An Islamic London: Part II, Present

One needs only to read the outcry over the idea of an Islamic London to realize that the evident harm of such a notion is not just crazed, right-wing radicalism. Authors such as Mark Steyn, Christopher Hitchens, Melanie Phillips, and Bobby Pathak (to name a few) have pointed out the already devouring nature of Islamic fundamentalist ideals on their city. Hitchens himself recently revisited the town of his ubringing, Finsbury Park, in Northern London and saw, first hand, the overwhelming consumption of a culture he was raised with by a culture, once, so far across the channel. Steyn (in his popular book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It) fortells a fate similar to that of Finsbury Park's for the entirety of the Western World. Phillips seconds that emotion for London. And Pathak, in a super-secret journalistic move, shows how an Islamic London would be a very, very bad thing.

Pathak went undercover for a recent documentary entitled Undercover Mosque (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peFQWuk4nuo&mode=related&search=) in an attempt to reveal the radical preachings of London's major mosques. The results were predictably unnerving. Ideas such as the deficiency of women, the evils of homosexuality, and subhuman nature of Jews and Indians seem to be commonplace teachings around London. However, people like Michael Hodges of Timeout London insist on passing these ideas off as twisted delusions of the "hysterical" right. The inspiration for visions such as the one accurately rendered by Hodges at the beginning of his article to illustrate a fanatical Western nightmare of an Islamic London (or West for that matter) are hardly concoctions of paranoid, conservative racists. The inspiration for such visions are planted there by the men of Islam who preach diligently about getting the ball rolling on said visions. We're not afraid of our own weird misunderstanding of an Islamic state; we're afraid of what the authors of an idyllic Islamic state tell us and their followers this will entail.

Mr. Hodges goes on, in detail, to theorize what exactly we could expect in an Islamic London. Point by point, he lays out all of the tenents of a properly functioning society and how, under Islam, these aspects of Western civilization would function far more advantageously. However, Hodges fails to realize how terribly wrong he is based on two counts that become pathetically clear when reading his proposal. First, that none of these ideals would actually occur for anyone wanting to adhere to democratic principals in the first place, that one would have to convert (or "revert" as it's known in the Muslim world) to Islam in order to survive comfortably in London. And second, that none of these would subsequently be good things in place of the currently standing free society of London. Hodges begins his outline of Islamified London with the following:

"But rather than fear the inevitable changes this will bring to London, or buy in to a racist representation of all Muslims as terrorists, we should recognise both what Islam has given this city already, and the advantages it would bring across a wide range of areas in the future."

True, not all Muslims are terrorists. But as Ann Coulter points out, "then why are all terrorists Muslims?" And I'm talking about the terrorists that matter. The ones that attempt to force their oppresive religious views on London with violence, destruction, and intimidation. The ones that wouldn't mind turning London into Londonistan. As Hitchens points out in his article 'Londonistan Calling', a Muslim activist named Anjem Choudary was asked if he might prefer to move to a country which practices Shari'a. His frightening response: "Who says you own Britain anyway?" Hitchens concludes, "A question that will have to be answered one way or another." The following is an attempt at answering each of Hodges step-by-step proposals for his dream of an Islamic state, and how such a dreams is, in actuality, a nightmare even for sympathetic apologists such as Hodges himself (though he may not realize it). He begins with:

Public Health: Hodges gives us a grim statistic that disturbs even him. That, based on a 2001 census, 24 per cent of Muslim women and 21 per cent of Muslim men suffered long-term illness and disability. Of course he points out that these are epidemics of society rather than religion. But isn't Hodges arguing that Islam would be better for Londoners as a whole? If the population that practices Islam is suffering more serious illness and disability than the population that doesn't recognize a central religion, shouldn't we avoid adopting the clearly less fortunate religion as our own? I'm not suggesting that everyone who worships Allah is automatically vulnerable to disease, but the statistics are difficult to escape. It goes along with what Hodges brought up earlier about the "racist" notion that all Muslims are terrorists. All I'm asking, in regards to public health, is why is an overwhelming demographic of disease prone Londoners Muslim? Hodges ponders this for a mere moment, shrugs off the stastic, and offers a very strange reason as to how being Muslim would benefit London. He, very matter-of-factly, reminds us that the physical act of Muslim prayer techniques couldn't hurt out of shape non-Muslims. So why not convert? (The five-a-day ab rolls are just what your beer gut needs). He makes the questionable assumption that the Muslim act of prayer is designed to keep worshippers fit. And whether or not this is what Muhammad had in mind, Hodges is still saying we should all convert to Islam because we're just not doing enough daily situps. Ignoring the fact that converting to a entirely foreign religion is a lot to ask of a person anyway, no matter how fat they are. He also brings up the Muslim act of hand and feet washing, and points out that obviously this sacred ritual "promotes public hygiene." Well, I take a shower every day and am rather diligent about washing my hands as well and I get it all done without having to praise Allah first.

His second point is that alcohol is haram (forbidden) to Muslims. And what with all the horrible things that go down as a result of alcohol, why not do what the Americans did that one time and just prohibit it...in the name of Allah. Hodges throws those statistics we've all heard a million times at us, in order to prove that we'd all be better off without the stuff (22,000 deaths a year, etc.). But his sentiment is inevitably that of a panderer, someone who isn't happy with the fact that the religion (he, himself, doesn't practice) forbids alcohol, but since he's on the subject of selling Islam to London, he might as well dig up some unavoidably nasty statistics in order to sell it. Interestingly enough, Hodges wrote an article for Time Out London a month prior to the article in question title 'The East End Art Scene', wherein he applauds art gallery expos for their abundance of free booze. Something tells me that in an Islamic London, Hodges won't be doing much else at East London art shows aside from looking at the art. And I've been to modern art expositions without the luxury of being adequetly intoxicated, and I can tell you that it's a dreadful fate.

Ecology: 'The world is green and beautiful.' So says the prophet Muhammad. Okay, who doesn't think so? I'm not sure I'm aware of a religion that thinks the world is 'off-color and ugly', or whatever the adverse may be. 'And Allah has appointed you his guardian over it.' Oh, there's the rest of it. And what if I don't believe in Allah? In Muhammad's farewell address (632AD), he states, "I was ordered to fight all men until they say `There is no God but Allah'". So, the world is green and beautiful, sure, only if you also happen to be Muslim (or maybe this just makes it more green and beautiful). What's curious is the fact that Hodges even brings up the issue of ecology to prove his point. As if Muslims have more license over the environment than any other group in London, therefore London should be Islamic. Muslim leaders and prophets are teaching their followers to respect and care for the environment, fine. So are a lot of other religious groups, political groups, nature groups, animal rights groups, etc. Weak point Hodges, what else have you got?

Education: Here, Hodges loses sight of even his own political doctrines. He both champions Muslim-based schools, and suggests that these religious schools should be state funded (tsk tsk, liberal). We begin with a grim portrait of the education situation relating to Muslims, by way of a few facts:

-Muslim students perform less well than non-Muslim students.
-37 per cent of 16 to 24-year-old Muslims have no qualifications.
-16 to 24-year-old Muslims are half as likely to have degree level or above qualification than other inner London young people.

Aside from none of this boading very well for an argument encouraging extending these statistics to the whole of London's education system, they simply don't come as very shocking to the discerning reader. Most Muslim sectors of any large Western city are impoverished and, as a rule of thumb, impoverished areas of any major city anywhere on Earth tend to have underprivelaged, poorly financed schools. Again, does this mean we do something about the education of London's Muslim school children? Or do we broaden this poor education to include all of London? The answer seems obvious; Hodges sees it, and his solution is where I question his left wing credibility. "While controversy rages over faith schools, there are 37 Muslim schools in London. As of 2004, only five were state schools." So we just want to be clear, that you (Mr. Hodges) support state funding for ALL faith schools. Be they Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Protestant, or Catholic. However, if we adhere to your thesis, that London should be Islamic, how well do you think the Muslim state would take it if they were required to fund Christianity? Be honest. This could be my insane, right wing nightmare taking hold but based on the relationship Muslims have with any other religion around the globe (we'll touch on inter-faith relations in a bit), I'm willing to bet the answer to that question is 'they wouldn't take it very well.' All Hodges' solution would produce would be underprivelaged, poorly funded Jewish, Hindu, and Christian schools. So the only group this solution benefits is (do I even have to say it) Muslims. On an anti-Semetic note, you'll recall this last Spring schools in London began dropping touchy subjects such as the Holocaust and the Crusades so as to avoid offending Muslim students who might be taught, at home, that the former never happened and the latter was a holocaust of 16th Century Muslims. "But Tahir Alam, education spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, claims Muslim children do better in their own faith schools than in the mainstream state sector," Hodges complains. I'll bet they do. The history classes must be a breeze.

Food: This one relates to Hodges' argument about alcohol being haram. The argument being: if we're doing something that is harmful to our bodies (like drinking Heineken and eating donuts), why not just solve this by converting to Islam? The whole argument is so beyond stupid that I'll spare you Hodges' slip-shod notion of Islamic religious practices and move on to the next, much more interesting, point.

Inter-faith relations: I almost don't even have to say anything. What with the Jihadist killings of Jews and Christians in the Middle East, Hindus in India and Pakistan, and Buddhists in Southeast Asia: this category should essentially speak for itself. I'm not, of course, suggesting that all Muslims, everywhere, are violently murdering members of other faiths. But it is Hodges' complete lack of understanding on this subject that leads me to bring up the evidently enormous rift of violence between Islam and all other religions. Hodges states, "Hindus and Sikhs manage to live alongside a large Muslim population in India, so why not here?" Because Hindus and Sikhs manage to live alongside a large Muslim population in India, but not very comfortably. And they're somehow managing it a lot more naturally than the Muslims are alongside the Hindus and Sikhs. The math is simple: if the Hindus and Sikhs are coexisting with each other just fine, but the Hindus and Muslims aren't with each other, the Sikhs and Muslims aren't with each other, and the Hindus and Sikhs aren't with the Muslims, then there exists an obvious negative variable. In other words, "why not here" is less a realistic question than, "why not there?" When the British left India in 1947, the continent was violently split into present day Muslim Pakistan, and Hindu-majority India that cost the lives of around one million. Since then, three wars have taken place between the two countries leading to a current feeling of uneasiness not consistent with the idea of the peaceful inter-relationship Hodges describes. To use the India/Pakistan model as an example of how inter-faith relations in future Islamic London would be is not only blatantly ignorant, it's simply a bad example.

Arts: "Some of the finest art in London is already Islamic," Hodges proclaims. But most of the finest art is not. And the art that Hodges mentions (ceramics, textiles, carpets, metalwork, glass and woodwork) is artistic craftsmanship, not 'art' in the Western sense of the word. A Renoir painting and a beautifully crafted tile are two very different things. "Islamic influences have also flourished in other areas of the arts," Hodges states, "with novelists, comedians, and music." Well, good for them; but what's the point? No one ever implied that Muslims couldn't evolve with the times and both practice their religion and create art as well; and no one ever implied that they shouldn't either. Although, the artists he uses as examples are questionable if he's trying to convince us that their Islamic-inspired motives are more advantageous to London's art community than the current Western ones, and that those motives are pure. Hodges mentions Shazia Mirza, to make us aware that Muslim comics do exist. Shazia Mirza, however, is a little known London-based female comic, whose act is based around her faith. Who knows why she isn't as popular as her peers, but maybe it has to do with certain Islamic inspired jokes that are liable to make any comic controversial (particularly Muslim ones). Around the 9/11 attacks, Mirza incorporated a bit into her act where she came out in traditional hijab dress and began her set with the remark, "My name is Shazia Mirza. At least, that's what it says on my pilot's licence." What better way to isolate your religion from the rest of the world at a very crucial historical moment. Despite giving Islam a bad name, outright, one thing is evidently clear about her comedy: aesthetically, it just isn't funny. So if Shazia Mirza is what we have to go on as a representation of Islamic comedy on our future stages, then I suppose what we get is ambiguosly terrorist humor. The kind that incites nervous white people, not wanting to appear racist, to chuckle out the sides of their mouths and yank on their collars. Maybe I'm getting too political. If so, here's another Mirza joke: "I can't understand women who wear necklaces with 'Mum' written on them. I don't wear a necklace saying 'frigid'." I don't get it. By way of music, we have rappers Mecca2Medina (who?) and Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens).

“From among my followers there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks and the use of musical instruments, as lawful. And there will be some people who will stay near the side of a mountain and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, ‘Return to us tomorrow.’ Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and He will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the Day of Resurrection.” -The words of the Prophet Muhammad

Wait, so music isn't even allowed in Islam? Technically: yes. That's precisely why Yusuf turned in the guitar for a prayer mat. And as far as novelists go, I suppose it will be okay to write books in Islamic London, just as long as you're an Islamic writer. Yusuf Islam himself agreed with the violent fatwa placed on writer Salman Rushdie's head after writing The Satanic Verses. And we can forget about knighting the achievments of free-thinking writers expressing their art in Islamic London, because even in modern British London Rushdie's life was threatened when it was announced recently that he would be knighted for his literary career. It is unknown if Cat signed on to these proposed mob hits as well. On a humorous note, Hodges refers to Yusuf Islam as "less in-your-face", in his relation to Mecca2Medina. If calling for beheadings isn't "in-your-face", I shudder to think what is. Maybe he meant Yusuf is "less in-the-general-area-where-your-face-used-to-be."

Social Justice: The first term Hodges thinks up himself to sugar coat another term. What he means by "social justice" is just welfare, but with a catchy new liberal ring to it. As if the government forcing hard working individuals to give part of their earnings to the unemployed is "justice". That's like calling a food stamp a hard-earned dollar. In Islam, this is called zakat. It is a welfare tax of 2.5 per cent of annual income. With the current situation in London being that the most impoverished bracket of individuals, as a whole, are in the Muslim communities, who does Hodges propose we tax in order to help them? How about this, Hodges: tax the privelaged, well-to-do Londoners and give to the poor, needy Muslims so they can rise up in income and status to become the predominant religious and political force in London. I think Hodges would like that idea very much. Zakat! But only for non-Muslims.

Race Relations: For this, I'll let Hodges' creepy final statement prove my own point on this entire matter,

"Under Islam all ethnicities are equal. Once you have submitted to Allah you are a Muslim – it doesn’t matter what colour you are. End of story."

Submission to Allah. Amen, brother. I mean, Allahu Akbar...brother.

An Islamic London: Part 1, History

Here, Time Out London argues that "an Islamic London would be a better place." And it, or I should say he as in columnist Michael Hodges, begins by imagining a London of the year 2021. We are witness to a public execution in fictional Mohammad Sidique Khan Square of some poor fellow for some undisclosed crime. A noose is fixed around his neck, as the eager crowd shouts, "Allahu akbar", and just as the executioner is about to press the button...Hodges relieves us of the drama and eases our terror, proclaiming the scene to be merely a "hysterical, right-wing nightmare of a future Muslim London."

But until I (or Hodges) mentioned that, you were probably on board with the realism of this 2021 nightmare, weren't you? I know I was. A public execution in the name of Allah sometime in the future still doesn't seem all that far from the truth in a city ruled by Islamic fundamentals. Hodges goes on to favor strict Islamic law over liberal, democratic freedom, and systematically debases almost all of the liberties enjoyed by the West as if they're annoyances that hinder our humanities. He begins his argument for a guaranteed Utopic society under Islam with the notion that the only reason we (as Londoners, Westerners alike) are so adverse to this apparent life in Eden's Gardens is that Islam is just too "alien" to us. Foolishly we are unaware of Islam's equation of women to men on the same first class level, their tolerance of same sex relationships, and their humanly just punishment of wrong-doers. So the burqa must be some whacky fashion statement by Islamic women that their men just don't understand. And countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Mauritania, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen are still old-fashioned when they punish homosexuality with death; but who knows, maybe by 2021, they'll come around.

Then Hodges makes an embarrasingly failed attempt at justifying Islam's supposed familiar nature with London by citing historical events post World War I. His completely shoddy history not only refutes all arguments for a successful London under Islam, it insults any of his countrymen that don't happen to have their head completely lodged up their own ass. He cites that Islam couldn't possibly be alien to Londoners when "at the end of World War I the city sat at the heart of an Empire that had 160 million Muslim subjects, 80 million in India alone. London was the largest Islamic capital in the world." But not by choice. This isn't even a historical issue to start out with, it's demographics. Saying London was the heart of an overwhelming majority of Muslims is simply stating a fact, ignoring the figures and ramifications. Like saying Los Angeles is at the heart of Mexico. Again, not by choice. But let history speak for itself, because even it can say something for 2021.

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire made the poor military decision of aligning itself with the Central Powers in that war (the Central Powers were to WWI what the Axis Powers were to WWII), thus clinching their position with the ultimate losing side and eventually ending their 625 year existence. To say London should be familiar with Islam at this time (as Hodges pleads) is like saying France should, at least, be familiar with Nazi Germany during and after WWII. Basically, during WWI the Ottoman Empire, by way of the Islamic Turks, made things very difficult for the allied forces of Britain, France, Australia, and Russia (to name a few). Headed by strategically minded German generals, and passionate (but inept) Turkish ones, the Ottoman-German Alliance swept Europe and Asia in an attempt to cut off ties between Britain and India, and wage an affront to Russia. Some battles, such as the Siege of Kut, were nominally successful; but as history tells, none were an absolute victory for the Central Powers. As a result, the Ottoman Empire was completely blown apart, and scattered across Europe and Asia, never to recover. It wouldn't be fully dissolved until 1922, but the period before then is when Mr. Hodges names London as the "heart of the empire". Sure, said empire listed 160 million Muslim subjects to it's name, but what's an "empire" when it's on its death bed? 80 million of those subjects resided in India alone, an allied stronghold during the war. I agree with Hodges' statement that places like London and India were epicenters for an Islamic Empire. But what he doesn't point out is that, given the subject's involvement in the war, things post were likely to be pretty awkward.

Welcome, Baby Scheer

If The Nation is, as they themselves put it, "The Left's Flagship", Robert Scheer sounded off recently like a drunken sailor from it's crow's nest. His latest article, 'Welcome, Baby Cheney', is irresponsible, borderline moronic, and very much delighted with itself despite being both of these first things. If this is what the left has in mind as journalism, at publications such as The Nation, to push their "progressive" causes, then it looks as though the flagship has sprung a leak and won't be back to shore. Or maybe it's just Scheer who has sprung a leak. From the sound of it, he most definitely has.

The article in question is sort of a 'hip hip hurray, in your face Republicans' piece in regards to the recent birth of Mary Cheney's first child. That's right, Mary Cheney, lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney. Samuel David Cheney was born on May 23rd of this year even, apparently, to the delight of his new grandfather. A spokesman for the family has said, "The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild." And more importantly, Mary Cheney is quoted as saying "This is a baby," and "This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child." My apologies to Ms. Cheney for the blog; however, I'd rather see it as a response to Robert Scheer, who neither had respect for your wishes nor any intention of keeping your pregnancy out of the political arena for anything other than left wing posturing and back-slapping from his colleagues at The Nation (and probably Salon).

Scheer begins the article by thanking "The Almighty, whatever that might mean, for planting the seed of life in the lesbian body of Mary Cheney..." Vulgar? Yes. Respectful of Cheney's request that her baby not be used as a political prop by either side? In no way. You can almost hear Scheer rubbing his hands together with delight in having brought the irony of this particular story forward. He goes on to say, "The message, carried prominently in news reports throughout the world, is that America has come of age in recognizing, as do most truly modern countries, that homosexuality is indeed normal." Now the whole country must wake up and acknowledge that homosexuality is "normal" because Dick Cheney smiles when he holds his daughter's baby? According to Scheer: absolutely. The sight of VP Cheney embracing the newborn apparently "Was a milestone in the nation's struggle for human rights for all. Never again will it be possible for conservative Republicans to shun homosexuals in any facet of American life without appearing outrageously hypocritical." Won't be possible? Or won't be allowed by Scheer and his fellows at The Nation? What was Cheney supposed to do, throw the baby down on the steps of the Capitol and shout to the Heavens that he will never accept the homosexual lifestyle? Grandiose as that would have been, none more grandiose than Scheer's pompous declaration based off of what actually did happen (in reality, he most likely expected something more like a Mayan sacrifice of the child at the hands of ruler Cheney).

If anything, Mr. Cheney's reception of his own daughter's child is a laugh in the face of all the liberals that just assumed people like the President and Vice President were nothing more than a pack of rabid dogs, milling around waiting to tear apart the nearest homosexual and their offspring. Here's an interesting quote from George Bush when asked about his VP's new grandson, "I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her." What? Not, "Me no like lesbians. Me like war. Arrgggh." I know what Scheer's response would be to my rhetoric, he'd say "of course they aren't going to say what they REALLY believe in public." Why not? They haven't yet made a statement for the opposite. Kids do a lot of things their parents don't approve of, but at the end of the day they're still their kids. And like I said, their positive reception only proves that, at the very least, they're caring human beings who can smile in the presence of a baby.

What it comes down to is, any one of us can love and admire the introduction of a child into the world (yes, even us Conservatives), but at the end of the day it doesn't mean we forget our beliefs. Just because Dick Cheney coddled his newborn grandson doesn't mean I'm going to change my stance on gay marriage and homosexual parents. And I don't believe it will change his stance either; he just happens to be a decent, caring human being who doesn't accept homosexuality as "normal" (much to the dismay of Scheer). Scheer asks,

"Does not the life of Mary Cheney, born to God-fearing parents in a home of presumably high moral tone, and herself an activist in the Republican Party that has exploited homophobia for temporal political advantage, definitively answer the argument that homosexuality is not a fickle choice but a facet of the natural order of things?"

He slipped the bit about the Republican Party "exploiting homophobia for temporal political advantage" in there quite nicely, didn't he? But I think that tag on the Republican Party requires more analysis. First of all, isn't the entirety of the article, 'Welcome, Baby Cheney', an exploitation of, what Ms. Cheney would request not to be, the birth of a child? Isnt' Scheer's article a champion of the homosexual agenda for "temporal political advantage?" And if the left can continue to use the outdated, nonsense term "homophobia" in just about everything they do, then I can point out that if a Republican such as Dick Cheney is "homophobic", then I'd like to think his condition is cured. Holding a child born to homosexual women, while standing next to them, is no small task for someone afflicted with such a disease. My assertion of that last part of Scheer's quote is where I might lose some of the mystics, but coming at this thing from a strictly scientific standpoint, a statment, such, that would refer to homosexuality as "a facet of the natural order of things" would have someone like Charles Darwin spinning in his grave. Ms. Cheney did, in fact, deliver little Samuel, but the seed was most definitely not that of her partner's. I wouldn't go so far as to call homosexuality a "fickle" choice (I understand it takes a great deal of dedication), but I'd be blind to equate it to the evident goings on of the natural world. In my experience, the "natural order of things" has no time or business for things that can't get together and reproduce.

But I'm getting off on a political diatribe here, and I'd like to avoid, as much as possible, going where Scheer went with little Samuel Cheney. If you happen upon the article (don't bother), he uses the remainder of it to bring up what liberals of his ilk tend to bring up under any circumstance and equates the entire thing to the War in Iraq. How he does it, and why, is the opposite of masterful but he eventually comes back around to a lofty conclusion and in it says,

"Yes, baby Samuel, even in the care of far less famous gay couples, would be more likely exposed to the best family values, not to mention a higher level of art, music and croissants, than he would had he been born to a heterosexual family."

As a heterosexual man who hopes to one day have children and expose them to the "best family values": I'd like to go on record as saying that I enjoy art, music and croissants very much, and have no intention of depriving them from my children. If the term "heterophobic" existed, I'd utilize it now for Mr. Scheer. But he miscalculated Cheney and Bush's response to a homosexual family, so why should we take what he has to say about family values seriously anyway?

I Miss America

As you may or may not know, the Miss Universe Competition has already come and gone. For anyone who didn't care to notice the spectacle flutter by (or if you're like me, didn't even know there was a Miss Universe Competition), I'll share with you now some of the highlights:


*Miss Japan won the coveted Miss Universe crown.


*Miss Sweden was removed from the competition by her own country for its supposedly collective view that the competition is degrading to women (I hope this doesn't mean an end to their massage therapists as well).


*Miss Mexico was forced to change her gown to a fruit & vegetable design after public outcry from the Mexican people that her former outfit consisting of a design depicting the Cristero war (a Roman Catholic rebellion in the 1920s), and a bullet studded holster were more disagreeable than, say, produce.


*Oh and, speaking of Mexico, Miss USA was booed mercilessly by the primarily Mexican crowd in Mexico City's National Auditorium. She also tripped and fell during the evening gown segment of the show; however, this wasn't when the crowd decided to chant "Mexico! Mexico!" over and over. It was during her question and answer session. Needless to say, the answers were never heard (for good or ill).


Apparently the crowd was "protesting" the United State's treatment of Mexican immigrants (and taking it out on poor Rachel Smith). Confused? Or does the civil unrest at the competition inspire you to take up arms against our country's ill treatment of our neighbors to the south as well? If you live anywhere near said neighbors as I, at times uneasily, do you'd scratch your head at such a display. Unless of course the protest was fired up by a group of strict, patriotic Mexican nationals whose anger was directed at the United States for its positive (or hands-off, rather) approach to their traitorous breathern, fleeing Mexico for greener pastures. How dare they. This, however, is not at all the case.


Is it the fact that there is now somewhere between 10 and 15 million illegal Mexican immigrants (who's counting? No really, who is?) living within our borders at this very moment? Or is it the new amnesty bill being championed by seemingly every politician, from the President on down, that would virtually make all of these "illegal" immigrants "legal" (no more illegal immigration problem, just take out the "ill" before the word "legal")? What could it possibly be? Why wasn't Miss Japan booed? Japan's border enforcement is akin to a maximum security prison during lockdown. It's nearly impossible to be illegal in that country, and their workforce is almost entirely Japanese. Virtually all of the countries included in the massive Miss Universe list are similarily tight when it comes to immigration. But why would a Mexican want to get work in Egypt anyway? So I guess, by default of proximity and opportunity (and despite these luxuries), the United States became Mexico City's whipping boy...of the entire Universe.


Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Does that mean we can count all of the hecklers at the competition out as potential candidates for a green card? I hope so, 'cause it's getting mighty crowded up here.

ISMAIL AX: The Virgina Tech Jihad?

What does ISMAIL AX mean? Cho Seung-Hui scrawled the words onto his arm before he began his bloody rampage through the campus of Virginia Tech the Monday morning of April 16th, 2007. Why did he do it? And again, what does it mean? He could have written anything there, if it was meant to be significant. According to his writings, he had social problems with "rich kids" and "debauchery". In that case, he could have written DEATH TO RICH KIDS, or END DEBAUCHERY NOW. But he wasn't that clear. He must have known that, after offing himself, we'd all be reading his twisted diaries and screenplays to find answers. When someone like Seung-Hui does what he did on Monday, the rest of us try desperately to understand. However, nothing at all shocking is written in those diaries and screenplays. Nothing about Seung-Hui's past is abnormal or characteristically inaccurate in relation to the atrocities he was responsible for. What would be shocking, and hard to understand, would be if Seung-Hui led a relatively normal life. Happy, content with his surroundings, no internal beef with the outside world. But as is most always the case with mass murderers of this nature, Seung-Hui was deeply unhappy, uncomfortable with his surroundings, and had several bones to pick with the outside world and the Virginia Tech campus at large. Same old story. Which brings us back to ISMAIL AX.

Liviu Librescu, a 76 year old Holocaust survivor, remains one of the sole heros of the day. He alone stood between dozens of students and Seung-Hui, and sacrificed his own life in order to save the lives of others. Alec Calhoun turned just before leaping to safety from the classroom window and was met with the heroic image of an elderly man holding shut the door. It wasn't long before the bullets from the maniac on the other side penetrated the wood, and ended Librescu's life. A maniac with apparently no other motive to kill so many people other than the fact that he was, well, maniacal. And ISMAIL AX was written on his arm.

In Islamic texts, Ismail (Ishmael in Hebrew) is the son of Abraham and the ancestor of the Arab people. It is the classic story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his only son and moments before Abraham is about to carry out God's wishes, God stops Abraham's blade and rewards him for his loyalty. The story is the same in Islam. Save for the names are slightly different, and in some accounts Abraham is wielding an ax instead of a knife. Also in the Islamic translation, Abraham destroys a number of pagan statues. Here is an account of the occurance as read from the site Islamicity.com:

"After making sure that nobody was left in town, Ibrahim went towards the temple armed with an ax. Statues of all shapes and sizes were sitting there adorned with decorations. Plates of food were offered to them, but the food was untouched. "Well, why don't you eat? The food is getting cold." He said to the statues, joking; then with his ax he destroyed all the statues except one, the biggest of them. He hung the ax around its neck and left."

The statues were idols to Abraham's people; substitutions for a real god. In Islam, they represent everything that is pagan and unholy. A rejection of Allah. Disgusted with his people's lack of faith, with their pride in the false images they created, Abraham did what he assumed necessary by destroying the false gods.

"How big was the shock when the people entered the temple! They gathered inside watching in awe their gods broken in pieces."

We know for sure that Seung-Hui took issue with the "debauchery" and "richness" of his fellow students, with the whole of society. He saw the students of Virginia Tech as representations of these sins. He saw us all as graven images. He saw himself as righteous. And with his ax, he dashed us all to bits.

It's hard to start churning out theories this early on. But it's not hard to start making suggestions based off of some rather off-putting coincidences. If they are, in fact, coincidences then they are of rather Biblical proportions. If not, then we can buck the whole lone, crazed gunman idea and chalk Virginia Tech down as yet another idealistic jihadist attack on the Infidels.

And why not? April 16th was Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yom Hashoah, in Israel and Judaism. What better way to turn Holocaust Remembrance Day into Virginia Tech Jihad Remembrance Day? The fact that that school's one and only Holocaust survivor, in an engineering classroom on a 2,600 acre campus was murdered on the day dedicated to an event he lived through is a little hard to pass off as mere coincidence.

Last year, Liviu Librescu received a prestigous scholoarship at that year's 17th International Conference on Adaptive Structures and Technologies for his paper titled, "Robust Aeroelastic Control of Composite Aircraft Wings in Incompressible Flow." The paper was written with four coleagues, their names: Gwon-Chan Yoon, Sungsoo Na, Zhanming Qin and Seung-Chul Baek. Three of these individuals are from South Korea, the country of Librescu's murderer's birth. I guess maybe I'm reaching. All of this means everything, or all of it means nothing but a string of eerie coincidences.

And even then: 32 Infidels were murdered on Holocaust Remembrance Day and Yom Hashoah (including one Israeli Holocaust survivor) by a killer with an Islamic reference written across the arm used to kill them. So the Islamic radicals must be pretty happy with these random coincidences; they should really stop trying so hard and just let Allah do all the work.

The New Feminism

I had a thought the other day. Am I the only person (in my respective age group anyway) that isn't understanding the public's recent fawning over Christina Aguilera? Pardon me, USO-Style Christina Aguilera: Limited Edition.

You remember the Dirrty Skank Edition? Or the Naked & Proud Edition. Or the X-Tina Edition. Those were fun, for a spell. Although the Naked Edition didn't have quite enough outfits with it to make it even nominally interesting after a couple hours. Certainly we all remember the videos. Or maybe some of us don't, depending on the strength of our parental blocking technology. As one friend described it to me before I had seen it: "You can smell the tuna coming through the TV screen." A rather off color visual; but then again, so is the video.

Isn't Aguilera just another on the long boring list of "Pop Princesses Gone Bad"? They're cute, and bubbly, and we collectively pinch their cheeks for a while. Then they grow up, get a nose ring, and start welcoming lower forms of cheek-pinching at clubs on Sunset, seven nights a week. Wait, didn't Christina have a nose ring during the bubbly stage? Then she essentially kicked it up a notch every year thereafter. Now she's the clean-cut, near appropriately clothed enough, 40's pin-up, USO Christina Aguilera. With "singing to the troops" action...trashy singing. Am I the only one that can still see the USED tag sticking out of the new white dress? It's like when bruised and tattooed porn actresses dress up like Lil' Bo Peep for Halloween. It's hard to believe someone with an I LOVE (picture of rooster here) tattoo does nothing more than "tend" to those sheep.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in redemption and also in forgiveness...but something just seems off about this whole Aguilera dog and pony show. Suddenly I'm supposed to take her seriously as a "musician" because she traded in the black lipstick for some more conservative red. Truth be told, I'm just waiting for her to rip off the sailor uniform and grind on a Marine in an American flag bikini. I'm sure this is what the real sailors even showed up for in the first place. So far, much to their dismay, she has remained suspiciously well-behaved. Call me a cynic, but I'm just not buying it. Something smells fishy...no pun intended.

Maybe I missed the boat on this argument. It's been a while since X-Tina...sorry, USO-Tina has been on the cover of Rolling Stone. For all I know, she's sporting a burqa now, as Jihad Edition Christina Aguilera.

I tend to be a week or so behind on issues relating to pop culture, for good or ill. I'm not a very exciting pundit when the conversation gets into who's walking out of Mr. Chow's and celebrity crotch shots. But I am Hell on wheels if someone happens to mention the works of John Cassavetes. How do I function in modern society? You might ask. Answer: with a great deal of difficulty, my friend. Sometimes I even find it near impossible to go out of my apartment. But at least I've got my health.

All sarcasm aside, I'd have to be living in some kind of cave not to have noticed the recent nose dives girlies like Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan have been pulling off, in plain view of the public. Nay, it'd have to be one of those caves on Mars even...a warm, and comfortable cave of blissful ignorance. Unfortunately I live on a street sandwiched smack in between Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard. In fact, if Norma Desmond could possibly pop a few in my back just after I publish this, that'd make my proximity to these ex-pop divas all the more worth it. Every time I hear a police siren out my window, it could either be responding to one of the million plus illegal immigrants milling around the city, or to Paris Hilton, speeding by my apartment building on a midnight diet of In & Out Burger, Margaritas and X. I pay the taxes on that police cruiser now, I should at least know what Party Girl they're after, and what she's being pulled over for this time.

Aside from knowing the boys down at the LAPD are keeping me safe from too many unsolicited crotch shots, I feel I know just enough to be justified in saying: "who gives a shit", when it comes to hearing another story about any of these chicks from this night forward (this would be a good cue for Norma to pull the trigger, but alas I'll continue).

Pop music's reigning Queen of alternative, punk feminism Avril Lavigne appears on the current issue of JANE magazine and is quoted on the cover as saying, "I'm not a party person, and I always wear underwear." Great, reassuring point. Now go forth and continue making horrible music. What does she want, a fuckin' medal? So now the standard for positive female role models, in our culture, is the girl who doesn't routinely display her vagina. The girl who doesn't go bottomless to clubs, shave her head, and make (not all that inaccurate) claims to being the Anti-Christ.

I went to sleep at some point in time and woke up to discover that the new feminism means not the right to vote, the right to work, or the right to sing; but the right to be voted on at a wet t-shirt contest, the right to work the streets, and the right to sing...dirrty. We're suddenly back to dragging our women around by the hair and tuning out if they use any phrases other than "hot" or "where's the party?" And the media is gobbling this up and spewing it out faster than Lindsey Lohan does on the corner of Camden and Wilshire on any given night of the week.

I can't help but wonder: if they just stopped turning the cameras on these irresponsible (socially or otherwise), self-destructive, talentless air heads...would they close up shop (or, at least their panty-less thighs) and go home?

Who knows? What came first, the chicken legs or the birth controlled egg? Maybe the demand for a reversal of feminist ideals in this country became so great that the young girls who could have had so much going for them back when they could still sing before the Marlboro menthols, decided to give the people what they wanted and drop the G-string. Or maybe we always wanted more out of our female role models for our sisters and daughters, but turned around one day to find they had grown up and have long since passed out at the bar. Whatever the case, they'll either go to rehab or escape...at this point, who cares. What's to become of our sisters and daughters?

Like anyone who has hung around a Party Girl long enough to eventually grasp the kind of pathetic concept, the media will inevitabley get bored and move on to something probably more boring and/or socially damaging. But the dust will have already settled on our unfortunate, and always impressionable, young girls. And it's up to us to convince them that there's more talent in their little fingers, and more feminism in their futures, than any one of the self-proscribed Party Monsters down the street from me that will hopefully go the way of Genie-in-a-Bottle Edition Christina by this time tomorrow.

God, I Love That Rock & Roll

I'm so excited, and I just cannot hide it. So, as seems to be the case on the internet, I will blog about it and no one will read it! How we vent into the unknown ether...

Next month is going to be a huge month for music. In my humble opinion, the hugest month so far this year. I won't even give you time to be the judge of that. Just sit back and read about why you should be as excited as I am. As is quoted from Tommy, which I'm listening to now (Live @ Leeds, the only way to listen to Tommy): Come on the amazing journey; and learn all you should know.

Three artists that exist on my all time Top 5 list of musicians are coming out with new albums, all in the merry month of March. Hopefully by the end of this, you'll be just itching to skip down to the local record store, and fork over the dough for all three of these joints. Maybe I'll even let you skip with me. Only maybe though.

First things first, the old farts who brought you the greatest hard rock albums of the 1960's and 1970's: The Stooges. March 6th will see the release of 'The Weirdness', their first studio album since 1973. I'll let Iggy Pop have the first word before I make an attempt to match his:

"The one thing that kind of amazes me is that it sounds like us. But it doesn't sound quite like 'Fun House,' 'Raw Power' or our first one. You put it on, and right away, you'd know, well, that's them. There they go."



Without going into all three masterful albums prior to 'The Weirdness', I'll simply state that they're all good, to say the very least. 'Skull Ring', which came out in 2003 was technically an Iggy album, although the remaining members of The Stooges played on some of the tracks. Even for his age (or their ages, in this case), and despite the ever changing musical times, it is proven time and time again that Iggy Pop is just one of those artists that really can't do much wrong (this is where people who aren't fans of Bowie will disagree with me slightly; you know who you are). He continuosly makes even new rock bands look like light weights by comparison. No one has really matched the raw power (no pun intended) of The Stooges since probably 'Fun House' (with the exception of Nick Cave and The Birthday Party, which I'll get to later). It all leads us to a fully formed studio album by these great pioneers of rock. Could it be one of the top ten rock albums of the current decade? If the old timers still have in, even, their little finger what they encompassed entirely in 1969 and '70, then I'd be hard-pressed to say 'no'.

One song off the new album, My Idea of Fun, is available to listen to on The Stooges official MySpace page (www.myspace.com/iggyandthestooges). If it alone is any indication of the rest of the album, then it sounds pretty promising. They certainly haven't lost their rough edge. If anything, the song sounds more stripped down than anything heard on 'Funhouse'. It suffers from the band's loss of original bass player Dave Alexander, whose licks were one of the premier draws of 'Funhouse'. However, with the addition of Mike Watt (from The Minutemen): who am I to complain? Not heard on this particular song is the saxophone of Steve Mackay (also one of the most essential elements of 'Funhouse'); however, even knowing that the guy is back for 'The Weirdness' is cause enough to purchase the thing just to hear what they do with him. Stranely enough, Pop's vocals sound younger and more juvenile than they did when he was in his 20's. Ironically, The Stooges were a huge influence on the Punk movement that would sprout up a little more than a decade after the release of 'Funhouse'; but the overall sound (primarily in the vocals) of My Idea of Fun is clearly heavily influenced by the Punk movement. Wrap your mind around that. What goes around, comes around I guess. Even for such heavies as The Stooges.

Buy this album and listen to at maximum volume in your car with the windows rolled down. It's been far too long the country's neighborhoods have gone without getting riled up over some good old fashioned noise.

While everything is quiet and easy
Mr. Grinder can have his way...
--Memphis Slim, 1941

Speaking of old timers getting their "rock" on. Nick Cave and three regular members of his almighty back-up band, The Bad Seeds, have teamed up to create the much anticipated side project known as Grinderman.

"Foul-mouthed, noisy, hairy, and damn well old enough to know better."



Anyone that knows me knows that I can't get enough of anything Nick Cave has done. I'm of the school of thought that 'Junkyard' was just an element or two shy of being as good as 'Funhouse'. It was definately the next best thing, and still is. The Birthday Party, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, even Nick Cave without any seeds...the guy is a giant among very small men. So mention of, not another album with all the Bad Seeds, but another album under an entirely new band name altogether didn't phase me in the least. Especially when I read above quote. And below quote:

"It is the howl in the dark of the Everyman."

And that was simply talking about one song! No Pussy Blues. The song and video can be found on the band's MySpace page (www.myspace.com/grinderman). Calling themselves "old enough to know better" is a gross understatement, after having watched the video. It's a rock video all current "young" bands wish they could make; or should wish they could make. If the members of Grinderman are too old to be making rock music as good as they are, then the only conclusion that could possibly be drawn from their statement is that the only people who know better are the over 40 crowd.

Jim Sclavunos doesn't so much play the drums, as he beats on them. Both sticks at the same time to match the shit he's kicking out of the bass drum. Raw also is Martyn Casey's continuous bass; it doesn't let go. Whatever kind of hell the other three instruments unleash, Casey is persistent in reminding us that this is a song that is going somewhere, but it may never get there. Warren Ellis drops the bow and treats the violin as if it were an electric mandolin...on several occasions...enough said. And the ringleader himself, Nick Cave, busts out some of the sickest thrashing he's ever dared to maneuver in his career. Some notes can be made out, but for the most part he puts up a solid wall of distortion that almost dwarves the rest of the band.

This is the garage band to end all garage bands. If you were walking past someone's house and heard a song like No Pussy Blues tearing up the driveway, you'd for sure think, "these kids are going somewhere." Luckily Nick Cave has gone there, done that, and then some; and now his band, Grinderman, have decided to show the "youngsters" a thing or two about how to play rock and roll.

If you didn't buy 'Grinderman' (out the same day as 'The Weirdness'!), you'd be missing out on one of the top five rock albums of 2007. And if you're a die hard Birthday Party fan like I am, this is as close as you're gonna get.



Last, but certainly not least, is my favorite band to date. So naturally I'm very excited about their much anticipated next album; and henceforth, the following words may be slightly biased and congratulatory. But fuck it. Modest Mouse is by far the finest rock band making music today and, arguably, in the last ten years.

I could write a blog a day about how and why they have been consistantly rising above any other professional band in the business since being signed by Epic in 2000, with 'The Moon & Antartica' (and even before being signed, with 'The Lonesome Crowded West' and 'This Is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About'). For the sake of this particular blog, however, I will attempt to reign it in, and keep to the task at hand.

"A nautical balalaika carnival romp"
--Isaac Brock

'We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank' has been in a kind of limbo since before Christmas, with an original release date of December 19th. The group has been busy touring parts of Europe, Mexico, and The United States, so they can be forgiven for having to push the date a couple months. But it's enough already. The first single from the album, Dashboard, was played on 107.7 The End in Washington on New Year's Eve, and has since been made available on Modest Mouse's MySpace page (www.myspace.com/modestmouse). One of the first things evident from the single, not surprisingly, is the one thing about this Modest Mouse album that makes it their most talked about. The inclusion of The Smith's old lead guitarist, Johnny Marr.

Perhaps one of the most influential guitarists of the 1980's, Marr was originally asked by Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock to help out on a track. Brock rightfully thought to himself something like, "why would the guy who backed up Morrissey for all those years help out a couple kids from Issaquah, Washington for anything more than signing some copies of 'The Queen is Dead'?" But as a testament to the sheer talent that makes up Modest Mouse, Marr obliged to help out the band. And after jamming with them on their one track, Marr took to the road with them in order to fill out the sound for 'We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank'. It wasn't long before he was considered a full-fledged member of Modest Mouse.

I laughed a little after typing that last sentence. Never in my wildest musical dreams would I have imagined one of my favorite bands of the 80's becoming a piece of my favorite current band. If you consider the sound of the two bands however, and the dynamic of both group's lyrics and accompaniment...it makes perfect sense. Evident in almost every Smiths song was such a bittersweet sarcastic wit. Biting lyrics no one would want to be the source of, masked brilliantly by a barrage of snappy , infectious rock beats. Thanks to Marr, the electric guitar became a living soul that couldn't live without Morrisey; or Morrissey without it. Liken that to Modest Mouse. Brock's words transcend anything being written today about someone's girlfriend, or government, or whatever. Themes such as a vast and harrowing universe, the impact of our places of birth, and an ever-looming God consistantly crop up in his lyrics and trouble him into humbleness. It's like when someone asked David Byrne if he would ever write a love song and he wrote The Talking Heads' best song, Naieve Melody; it's as if someone asked Isaac Brock why he doesn't ever write a song about himself.

The difference between The Smiths and Modest Mouse however, is time. Rock has changed since The Smiths' self titled album hit record stores in 1984; Modest Mouse is a new band. They're a hard rock band, and anyone who has listened to 'The Lonesome Crowded West' even once can tell you that they aren't as modest as their name suggests when it comes to tearing down a conventional rock song and trampling it into the mud. Which is what separates them from most current bands today. Their sensibility of what makes a solid pop song, fused with the almost eerie personal relationship each member has with his respective instrument. Sounds like The Smiths. And the ease with which the two bands were married, aside from being justifiably philosophized here, can simply be heard by listening to one song.

Dashboard is just as good as anything you'd hear coming from Modest Mouse the first time you hear it. It's catchy, off the bat; it's clever, lyrically; and it tells a story. Telling a good story in song is something Brock is no stranger to. But telling a story with an instrument is not always an easy task (even for Brock, who is still mastering it quite well), which is why you need a seasoned storyteller like Marr. Modest Mouse was wise enough to pick up on this, and I'm sure this alone will make 'We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank' the best rock album of 2007.

Thus concludes my journey into March. The real "March Madness". All three of these powerhouse albums, coupled with the trechery and wanton all-day-drunk of St. Patrick's Day...I'll be suprised if April isn't just one big hang over under the rain. But if no other month resembles March, musically, in any way...I'm sure I'll recover.

Anatomy of a Traffic Jam

Being stuck in traffic in Los Angeles is much like taking the slow boat down the river Styx. After a while, whatever your destination (be it work, Hell, or otherwise) starts to seem pretty inviting.

It's a combination of the surrounding desert hills, endless palm trees, and persistent sun that make the solid bumper-to-bumper journey all the more maddening. The looks on the people's faces: confused, dead. Confused as to how they have died? Scared. And of course, the droning sound of the helicopters.

Helicopters?

Helicopters. Only in Los Angeles will every helicopter in the county buzz out to cover the chaos. No matter what the magnitude of the atrocity. I guess vultures circle for a dead lizard every bit as much as they do for a dead zebra. In my case, I was held up by a dead tzi tzi fly. After all the commotion, the hour hold-up, the helicopters, the digital reader board claiming "major accident, all lanes become one", the 0 mph, and the dead faces; it was all for glass. By the time I realized this, however, I had far passed the point of rage and frustration. That was how it started.

The psyche of a human being adrift in a traffic jam sea can be broken down into a few simple stages. No one's mind is safe from the torment. And if you can cut through the daze, if only for a moment of sheer will, you will notice that everyone around you is experiencing the same twisted mind fuck. I did just this. Before turning my head onward again, and re-entering the funhouse.

Upon realizing that I was slowing down, something akin to "oh, come on" was softly dispelled from my lips. Directed at no one, and heard only by me, this proved nothing aside from agitating some inner morning demon. He would proceed to convince me that "this can't be happening", at this moment in time.

After some time in a dead standstill, I found myself uselessly swearing into the empty cab of my truck. Swearing at no one at first; eventually turning the tirade to anyone I made eye contact with, anyone I couldn't see ahead of me (including the poor suckers involved in the accident), and anyone that came to mind that had pissed me off recently. Swearing seemed to make the truck crawl at around 2 or 3 mph (depending on the creativity of the word).

Then comes the acceptance of one's own fate. Looking around, I noticed everyone had reached this moment of zen at the same point in time I did. The guy behind me was tapping away on his steering wheel with a pair of drum sticks. An Asian woman next to me stared peacefully into the early morning sunrise. The music I had turned down, in order to better hear myself swear, suddenly became calming and every word poignant. "Even if things get heavy we'll all float on". Beautiful.

Fuck. The swearing seemed to be more effective. These traffic jams, they respond better to a little roughness. You've gotta grab 'em by the shirt collar and shake the hell out of them.

The closer you get to the incident, whatever it may be, the less you care about what it is anymore. I'll have to shift gears here for a second and revert back to the possesive "I"; because if "you" happen to be an Angeleno, then at this point in the jam you still care very much about what the incident is. In fact, as I would find out in this case, it was "you" all along that put me through an hour long inner struggle of fragile nerves and self doubt.

I understand the curiosity of an automobile accident. Death and injury aside, two or more large pieces of machinery entangled together on the side of a highway is a rather impressive display, and not something you see every day. However, in Los Angeles, the native's necks seem to be made of a much more pliable and liberal rubber than anywhere else in the country. I recall times when I would pass up an accident without blinking an eye. And they happen far more often in this city! But at this point in this particular jam, the crawl had gone on for the better part of an hour. So, morbid as it may be, I thought to myself, "this mother fucker better be good. Maybe I'll even wind down my window to get a better look at the carnage."

As I rolled into the vicinity of the veritable auto battlefield (as the digital reader board promised; and the helicopters implied) I realized the extent of my heartache and pain. As I said before...glass. Glistening in the sun, and crunching delicately below my tires. I wondered if the helicopters could even see the glass from way up there. If the cameras would be able to pick that up. They weren't anywhere to be found anymore, so I guess they got bored, and fluttered off. Clearly, either I had been in limbo for so damn long that the accident had occured, been responded to, humans rushed to the hospital, reported, and cleaned up, all before I reached it; or, I had been the butt of a very cruel LA joke. They were breaking me in, giving me a taste of what I can expect for the rest of however long I spend here.

If this, resulting from glass on the roadway, is any indication...then I'll be packing my bags tonight and hitting the 101 back North. But then again, I'd probably get stuck there too: plastic bag in lane 3.

Let's All Go to the Coliseum!

Dionysus to Gibson: Beware of Cat!

I've been reading the reviews of Apocalypto.

Did Mel Gibson kill some babies somewhere that I'm not aware of? This guy is getting such bad press, all of the time, you'd think he was personally raping every single film critic from LA to New York City, and then asking them to write a review for his next film.

I'll preface this by saying, I haven't yet seen Apocalypto. From what it sounds like, it is to the Mayan people what a cat-o-nine tails was to Jim Caviezel. An all out blood bath as a way of communicating the horrors of human sacrifice, and how said sacrificing of entire populations could be potentially damaging to a civilization on its way up. Or down, as I'm assuming the message is here. Aside from agreeing with Gibson that the Mayans were way out of line in their religious practices (many Leftist critics would probably berate me for the previous statement; who am I to judge a culture's religious rites?), I also agree that mass executions were, as far as I can imagine, rather messy indeed.

Having not seen the film, let's assume for a moment that, as several critics and bloggers have labelled it, the film was overtly exploitive. Then what we have on our hands here is a collection of critics who have forgotten how to watch a movie. These are the same people who will probably tell you that Joe D'Amato was a genius of horror, or that Wes Craven (in his youth) really knew how to make pulling a teenage girls intestines out and raping her repeatedly say something poignant about the war in Vietnam better than any war movie could. The exploitation flick has been around for as long as film has been considered an art form (or in this case, entertainment). And for the most part, with the exception of very conservative groups, they have been roundly accepted by the film community as either clever satires of the human condition, or just great fun. Be that as it may, if when I sit down to watch Gibson's latest "shocking" and "offensive" filmmaking effort, and find myself sitting in front of a horror-fest about the Mayan civilization, then I'll probably have as good a time as I did when I sat down and accepted Deodato's vision of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon in 'Cannibal Holocaust'.

Now let's assume that Gibson meant not to be exploitive, but to be literal. Let's say, he put on film what anyone can see the Mayans painted on their buildings what we know to be historically accurate: that the high priests of this particular region of Latin America were tearing a lot of hearts out of people's chests. It has been argued that none of this is true. That the Mayan people were very mathematically inclined, that they were architects centuries ahead of their time, and that they were brilliant strategists beyond their years. How could they possibly be blood-thirsty monsters? But none of their achievments of society and art is being denied. To bring it into current terms: am I to believe that the Muslim people are a group of prehistoric sand-dwellers, hijacking planes and blowing up Israel all of the time, in the name of Allah? I'd be ignorant to accept this notion. But not ignorant to accept that a vast number of highly influential religious zealots within the Islamic community could very well erase both the struggles of that community to grow, and the perception of that community's people by the rest of the non-Muslim world; possibly for the rest of all of history. From what it sounds like, Gibson isn't saying "look at these lunatics, The Mayans"; instead he is saying, "look at what these lunatics did to their people, The Mayans". If I find no exploitation of that fact, and merely a historical account of this message, then who am I to decry the movie's violence any more than the blood that was shed in films like Schindler's List, or Saving Private Ryan. Both very violent films, justifiably in every way; also both exceptionally entertaining as movies. But what critic in their right mind would call either exploitive? For all we know, Apocalypto could visually have looked exploitive simply for the fact that none of us has ever seen someone's heart cut out of their chest with a sacrificial flint knife and handed to them before the sun god. But we've all seen the atrocities of the gun. For all I know, the critics who saw Apocalypto as exploitive just can't imagine such a thing as mass human sacrifice outside of the cinema, and they aren't mature enough to allow someone like Mel Gibson (gasp) to handle such a topic (exploitive or otherwise).

Which leads me to the man himself. As far back as I can remember, the evolution of the Mel Gibson Witch Hunt goes something like this (beginning with his success as a Hollywood Hunk):

Lethal Weapon saw Mel fighting crime as a smart-ass, devil-may-care heartthrob with lucious locks and an itchy trigger finger. We all loved him, even through a good chunk of the sequels. Then he made a series of rather weepy, cliche message tales of strong will and the endurance of the human spirit. We still loved him though. He peppered these with some light-hearted comedies and a run of questionable chick flicks. For the most part, he remained "cool" in the eyes of the Hollywood community. Braveheart won the hearts of the academy, but had some Wallace historians scratching their heads (if for anything else, not recalling if their Scottish ancestor looked that good in a kilt). America felt pumped, like it did after Rocky ran up those steps, and we all gave Mel a collective pat on the back. Using this momentum, he made The Patriot. Adhering to his rather elementary interpretation of historical events (though not altogether inaccurate), he gave us another group of underdogs (The United States of America) as heroes, and a very clear-cut adversary of evil (England). The fireworks shone just a little brighter that summer. At this point, we were still giving our Hollywood Hunk History Hero our thumbs up, and a "go get 'em Tiger" fist to the jaw.

Until he dared announce his affiliation with a Western religion. The day Mel told us he was a Catholic, and that he would be producing a big budget movie about the death of Jesus Christ, a hush fell over the Los Angeles area so still you could hear a rosary drop. Everyone looked around nervously. Then came a veritible hail storm of back lash that hasn't quelled to this day. People who hadn't even seen The Passion of the Christ were going after this movie like it was a positive biopic about the life of Hitler. These were the same people who, a little more than a decade prior, were attacking the Christian community for not even having seen The Last Temptation of Christ before laying into it.

Mel Gibson made a film that was a literal adaptation of the age old book of Luke? For shame, Mel. If only you had been more like Martin Scorsese, or Ron Howard, and made a film based on philisophical interpretation of the life of Jesus from "scholars" still alive today, then maybe we would have been more receptive to your vision of the Mayan people. But you broke the one rule too true in this town of tinsel and flash bulbs. You admitted to being a Christian. You might as well of just put a big dunce cap on, and packed your bags for the Mid-West. This is Hollywood, Bub; we're an advanced culture, open-minded and progressive, and we have no time for anyone who lays claim to a belief in the God of Abraham. That's so 2000 years ago, man. If only you had announced that you were converting to Islam, and were producing a big budget movie on the death of Mohammad. Then maybe the people down at the LA and NY Times would have slapped their Leftist seal of approval on your ass, kissed it, then hailed you as "daring" and "intelligent". But you had to be "controversial", didn't you? You had to play by your own, whacked out, Right Wing, Scary, Christian Fundamental rules. For shame, Mel...for shame.

The man got drunk in Malibu! He was pulled over for it! He had pictures taken of him with his arms around girls!

If this had been Mick Jagger, or Robert Downey Jr. (and it has), we would have either A. thought it was awesome, dude. Or B. Forgiven them after some half-assed apology to the nation. Mel Gibson made such apology (minus the half-assery), but was neither forgiven nor given "awesome" status. If we were to put a tape recorder up to half of Mel's critics at a crowded bar in Malibu on a Saturday night, we'd most likely have to bleep much of the recording out, and a lot of thick-framed glasses-wearing hipsters would have a lot of explaining to do. But they probably wouldn't have to. The man has struggled for years to escape an embarassment of a white supremicist upbringing (which is probably way more blown out of proportion than any of our own kind-of awkwardly intolerant uncles or fathers drunkedly fearing an onslaught of Spics from the South). He has, himself, denounced both his father, and his unpopular view of the Jewish people. One drunken slip and the man is Himmler for the rest of his natural life; despite his apology, despite his regret. Where was Jerry Seinfeld on Letterman allowing Mel to say his piece? Too risky. The man might come on and sieg heil at the audience. Hell, worse, he might try to convert everyone to "his side". The things Mel Gibson could do to us all makes Hollywood shudder to think. One reporter ventured out to his ranch to interview him about the DUI arrest; probably scared to find empty Jack Daniels bottles and dead Jews. He prefaced the article by admitting, he didn't know what to expect. What he found was a very sober, coherent man, sorry for what he had done and (like so many Americans, Left and Right Wing) still battling alcoholism. Surprise, glib reporter! Who remained appropriately glib about the whole situation, so as not to fall out of grace with all the other reporters who still believe that Gibson Ranch is akin to Auschwitz after a night of heavy Rumplemintz drinking. And all the reporters who won't give the man an inch under any circumstance because he simply can't shake that whole Christianity thing.

So where does a man like Mel go now? What will become of his cinema? Will there be any left? A man can only handle so much critical torment before throwing in the towel. And despite what one may think of the subject matter of a Gibson film: he really isn't such a bad filmmaker, cinematically speaking. He's just, by outing himself as a Christian, inadvertantly entered himself into the political coliseum of fun and games; and found himself face to face with a very enormous lion.

Come Into My Sleep

Who knows why I decided to start a blog. Seems everyone has something to say now days; or else, now they have a platform on which to say it from. I guess I just saw that it could be done easily, so I thought I'd do it.

I've seen others (even people I know) start the damn things, for reasons maybe even better than mine, and then not follow through with them. These words have the possibility of existing throughout the English-speaking world at large. What's the point of having a URL with nothing to say for it? It'd be like publishing a book with a cover, but pages with nothing on them. A blank book, so to speak, speaks volumes for its author(s).

So my New Years resolution to myself will be to keep this journal up to date. Whether or not I tell anyone immediately about it, or if I do (and then, whether or not they read it) at all, remains to be seen. I'd like it first to be at least moderately interesting before broadcasting it to my peers. I don't want them to think about me when I go, "he had nothing to say". I'd instead much rather them have found me memorable.

This will be, in a way, a chronicle. And much later, memories. And maybe, after everyone I know has gone into the afterlife; a time capsule.