Archive for June, 2008

That was the last time I ever saw S. For some reason I never bothered to check how she was faring after that. I had destroyed her worldview in 10 minutes and sent her out tripping. The event taught me that beliefs and other sorts of fake mental constructs serve as some sort of stabilizer for these kind of people and that if you destroy their ideas of the world they quickly turn into hallucinating, imbalanced idiots. For this reason alone getting rid of religions is probably not a very good idea. Frankly, I do not understand this need of having to live in self-constructed mental houses – its as if reality is not good enough for them, somehow – but its clear that most religious, dogmatic, dull, forgettable or otherwise mentally impaired people would change into raving lunatics if you chopped the basis of their stability away. I have a better view now on the mechanics behind the process being older now and more experienced: in my view these people are people who have never managed to beat the first enemy on the path of enlightment: fear.

They need these mental constructs because it is a protection against that monster of chaos lurking outside of it, whose real name is of course Fear. Thus, the god or ideology or other bullshit they believe in serves, they think, as a protection but in reality of course these mental houses are rather mental institutions they have locked themselves in, fearing the boogeyman outside and burning candles to him inside to worship his name.

In the end these sort of people are really dangerous, since whatever they do and whatever they believe in is ultimately a product of fear.

There are in fact very few people who manage to beat the first enemy. It is not an easy task at all. Whoever beats it can be recognized by a great mental clarity and a freedom from having to live in mental/dogmatic constructs. These sort of people rather see reality in a direct and transcient sort of way. I have been fortunate enough to meet a number of them but they are pretty rare. People who advance further than that are even more rare: the next enemy is clarity, and I have met maybe 2 or 3 people who seemed to have beat that one.

1. Automatic (1999)

Sadomasochistic Porn Funk with grinding Hammond’s. Doesn’t get any better than this.

2. Uptown (Dirty Mind)

This is the most punky funk song ever recorded.

3. Bambi (Prince)

This is the only song ever recorded that actually makes you want to shag a cartoon character.

4. Lady Cab Driver (1999)

This overlooked song is like the funky gritty forgotten soundtrack of ‘taxi driver’.

5. The Beautiful Ones (Purple rain)

I think this is the best song of Purple Rain even if only for the impossible falsetto heights the master reaches towards the end.

6. Let’s Work (Controversy)

The best motivating song ever written and another highlight in falsetto funk.

7. Tamborine (Around the world in a day)

Anyone who can make a song about a tambourine sound this horny deserves a Nobel Price.

8. It’s Gonna Be Lonely (Prince)

There’s something about this song I really like. Probably the multi-layered development towards the end of it.

9. New Position (Parade)

Probably the best song of ‘Parade’ even though ‘Kiss’ is seriously tight too.

10. Erotic City (Bsides)

That one’s a real party shooter. Fuck so pretty you & me, Erotic city come alive….

One to none doesn’t sound as beautiful as it was.

In the first half the elfin El Niño made the world class move we all wanted to see. The Spanish held the side.

Federico Tornado of Thursday City recreates a scene from the game.

In the second half both teams puffed up their chests and began trading blows like true Titans. Though no goals were scored there was a controlled and determined aggression displayed throughout the second half. One could feel the build up like the earth rumbling in preparation for a volcanic belch. And though it’s the rare volcano that is as sensationally explosive as we imagine them to be in our musings the breathtaking—gasp inducing—beauty of even the slightest of such natural wonders is not to be denied. If the Spanish are to be compared to a natural wonder it must be to some tentacled aquatic creature. They flowed in a truly organized fashion combining the ethereal beauty of the oceanic dynamo with its sublime power. The Germans roared back with a characteristic bruteness, which could only be hated or despised by the fragile things. The Germans at their best have virtually none of the graceful force the Spanish showed, but one has shut off one’s most ancient sense organs if a twinge of ancestral terror is not felt at seeing those brute giants come storming down the field, reminiscent of their Gothic forefathers entering the fray with a guttural war-cry.

Is El Niño not patently molded by the gods to be an electrifying footballer? He played a focused and bellicose game from the get-go. Is Torsten Frings not the epitome of the long haired Goth, combining rugged power with surprising agility? And is Christoph Metzelder not carved out of black forest fir? But just as the truth obstinately remains obscure behind the war of opposing views the hidden gem for the Spaniards has to be Keeper Casillas. Mr. Iker was not tested often, but he played like a lightning cloud, striking with terrible might. From punching crosses all the way back to midfield to stretching like one of the Great Cats to bring down a dangerous pass he played like an impenetrable force. If he continues to play that way he will go down as a truly great keeper.

The two teams for the better part of 90 minutes played like heroes, which, when all said and done, is what we actually want from them. One could feel the power of the human spirit pulsing through the match. I couldn’t help but marvel at the absurd heights to which we have taken our play. It makes me understand why Gods of the past have, at our best moments, been jealous of humanity. The Natural and the Divine take it as a birthright to attempt the absurd, it explains the sardonic laughter of the Gods. But at our heights—and our depths—humanity has the potential to also orchestrate such profound paradox as to challenge the divinely absurd while also tasting of fiercely ripe mortality.

Original post by Jehosephat Sunrays

Gevangen in het gouden web van een kerk
wacht hij tot het witte licht hem op zal vreten.
Maar klootzakken hebben glas-in-lood gelegd,
er is geen ontkomen aan. Op een dag zal iemand

het zware anker van het altaar lichten en rood,
kut-achtig licht zal eindelijk toestromen
en de dikke, zwarte spinnen
van de biecht verjagen.

Iemand, ver weg, herinnert zijn naam
en zal hem wegroepen voor hij kans heeft
een oud vrouwtje te wurgen met een
van zijn gouden haren, dat

elke morgen aan zijn voeten huilde,
nooit opmerkend dat hij, hol-geoogd
geen woord van haar geprevel verstond

omdat de vogels, buiten,
altijd oorverdovend waren.

Martijn Benders, 30-06-2008

I have a planet in my head
full of unsuccessful dead people.

It’s an aquatic planet, fortunately,
so their footsteps don’t bother me.

But the endless gurgling sounds
are enough to make me draw
my cotton bud of 20 pounds.

But damn it my ear
is like a needlepoint

and my rear is
too far away.

There is something about being dead
that demands success, lots of it.

Ever noticed
how knightly a
cotton bud can be?

For some reason,
knighting the dead requires
lots of gurgling sounds.

They can’t prove a thing, can they.

Caught in the golden spiderweb of a church,
he waits for the white light to devour him.
But the bastards made leaded windows:
there is no escape. One day someone

will lift the heavy anchor of the altar and light
will finally come at bay, reddish, cunt-like
chasing the fat black spiders
of confession away.

Someone, far off, remembers his name
and calls him away before he has the chance
to strangle an old lady with one of his golden hairs

who came, every morning, to weep
never noticing how he, hollow-eyed
never heard a word she’s saying

because the birds outside
sound deafening. Deafening.

I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.
– George Carlin (attributed: source unknown)

I’ve begun worshipping the Sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the Sun. It’s there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, a lovely day. There’s no mystery, no one asks for money, I don’t have to dress up, and there’s no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to God are all answered at about the same 50-percent rate.
– George Carlin, Brain Droppings

After I broke up with A. I immediately got into a relationship with S., a punk girl I had met in De Joek. She was a small, tender and bleak little girl with an enormous amount of eye shade on and pretty wild hair. The weird thing about her was that, even though she looked pretty punky, her mother was seriously religious and she was still going to church every Sunday. That’s a pretty weird thing to do for a 16 year old punk rock girl but one time I actually went together to see what it was about. I didn’t like the sermon at all it felt like these people were some sort of weird plants and the priest was the guy who had to give them water once a week.

Much to my demise S. also believed in the ‘no sex before marriage’ thing. Well we did have sex, but just not the full monty as that was forbidden. At some point I remember getting really tired of her. She came visit me and was sitting on my bed. I began holding a fiery speech about why everything she believed in was a crock of shite. I did that with such force and conviction she was dazed and said she wanted to go home. She looked sort of disoriented and I let her out. 5 minutes later the doorbell rang and she was standing there, totally deranged and hallucinating. She was simply incapable of riding her bike and we had to call her parents to come pick her up. I don’t remember exactly what I told her but apparently it was more than she could handle. It’s fascinating, however, that one can actually cause hallucinations by the mechanism of speech. I think that was one of the first moments I realized what the power of words or poetry can be.

When I started being a punk at 15 I certainly wasn’t a conventional punk by any standard. I remember having this jeans jacket I decorated with hundreds of needles, medals (I had lots of chess medals I had won when I was 10-11 years old) and other weird regalia. I did the same thing to my shoes, and I put monopoly bills everywhere and bells. As you might imagine that looked seriously weird. I looked like a decorated pin cushion and the monopoly bills and bells gave it a strange surreal after touch. It didn’t take very long before everyone started to complain about the bells I tied to my shoes. When I walked through school it sounded like it was Sunday. It was a rather quick transformation from being an unnoticed little nerd to most weird creature that ever walked the school. Most people felt I was nuts but there also was some admiration of people that admired the courage of what I was doing.

The school principle didn’t care much about courage. That’s not what our schools are for, courage needs to be punished somehow as it doesn’t produce the model citizens schools like these are build to produce. The principle called my father to school and told him I should be sent to a shrink. My father was pretty embarrassed, being a rather model citizen himself, but luckily he’s as allergic to the idea of shrinks as I was.

I walked around like a living Christmas tree for a few months until I got tired of it and changed my strategy. It did get me into some trouble – there was this big Chinese kung fu guy who didn’t appreciate my sense of fashion very much and on top of that I had demolished the glasses of his brother when he and some of his stupid pals tried to harass me in school. He stalked me one night at a club and when I was bicycling home he came after me and would have beat me up if some people didn’t pass making him change his mind. He cycled on. His plan was, however, to wait for me in the dark forest between Geldrop and Mierlo. Luckily the idiot wore a white shirt so it was easy to spot him in the dark and avoid him. The guy looked like an overhormonized version of Bruce Lee so I suppose I was sort of lucky. The point in life is rather to pick the right sort of fights and avoid the ones that have no spirit. When I demolished the glasses of his brother that was a spirited act: they never harassed me again. It did evoke another guardian but death was stupid enough to wear a white shirt that night.That’s the lovely thing about death: its so ultimately predictable.