into the trap, I would recount the story of the WWF swindle, to which I'd always get the reply, "Oh, that's terrible, but rest assured, we don't do anything like that" (Um, yeah, I remember the WWF girl telling me I could cancel at any time!).  Essentially, of course, it's very hard to  cancel because no one company takes responsibility for your subscription.  It's all filtered down through various agencies, and one agency sends you back to another – thus becoming very circular very quickly – if they respond to you at all. A COUPLE OF RECENT MARKETEER STORIES. Not so long ago, I opened the front door (expecting a package – you can imagine my disappointment – yes, I'm a consumer, sue me) only to find a marketeer, this time for the heart foundation.   So, I played along, knowing full well that I wouldn't sign a damn thing.   "Guess how many people die in Australia from heart related incidents every year?", she asks. "I'm not in the mood for guessing, so how about you just tell me", I reply. "Two hundred thousand", she came back with, expecting me to be flabbergasted. "Is that all?", I replied.  "That's nothing.  It could hardly be called a national emergency" "It's our biggest killer" "Then, obviously, not enough people are dying". This last bit really threw her.  And I have to admit, I was being a complete cunt.  I do, in fact, recognize the extreme problem with heart disease in this country.  In fact, given that there's a long history of it in my family, it's actually something I'm quite concerned about – but let's be clear, I'm generally quite concerned with pretty much all of the issues I'm faced with by said marketeers, I just hate their tactics so I don't buy into them (anymore). The Brekky Project:  This one is about the amount of children in Australia who are living in poverty and often go without food.  Quite an alarming problem.  In this case, all jazzed up by a guy who looks and acts like he needs a steady flow of amphetamine to get through his job.   He tells me all about the situation, and noticing the red star on my T-shirt, appeals to my disdain for the federal government.   "Just come over hear to have a look at our brochures", he says. "Wonderful.  Can I take one home with me to give it a good look and do some independent research of the company involved", I ask. "No, we don't give brochures to people who don't sign up" (I get this a lot – it seems pretty fucking stupid to me to HAVE brochures, but ONLY give them to people after they've signed up to give away their $30 a month) "Well, without independent research, I pretty much have to take your word for it right?" "Yeah" "Thanks, have a nice day" My personal favourite: While spending a few minutes waiting for someone in a shopping centre, I'm called over by a guy standing next to a big old "Save The Children" sign – with all the complementary pictures of starving African children to appeal to my better sensibilities.   After a hand shake and an exchange of names, he tells me a little about the charity he's pimping.  He then asks how I spell my name.  I didn't give it much thought, as the spelling of my name comes up quite often in certain kinds of conversation.  As I proceeded to spell it out for him, he grabs his pen and starts writing it down on the "subscription form" (read: CONTRACT). "Woah, what are you doing?" "It's okay, you don't have to give me any money today" "But, after a certain period, I WILL be giving money, right?" "Yes, but…" and he continues to stress that I wont be parting with money TODAY.  (Another favourite of the marketeers) "But I never said at any time that I agreed to sign this contract, so why are you writing my name?" a deviation: "It's not a contract" "Does it state that I'm obliged, with my signature as consent, to give a certain amount of money each month?" "Yes, but.." "Then it's a contract" "But you can cancel at any time" (This one again!) "Regardless, it's STILL a contract" This argument quickly becomes circular.  Eventually I'm accused of simply making excuses for not signing.  Appealing to my better nature has now become belittling of my resistance. I change tact a little. "So, do you work for Save the Children, or do you work for a marketing company?" "A marketing company"… he proceeds to show me the tiny emblem on his name tag as if this will impress me to it's validity. "So, technically speaking, I could see you here at this same shopping centre next week trying to get me to sign for Greenpeace, or Red Cross, or any number of other foundations" "No, we have this contract with Save The Children for some time" "But you see what I'm saying, in a month maybe" "No, it's a very long contract" "Not the point.  Hypothetically, you COULD at some point in the future, be here trying to get people to sign up to a different foundation?" …finally, "Yes" "Can I ask you a question and expect an honest answer?" "Yes, of course" "What's your commission?" This threw him.  I didn't even mean for it to throw him, so I was a little thrown myself at his response.  Searching for all the right words but realising I'll probably just continue to reduce them, he finally admits: "I'm actually not allowed to give out that information" Well, this got my blood firing. "So, you're telling me that you want me to give $30 a month to the company that you're representing, but you can't even be honest enough with me to tell me how much money you're making out of the deal.  How am I supposed to trust a word you say?" Thinking he may have found an angle here, he looks around his shoulders, real covert like, and then says: "Okay, I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else" (Apparently marketing commissions are a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY) I agree.  He pulls out his little card of "levels of commitment" and points to the lowest level - $35 a month (so NOT a dollar a day as promised!!!) – probably thinking that it would cause an internal nuclear reaction if he even mentioned the two "levels" above this. "If you sign on to this program, I get twenty dollars". "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?", I say.  But the look on his face suggested that it was very hard indeed. "So, you get twenty, how much does your marketing company get?" He pulls out a pie chart. "Oh, a pie chart", I exclaim!, "Everything is made perfectly clear with pie charts.  Why didn't you tell me you had a pie chart." By this time, as you can imagine, he was getting rather infuriated with me, but I suspect not because he was losing the argument, but that while I was standing there talking to him, a steady stream of potential $20 checks were passing him by. Then he gets back to accusing me of making excuses. "I have money right now.  I don't have a steady income, but I do, at this moment, have money both in my wallet and in my bank account.  Tell me how to get money straight to the source, without going through you, your superiors, and your marketing company in general, and I'll certainly consider calling them up right now and making a one off donation." "But you wont really do that.  You're just making excuses". By this time I was losing my cool. "I'm betting that you care about 'saving the children' less than I do.  All you want is the $20 signing bonus.  So, please, don't stand there and make accusations about me being disingenuous." (The truth is, it's quite possible that I wouldn't have called and made a one off donation right there and then… but I would certainly have had much more interest in researching the matter and pursuing it.  As a result, the whole foundation is now tainted with underhanded marketing mind tricks and, I have to say, I feel somewhat disillusioned that, whomever I send money to, no matter what position they claim to have, I have severe doubts that much of it will see the promised recipients) Eventually the conversation was left unresolved.  I was as distrustful as ever of Charity Pimps (and as a sad consequence, charities themselves) and the man in question was convinced that I was doing little more than making excuses not to sign up. My own (half a day) experience as a marketeer. During my first university degree, I was looking for ways to make ends meet (as one does, this is certainly not exclusive to students, but what does have a higher rate among students – at least here in Australia – is marketing).  I answered a job ad in the paper.  Went for an interview, which all seemed fine, and was told that the following day I would go out with other "potentials" with experienced marketers.   So, I show up the next day (late).  I must also be clear, here, that this wasn't charity pimping.  On this particular day, we were selling vouchers for a local video store.   I'm off on the beat with two gals – one of which, I'm told by the other, "took a year of uni to continue working with this marketing company".  There was, the head marketer, and her understudy, and then me, the fresh fish (who would soon become the evil agitator). So, this was back in my goth-dandy days.  At the time my hair was bleached pure white, and I had NO real eyebrows - they were drawn on very thinly with eyeliner.  She didn't like that. "Would you be willing to change your hair back to it's natural colour?" "Maybe… but probably not" "Well, you can't very well go door to door looking like that." Hmm, okay.  So, I start to question the nature of marketing tactics.   "What happens if they don't want to buy what you're selling?" "Nothing.  We move on, and go to the next house."… sounds reasonable.  Of course, anyone who's been on the receiving end of a door to door marketeer would know this is not the case.  So, I prodded: "So, you don't put the hard sell on them?" "No, not at all"… was I in the midst of a revolutionary marketing company that actually respected people's right to refuse? First door knock, we're met with a "No, thanks, I've just had Foxtel installed".  Her response (This was back when Foxtel was very first introduced to Australia) – "But you know that films aren't legally allowed to be screened on cable television until a year after their rental release date?  Do you ever hire new releases?" "Yes, occasionally.  But, I'm really not interested, thanks" "But, let me ask you, how much do you think you would spend on new release videos in a year?" "I don't know". (seriously – would you "know" on the spot how much you spend on things like that a year?) "This voucher offers you a years worth of new releases for only $20" "That sounds good, but I'm really not interested, thanks" "So, you'd rather pay $6 every time you hire a new release video when you could instead pay $20 and hire all the new release videos you wanted for a whole year?" This went on in pretty much every house we went to, except for those who signed, which were ALL elderly women.  (Though I wasn't told this at the time – being a fresh fish – I've since learned that the marketeer should push an especially hard but sweet sell on elderly women.  This concept – I shan't call it a fact as I don't have enough substantiating evidence, I'm simply going by several "filtered" anecdotes that make their way to the mass media – is enough to make me want to firebomb every marketing company out there). Eventually I was told about another upcoming campaign, since the head marketer could see that I wasn't even feigning interest well.  That campaign was KFC!  Fucking KFC.  This prompted me to ask – "Do you ever find yourself ethically challenged by the work you have to do?" She looked at me as though such a question had never even come within a ten mile radius of her mind. "What do you mean?" "Well, you say you don't push the hard sell, but I've seen you do it several times today.  Now you're telling me you're going to be selling KFC to people.  Despite the fact that KFC has a long history of funding the Ku Klux Klan (NB: I've not since been able to substantiate this claim either, but I'd recently read it at the time, and it came up purely for antagonistic reasons as I didn't feel that the vegetarian angle was going to appeal to her better nature), KFC is constantly at the centre of animal cruelty accusations.  Accusations that have amounted in severe pressure from animal rights groups to make drastic changes to the conditions of their battery farms.  I'm just asking, do you ever have an ethical problem with it?" "No.  I'm just doing my job" (I was young, so I couldn't resist) – "That's what the SS said at Nuremberg" Needless to say, a couple of houses later, I was taken aside and told that this just wasn't going to work out.  Mind you, it was pouring fucking rain, I'd received a lift to the rather remote location (Craigeburn) and I was living pretty close to the city at the time (St Kilda).  So, without so much as an offer of a lift to the train station – which I didn't know the location of – I was told "Thank you very much, but no thank you very much" and to head off to the train station.  Now, this was a country area and the train (unless there was a delay, which I suspect, because even most country areas in Victoria aren't this bad) was a two hour wait.  I had to spend that two hours, and the train ride and subsequent bus ride, with another dejected wannabe, who, just to top things off, was a born again Christian and spend the next four hours telling me about the "evils of homosexuality" (Yep, this has no bearing at all on the marketing story – I just felt like chucking it in there).   So… needless to say, my distrust in marketing companies – no matter what they're selling or pimping – is rather deep rooted. 2:23 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment April 30, 2008 - Wednesday Tabula Rasa (the death of the free thinker) Current mood: annoyed Category: Religion and Philosophy I hereby denounce myself as a "Free Thinker". It appears that, today, to be a "free thinker" holds about as much credence as calling one's self a "modern day punk".  In essence, the new "Free Thinkers Movement" is nothing more than a group of disenfranchised self-proclaimed outcasts, taking on a fashion trend and building a meaningless fad on the coat tails of "actual free thinking".  The term, "free thinker" is pretty self explanatory.  The concept that has been built up around it becomes somewhat more murky.  I see bulletins all the time that say "Attention all Free Thinkers"... only to find the contents of said bulletin little more than a written instruction on a) what to do, and worse, b) what to think.  One could well change the term from "Free Thinking" to "Free Quoting".  After all, I don't see much thinking going on. Then, of course, there are the endless pissing contests.  A very recent example of this is on Heathen's latest blog, in which the common consensus for stature seems to be "I've been an atheist longer than you" and "I can break down a fundie argument in 3.2 seconds" (um, yeah, that's really hard to do!).  I'm grateful to Heathen for writng that particular blog, as it brought attention to one particular parasite that's been infesting the "free thinkers" community for a long time, and the expose was long overdue.  However, my beef is with not one, but many.  In fact, my beef is with the attitude itself.  And herein lies the danger.  When a group of people start to react against this gang of glorified schoolyard bullies, they run the risk of taking over their place and becoming the exact thing they were reacting against, eventually creating a never ending cycle of reaction to reactionism.  In the end, we'll have replaced the old religious war mantra of "my God's better than your God" with, "my absence of beief in God is better informed than your absence of belief in God".  In the end, I really don't care how any particular reader takes this blog.  I wrote it to vent my own frustration, and my own fear for the future of those of us who hold our ideas as something valueble to share, rather than something to fight with.  Sure, there is always a time for fighting, but when one arms themselves with a list of quotes to go out and look for fights - the "fight" is already over. Peace. Waine Zero 1:07 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment April 27, 2008 - Sunday Give me igorance or Give me death! Category: Religion and Philosophy WHERE'S MY INDEPENDENCE? One often hears the concept, phrased one way of another, that all states of being are relative to perception and individual state of being, and as such, cannot be any other way.  While I am aware that from various perspectives of definition of consciousness the argument can be toppled with one fell swoop, this, in itself, is a refutation made from one's own relativity between inner and outer Universe, thus rendering the argument circular.  As such, I have no intention of disproving the theory, rather, I intend to apply the theory to the observations that shall follow. 1. The Illusion of Self Sufficiency. "Get a job… get your own home… Become Independent!"… the "great (Western) dream".  The great (Global) lie.  While the national benefits of NOT living one's life supported by welfare are not up for dispute, what is up for dispute is the illusion of emancipation entailed in doing so.  When one is dependant of the welfare system, they are dependant on a state subsidised income.  When one finds work, s/he is emancipated from the dependence on state income, and swaps this state for dependence on the private sector (in some cases, of course, there are examples of state sponsored work programs, but for the sake of simplicity, let's not venture there just now).   So, what freedoms have been gained? None.  The actual specifics of dependency and independence have simply shifted, yet the balance stays arguably the same.  Yes, one has more money, but one has sacrificed time for that money.  What's more, one becomes dependant on market stability, a further importance hovers over the reliability of transport, which entails a dependence on all corporations in control of the transport industry – whether it's the price of fuel, car maintenance, or placing one's trust in the efficiency of the public transport system.  To the person just entering the workforce, it is tempting to say "Your freedoms are now forgotten!".  However, this would imply that said person had freedom in the first place – which, of course, they did not. With the job, s/he moves into a home of their own.  At first often renting, and even more common, share-housing.   In the share-house, one is dependent upon almost every facet of their housemates' lives.  Their own financial stability.  Their ability to maintain a clean household.  Their temperament.  The list goes on, until one's independence within the share-house can barely even be masked by the comfort of illusion. Beyond that, sharing or living alone, there's rent to consider.  This then turns itself back to the dependency of work and income to support one's own living arrangements.  One is also dependant on the temperament of the landlord, and quite often, the real estate agency also.  In the rental market, one soon find that they are not "paying for freedom", but instead paying for the privilege of being obedient on a house owned by someone other than one's own parents.  However, as opposed to the "home" situation, the disobedient tenant is not simply reprimanded with a slap on the wrist, a grounding, or a stern warning, but the threat of being thrown out onto the street, often with two weeks or less to find new accommodation, and, given the nature of departure, almost zero hope of a glowing rental reference.   The exact same principal governs the workplace, thus creating a symbiosis between the dependency on the work place and "own" home.  The poor dependent sap is run ragged trying to keep up a stable, yet always subservient, relationship between the two. The young, enthusiastic new member of a free society soon discovers that s/he is, in fact, not free at all, but has simply transferred ownership of the deed from a familiar party to an alien one.  Adventure?  Perhaps… But Freedom?  Certainly not. 2. The family unit. So, the so-called "emancipated", along the trails of adventure, falls madly and deeply in love.  Of course, love in itself is one the most viral forms of dependency known to humankind.  The desperate need to be wanted, needed, desired and adored by another person is a dependency that borders on a physical illness.  Sure, it's "natural", but natural dependency is still dependency.  What's more, the lonely are no less prone to the ailments of this illness.  In fact, it could well be argued that the lonely (note: the single are not automatically lonely by the very state of their aloneness.  The desire to not be alone is the catalyst needed to propel one from being alone to being lonely) is a far more destructive illness as one becomes dependent on constant need for dependency.   In the context of the perfect world (that is, the most easily accepted western social model), the two lovers marry.  They buy a house – and by buying a house, they actually become victim to an entire host of new dependencies, given that the "average" young couple cannot afford to buy a house with their own money – so effectively the mortgage (the staple of western civilization) brings more ills than rent.  After all, with rent, one can simply stop renting and rent elsewhere.  The mortgage is a prison term served in society – served, again, under the illusory banner of independence, when it is anything but.   And what household is a household at all without children.  Children are, of course, the one case where the human consciousness can clearly grasp the concept of dependency.  However, this argument is only half true – or rather, s/he who perceives is only perceiving half (or less) of the picture.  Of the two conscious existents (combining both parents as one entity for the sake of this argument only), parent and child, only the one with the greater consciousness of their own consciousness (the parent) grasps the concept with open arms, and this is only because they perception of dependency is that of being "depended upon".  Furthermore, one could hardly blame the child for rejoicing in their own dependency on the parent, as in this instance, the dependency actually serves to empower rather than restrict.  One could argue that the dependency of a child to it's parent is the only true, natural and beneficial state of dependency that a human being will ever experience.  True, at least, that it is the only form of such a state of being that does not require any kind of "masking".   Of course, the child is dependant upon the dependant.  By this time the parents are drowning in a murky sea of dependency to appease the child's dependency on them.  And in outdated, but sadly still practiced, cases, where the mother and father, rather than being one unit, are separate entities in which one (usually the mother) rears the children most of the time and the other (usually the father) spends his time working to provide for the child.  Thus, in the model of mother-nurturer and father-provider, the child is rendered a dependant of a dependant of a dependant, and the extent to which the third dependant's (in this case the father-provider) dependency spreads is so vast that for him/her, denial is the only option.  Essentially, a slave is only unhappy about their state of being when they have no other recourse but to admit that they are, in fact, a slave – and this is only done once all possible avenues of illusory freedom have been tested and found inapplicable to circumstance. 3. Ownership and the loss of the self. Unless one has, like myself, "invented" a surname, the surname of any so-called "individual" belongs to a male.  And before him, another male, and so on down the line until such time that the surname was an indication of the male's occupation.  By their very origins in identification of occupation, a surname by definition is a label of dependency.  However, in the so-called "modern age" the surname takes on the more sinister role of implied ownership.  Sinister in that it implies the ownership of one person over another in a situation in which both people are presumed to love each other equally. The trend of keeping the maiden name is at least a positive step towards a solid illusion of emancipation ("solid" in that it's convincing).  However, the maiden name is still the father's name.  The entire female identity in society, still to this day, is one of mass ownership by their male counterparts.  Here the male's dependency on power and absolute control has had a long reaching effect of the stripping away of the female identity, which holds in place today even after the more obvious elements of patriarchal control have been demolished (Though, I would argue that very few have been demolished, rather a few males in power have simply thrown down a rope to allow a few "lucky" women to climb near the top of the pyramid with them.  It could also be thus argued that the restrictive laws of the past – applied to both race and gender – actually allowed for a greater sense of freedom among the oppressed as the illusion of freedom keeps people far more oppressed and far less likely to retaliate – after all, who do you fight if you don't know who's attacking you?). Religion is often cited as a cause of women's oppression, however, I would argue that religion, in itself, was simply created to, among (many) other things, justify the male lust for power and the continuance of the patriarchal system. (NB: This section has been somewhat of a sidestep from the main issue, but relevant in relation to the fallacy of the family unit.  However, a further study of continued degradation of the female identity shall be forthcoming.) 4. Biological dependencies. Were one to rid themselves of "social conditioning", live out in a place of his/her own design – living off the land, if you will – then there is still a dependency that one cannot escape.  The survival need. In  short, all living things must eat (or find nourishment in some way akin to "eating") and drink, and humans are no exception.  Thus, we are not only slaves to our external environment, we are also – far more critically – slaves to our internal demands.   This is, in effect, a dual dependency.  That is, we are dependant on our own internal need for nourishment, we are dependant on the Earth to provide the source of that nourishment.   But let's be clear here.  The free woman or man who lives alone on the good graces of the land is not, in effect, a slave to biological conditioning and a dependency on the Earth to provide for her/him, but rather, they are a slave to the consciousness of this fact.   To explain, to eat, drink, and by logical conclusion, shit and piss, is not a form of biological slavery – it is dependence, to be sure, but not slavery.  The slavery comes from knowing that we must do this. 5. Consciousness is the worst friend a human can ever have. So, now we've come to the origin of the problem of dependency -  Consciousness.   Thus, we can conclude that:       Only the dead are truly free. A rather nihilistic conclusion to be sure.  But, let's frame it this way:      The truly free have nothing left to fight for, thus rendering existence a meaningless countdown to the emancipation of death. Waine C. Paris 25th April, 2008 4:05 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment April 20, 2008 - Sunday Atheism For Sale! Category: Religion and Philosophy "Punk's not dead - it just deserves to die when it becomes another stale cartoon"                                 - Dead Kennedys, 'Chickenshit Conformist' Atheism has become a "scene", and as such, little more than a commodity for psuedo-intellectuals.  Freethinking is now nothing more than a pop-word and rationality has turned inward on itself and idea become a viral ideology. Before I go on any further, let's be clear about something.  I'm not discrediting Atheism in itself (after all, I am an Atheist), nor am I slandering the numerous prolific authors who've written on the subject in recent years.  What I AM discrediting is the "Atheist Bloggers Brat Pack" who've taken the works of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris (few seem to be interested in Onfray) et al, and manufactured an extremist dogma of what could only be described as "sectarian secularism", hiding under the banner of "rationality" when it's anything but. An interesting case in point is a blog that Moshellie posted a few days ago in which a discussion arose about the problems of extremists on both sides of the religious debate.  (Btw, Mosh is NOT one of the "brat pack" – just thought I should make that clear).  Only a day later a blog appeared on my subscription list called "Hitler was Christian" (First thought: Fuck, not this tired old argument again!).  Of course, the blog was posted under the guise of a refutation of claims made in the film, Expelled.  But the blog – which consisted entirely of quotes taken from Mein Kampf (anyone else find it bizarre that Christians are [rightly] condemned for using only one source as evidence, yet it seems perfectly okay for an Atheist to do the same?) – was essentially harmless ignorance.  The comments section below was where the real agenda was unveiled.  Anyone who agreed and petted the blogger's ego was patted on the back for being a loyal servant of the so called Catalyst, but anyone who disagreed (myself included), was told to "fuck off" – hmm, that's a healthy debate. Essentially, having been tripped up on his own issue, the response was the proverbial middle-finger.  Wait a minute… isn't the concept of "freethinking" a stance against the mindset of "I am right and if you don't agree with me I don't want to hear from you!"? But, this is by no means an isolated incident.  It seems that the lines for healthy debate have now been closed by righteous stoicism.  Go onto any "top ten" religious blog and you'll find comments by Catalyst, Gadfly and God Is Imaginary quoting their favourite Atheist authors as a short cut to antagonism, and soon the "Sheeple" (a term said people are so fond of branding their opponents with) will follow suite with, "Yeah, what he said!".  So, step right up, folks!  We're gonna have us a "Free Thinkers" pissing contest!  To return to the quote above, said people and those that blindly follow have become nothing more than Chickenshit Conformists. 5:50 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment April 17, 2008 - Thursday GOD - The Prideful Conspirator Category: Religion and Philosophy GOD – The Prideful Conspirator PLEASE NOTE:  The following blog is long, and at times quite repetitious, but please do not post comments unless you have read the whole blog.  To those that do read the whole blog, comments from all sides of the fence (including on the fence) are more than welcome.  Thankyou - WZ Wading through fundamentalist ideology lately, it seems that one sin comes up more than any others as the prime source of separation between God and his subjects (humans – he doesn't seem to care less about the billions upon billions of other creatures on Earth, even after Noah went to all that trouble of saving them all!).  That sin is Pride.   So… let's look at the origin of Pride and God's contradictory disgust in it, while, at the same time, exposing God as the single most Prideful entity ever to appear in text - be it fictional or historical. First let's take a look at the wonderful fable of Adam and Eve.  As we all know, Adam was created first, and created in the image of his creator.  It seems that Eve came somewhat later as, although Adam had no knowledge of Pride, and thus no knowledge of Shame, he was free to do as he pleased, but God, knowing both of these things all too well, was shamed to see man (made in his own image) masturbating (thus, God admits that he is too proud to admit that he himself must, by definition, also masturbate – since he made Adam in his image and all).   Sidenote:  It's is also quite reasonable to presume that God's hatred of homosexuality is yet another prideful reflection, that being - man loving man (person of equal spiritual stature in God's eyes) as he would woman (person of lesser stature in God's eyes) unveils God's own love for himself.   So, he creates Eve, and between them, they all three wander (but not wonder!!) hand in hand around the garden of Eden.  Happy days indeed.  Happy… because ignorance is bliss (thus, God can't have been too happy… having all this knowledge – after all, He knows everything – and having no one to share it with).   Yet, God is so Prideful about being the only one in the whole Universe who has all of this knowledge that he doesn't want to share it.   So, already we have a major contradiction – God has knowledge of everything, yet his lowly subjects have none, although, this same God claims that he made man in his own image.  How are we supposed to take that idea?  After all, God apparently has no physical image, as physicality kind of gets in the way of omnipresence (To break it down as simply as possible – you can't be both EVERYWHERE and ONLY SOMEWHERE at the same time.  You must either be one or the other.  Thus, Omnipresence cancels out physical presence)… so where did he get the physical design for Adam from?  And given that God made Adam in his own image but made Eve from Adam's rib, where did the differences in Eve's design stem from?  Which is closer to God's image?  Adam or Eve?  If Adam, are women less Godlike (or less capable of being Godlike) than men?  If so, why even give them the ability to acquire knowledge?  Surely inferiority is only a problem if you KNOW that you're inferior!   Okay, so apart from God's absence of physicality, in what way was man then created in His image?  Man has a body that God does not have, man has presence in the face of God's omnipresence, and man has no knowledge where God has all knowledge.  Something's not adding up here. As for aforementioned knowledge: Now, some will tell you that God only restricted Adam and Eve from knowing Good and Evil (knowledge somehow having been genetically implanted into various fruits), however, I stake the claim that without knowledge of good and evil, thus without knowledge of morality and ethics, knowledge is pretty much rendered useless.  After all, what is good and evil but a simple dialectic?  (Much like the Taoist Yin and Yang) – one cannot exist without the other.  Thus, everything that Adam and Eve may know, they cannot gauge the usefulness of that knowledge because they essentially have no basis against which understanding of the world around them can be measured.   And along comes Satan, who at this point in time (and for many centuries to come) had not yet acquired the name Satan, in the form of a serpent – at which point we must again stop! and ask how on Earth (or in this case Paradise) could God let the serpent into the garden in the first place unless he PRIDEFULLY wanted him there.  After all, God created Satan (Yes, yes, I know he was an Angel who wanted to be God and thus was cast down, but since God made all and God knows all, God made Satan knowing that he would one day do this!).  Satan explains to Eve that God is playing a schoolyard bully game of "I know something you don't know, ner!" and says that she too can know if she eats the supernaturally genetically modified fruit.   And here is God the Conspirator!  And the Prideful Conspirator at that!  He purposefully sent Satan the Serpent into the garden to "test" Adam and Eve, knowing full well that they didn't even have the luxury of crib notes for said test.  And what a test: "Trust me and you get to stay here in blissful ignorance, or don't trust me and I wipe my hands clean of you (but I'll still watch over everything you do regardless)".  Essentially God's clinging onto his last hope of being the only knowledgeable being in the Universe like a Survivor clinging to a can of beans in a nuclear winter.   And I must also deviate a little hear and say that I often hear this "test" equated to the concept of parents telling their children not to do something for their own protection, which is all well and good, but as parents, do you really want your children asking you what they should do for the rest of their natural lives, or do you want them to one day grow up and become free thinking adults themselves.  After all, you also often hear it said that a parent wants to offer nothing more for their children than to have all the chances they had (or more often, didn't have) in life and often much more.  God, on the other hand, didn't want this for His children.  God wants his children to remain children (for all eternity if one is to take the story literally), never questioning, living forever in servitude (some Paradise, huh?).   Regardless of all of this, God being as all knowing as he supposedly is, planned this whole fiasco long before he'd even done a rough sketch for Adam.  Thus, the "test" (if you could call it such) was doomed to fail from the beginning, as God knowing everything, had made the choice for Eve in the first place.  Plunging the world into Good and Evil was God's plan all along.  How could it not have been if God is all knowing?  Seriously, was God able to stop Eve from eating the fruit?  Of course he was… but he didn't.  Perhaps he wanted a little excitement in his joyless existence – otherwise, why put the tree there in the first place, why test his children and why expel them from Paradise and condemn them to the doom and gloom of mortality?   It, too, is often said that the eating of the fruit is the first instance of mankind turning away from God.  Well, I put it to any theologian out there that, with the ideas explored above, mankind did NOT turn away from God – God pushed mankind away from Him.  To quickly summarize for those that I may have lost in my many tangents – God created the tree, he created man, he put man near the tree but said don't eat the fruit "or else!!!", all the while knowing full well that mankind (in the form of Eve) was predestined to eat the fruit and thus cause God's wrath (and what is wrath if not borne of Pride? – Oh, and wrath is a "sin" too, so go figure) and be expelled from Paradise, doomed to walk the Earth, ashamed of their nakedness (which brings us back to the original idea, that if man is ashamed of his own nakedness, and man was created in the image of God, is God not then the Prude?) And what is Satan?  The master of lies?  Or nothing more than God's unwilling patsy?  After all, Satan may know more than man, but by definition of God, he can't know more than God, and what's more, he, too, is one of God's creations, doomed to the fate that God had planned for him.  Thus, God is the conspirator and Satan is the unwilling Chump, blamed for doing all the things that God is too Prideful to own up to doing himself. Let's put it this way, at the risk of repeating myself for the fiftieth time, God and Satan both have knowledge of good and evil.  If God created everything, then by definition, God created Good and Evil.  God, thus has the power to do evil things, and one must conclude that since he is omnipotent and could stop evil from happening if he wished, he wants to do evil.  But he wants to be seen by his, now expelled, subjects as being the ultimate source of Good (now that they are lucky enough to know about Good and Evil – God can revel in his goodness – more pride!!!) so he created Satan as a way for evil to occur without having to sign his own name on the warrant of evil deeds.  But, it must be said again and again that God is the creator of Satan, thus God is the source of Evil.  By definition of God's omnipotence, it could NOT be any other way. When Eve asked God, "Why is there evil in the world?", and God smugly replied, "I told you not to eat that damn apple", surely Eve should have asked, "Then why the apple?".  Thus, I here and now ask God, "WHY THE APPLE?". Ever since, God has revelled in his Pride from the extremes of having his subjects kill for him (surely God can kill for himself!!!), to the seemingly trivial such as "The Lord's Prayer".  Honestly, what kind of God, who knows everything, knows every thought you have, and even knows if you're going to Heaven or Hell from the time that you are conceived, needs to be constantly ego-petted with prayer? And let's close with the kicker: The illusion of choice.  Apparently God gives us all a choice.  We can either accept him (oh, and his son – who is really Him anyway, just in human form, down on Earth for a little S&M) or not.  Sounds quite nice and simple, doesn't it?  You accept God?  Oh good for you.  You don't?  Oh good for you too.  We're all one big happy family.  But wait… there's fine print.  If you "choose" to accept God and Jesus, you go to heaven.  If you "choose" to reject God, you go to hell.  Oh, and did I forget to mention that whichever you choose, you're stuck there for all eternity.  So, as if eternity doesn't suck enough in itself, we don't really have a choice at all.  It's like me, were I a rich man, saying to some poor sap: "Here, you can have one million dollars, but in exchange for that million, you have to do everything I say, and even if you do things that I didn't previously forbid, if I decide afterwards that I didn't like them, you get punished anyway, and your likelihood of ever seeing your cool million will gradually slip away with every decision you make on your own" or, "You're welcome to do whatever you want for the rest of your life and I'll try and shield you from punishment as long as I can but I really can't promise much, and in exchange for this free will, all you have to do is report to my home at 11pm each night and I, and any friends that I have over, will spend an hour pissing in your face and forcing you to eat our faeces, rape you if we feel like it, maybe have your eyes gouged out, maybe your tongue cut off – but you're free to go home again and live your free life at 12am… you don't mind doing this each night for the rest of your life do you?" And then at the end of it, "Oh, and by the way, I already know which one you're going to choose so I'm really just pretending that you have free will". Makes sense to me.  How about you? "Six… Seven… Go to Hell or go to Heaven!"                                                     - Roy Baty (Bladerunner) 11:04 PM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment March 21, 2008 - Friday Have a sexual identity problem? Need to quit being a fag? Then read on... Category: Religion and Philosophy You’ve really gotta hand it the the fundie’s among us... rather than have a simple 12 step program, they’ve added another two, thus creating the 14 Step Plan of Homosexuals Anonymous (HA)... Yep, you read it right - there is actually such a group as HA.  (I guess they couldn’t find anything that could be anacronized as LOL!)... So let’s have a look at their fundamentals and their glorious 14 steps (Interestingly the number 14 comes up a lot in fascist circles - the neo-nazi’s and Aryan Nations have their 14 Words and there are also the famous 14 points of a fascist nation, anyway....) What is HA? Homosexuals Anonymous (HA) is a Christian fellowship of men and women who have chosen to help each other live free from homosexuality. The purpose of HA is to support individuals seeking that freedom through weekly group meetings where guidance is received through the shared experience and growth of others. Strength is acquired by traning the faith response through the 14 Steps of HA which lead to new perceptions of God, self, and the world. HA is a non-sectarian self-help group and works inter-denominationally. It does not endorse or oppose any political causes nor does it engage in controversial issues. Fourteen Steps of Homosexuals Anonymous We admitted that we were powerless over our homosexuality and that our emotional lives were unmanageable. We came to believe the love of God, who forgave us and accepted us in spite of all that we are and have done. We learned to see that there was purpose in our suffering, and that our failed lives were under God’s control, who is able to bring good out of trouble. We came to believe that God had already broken the power of homosexuality and that He could therefore restore our true personhood. We came to perceive that we had accepted a lie about ourselves, an illusion that had trapped us in a false identity. We learned to claim our true reality that as mankind, we are part of God’s heterosexual creation, and that God calls us to rediscover that identity in Him through Jesus Christ as our faith perceives Him. We resolved to entrust our lives to our loving God and to live by faith, praising Him for our new unseen identity, confident that it would become visible to us in God’s good time. As forgiven people free from condemnation, we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, determined to root out fear, hidden hostility, and contempt for the world. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs and humbly asked God to remove our defects of character. We willingly made direct amends wherever wise and possible to all people we had harmed. We determined to live no longer in fear of the world, believing that God’s victorious control turns all that is against us into our favor, bringing advantage out of sorrow and order out of disorder. We determined to mature in our relationships with men and women, learning the meaning of a partnership of equals, seeking neither dominance over people nor servile dependency on them. We sought thorough confident praying, and the wisdom of Scripture for an ongoing growth in our relationship with God and a humble acceptance of His guidance for our lives. Having had a spiritual awakening, we tried to carry this message to homosexual people with a love that demands nothing and to practice these steps in all our lives’ activities, as far as Now, I’m no scientist and have never claimed to be.  At best I’m a philosopher who draws on science for the basis of my work.  However, it doesn’t take a scientist to know that homosexuality is NOT some kind of lifestyle choice that can be "cured" with a support group.  In fact, such groups are actually more likely to cause harm with their little fascist get-togethers by making young gay people feel as though it’s "their fault" that they’re gay (like it’s a "fault" at all!!) and that they "chose" to be different, "chose" to go against the word of God, blah, blah.  There are countless studies that show homosexuality occuring in several species and that it’s occurance in humans in completely natural.  I’m not going to print such studies here, but if you’re interested in them, talk to Evolution is a Fact to point you the direction of some extensive reports on the subject.  (Hope you don’t mind me pimping you EIAF!!!) So, let’s look at this from a sociological perspective: The far-right (or even the moderate-right) believe that it is a choice to be gay.  Now, no matter which side of the fence you sit, I think we can all agree that, even today, homosexuals are regarded as a persecuted minority.  Yes, there are tons of gay (or "gay-friendly") characters on televison shows - usually played by straight actors - but this is essentially the same as all of the "Black-friendly" shows that popped up in the 80s to show the world, "Hey, we don’t have a race problem!  Look, we’ve got black people living in mansions".  The reality, while maybe not as bad as it once was, is far more grim.  If it weren’t, then there would be no such thing as "coming out".  In fact, there would no need to prefix someone’s position with the word gay, as in "my gay friend", or "my gay relative"... does anyone say, "My hetero friend"?  There would be no need for Gay Pride parades (and sadly for dumb neo-con fascists like SG, no juicy pictures to put on her blog!!), because if homosexuality wasn’t stigmatized, it would be nothing more than a "Human Pride" parade. So, ask yourself, why would a person "CHOOSE" to be stigmatized? (Yes, I know, Atheists are considered to be more hated than gay people, but they’re rarely the victims of violent bigoted attacks - and I’ve never heard of anyone commiting suicide because their family and the society at large would not accept them as an Atheist - and like it or not neo-cons, your anti-gay propaganda DOES cause many a youth suicide!)... who would choose to be hated?  who would choose to be the object of abuse and the constant threat of phisical violence?  (Yes, I’m aware that there are individuals who DO choose to be outcasts, but that is far removed from homosexuality - it much more to do with disdain for societal norms) I’m all for people wanting to be different.  Fashion-wise, I’ve been through many "different" stages myself.  Goth, punk, dandy, what-have-you (oh, and any that involved wearing make-up always showered me with a hail of "Fucken faggot"s hewn from drunken voices of hooned up cars - quick question... how many gay people do you know that look like Marilyn Manson?)... but homosexuality is NOT a fashion trend.  It is NOT borne of a desire to be different.  But, take a look at the picture below - taken from godhatesfags.com - and I’m sure you’ll agree, I’m banging my head against a wall here -- Cheers all (even you haters) and happy Feaster! WZ Currently listening : Steady Diet of Nothing By Fugazi Release date: 01 July, 1991 1:30 AM - 6 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment November 29, 2007 - Thursday Celluloid Corner: Feeling Zombified!!! Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities Welcome back my fiendish cinephile friends.  I've been promising this blog for so long that now that I'm finally getting around to it, I'm sure I'll end up with almost nothing of interest to say, but for those not familiar with the so far small, yet amazingly cultified, film career of Rob Zombie, hopefully you'll find something worthwhile in my little musings. Let's go back to my wasted youth....  I first heard of Rob Zombie when I read a review of (what I think was) the first EP release of his band, White Zombie.  The EP was titled 'God of Thunder', and as any KISS fan may suspect, it was a short collection of KISS covers.  Now, this was around the time that Gene Simmons had just succesfully sued King Diamond for "stealing his image" (like, yeah, you were highly original Gene!!!!) and the buzz was a big ass law suit for White Zombie.  However, Rob (the band was essentially his brainchild) must have signed all the right dotted lines in all the right places and as a result White Zombie kind of faded into obscurity for a few years.  They came back with some not so Earth shattering electro metal - nothing Ministry hadn't been doing ten times better for years - and thus I never really gave the band much attention.  However, Rob Zombie scrapped the band and went solo, and things got a little more interesting.  This was around the time that "shock rock" was getting a big boost - especially by Marilyn Manson - and this time Zombie offered something new.  While Mr. Manson was singing about the end of the world at the hands of the Anti-Christ Superstar and causing mass bible-cluthcing protests outside his concerts, Mr. Zombie was playing with a similar horror theme image-wise, but he was fun.  He took the piss.  Lyrics like "Dig through the ditches and burn through the witches and slam in the back of my Dragula!" were a stark contrast Manson's "I am the anti-(everything)", and bands like Korn and Slipknot who seemed to think that suicide was the only subject matter worthy of a song lyric (I love all these artists by the way).  Songs like Dragula and Living Dead Girl harked back to the days of the legendary Misfits, who named almost every song after a hammer horror film or a B-grade Grindhouse horror feature (without the fucked up psychopathology that accompanied the Misfits live shows).  Anyway, that's enough about Rob's musical career.  This is a fucking cineblog, god fucking dammit!!!!  So, in 2000, Rob Zombie tried his hand at feature film directing.  The film sat on the shelves for 3 years without a distributor.  But in 2003, it finally hit the screens and audiences were treated to Zombie's cinematic vision in the form of -- House of 1,000 Corpses (2003) Now, if you've read my previous blog about the "big five", you'll know that I'm not only a huge fan of the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but also believe that it is responsible for influencing the state of almost every horror film (to varying degrees) since it's release in 1974.  Some films have tried to copy it outright, some have taken the tension and made new stories (a la Alien), others have made fairly blatant references but crafted a story pretty much of their own, and I would have to say that the most succesful of this latter catagory to date is..... Wolf Creak. ... House of 1,000 Corpses, on the other hand, took on the TCM idea but kind of failed.  It's a good film, but not a great one.  It had the good ol' set up - a group of teenage kids (two couples) driving through the back roads of Alabama when they (hey, guess what!!) need gas!!  They pull into Captain Spaulding's House of Monster Madness or whatever the fuck it's called, and it's all pretty good around this point.  Before the main set up, Captain Spaulding had already been introduced as a smart talkin' badass and his quip with the annoying city kids is both charmingly written and brilliantly played by Sid Haig (classic B-movie actor! - has appeared in two Tarantino films by the way, but strangely enough not Death Proof!!).  There's tension, there's great gags, but except for the coolness of Spaulding, we're in pretty fucking familiar territory.  Hey, that's cool - it's the set up, it's supposed to be familiar.  The kids fuck off and come across hitcher Baby Firefly (played by Zombie's long time girlfriend and now wife, Sheri Moon [now Sheri Moon-Zombie]).  Cut to a tyre being shot out by her brother, Rufus, and the kids getting stuck at the Firefly household were Otis B. Driftwood (Bill Moseley) - and Baby for that matter - are still finishing off with a bunch of cheerleaders they kidnapped and are slowly torturing and killing... yep, all great stuff, my kind of film (plus Baby's fucking HOT!! - what can I say, I'm attracted to psychopaths!!!)... and we all know where it's going - the kids are gonna die, one may get away, probably a girl.  It all sticks to formula and Zombie injects enough of his own voice in there to make it his own - but sadly that's actually the problem with the film.  For one thing, he's just put way too much in there - ie, the family consists of Mama Firefly, Granpa, Otis, Rufus, Baby and Tiny - add to that the four kids (Spaulding doesn't really come back into it again until the very end), all with their own unique character traits (although Rufus is a bit of a non-character in my opinion)... and then, when two of the kids are lowered into the underground dwelling of Doctor Satan, along with his army of genetically modified mutants - whoa - too much!!!  And then there's the MTV cutting style that really gets in the way of the story telling.  It all reeks of a guy who possibly thought he may never make another movie again so he better put EVERY idea he has into this one.  The result - crowded, confusing and ultimately unengaging.  Something I do love about this film - and while with the rest of the film you're not really sure if Zombie's taking the piss or not, but with this bit you know he definately is - the fucking old guy who played the old version of Private Ryan in you know what film is here as one of the girl's father and he's dressed in that same daggy track suit top that he is in SPR!!!!!!  It's a fucking pisser.  100 Kudos to Rob Zombie for that alone. All of this said, the cast - especially the family - play the film to the bone.  Bill Mosely, Sid Haig, Sheri Moon and Karen Black give some of the finest performances in a horror movie that I've seen for a while.  And this is ultimately what keeps the film afloat.  Admittedly when I first saw the film I was a bit "wtf???" and wrote it off as a bad experiment.  Having now seen The Devil's Rejects (we'll get to that soon) and Rodriguez and Tarantino's Grindhouse I can look at the film in a different light and appreciate it a lot more.  However, if the grindhouse feel is what Zombie was going for, it's a little too serious for it's own good.  If he wanted a serious horror film, the Doctor Satan third act comes way too far out of left field to be taken seriously.  Sound a little contradictory??? Well, that's kinda the feeling I get from watching the film.  I love the film for Baby and Otis, and I guess when all is said and done, considering my previous blog, it's not unreasonable to love a failed horror film because of great characters because horror films are (or should be) all about the characters - but essentially I have forgiving memories of the film but always find myself dissapointed when I actually watch it again. In Texas' style, the "evil" remains undefeated, which paves the way for -- The Devil's Rejects (2005) I honestly don't know if this is really even a horror film or not, and to be honest, I really don't care.  What's important is how fucking good it is!!!  I was trepeditious in watching this film, having been initially dissapointed by 1,000 Corpses, and hired it one day just to pass a couple of hours in the afternoon.  FUCK!!!! This film is damn near perfect.  Once again, it's got a bit of everything - from the last stand of the Kelly Gang opening, the Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! style psycho road trip, the stylish seventies soundtrack (oh, I forgot to mention - both films are set in the 70's - there! now you know!!), the Drugstore Cowboy ending - but this time Zombie handles it with delicate attention and an almost masterful sense of timing.  This time there's no illusions and no confusion as to what kind of film it is - it just is what the fuck it is - a bare bones, often hammy (but marvelously so) tour de force of ultra-violence and fucking amazing characterization.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that The Devil's Rejects will be remembered in decades to come among the likes of Pulp Fiction, Mad Max and dare I say, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  It also begs the question - has Zombie offered his "masterpiece" in his second outing?  Where does he go from here?  But for now, let's just stay here for a while, cause it's such a great place to be. The family is paired down quite a bit.  Rufus gets it in the opening shoot out, Mama gets arrested and Tiny wanders off into the woods before the shoot out and doesn't appear again until the end of the film.  No Granda either.  So, as far as the family - now known as The Devil's Rejects - goes, we've got the three heavy hitters of the previous film - and I have to say that, although a follow-up of 1,000 Corpses, I wouldn't call it an out-and-out sequel.  It's a whole new film, with a whole new feel, just with the same characters.... however, even the characters have matured somewhat.  Baby doesn't do her famous laugh so much and Otis has become a "bear" with a big ass bushy beard.  Apart from the facial hair though, Otis is much more of a likeable character in this film.  Hey, I loved him in the last one - but that's just cause he was fucking psycho - in this one he has depth, humour and with that, more power.  Spaulding is Spaulding - he was great in the previous film and he's just as good here.  Somehow one actually digs Spaulding saying to a scared kid in a car he's about to steal: "What's the matter kid?  Don't you like clowns?  Don't we make ya laugh?  Aint we fucken' funny?  Well I'm gonna come back here and when I do if you haven't got a good reason why you don't like clowns, I'm gonna kill your whole fucken family".  To get away with that you need the whole package - great writing, great acting, great directing - and it's all here.  William Forsythe plays the over-the-top cop Wydell, out to avenge the death of his brother - killed in 1,000 Corpses by Mama Firefly.  At first Forsythe's character just seems a bit too hammy, but it takes no time at all to just run with it, and sets up a perfect contrast to the Rejects.  Where 1,000 Corpses didn't really give you anyone to root for - the third act being handed over to Doctor Satan - this film has very clear protagonists - The Rejects!!!  Despite all the heinous things they do throughout the film, I defy anyone not to root for the Rejects in this film. The film is far more conventionally structured in terms of character arcs and blah, blah, and the power of that structure really shows.  And the ending - Whoa!!!.... to sum up, if you haven't seen The Devil's Rejects...what the fuck are you still doing at your computer reading this?????  Get thee to a video store - pronto, motherfucker!!!! So, I asked the question before, "where does Rob Zombie go from The Devil's Rejects?".  We all saw the public dissaproval of Tarantino's follow up film to Pulp Fiction - 1997's Jackie Brown, which in my opinion, although not his best film, is certainly his most mature film to date.  What I'm saying is, when I ask "where does one go..." I don't mean they don't have another, maybe even better, film in them... but we all know about the general cinema going public - it's all popcorn and routine for them.  Something fun to do on a Saturday night.  You know the type - they complain that the next movie wasn't as good as the last one, or if they don't do that, they complain that it was too much like the last one!!!  I digress, we were talking about Rob Zombie weren't we... oh yes... ... well, it's been well publicised what his next film would be (and now has arrived)... a remake!!! Halloween (2007) I touched on this a bit in my last blog.  But let's start afresh.  You're always going to have trouble when you remake a beloved classic (just look at what they did to Texas... and most people still don't get that Van Sant's remake of Psycho was - in my opinion a very obvious - statement about the absurdity of remaking classic films!!!). But let's remember something.  Most remakes are made by new directors, backed by BIG producers (usually directors wanting to become producers a la Michael Bay!), and in the case of horror remakes (with the exception of the numerous Japanese to American ones) they're directors who want to get an "easy in" to the industry by not only making a genre film, but making a film with a great name behind it.  I mean, hey, I didn't see it at the cinema, but I did see the remake of Texas on DVD (and the stupid prequel) just to see what they did to it, and I'm sure countless fans did the same - many of them at the cinema... and the studios don't care if people like their movie, just as long as they have a reason to pay to see it!!! remaking a classic film is a garunteed break-even at the very least. Sorry, I'm digressing again, but what I'm getting to was that was not the case with Zombie's remake of Halloween.  In fact, it's really only half a remake.  The other half (the first half) is a prequel.  Nor was Zombie trying to cash in.  Rather, he was embelleshing the story of one of his favorite film  characters.  And it works.  It's not a dry hump of a film with a few scares for good measure.  It's an actual, fully formed story that builds on, rather than just retells with CGI, the original. I love the first half of the film.  It builds on the strengths that Zombie established with The Devil's Rejects, but this time with a more mature, more serious tone.  Performances are brilliant.  The vision is well concieved.  The only real downer for me was that the film didn't tread too much new teritory in the second half - ie. Halloween night.  It's here that it does sometimes feel like just another hackneyed remake, but I'll claim that only as an initial observation and reserve final judgement to further viewings, as obviously at first one is going to be a little jolted from watching about 50 mins of something totally new and then stepping onto very familiar turf.  Given that I'd revisited the original Halloween only about 3 nights before seeing Zombie's version probably emphasised this all the more. I normally don't tell people to go and see the remake if they haven't seen the original, but I feel pretty safe in giving such advice on this one.  If you like the original, you're bound to get something out of Zombie's vision.  If you've never seen the original, it's actually not a bad place to start your Michael Myers experience.  I wont go any more into this film.  It's getting write ups all over the place so there's plenty to read and I've said what I want to say about it. So... is Rob Zombie set to become the next "cult" director?  I think so, but time will tell.  Also check out his Grindhouse trailer "Werewolf Women of the SS" which sadly didn't make it onto either Grindhouse dvd.  Just type it in YouTube and you'll find it. Hope you've had fun!! Now "SHOO SHOO SAILOR MAIDEN"!!!!! xx Waine 'Ciccone' Zero