Venusberg | That's not your heart, it's a piece of helicopter casing

Friday, March 28, 2003

Quick detour into Upsideclown, since I am writing one at the moment. I am proud to say that I am now second on the leaderboard fo cancellations of subscriptions, after this tale of life, love, heartbreak, adventure and David Sneddon getting what looks suspiciously like jizz all over his face.

"You're late," commented X drily, "and what's that on your face?"

"Your secretary was hungover and not concentrating. She wasn't expecting me to abseil in through the window. Spat yoghurt all over me. She's nursing her head and her pride now."

"I don't approve of your methods, Sneddon. And you're getting sloppy.

David Sneddon, bukakke secret agent. You know it makes sense.

Elsewhere, things are all getting a bit quasiautobiographical. Matt talks about getting out of the cityin the predictably lovely Flowers, George discusses her credentials, Jamie tells all, Victor reveals the noncock and James gets his war off. It's all crunchy and spunky.

Much like David Sneddon.

On a related topic, Matt got an email from somebody claiming that dead Glyn Owen is actually not dead at all, contra A day in the Life. And what do you know, he's right. Glyn Owen is still kicking, and indeed still acting, and I'm sure that readers who, like me, enjoyed his work in the opening episodes of Blakes 7 and Howard's Way will be very glad to hear it. But whether he will survive to see Howard's Way Back made, given that it has yet to grace BBC Choice, is another matter. We can only hope sincerely that I am proved wrong.

So, anyway, I went home last weekend.

That's actually a misnomer. "Home", the five-bedroomed house where I grew up, is no longer owned by any member of my family. Instead, the seeds of the postnuclear family have twisted into new buds. I rent a flat in London. My father lives in a house on the Blackwater (God, I love that name), but spends a surprising amount of time in Ravenna. Like Odoacer. My sister rents a flat in Paris, and is currently helping her boyfriend to train for an endurance event in Morocco. Sister and father are collaborating on the purchase and rebuilding fo a cottage in Wales. And my mother, whose "home" we are talking about here, has a 19th-century folly in a hunting village in the Midlands.

Or, as The Consultants sang:

I own a Saab.
I've joined a gym.
Jerusalem
Is my favourite hymn.

and I've got a timeshare in Tuscany,
A pedigree dog, and a wheel of brie.

The answer is becoming clear,
Can you guess just why we're here?

We're middle class.
We're middle class.

Annnnyway. The closest thing to "home", i.e. place I spend most of my time, is my flat in London, probably followed by a house in Brighton, probably followed by Garlic and Shots. Although in many ways home is, as it has always been, the written word, even if it's on a screen rather than in a book as often as not these days. But this is not the home of which I speak. The home of which I speak, and by the time I finsih up with these digressions you will probably be of a mind to conclude that I am either doing some kind of weird David Foster Wallace homage, or that I am attempting to hypnotise you, is in fact home only through a comparative geographical proximity to where I grew up. To put it another way, you have to walk through home to get there, which isn't quite the same thing.

But it was worth doing. Staying up late talking is somethign we don't do much of en famille, and maybe to a greater or lesser extent it makes sense not to, but every so often it seems equally sensible at least to remind yourself not so much of where you come from but of what you have had to walk through to get to it.

that's a homespun metaphor in the style of Robert Frost, by the way, but not actually a very good one. Although in this case walking through is at least appropriate qua metaphor, since we spent plenty of time swinging arms healthily, wandering through bits of the national forest and looking for bluebells.

Far too early. We were tricked by the thaw. This entire post is turning into a tribute to Shock-Headed Peter.

Of course, away from the Gulf, other people have problems too:

I’ve met the woman of my dreams but I’m going to lose her because I’m Irish.

Harsh.

Thursday, March 27, 2003

As momentary relief from my increasingly obsessive engagement with Operation Scuds and Soda, Matt has sent me a message of hope for us all, which either knowingly or unknowingly imitates both art and life, insofar as art and life are the terms we're using here.

Thundercat...HO!

The "art" is of course the Moldy Peaches song "Nothing Came Out", which leads up to the punchline "I'm just your average Thundercats ho". The life, which is also the art, is rather more terrifying.

Did you know that, in a continuing bid to strip-mine the memories of twentysomethings like myself, and indeed clearly most of B3ta, there is a new Thundercats comic out? True dat. My dear friend George, who works in a comic store and knows about these things, has sent me a copy.

Wilykit and Wilykat have grown up to be Mumm-Ra's pointy pointy sex elves. I say nothing more. I can say nothing more.

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Meanwhile meanwhile, in search of a new and exciting name for Operation I'm Sure that Wasn't One of Ours, the boy Owen says:

A letter to The Guardian observed that just a slight twist produces Operation Iraqi Liberation, or O.I.L. Now I'm not persuaded that the primary motive for war is oil, but I haven't been able to come up with a witty expansion of H.E.G.E.M.O.N.Y.

I think the hunt is on. Got a top-quality acronym for HEGEMONY? Tell me.

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

From Realwomenonline, tangential to the existence or non-existence of Salaam Pax:

The blogosphere has been pretty hard on Arabs and I have chimed right in. One of the things that us Yank-bloggers have had the most sport with is the fact that, Arabs have an "honor-shame" culture. This is supposed to be alternately risible and terrible, especially juxtaposed with our Western, rational-fact-based-transactional-impersonal culture. I mean, they've got narghilas, we've got cruise missiles, which culture is superior?

Diane goes on to explain that, of course, she is a big fan of the latter. Rational fact-based societies, that is, not cruise missiles. However, it strikes me that there is a fundamental error going on here.

The idea of the "shame" culture is familiar to me through E.R Dodd's barnstorming The Greeks and the Irrational. He antithesised it with "guilt culture", that is cultures in which behaviour was conditioned by how you would feel about yourself rather than how others would feel about you (very crudely). Christians have a guilt culture, because ultimately your actions have ethical singnificance because of the impact on the soul. Western societies evolve this into the idea of the conscience, and developing thought can be divided roughly into the idea of a transcendent or integral (either innate or developed) ethic preventing wrongdoing (even when violating a societal ethic would be advantageous, it would still be wrong), or various forms of enlightened self-interest (even when violating a societal ethic would be advantageous, it would ultimately act against my interest - this runs from Utilitarianism to Kantian categorical imperatives).

Notionally, since directives in shame cultures are external and directives in guilt cultures are internal, the directives in guilt cultures need to be internally consistent and logical. This thesis is so untenable it need not detain us too long here.

Dodds pointed out that elements of guilt and shame culture exist in a mixture in every society. He also reminds us that the difference between "rational" and "irrational" is not sharply delineated, nor easily assignable.

Bush and Saddam both, in the sheer unassailability of their conviction and their apparent indifference to both guilt and shame may well be pioneering the first steps of the guilt-free, shameless culture of the future. I sincerely and certainly hope not. However, whether or not that is the case, antithesising "Arabic" and "rational", in effect, strikes me as somewhat unwise.

Monday, March 24, 2003

More on the goth quest, this time following one of those odd six-degrees paths - Ciphergoth, via Ben, has a photographic record of goth gatherings at Whitby (redeye actively encouraged). From which we learn that goths sure know how to party, and also how to make bacofoil do physically impossible things.

Particularly groovy are the piles of cat food intermittently visible behind the action of the picture. Apparently this is because, to ward off any unhappiness from residents about the sudden arrival of several tons of goth, visitors to the Whitby weekend are asked both to contribute to the fund to repair the church roof and also to contribute a tin of food to the local abandone cat's home.

This reminds me of the bit in Hebdige about the rehabilitation of punk, and is very cool indeed. Especially as the local vicar is apparently generally of the view that this tenebrous invaders are a thoroughly bad thing but still ends up in the local paper being given a big cheque from Lord Gorgamoth Skumflagon every year. Tee hee.

It's diamonique week in the Venusberg.

When the dog barked, when the bee stung, when I was feeling sad, the undergraduate Dan frequently soothed and smoothed the fevered brow by collapsing in front of QVC and slowly being convinced that, yes, Diamonique was indeed much better than real diamonds.

Regrettably, since graduation I have not watched enough television to justify getting any of the many goggle-enhancing digisatellicable possibilities, but I know at least that I have an ally in Meg, who has discovered apparently the greatest warrior of television selling, Andy Hodgson.

I read about the fate of Peter Simon, apparently resolving that they'll pay, they'll all pay in the graveyard shift, but it hurts my sould that I may never have a chance actually to see it for myself before he goes insane with a sniper rifle. Hopefully once I get broadband this week, I shall be able to stream Bid-Up TV live...

Friday, March 21, 2003

On the other hand, apparently anti-war protestors stormed the Amex building in Brighton and took down the Stars and Stripes there, so the number of American Flags up around the world remains constant.

So that's OK, then.

Meanwhile, on the brighter side of the news, a history of universes that never happened. Geek Heaven, dude. and, cementing my own status as a big fuck-off geek for the rest of time, I was monstrously excited to find the Zenith Phase 3 Scorecard. This worries me beyond the telling of it.

So, back to reality with this handy guide. The case for war.

Speaking, of war, apparently the Stars and Stripes have been raised over the conquered new port of Umm Qasr.

The fuck? Were they thinking maybe that sales of US flags and Zippos were a bit flat across the entire Islamic world?

No, seriously. Notwithstanding the rightness or wrongness of Operation It's Still Moving; Should we Stop Shooting?, just how needlessly inflammatory is this going to get? Tell me.
Lt-Col Tim Collins must be spinning in his tent...

Thursday, March 20, 2003

And from our foreign correspondents.

Optimus Prime heads for the Gulf.

If this doesn't bring on the surrender, nothing will. Particularly enjoyed Optimus' quote:

"I got a letter from a general at the Pentagon when the name change went through and he says it was great to have the employ of the commander of the Autobots in the National Guard."

I'm a slacker in his twenties. I get to know who Optimus Prime is. Unless that general has kids who were growing up in the mid 80s, I want his resignation tomorrow.

What's my name again?

This war sucks ass. Even the goths are bored, and they can maintain an interest in Anne Rice's answering machine messages.

(The author would like to point out that he realises that only one goth is bored, and only one goth has tabulated Anne Rice's answering machine messages, and even that goth has subsequently stopped, and that this is therefore an unwarranted calumny on gothkind and immediately retracted)

It strikes me that part of the problem lies in poor branding. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is not the name of a military operation. It's the name of an Action Force (that's GI Joe, for those of you listening in the US) comic. It is, at best, an instruction given to Rumble and Ravage by Soundwave on the occasion of their ejection.

Women dig Soundwave, because he has a cool voice and is a single parent.

Anyway, does anyone have any better ideas for Operation names? I quite like "Operation High Jack this Fags". Or:

Operation Enduring Can of Whoopass
Operation Pretend they're French
Operation Duck you Suckers
Operation Can we Connect this to the War on Drugs as well Somehow? of Whoopass

Or, inspired by Ari Fleischer's unusually Bruce Willis comment that failing to leave Iraq was Saddam Hussein's "last mistake", Operation Wolf. Remember, you lose energy if you gun down the civilians. But not actually that much energy.

Do you have something blinding and hearts-and-minding? Tell me.

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

On other news, the emails of Rachel Corrie, a young woman who died under the wheels of an Israeli armoured bulldozer, have been published. I can only assume, since the standard practice is not to kill the Americans, that the bulldozer driver misunderstood his captain's command, "Get a move on - it's Richard Hillman week, it's nearly teatime and we don't want to miss Corrie."

Particularly amusing on this one is that apparently the Israeli Defence Force have claimed i) that she dove in front of the bulldozer (which has to be the worst suicide bombing ever) and ii) that the windows of armoured bulldozers are very small, and as such they did not see her.

This is the best excuse ever. The next time I run over an American, tiny windows is going to be on the insurance claim form. Watertight. I'm amazed they manage to hit the houses...

It's no good. I can't stop thinking of George Bush fixing Chirac with a death-ray glare and declaiming, in the voice of Daffy Duck, "Of course, you realise this means war?"

I can't take this war seriously. Which is a shame, because pretty soon people are going to start dying in large numbers. Some of them, God forbid, may even be white.

See? Off I go again. I'm like a crazy person. Somebody stop me!

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

Last night I went to see Katy's new play being given a readthrough, and receiving some acute and useful criticism and some incredibly poor and banal, of the "So where's Godot? I feel cheated" variety.

Meanwhile, over drinks afterwards, the greatest idea ever (except for the remake of The Littlest Hobo with a gigantic silverfish who helped people through an encyclopaedic knowledge of local council services) struck me. While explaining to the lovely Karis why Pylades could not speak in the Elektra because the number of speakers on the stage at any given time was limited, with a perfect clarity I realised that I had just hit upon a winning formula:

Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon, is stricken with hatred for her mother, who now lives in luxury with her lover Aegisthus as she languishes on a farm with her good but lowly husband. Driven by revenge, she becomes a ninja, training herself in the arts of espionage and assassination, until finally her bloody assault on the palace is stopped by a mysterious, masked man. Yes, it's Theban outcast Oedipus; by a strange coincidence, the pin with which he put out his eyes was coated with a mysterious chemical that, even as it took his sight, gave him a bizarre "radar sense" and heightened senses.

OK, it's at the development stage, but I think it has legs. What do you think? Tell me.

Dude, where's my mandate?

Seriously, dude, where's my mandate?

Monday, March 17, 2003

Well, since it looks like we're going to be at war in about 20 minutes, it seems we should be looking at some of the important questions that need to be answered after our swift and inevitable casualty-free victory.

Who gets to be in charge of Iraq afterwards? Well, yeah, obviously him, but who will he get to do the press conferences in Arabic?

Generally in these situations, it's best to go for the guy in the suit. Unless the dictator you're deposing was the guy in the suit. In that case, go for the guy in the fatigues. Problem being, Saddam has been devilishly clever in his use of mixed fabrics, favouring both the tweed suit and the combat clobber.

It's this sort of devious nature that makes him such a threat to Poets for the War.

So, who would you choose? Have a look at the available Iraqemon.

Friday, March 14, 2003

You've probably heard by now about Freedom Fries. It is worth noting that the precedent - sauerkraut and frankfurters - was set against the products of a nation the USA was at war with. Is this a presentiment of things to come?

I'd like sincerely to believe that this has been met by an outpouring of contempt from grown-ups everywhere (I'm thinking of having the Get Your War On phrase "Grown-ups thought of that name. Never forget that" tattooed on my brain), and that the increasing and casual disregard of the administration at every level for adult behaviour, freedom and democracy is provoking a groundswell of disgust, but since the American media would not report it even if it was I'm not quite sure how we are to know. Must be great to be free.

Dale Keiger, whose alternative terror warnings colours gave me a happy, seems to be an intelligent commentator on the increasing redundance of the citizen to the state in the West. Check the discussion of the Core and the Gap, as well - I was wondering when somebody would mention that.

Latest from Ned. You can get into Highgate cemetary for free, by going around the back, through the park.

Home graveyard piracy is killing interment.

Or words to that effect.

Apparently the Communists no longer put flowers on Marx's grave every day either. sic transit gloria Marxis...

DUDE!

You'll now find A5, the exciting new range of bouldering-inspired casual clothing from The North Face, which looks and performs as good on the rock as it does off it."

I know I shouldn't encourage bad attention-seeking strategies, but occasionally the sheer ubiquity of spam throws up some fascinating visions of oneself in an alternate universe.
Thus, I do not want to order herbal viagra or see hot teens getting it the way they need it. Nor do I have any particular desire to enlarge my penis, or indeed my breasts. I've always felt that more than a handful was a waste when it came to manbreasts. I probably am quite keen on receiving a percentage of $25 million, but I fear that I am unlikely to gain it by helping to transfer the assets of the family of a deceased former African head of state.

But full marks to Cotswold Outdoor, for managing to spam me with something so comically inappropriate that the chances of my growing a deceased former African head of state's penis using only a herbal preparation of natural viagra and hot teens.

Cotswold Outdoor, I salute you.

Thursday, March 13, 2003

Of course, the secret of success in dating a non-goth is an open mind. If, when you try to share your excitement about the new Creatures CD (or new black article of clothing, something that happened at the club the other night, etc., etc.), your beloved just snorts derisively and rolls their eyes, that will obviously lead to some tension in the relationship. If your new romantic interest starts earnestly saying things like, “but you would look really good in a peach sweater,” “when are you going to get out of this morbid phase?” or other things that you would only expect intolerant relatives to come up with, you need to start examining how much the companionship of this person means to you.

Anna has opened up a second front by directing me to Gothic Miss Manners which, as a problem page, obviously again covers one of my fascinations with highly specific and highly constrained forms of text.

It also offers some very good advice. Jeans and t-shirts are goth, velvet is goth, the Powerpuff Girls are goth should definitely be on a T-shirt, and friends don't let friends dress like the Crow has a certain ring to it to boot.

I think I'm getting better at this.

Other recent links explored on this whistLestop tour of the darkness:

Gothic.Net

Am I Goth or Not?

Donna Ricci, Gothic Supermodel, and thence Drac-in-a-Box clothing, which scores about a zillion points for the disclaimer "Drac-in-a-Box Gothic clothing have been trading since 1999 and are eager to promote all things gothic and alternative(apart from patchouli oil which we are not keen on)". And they donate to the campaign to save Britain's bats, so yay them, really.

Slimelight.

Kim Elizabeth, Mistress of Horror, who has a flash intro to her page, but in HTML, which is just mighty.

Oh, and somebody has pointed out that you do have to pay to get into Highgate Cemetary, so don't go along there without change, dating fiends, unless you can reasonably convincingly maintain that you are in fact going to visit Great-Great-Uncle Karl.

Apparently, people have been struggling to make my link to Selfawaria in my early investigation of goths work. Normally I would just fix the link, but in this case the situation has been further beautified enough to justify a shiny new post.

The original link was to here, in which a big ol' goth spoke loathing of "pikeys", apparently unaware of the term's use as a racial insult against gypsies, and using instead the broader definition of poor people who do not dress or speak proper like what I do. At the time, it seemed somewhat ironic that somebody who probably finds himself on the receiving end of a fair amount of opprobrium from those less enlightened for his style of dress and behaviour should so unselfconsciously pass that loathing on to another undifferentiated mass. There's a line of Larkin related to that, but I can't for the life of me think what it is.

However, it got better subsequently, when aforementioned big ol' goth then asked if anyone had a copy of Fruity Loops he could copy for free. Because when "pikeys"take things without paying for them it is doubtless theft, but when members of the middle class do the same it is, apparently, NOT theft. Capitals, in case you needed to ask, not my own.

No wonder the launch of the Sinclair Giftie never really got off the ground around here...

On the bright side, without the discussion of this peculiarity, I might never have discovered my current favourite items of subcultural terminology, they being ostrogoth (an ostracised goth, that is one who spends a lot of time indoors) and visigoth (a visible goth, one frequently seen out and about, the goth equivalent of an ace face, perhaps). So it all ends happily after all.

Monday, March 10, 2003

Let it be known, by the way, that I am not here intending to take the piss out of goths. The idiom of the lonely hearts page is always a strange and mutant thing, and it is just seeing it reapplied through a particular aesthetic lens that beguiles me. Trust me when I say I would rather drink red wine in a crypt with any of these wights than crack a chablis with the manifest of Oxford Romance, Bluesmatch or...well, I was going to tar Ivory Towers with the same brush, but I see that it is rather more democratic than its billing suggests - Loughborough is among its "top UK universities" - so perhaps not.

The idea of looking for a sweetheart based on sharing university is a slightly odd one, much odder than a shared sympathy in dress, music and literature, for example. But it does at least give me hope for the success of my latest venture, friendsreunitedwitheachothersgenitalia.com...

Goths in their rooms,
Choked in gloom, do it,

With a presentiment of doom , they do it,
Let's do it,
Let's fall in love.

And every time I think I may have understood the importance social function of goth, I come up against the ingrained prejudices of my own nation of Selfawaria.
However, never let it be said that I am not passionate in my quest to understand those more pointy than myself.

First it was the pointy pointy elves, and now the pointy pointy goths shall know my understanding.

Oh yes.

So, where to begin. After due consideration, the realisation dawned that , just like all of us, goths are just looking for someone to love. Gothic Personals is a great overview of the field:

We all know relationships are hell and trying to find people into goth music is even harder which is why we've created our own gothic personals section. A chance to meet people who actually listen to the same music you do. Please feel free to create an ad, but remember we need to approve all listings!

With no common bond but the desire for a cuddle, the startling diversity of...um...age and location available to those of a gothic persuasion becomes clear. Be you a short and slightly overweight, gothic, vampire loving, tattood and pierced, 28 yr old girl, living in West Yorkshire or Paul, born in Miami, raised in Boston, Massachusetts and Martha's Vineyard. I live on Brickell Key Island off Miami's downtown and I work in Boynton Beach. I'm 5'10, 165 lbs, green eyes, black hair and believe it or not, by day, I'm a corporate attorney, there is somebody out there who will want to visit that graveyard with you. In fact, you might just want to cut out the middleman and head on over to the nearest cemetary - your dream date may in fact have been skulking around the local sepulchres, and you never even knew. Like Wolf, who as a Native American goth must get phone calls from the Roman Catholic Yemeni population of Mobile, Alabama trying to get him to come along to the Smallest Interest Group in the World Bakesale, and is generally found at the graveyard, mourning and howling for that companion.

I was going to continue my researches at Slimelight, but why bother with a cover charge when Highgate is free?

i live the gothic lifestyle. i am in love with the night. nighttime is when i come alive. i have an intense appreciation and love for the arts. i am myself, an artist, a writer, and a hopeless romantic. i spend as much of my time as i can in graveyards, cemeteries taking pictures, writing, and sketching. i love graveyards on gloomy, overcast evenings. moist grass tickling bare feet, staring up at gorgeous, soft clouds in countless shades of grey. surrounded by stone, and lives, loves that have passed. the beautiful pain is inspiring.

The beautiful pain is frostbite, sweetness. Put your shoes back on, ere you join your tenebrous sistren. It seems that, just like the rest of us, when it comes to romance goths are no strangers to cold feet. Or very very hot feet:

Greetings. My names is Randy, but some people call me Max after my faveorite children's books' main character. I'm 19 years old and an Aquarius /Pisces cusp baby. I'm a hopeless romantic that no matter how many times I get burned, cannot keep but dancing in the flames.

Ouchy. From burns to urns, our funerary correspondent above goes on to describe what is perhaps the goth dichotomy:

i'm fascinated with the dark and mysterious; gothic culture, vampyres, vampyrism, death, magic, etc. i'm out-going, easy to talk to, a good listener, and always fun to be around

Whereas in the Guardian personals this shift would be akin to "I enjoy torturing animals, bed-wetting and defecating in public. Also French cinema and country walks. GSOH", the twin poles of fatality and fun, fun, fun are bound together for the children of darkness with tight, slender threads as slender and implacable as spiders' silk.

Gosh. It's infectious.

Tuesday, March 04, 2003

Meanwhile, far from the Arcadian groves of the poets, the messy business of the War Against Actually Believing Your Government the Next Time they Tell You That You are going to Die, or Indeed that You are going to Live rumbles on. This Press Briefing Against Terror from Ari Fleischer contains many fascinating insights into the tough choices the President Against Terror is having to make. Against Terror.

However, thankfully, a little levity is injected at the end of the RAM file of this briefing, when Fleischer ridicules the idea that heads of state may be susceptible to persuasion on the wisdom of supporting US positions in the Security Council in exchange for financial or trade benefits.

And the assembled press laugh him off the stage. It's a beautiful moment.

Monday, March 03, 2003

From our mutual friend Rob, who to the best of my knowledge has no blog and as such is barely legal, and thence to Ben, I am tearfully proud to bring you Poets for the War. The Devil may have all the best tunes, but it turns out, to nobody's particular surprise, that the anti-war (sorry, the cowardice) movement has pretty much cornered the market in poets as well.

I adore bad poetry. Bad poetry has got me through as many personal crises as good poetry, since they possess the same universality of human emotion but also imbue a great jolt of relief that there are people out there in far orse straits than I, and I don;t even have to feel bad about it because they have no idea how terrrible they are.

For example, the opening quatrains of "Taters and Bacon" show both a joyful rhythm and a deep and abiding respect for the culture of Islam.

Taters and Bacon

Take down Saddam like a sack of taters
Pay no attention to screamers and traitors
Anti-Americans, useful idiots and Bush-haters
Finish the job started by the Crusaders

Now the Big Dog’s wakin
In fear of Uncle Sam Saddam’s shakin
He says he’s WMD-free but he’s fakin
Bomb the sucker and make him eat bacon

Of course, if "Lloyd Drako" had a bit more of a handle on this sort of thing, he might have realised that the Ba'ath party is secular, so making SH eat bacon would probably not be quite the threat it might have been to, say, the Ayatollah Khomeini, but then let us not lose sight of the fact that Lloyd Drako is not very bright.

At all.

But the hits roll on:

Your lily livered liberalism is no more than a paper tiger
It is out of touch with the public geiger
Take away uncritical applause
What is there to celebrate your cause?

Of particular beauty here, of course, is the use of utterly inappropriate terms to maintain the rhyme, which saw "gloat" used as a noun directly above this unlearned and unlovely deformed child of a verse. A geiger measures shit, right? So it must be a functional metaphor to state the measurement of the public will, right? Sure. Definitely. And it was either that or "We'll bodyslam you like Jushin Liger".

However, the St. McGonnagal prize for most enthusiastic use of the Reader's Digest Rhyming Dictionary must go to this brave soul:

We’ve heard of insanity
we’ve heard of hell
we’ve heard of evil
in Iraq they do dwell.

Stories filter by many
athletes not immune
soldiers it’s expected
while too many oppugn

I'm not even going to pause to point and laugh at the absurd periphrastic present in the last line of the first verse. That would be to admire the eye of the elephant without paying any attention its enormous warty leathery arse.

Oppugn means to oppsoe or contradict. I know that because I recognise the root Latin verb oppugno; others might have encountered it in the specific language of the law or perhaps of politics. Given the functional illiteracy on either side of it, I'm guessing it was a half-understood attempt to find a rhyme for a line that makes no sense anyway. Are athletes not immune to the stories? Are they not immune to allowing the stories to filter by them? Are they not immune to the insanity, Hell and evil that "do dwell" in Iraq? Is this a reference to the Iraqi football team? It would be fucking fantastic if it were, but since the writer is likely to struggle to find the place on a map it seems somehow unlikely that he'll be down with its soccer team.

In fact, this is just too good to summarise. I've already steeled myself not to mention the incorrect apostrophe in the line "old coward's come out" ("I'm quite queer, dear boy"), or indeed the rhyme of "anti-Christ" and "hissed". It's a thing of beauty and a joy forever. No, really. And what I like best about it is that, at least in this section, the rhythm, such as it is, allows it to be sung to the tune of the Moldy Peaces' "Lucky No.9". All together:

Indie boys are neurotic,
Make my eyes bleed,
Tight black pants exotic,
Some lovin' is what I need

If there's a more cogent argument for war than that, I have yet to hear it. All I know is, some dudes in Baghdad're gonna get free.

Bet this doesn't work.

Venusberg.org finds Blogger very attractive...

elsewhere:

Interconnected
Plasticbag
Oh Skylab
Barcablog
Orbyn

moreover:

Brainsluice
Mo Morgan
Mothninja
Tajmahal
Wherever y'are
Prandial Post

thereafter:

Toby Kay
McCargow
Blogadoon
LinkMachineGo
Methylsalicylate
Hammersley
Joeblog
Grayblog
the Collective
Nick Jordan
Kooky Mojo
Betty Woo
Moth
Mr. Thomas G

the author:

danATvenusberg.org

and finally...

the archives