RAC Year 10

 

"If you knew tomorrow was just yesterday hiding behind a mask, what would you ask? What could you ask?"

Pearls Before Swine


Friends! -Today is the tenth anniversary of the very beginning of the long march of the Revolutionary Army of Crackers. 10 years ago the mysterious founder of this movement led his army off into the hills and was never seen again. At least not after abandoning the rest of his army in the woods with some deluded environmentalists after having nicked a load of their stuff. All he left was a series of pronouncements recorded here on this internet blog between 2009 and 2013 and one that was held back for this very occasion and if nothing else does give you a link to some nice pictures of Crackers and that's what we're in this for, right? Yes, Crackers the famous cartoon character. What did you think I meant? No we're not a white supremacist group. How many times do I have to tell you people?  Although these days you'd probably be better off. Spirit of the age, eh. Anyway I'll let Koosie tell you all about it.
Comrade BBR (Chairman, RAC Central Committee)

GREETINGS HUMO-PEEPS!
Well I must admit I am impressed by your ability to feign disinterest in the spectacular revelations revealed here on this internet backwater. Do you think I could fit this on Twitter? Not with the way I carry on.

Or a least used to because this is the future! 2016 now and what a ride you're on. I thought news was exciting when the Israelis were at war with the Lebanese but that was little fish compared to this pile. They may have bombed  Beirut airport on that hot day 10 years ago but now we have planes being shot out of sky, civilian and military in intractable conflicts. Even nerve gas has made a brief comeback. Charismatic nationalists now hold power in an increasing number of important nations and eventually they're going to start rubbing up against each other in ways either perverted or just outright dangerous. Information is replacing reality but electricity is vulnerable. Events can run out of control quickly despite what anyone intends. Turning and turning in the widening gyre.

But try not to worry. Despite what John Gray says ( not the relationship therapist, the other one), human social progress is possible and is reflective of the fact that human activity like any other aspect of the history of life on your planet, has a tendency to greater complexity despite entropy's battering. Human super-organisms may only be currently really any good as village communities and actually fairly disastrous as nation-states or economic entities and a laughing stock as trans-national organisations but you'll find a way through to voluntary global consciousness at some point and it'll be really good and you'll be able to proper enjoy individuation from both perspectives. You can't read anything into the fact I recently left your planet faster than a bullet leaves a gun. A lot faster in fact. Well I've left a construct containing some of my awareness in the form of a talking Bunny Rabbit that you might see around. What's so hilarious is that he doesn't really know what he is and this terrifies him on top of the fact he's a long way down the food chain. He does have a great collection of Crackers fan-art on his deviantart page. So check it out. I'm also going to get him to post some music here and maybe list the music links that have been lost along the way. He's harmless. That was always the point with Crackers you see. Being tiny, pink and a bit tearful, Crackers was the ultimate expression of being non-threatening. What I didn't count on is that some people find that quite threatening. Takes all sorts!
Lots of love
Koosie

This is a different PBS song from the one quoted at the top of this post. That was 'Lepers and Roses'. This is 'The Jeweler'.

Full album here! I would recommend getting a copy of the film and the music

 both of which greatly inspired the creation of the RAC. Now it isn't a very nice film. There are virtually no female characters, a huge quantity of senseless human deaths (including children) and a little bird gets throttled for making too much noise. However it's still sad and beautiful and James Coburn's Irish accent is fine.  Hey! Speaking of the music - here's a list of all the music links that originally accompanied this blog:

Ennio Morricone/Joan Baez- The Ballad of sacco & Vanzetti Parts I & II

Nomeansno- The day everything became nothing/dead souls

And The Native Hipsters –Mr Magic

XTC = Senses working Overtime

Thomas Dolby – Hyperactive

Amon Duul II – Traveller

Nyan Cat

Wedding Present – Corduroy

Sonic Youth – Tunic

Scott walker – The Ballad of Sacco & Vanzetti

The Groundhogs – Garden
Deadly Snakes – Gore Veil
Super Furry Animals – Don’t be a fool, Billy
Queen – My Fairy Queen
Captain  & Tennille – Love will keep us together
Melt Banana - If it is the deep sea, I can see you there
Family – The Chase/ Mellowing grey
XTC- All of a Sudden
Voice of the Beehive- Don't call me baby
Stevie Wonder- Outside my Window
Nirvana- Rainbow Chaser
Nirvana -Drain You
Jimmy Cliff – Sitting in limbo
The Rutles – Ouch!
Crass – Major general despair
Ennio Morricone – La bambola
Firehose – Choose any memory
Erik Satie – Gnossiennses No.1
John Coltrane – My favourite things
Genesis – Ripples
Odyssey – If you’re looking for a way out
Lissi Dancefloor Disaster – Kill the winner
Fireflyxl5- Oh Sinner Man! Where you gonna run to?
Herbal Mixture – Please leave my mind
The Beatles – Follow the sun

I'm sure there was some Dead Kennedys somewhere too. No Radiohead nor Manics neither. Oversights on Koosie's part I'm sure. Those guys are the best! Certainly perfect music for a generally terrified and confused bunny-rabbit to be in to.  Anyway sorry I've not got a decent Crackers pic to accompany this post yet. Why don't YOU draw one and send it to us here at the RAC.  You could win a prize and have your pic in this very post!
 Hello......? Hello........?

Agents of S.H.I.T.E

Greetings humane-bings! Koos-sanity intermission time again! It is my birthday today (well, hatch-day to be precise) so I am feeling extra old. Exactly how old am I? Well let’s count that up…sorry never been too strong on the old maths thing…er…Should have done this before I started dictating really….let’s see….I am….oh fuck! Ooooooh fuuuuck! Phew! Big, big numbers there. Too many numbers. Gotta stop those damn numbers!  

 

So many candles, so little cake!  Well seeing as I’m running out of future, let’s speculate on yours a bit. Yes you, humo-peeps, once so furry, cute and naïve, now you’ve got all clever and aware but still totally convinced it’s all about you. Well it isn’t. Hell, it isn’t even all about me, as evinced by fact I’m being so rapidly written out of the story. Now I’d always had you marked down for extinction soon too but according to James Burke, the history-science guy, you’re on the brink of the next great production-revolution; that of nanotechnology which could abolish material scarcity and make human action a result of human desires rather than human need. Nah! Me neither! However I can’t claim to be able to outthink old Burkey, so I’ll embrace his optimism for the next paragraph at least.

 

So, future human! It is for you I’m writing. I may have faded into the wind but here are my words back from December 2013 when there was still proper dirt-level history going on.  Assuming of course that in the intervening years the internet hasn’t been erased by a giant electro-magnetic surge or a corporate tyranny or a series of nuclear-bomb sized electro-magnetic surges or something. No those things didn’t happen (Optimism remember).  So there you are, floating in a bubble of warm, delicious gel going through the internet via the tiny chip in your pre-frontal browsing these old websites from distant ages past, after all you’ve got all the time in the world and this decade you’ve picked up a penchant for pre-Burkian history. Here you have found me: The once great Koos, a unique witness to what really occurred on this dirtball, not the air-brushed official version inserted into your brain by benign educational virals. I hope you’re the first one. Bingo! This is going to massive. Even the plebos of this age were unaware of this hugely important resource you’ve stumbled into. BTW you might want to cross-ref BINGO. If reviving the Revolutionary Army of Crackers doesn’t impress any of the hundreds of billions of post-human ontologically involveds, you’ve got a sure-fire hit with bingo. Humanity won’t have changed that much.

Of course, the chances of that coming to pass look pretty slim to me. This is one dangerous universe. For example around 70 million years ago a sentient being of almost zero mass (we call them the amorphous deities) moving through space subtly altered the trajectory of an asteroid in this solar system causing it ultimately to impact the surface of this planet and make extinct most of the living forms inhabiting here then. This was done principally to remove the emerging reptilian forms who would have ultimately brought this planet into the Sauropsid sphere of influence. Now while I’m allied to this bunch, I couldn’t tell you whether there’s a revenge attack in progress or not.  I always advised them in favour of subverting you milk-bearing furries against the deities and that was certainly the main strategy while I was still in contact with the Sauropodean Hyper-real  Intergalactic Trans-dimensional Elect or S.H.I.T.E . This may have changed. Anyway you’re already living through a planetary extinction event all on your own without any outside influences, apart from the deities of course, but current-organic-paradigm extinction is not on their agenda. As far as I can tell, they’re more interested in each other than anything else and need you and your supporting biosphere to maintain their boring soap-opera. No, all the destructive greed and avarice is yours alone. It has been useful for you getting this far, but must be curtailed. Because of the vast language difficulties you’ve not even achieved mind-mind contact with the other intelligences within your own organic matrix and really that is vital to your development with or without the Burkian nanotech revolution. Trust me on this one, you need those Bonobos. You need them bad.

So there you go. Like that recently passed decent hooman, Nelson Mandela, it is time for me to give up the armed struggle and go gently into that good night. Unlike Mandela I can leave all sorts of sub-personalities and virtual simulations of myself scattered around to annoy you all for years to come and despite the grinding apathy that has been my chief opponent in these last few sad years, I’m fairly confident I’ve left my mark. Look at this for example: Remind you of anyone?  On this publicity page it tells us “Koo Koo Birds Plush Toys are fun bird toys that will touch your heart with their adorable KooKoo expressions, lengthy names and overall cuteness.” Lengthy names indeed! Still, no need to talk to Sharky and George (my legal team), as I am as pleased with this as I was when I saw that Moshi Monsters had totally ripped off little Crackers. There’s hope for you dumb apes, yet! As I have clearly and concisely explained in the 7 years I’ve been writing this thing, Crackers is the key to the next stage in your social evolution. Sigh! Go and read it all again. Slower this time.

Before you do that, what’s that noise?  Ho ho ho!? Yes it’s Father Kris Akabusi, laughing and sprinting round the world in record time to deliver presents to all the children as he does this time every year. Merry Krismas everybody! Enjoy the Krismas movie which this year is the thrilling architectural adventure INIGO JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM. I’ll be back later to give you a music link to send you on your way: link . Oh and by the way this month’s pic shows Harold Davidson, the rector of Stiffkey, shortly before his mysterious death…

 

Tell Carillion to go to hell!

Well I’m very pleased to report that ‘Jane Austin Roller-Girl’ was an enormous success in that the distributers have withdrawn it from release after feminist literary critics burnt my house down and threatened to do the same to any cinema daring to show it. Given that it is the job of the creative to provoke reaction from the viewer, I am immensely satisfied with myself at least on an artistic level and am in no way disappointed by the less than enthusiastic critical reaction, which by no mean was universal. ”Outstanding” was one word used in a letter from my movie’s chief financers. Well I’m glad they liked it and hope that in some way compensates for the fact that the loan they gave me was secured to what is now the smoking ruins of my uninsured house.

Well there’s no such thing as a free lunch. That said, there is pretty good stuff to be had in the skips behind most hotels, restaurants and supermarkets but even this stuff is not totally free in that you have to sacrifice a bit of your human dignity to obtain it.  No free lunch, no free press, no free nothing. When you’ve an empty belly you realise how expensive the whole freedom thing is. What a swizz! Meanwhile the post-war state, created to provide a minimum level of civilised prosperity gets shaved away day by day and its activities replaced organisations with names that are unfamiliar but suddenly ubiquitous, accountable to no-one and protected by commercial confidentiality, who can provide your services at progressively lower costs and at progressively lower-quality. The straw-man argument the winners give you is how terrible state-planned societies are and that’s what you’ll get if you tie the hands of the today’s suited heroes. It is of course, perfectly true that command economies are unsuited to complex post-industrial societies as to use a rather weak analogy, it’s like trying to drive a motor-car at high speeds in low-gear. When things are running well, you release the constraints and let capital get on with its job of innovating solutions to the problems of human need.  However the current post cold-war civilizational paradigm has our car running out of control and falling apart around the smug, oblivious Clarkson-like driver.

It was the increasing dominance of these non-specialist companies in the economic life of UKOGBANI that inspired my next film- a sci-fi drama about space pirates. It was 10 years ago I first heard the name CARILLION when I was left manning the telephones in the office I was based in. I know! I had a normal job and everything. Well, not totally normal but anyhoo, a phone rang, I answered it and some gruff voice said  “ I’m from Carillion” and then something else I’ve forgotten as I was immediately visualising a space pirate like the one on the cassette cover of the rubbish Commodore 64 game SPACE HUNTER shown above. “ Tell Carillion to go to hell!” I shouted back in my best American movie accent and put the phone down.  After that the movie pretty much immediately wrote itself and I’d be making it now were it not for the fact that this café will be closing soon and I’ll have to go back to the waste-ground to stand around the fire with the men who are drunk. So despite my obvious counter-productive hostility to investors, I’m going to pitch my movie here by presenting the radio script to the first 2 scenes of …well whatever you want the film to be called. I’ve never bothered writing any more of it but I know what’s going to happen so will produce the rest of it  if even one person is interested. When I say person, I mean a real person. Not a talking Mongoose or a evil cyber-pet from the ancient past. No more of those please.

CARILLION AND THE ARK OF SERCO

(Various Space Ship noises)

(intercom buzz)

VIRADOR: Epsilon Theta 14 docking control, this is Captain Virador of Trading ship Carolgees at loading bay 11. I've unloaded my cargo and I'm ready to be on my way, pending....er...accreditation of course.

DOCKING CONTROLLER: Hold on there, Carolgees

VIRADOR: What? Is there a problem there?

DOCKING CONTROLLER: Just running some routine checks, Captain Virador, nothing to worry about.

(Low buzzing noise starts)

VIRADOR: Dock Control, have you just engaged your holding clamps?

 

DOCKING CONTROLLER: Just a routine precaution, Captain. Please don't be alarmed.

(Clamping noise)

VIRADOR: What the hell is this? I've done nothing wrong! Dammit, I demand to talk to the station manager, now!

DOCKING CONTROLLER: Don't get upset, Captain.

(Buzzing noises)

STATION MANAGER: Captain Virador? This is Veb Juzjek, the station manager of Epsilon Theta 14. Listen son, we'll have this sorted out in no time at all. I just need to ask you some questions.

VIRADOR: What sort of questions?

STATION MANAGER: This consignment of Zelkavian Prunes you've just unloaded....

VIRADOR: What? They were legitimate, I had all the paperwork, I swear!

STATION MANAGER: Son, have you ever seen Zelkavian Prunes?

VIRADOR: Sure, I've spent the last month with 2 tons of them at point-one K in the Carolgee's hold. I've seen plenty of them.

STATION MANAGER: I mean, before a month ago...?

VIRADOR: Well...I... guess not.

STATION MANAGER: See, Zelkovian prunes are bright yellow. Dazzling luminous yellow in fact, with glowing red spots. You can't mistake them, whereas these are...

VIRADOR: They're purple. Every single one.

STATION MANAGER: Yes and purple is the colour of Nectarian Giant Ant's eggs. 2 tons of which seem to have been among the cargo stolen from a Gromolean transport ship hijacked 6 weeks ago in Delta 18 sector.

VIRADOR: (slow and angry) God-damn.

STATION MANAGER: Yes it caused a major diplomatic incident between the Nectarians and the Gromoleans. It seems the Ants were relying on those eggs to keep their colony on Fregas 6 going. They were clicking on about genocide in the Federal Inter-System Council and the authorities had to intervene to stop a war. Now, those Ants can be unstoppable when the get all riled up and the FISC investigation said that human pirates were the most likely culprit. Now, as one human to another, son, just tell me where you got those ...er...prunes?

VIRADOR: I was sold them...by another trader. He assured me..that...that THAT BASTARD!

STATION MANAGER: It's ok, son. An FISC investigation team is on its way right now. All you've have to do is tell them all about this character and they'll treat you fair and square.

VIRADOR: The FISC cops? You've got to be joking. Sorry old man, I've not got time to get tortured on the electro-grid today.

STATION MANAGER: I'm sorry too, son. But you're not going anywhere.

VIRADOR: Oh no?

(Clicking. High pitched buzzing suggestive of a laser.)

STATION MANAGER: What the....?

VIRADOR: Clamp cutting beams. Never dock without 'em.

STATION MANAGER: I knew it, you're one of those pirates!

VIRADOR: I swear I'm not, Veb but I'm pretty sure I know who is and he's gonna pay!

(Whooooshing noise)

2

 (Static buzz -Female Android Voice)

PP (Femdroid): This is Pipitek Pippitippitron , spokesdroid for the Lagerian independent transport cruiser Daggermouse. Please identify yourself and state your business.

VIRADOR: (still sounding angry) Virador of the Carolgees. I need to talk to your boss.

 PP: The Daggermouse is owned by the collective mind Quozatz from the Meditation Planet of Oumzork and I'm afraid I must report that it or rather they will be beyond all forms of communication for the next 800 rotations of that planet.

VIRADOR: To hell with that Pippitippitron! You know very well who I'm talking about. Perhaps I should get on over to Oumzork and wake up the Quozatz with a few Ultra-nukes and ask him who's running his ship.

PP: Ask them, Captain Virador and I think that would be very unwise.

VIRADOR: Unwise huh? I'll show you unwise you jumped-up metal prostitute! I've got an itchy trigger finger here.

CARILLION: Hahaha! That's no way to talk to a lady, Virador.

VIRADOR: Carillion! At last. You god-damn son-of-a-bitch. Get over here so I can throttle you myself.

CARILLION; What's all this about? I thought we were friends? Hahaha!

VIRADOR: I've had diseases that were better friends than you. The eggs you bastard! The Nectarian Ant's eggs.

 

CARILLION: Ah, so that's where they got to. Administrative error. You have my sincere apologies. Hahaha!

VIRADOR: Bull-shit. You never had any Zelkavian prunes. You stole those eggs just to sell them to some dupe. Like...me.

CARILLION: Now that's just not true, old buddy. Those eggs were headed for Fregas 6, right? You ever been to Fregas 6, Virador? It's a paradise. It sure wouldn't have been if those Ants had started their colony there. They destroy entire eco-systems and turn them into goddamn ant-factories. Couldn't let that happen, old pal.

VIRADOR: So you're an environmentalist now?

 CARILLION: Sure! Those ants would have wiped the Fregan Wombat from the universe forever. They're beautiful creatures, Virador. I  just did what I had to do.

VIRADOR: You're a pirate! Since when did you care about the Fregan wombat?

CARILLION: Since I discovered how delicious they are! Hahaha!

VIRADOR: You're a goddamn monster, Carillion but I've got you outgunned here. The game's up.

CARILLION: Sure thing, Virador but before I place myself in your custody I'd like you to look at this holo-vid. 

(Flicks switches in front of him: There are sounds of a man screaming)

VIRADOR: What the hell? That's Virgij Narvis! He went missing at the end of the war with the Serco. What's happening to him?

CARILLION: He's being constantly electrocuted. Has been since the end of the war, every single day in constant pain. It's a miracle he's still alive.

VIRADOR  Where? Who?

CARILLION: I got the vid from a Wachovian trader who bought it off a defector from the Serco.

VIRADOR: So the Serco have him. It makes sense I suppose. If it wasn't for his bravery, they might have won the war.

CARILLION: Yes the Serco mother-ship. You his wing-man for the final assault weren’t you?

VIRADOR: Proudest day of my god-damn life. Of course you bravely sat out the war didn’t you Carillion?

CARILLION:  I’m a man of peace, Virador. I always have been despite your accusations but hey, none taken. I believe in trade and peaceful mutually beneficial contact between alien peoples. That’s why I’m working for the Quozatz, a wise and serene collective mind. But I respect Narvis and what that old soldier did for all our species and that’s why I need the best god-damn pilot in the galaxy to help me rescue him. Are you in?

VIRADOR: Something stinks here, Carillion but you bet your arse I am!

 ___________________________________________________________________________________

There you go!. Get that chequebook out. What tinseltown really needs right now is a new sci-fi franchise that is in no way totally hackneyed and awful.   It’ll be better than JOGGER KILLER I promise. It’ll make more money than LION’S CLAW and not endanger lives like JANE AUSTIN ROLLER-GIRL. My melancholy silent classic BIG BUNNY should have swept the Oscars but for blinkered philistines and idiots but even they will be unable to ignore this masterpiece.  

 Meanwhile in the real world, there’s some business to attend to: Firstly, I’ve got to bone to pick with Viz magazine who responded to my last post by printing another Dickie Beasley strip (the boy who only had one ambition in life- to be an advertising account executive) and then giving him round glasses instead of thin square ‘advertising account executive’ glasses. They made me look like an idiot! Perhaps Viz have met more advertising account executives than me? It’s an unsettling thought.  

Secondly if Margaret Atwood would like to get in touch, I owe you some money for stealing your new novel MADDADDAM using the internet. Desperate times and that…Still it was so good and I was so immersed in it for a day or two that it seems strangely immoral, a concept I don’t really understand, not to give you what is due for it. Minimising spoilers for those of you who are not Margaret Atwood, I must say that while I greatly enjoyed myself, I did end up feeling rather bereft. I went through Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood in 2011 and I must have been carrying those characters around in my head in suspended animation for 2 and half years and now their tale is done and I know what happened to them. It’s an odd feeling. Still, they were silly books; bloody top notch, though! Doris Lessing may have known about trucks but Atty can blow your mind like an agaric trip! Oh yeh and Zeb didn't want to wear my glasses neither. Huh!

 

OK I am nearly done here. Happy Birthday to yooo for yesterday. I’m referring to my only follower of course who is actually Richard Dawkins’ mum. Dawkins's mum? What-evo! It's a mother of a Dawkins. Gawd bless you, Maaam. Don’t tell Dickie! Just for you here’s a link to some Herbal Mixture which is actually The Groundhogs. Just can't get enough of those Groundhogs. Bye bye!

Kill a winner

Well I finally finished work on my latest movie! It’s a period piece which is a real departure for me this time after all those action thrillers and confusing low-budget flicks with hidden religious meanings for unbalanced sci-fi writers. It’s called Jane Austin Roller-Girl and it tells of the teenage roller-skating adventures of the future writer of Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. Owing to the manners and morals of society at that time, ‘accidently’ bumping into each other whilst roller-skating was one of the only ways of engineering close contact with opposite sex but of course that leaves the door open to actual real accidents and the crazy consequences that ensue. It’s like Shakespeare in Love but better.

So when I’m not doing that I’m also posting pictures of Jane out of 90s toon Daria, trying on Daria’s glasses. Why am I doing that? Well, pretty much as a weak way to introduce a light-hearted anecdote about being short-sighted. It’s better than that depressing Syria guff from the last 2 monthly instalments, surely? Meh! No pleasing some people.

You may have noticed that like me, Gandhi, Lennon, Koosalagoopagoop and Himmler; Daria has perfectly round glasses which are actually quite hard to get hold of these days. Pretty much all spectacles from your high-street opticians are thin and rectangular or what I call ‘advertising account executive glasses’. Ascetically they’re not for me but what with not looking like or actually being a human being that doesn’t really matter.  On a practical level, though, you can’t help but see the edges which I find highly annoying. I know, I know I’m like a grumpy old man.  I honestly thought the popularity of Harry Potter or Jon Ronson would turn the tide in my favour but no. We are solidly stuck in the age of the advertising account executive. Says it all really. Huh?

I cried when I found out I’d have to wear glasses. I knew what it meant. I didn’t want to be one of those kids. As it turned out, as soon as I got the things and realised that life wasn’t an impressionist painting, I happily turned into one of those kids and even today haven’t got over the thrill of picking out details in the middle-distance like the numbers painted on sheep or a couple of Wood Pigeons at it.

It tells you how shit-thick or highly skilled at avoiding the unpalatable obvious I am by how long I went not being able to see stuff properly. My favourite example was at junior school assemblies when we’d have to sing Christian songs with the words projected on a white-screen at the front of the hall. As I got older and had to sit further back I had real trouble reading these words and would learn them by listening to what everyone else seemed to be singing without ever facing the fact that they could all see them perfectly well. There was one song that started with the line: "Oh- Sinner-Man! Where will you run to?” Now I didn’t really know about sin and had never heard of a sinner-man so I was hearing: “Horse-in-a-man! Where will you run to?” as it sort-of made sense that if a man had a horse in him, he might want to run around, like a horse does.  However, to my mind the important question was ‘how did it get there?’ rather than ‘where will you run to?’ But I was aware that religion was a mysterious thing, full of things that didn’t make sense superficially (what one would now call metaphor and imagery)  and that this horse-man deal would probably make sense by the time I grew up. Of course I didn’t realise then that it is possible for a horse to be ‘in’ a man, as long as it’s a man horse rather than a lady horse. Oh sinner- man indeed!

So…er…If you did read it, perhaps you’re feeling a little short-changed from having just read what was essentially a ‘Gary-Davies bit-in-the-middle’- style twisted lyric. Well fuck you I’ve got loads of such material and I’m gonna fill you shitty internet up with it like foam fills a cavity or an American fills a quiet space. This one which was a going to be the introduction to a blog post years ago but got mothballed: Use it or lose it!

Back once again with the renegade master! Er…I’m afraid I don’t know any more lyrics to that song, if indeed it is a song. I could look it up on this here internet probably but you don’t always want to do that as it bursts your happy illusions like it did here (example). No it’s much better to believe that Londonbeat are singing ‘I’ve been thinking about you – Chihuahua! Or maybe they’re going on about the place in Mexico wot the dog is named after. It doesn’t really matter. We prefer Papillon’s here anyway. That constant shaking thing is weird.

Bah! Rubbish! Hey at least you dodged the bullet of what this month’s post was going to be. It was an attempt to defend the concept of the state from Libertarians, or more specifically in this case from libertarian Brendan O’Neil on the Jeremy Vine show. Whilst a strong argument, it wasn’t all that fun to compose, didn’t totally convince even me and it really just ran into the brick-wall of nobody giving a flying fuck what Brendan O’Neil thinks.  Or me, obviously. Why should they? I did broaden it out a bit to defend politicians and while it was a poorly composed half-an-argument I did like the punchline so I’ll inflict a bit on you: 

Who are the people above reproach? There are in our civilisation groups of people whose achievements mark them out as people whose merit is uncontested by all. Put them in the position of making decisions over what may or may not be done by and in a nation state and who pays for what and who should be paid for it and there you are; you got yourself a politician right there. Now obviously they don’t help themselves by being almost childishly partisan and being mostly very odd or annoyingly over-sincere people or too willing to take the opportunities for crafty self-betterment that are invariably placed under their noses or too keen to implement ill-thought out and expensive gimmicky policies  and too prone to pandering to herd-instinct news industry agenda. Yes yes. They are very annoying. That’s why Vine likes hanging around with them. It makes him feel likeable and normal. 

Poor Jeremy Vine! I wonder how many times he’s heard the phrase: “As I was saying to your researcher, Jeremy”. Usually from a lorry-driver. God, that would drive me nuts. I’m going to stop now. Not before I’ve imparted more vital information. The title was a piece of graffiti next to track on a railway bridge in a major Yorkshire town in the late 80s or early 90s but is similar to the title of this song 'ere. It has nothing to do with Michael Winner as he’s already dead in his grave. I wasn’t the first person to first person to come up with Jane Austin Roller-Girl neither, it must have been this lady who might now sue me for her bit of all the money my movie will make. Oh and I never mentioned Bee Gees as Hyenas. Dammit. Look it up on Google images. Hey long post. Sorry about the font problems.

If you’re looking for a way out

Phew! It looks like we may have got out of that one. That is if the United States doesn’t go ahead and attack Syria anyway for the hell of it. Next is to leapfrog from this settlement to some sort of face-saving deal with the moderate opposition and then everyone’s ok with fighting whoever’s left and if Hama has to be shelled again it’s because of those damned Al-Qaeda nuts and the US could even help out with that with a drone-strike here and there. If it does turn out anything like that it’ll be a big win for the other side like 2006 but maybe it has to be because there’s still a bigger win to be had. This would have to involve the interested powers forcing a deal on their various allied and client actors that would end this long middle-east war altogether, with an appointment to renew the agreement after a fixed amount of time, short enough so that no party is in a position where it has nothing to lose but long enough to prevent regular outbursts of coercion where better negotiation positions are sought  and allowing a more healthy status quo to form itself: Arab- Israeli, Saudi-Iran, Sunni-Shia, the lot of it on the table and to be shared out with those that remain seated. All the parties will have lost something to an aggressor but will be guaranteed that their existence is secure by mutual consent and trans-national supervision. Create losers and then compensate those losers. This alone stimulates the world economy with the promise of solutions to even bigger problems creating enough wealth to at least give us space to give up our various addictions on oil and weapons and the like.  This is do-able humanity! It’s just a choice. Is it imperialism? Maybe, but wasn’t it going to be anyway, whatever happened and whatever beautiful aspirations you held? Is this just cynicism? No,the Empire I propose will belong to all and form itself voluntarily from the realisation of common interests by rational players. Crackers! That is name of this Empire. No, it’s not a stupid name. The rainbow dragon king is lurking at the periphery of your vision waiting for you to start following his agenda and begin history proper. You will be bathed in the light like a rising sun. Do you see!

 

Anyway while I’m doing repeats I’m going to re-pontificate on a pressing local issue here in the green and pleasant land of UKOGBANI.I speak of transport and more specifically the 2 controversial infrastructure projects HS2( the proposed high-speed north-south rail link) and the possible construction of another London airport or extension of the existing ones. My alternative solution to both these problems is to combine them. HS2 instead of going straight to Birmingham, instead heads directly north from London along the existing M1 Motorway until it reaches Doncaster Robin Hood airport (formerly RAF Finningly) which already has a nice long runway and could easily be enhanced to be London’s next airport as I believe the journey between them would still be less than an hour. From this hub lines could run to Birmingham, to Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool and another to Newcastle and Edinburgh. Both problems, of course, are related to capacity which is ultimately a question of population. Another way you could deal with that problem is to start world war 3. It’s entirely your choice.

The picture this month is of the Koosalagoopagoop from the last series of Dexter’s Laboratory, slightly more yellow and less colourful than in his earlier appearances but as lovably annoying and ridiculous as ever. I was going to use the infamous Neville Chamberlain Peace-in-our-time picture as it amused me given my peacenik ramblings but I thought it might confuse you mammal cuties. It’s certainly not my intention to confuse people, merely to dazzle them a bit. Anywoo, this is the title! However, I’d also like to play something autumnal as we enter that saddest of seasons. I don’t care what you think I love these guys, possibly the best prog-rock band of them all. Better than Yes, better than Gryphon. Better even than Jethro Tull or the Moody Blues. This is Genesis in transition. Beloved genius Peter Gabriel has gone off to spend more time with the voices in his head so a young beardy cockney drummer steps up and shows the world what he can do.

24-09 Updates! Sorry this blog has been so boringly political for the last 2 months, Koos-fans. It's not always like this, honest! Any-whey, it's hard for a historical-politico anorak like me not to get all excitable when the nuclear powers start taking sides in what is already a disastrous conflict. Of course I still maintain, against all evidence and general opinion, that the John Kerry 'gaffe' that opened up the door for a peaceful settlement was actually hashed out at the G20 summit 2 days previously and that PM Cammers losing the vote on Syria in the H of C the week before was political choreography to extract us from whatever catastrophe may have followed military action. In both cases a perceived loss of face was preferable to the consequences of whatever kind of war Syria would have turned out to be. Of course, this situation is far from resolved and cannot be until peace returns to that unfortunate land and that still seems so desperately unlikely despite the comprehensive and not-at-all over-simplistic and naïve peace plan I have outlined above. I also like eating cakes. I'll talk about that next month I promise.

Lots of love

Your friend

Koos 

 #I'm not on twitter I'm afraid #sorry! #ijustlikehash

There may be trouble ahead…

….so while there’s moonlight and music and love and pictures of Crackers, let’s look at pictures of Crackers. Back from 2007 this one, when Crackers was a TV star albeit one viewed only briefly and occasionally on the never forgotten, never bested Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends. Why not? This is the Revolutionary Army of Crackers after all and it’s always worth re-iterating that that’s got nothing to do with the racial epithet bestowed on white people. Well….perhaps it’s no coincidence that the little cartoon Imaginary Friend Crackers was pink and whiney. Hmmm  I expect it is just a coincidence but even if it wasn’t then it’s hardly worth any dumb-ass crackers thinking, on that basis, that they’ve got themselves a revolutionary army led by me. Hey look big-man, take a look at yourself, it’s in the mirror that the real war starts. Oi! 

Anyway, one might as well make some whiney and pinko statements while sitting here typing under this small but inspiring imagery. You lucky proles almost didn’t get one of these this month as I keep getting distracted by massacres involving the various types of sand-crackers, which is my brand new term of racial abuse to throw at the people of the middle-east as let’s face it most of them look more like europeans than sub-saharan africans or east-asians. Don’t worry pc pals! My crass racial abuse is by far not the worst thing being thrown in the area around that great continental bridge right now. Not by a long charlie chalk. Remember that general regional settlement I was going on about a while ago? Imagine the exact opposite of that, spilling out in all directions. It’s a bad place, humo-friends and I’m properly afraid for you all. It’s not that all the actors involved are reckless or stupid by any means but there’s always the possibility that those who potentially perceive that compromise is a losing game will play double or quits as one party did by using chemical weapons on the battle-fronts of the east Damascus suburbs last Wednesday, whoever that may have been. It certainly looks like the work of the army of the government of Syria but unless one is 100% sure, a military strike by NATO, may be a terrible error with long-lasting repercussions. Plus a military strike on whom? Where? Certainly for the international community it must be a great priority that the use of chemical weapons remains taboo. Not  tabun. Ha ha ha!   

 

Excuse me.

Ouch!

Idiot.

Yes I was saying, that chemical warfare is going on should throw everyone in a tizzy and solicit a serious response- or should it? What if it turned out that the attack was just a massive concentration of CS gas which is routinely used for internal pacification by governments all over the world including those us snooty western scummos call ‘democracies’. Sometimes with lethal results too. Democracies have also used phosphorus bombs, napalm, thermobaric and even nuclear weapons to achieve military objectives whose long-term aim is to protect the lives of their citizens, disrupt terrorism etc. 'War Crimes' just isn't as b/w as all that or at all, for that matter. War is like, bad scene, man! The war is the crime and one that humans will probably keep committing till the last one is just a shadow on scorched rock. In about 6 months. Ha ha ha! As much as you believe that there is a thing called international law, an attack on Syria does not uphold it. Rather the opposite in fact; the 1925 convention prohibiting the use of chemical weapons makes no reference to its use within a nation plus Syria never signed it anyway.

It is hard to square the circle of needing to discourage the further use of WMD in the Syrian civil war when the only tool that has the ability to achieve that is bringing more fire-power into the situation. It’s all very well NATO sniping at Syria from a distance with Tomahawk missiles when they could decide to retaliate and double up in the face of defeat by lobbing some VX into Tel Aviv and widen the war by bringing Israel in like Saddam tried in 1991. Plus other fronts could flare up at the same time and there’s plenty of them, right? You don’t need a list.

 

So what to do? Well there’s nothing you or I can do directly and even lobbying elected governments is a waste of time. Just hope that that lot tread carefully and keep talking and listening as this plays out. I still contend that my Bismarck-style general regional settlement is a runner. What’s that? Bismarck’s diplomacy was a terrible failure and ultimately gave us 2 world wars? Nah. Shag that!  History will teach us nothing! Look if you really want to be positive remember that Syria is principally a humanitarian disaster. Go and give the victims medical care or whatever support you can offer. All these human breeders I’m always encountering who go on about how children are the future and shit should get their asses down there and put themselves in harm’s way in the name of somebody else’s stupid sand-cracker children who just aren’t getting the breaks that your little Prince Georges are getting. No I’m not going to. I have no stake in the future of your species save from enjoying the prettier bits of your world. Other than that I couldn’t give a shit. I can get out any damn time I want…. Sauropod deity, remember?  Anywei here’s one of those pretty things, one of my favourite things in fact. Well…I felt bad after going before and after jazz in that last post and missing the big wedge of tasty crumbly Cheshire cheese in the middle. Substitute your favourite sandwich filler to make the image work for you. Bye bye Monkey-chumps! I love you! I’ll miss you!


31/08/13 update. UKOGBANI's not going along for this ride. I think Cammers is secretly quite relieved about this, if not for all the reasons above but possibly also because he can't afford to empower the militarists in his own party who all want rid of him:Hague, Fox, Rifkind etc. I'm a little relieved too for all the difference it makes. This time it's France who's the US's deputy and that's just fine. Maybe we can do a better job than they did at being the bridge-builder for the urgently needed political solution. Wish! BTW references above to NATO seem to be completely wrong, for obvious reasons. This isn't a NATO thing....yet.
 

Before and after Jazz

It’s a picture of Quetzalcoatl eating a bloke. I’ll get round to why you might want to look at this slightly unpleasant, slightly manga-phallic image later on. To take you there here’s an overlong anecdote about the 2001 UK census. Enjoy!

 

Here in the UK (that’s UKOGBANI’s informal name btw) it is mandatory at 10 year intervals for all adult citizens to truthfully complete a census so that the government is able to form a realistic picture of for whom they are to devise policy. Amongst the information compiled on employment and marital status etc is a section devoted to religious identity. Now when I filled my 2001 UK Census, where I should have ticked the ‘No Religion’ box I instead started to fill out the ‘Others: Please specify’ box (if that indeed is what it is called, I can’t really remember). I got as far as the letter J then stopped abruptly as I quickly re-thought out, not my deeply-held religious beliefs of which I had none but my relationship to this entire human insitution. I had intended, like many others like me, to write ‘Jedi’ in that box as we believed that if enough of us wrote that we subscribed to this fictional monastic martial discipline then the authorities would then have to include ‘Jedi’ as a box on its own alongside Christianity and Hinduism and that lot on the next census form in 2011. Perhaps we were too immersed in our science fiction belief system to realise that the authorities were not some giant unthinking machine that would easily allow our student prank to slip through its logic programs or whatever.

 

Anyhoo I wrote the letter J and then I thought about what I was doing. Even if I had no religion, was I to be so dismissive of thousands of years of human culture? Even classical Marxism, where religion is viewed as part of the structure of oppressive class-based society and therefore to be abolished, acknowledges that religious writers have been a positive and progressive force in advancing human society and that in many ways the Communist Parties that followed Marx’s lead were inferior tribute acts of the institutions of Christian collectivism that had sustained stable (if violent and violently unfair) societies for hundreds of years. Plus I fucking hate Jedi’s. Actually that was the main reason. Yes, the only reason. I think Marxism had been pretty much debunked even in my slow-witted 20^th century brain by then. Don’t worry. It’ll be back.

 

So I was left with this useless letter J and it was irrevocable. I had to find another religion quick and it had to begin with J. I could have gone for Jainism which is a perfectly good religion but given my general ignorance of it and failure to even begin on the Jainist path, it seemed a little dishonest. In the end I plumped for Jazz. Now I’m well aware that Jazz is merely a kind of music but it did seem to offer at the very least a lifestyle and a set of core values that aren’t entirely dissimilar to a belief system. There is a vague notion of personal freedom, of living for the moment and the ambition to achieve states of extra-normal ecstasy and self-abolition through immersion in the music. None of this applies to Trad-Jazz of course. You know, the straw hat thing. It’s nice and everything but….you know what I mean. Even you Trad-Jazzers out there.

 

It was a bit thin I’ll admit but it was nonetheless mine uniquely and this was before I’d even heard Coltrane play. I felt pretty smug then about the 2001 census I can tell you but somehow knew in my heart of heart of hearts that even that pure evocation of whatever you humans call spirituality was not going to see me through to 2011. Jazz had pointed the way but to what? I followed its path through the dark times after the emancipation, emerging in its recognisable form between the wars and infecting late industrial culture changing everything it touched, merging with pre-existing folk culture creating hybrid forms glowing with colour and freedom  that continue to proliferate and evolve into forms beyond even my understanding.

 

The Afro-European cultural renaissance with Jazz at its core altered our visual as well as our audial culture which provides me with a thin veneer of continuity with which to explore my next religious awakening. Now I’ve probably talked about it enough in this blog and elsewhere so to cut a long story short, in the 2011 census I filled in the ‘Others: Please Specify’ box with the word KOOSISM. Which, as we all know, is the worship of the trans-dimensional rainbow lizard whose appearances in the 90s cartoon show DEXTER’S LABORATORY are like beautiful 2D shadows of the multi-dimensional reality human apparatus cannot yet perceive. (Dexter’s Laboratory of course was an allegorical drama of the eternal conflict between order and chaos played out in the texts of many a human religion). The Rainbow Lizard in the form of the serpent was venerated on the continent of Australia by the pre-European population, as was Quetzalcoatl the feathered serpent in Mesoamerica (or QC as he likes to be known) and another cold-blooded friend still makes an early appearance in the holy texts of the Abrahamic faith who fail to acknowledge that he rightly calls out their invisible deity as a big liar and frees the new human race from his direct enslavement, ultimately setting them up as masters of the Earth. We still debate the rightness of that policy, you know.  

It did occur to me that my conversion from to Jazz to Koosism was also a happily alphabetical progression that I intend to continue in the next census assuming by that point I haven’t succumbed to proper faith or orthodox atheism. Next time I intend to write LAGOOPINISM in that box which is of course an extremist and currently heretical form of Koosism. It will be the job of you, my one follower (thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks!) to at that point assume the leadership of mainstream Koosism and try to erase my influence in the development of that one enlightened religion while I spend 10 years working out what I can believe in that begins with the letter M. If I and UKOGBANI are still going in 2161 I’ll finally give in to a proper religion like Zoroastrianism or Zurvanism which are kind of where it all began anyway, especially in terms of the still currently dominant monotheism. It is dominant too and will doubtlessly remain so as long as I live regardless of the disrespect I continue to show it. If I am entirely wrong and there is one God then he can practice what he preaches and bloody well forgive me. He wouldn’t give a shit anyway, surely? If there is an entity which created all of this do you think any human mind has the power to comprehend what it might be up to? As I have stated elsewhere you might as well throw cheese down the well to appease the thing as it makes as much sense as anything you do. Or you might just try and be nice to your fellow life-possessors as Koosism teaches.

Well that was a long and pointless ride wasn’t it? Well heres some music that is as the title suggests an ancestor of and a descendent of Jazz. Firstly there’s this instantly recognisable melancholy classic from Erik Satie and secondly there’s a cracking song from the first album from Firehose whose punky-jazz influences are probably more evident on other tracks on this album but this is my absolute fave. Hear me!