I *am* that blackbird

I reckon about three or four of the people who read this (so, a good third) will know this already, but the title of this blog comes from the letters pages of a comic: what used to be X-Force and is now X-Statix (I can't find a good link for an overview of the series, which surprises me - fuck it, go to Barbelith and do a search in the Comics forum for discussions of individual issues). Anyway, objecting to the new direction a formerly mindless action/superhero title had taken under new writer Peter Milligan, a whole heap of disturbed fanboys with obvious severe sexual problems wrote in to express their disapproval, and one of the most amusing used the phrase "the new hip-hop, political correctness trend" to describe everything they thought was wrong it.

I fell in love with those words, instantly.

It's just so surreal - hip-hop is part of political correctness, right, because those rappers are totally *in on it* with the feminists and the lefties and the homosexualists... see? Actually, what it really reveals is the mindset of the author: you have gay *and* black characters in your comic, how excessive! In short, it's a phrase that while being entirely self-contradicting conveys its point very well: you know *exactly* what the guy means. Oh yes.

(That reminds me: next blog entry, I should talk about Jennie One. And Rudy Giulianni, and David Blunkett.)

The point of this story: I'm just obsessed with phrases that are supposed to be insults but end up, to my ears, sounding like something really fucking cool. Maybe this is cos I'm into language, and specifically the reclamation of denigrating language, and why it's such a commonplace and powerful strategy, and how it can be done in new ways.

Great new example below - I like it so much, I begin to think it must be parody:

"all of you stupid ass baby bringing bottle drinkin dirty ass diaper having expensive beer drinkin,TALKING SHIT on the computer havin, academic ass makin up rumors about people, playing dominos on the internet ass, have ever KRS poster on your wall ass, wrote to bikini kill when you were 12 ass, vegan ass psuedo political, live in el paso texas ass whiny ass bitches need to shut up."

Courtesy of the message board on the Gravy Train website. I mean, c'mon: "have ever KRS poster on your wall ass, wrote to bikini kill when you were 12 ass"? I wish.

(Except KRS-One ain't that great, but close enough.)

play with your mind but won't do the dishes

I blame this all-too-accurate take on pseudo-feminist indie boys totally for Kathleen Hanna showing up in a dream I had last night. Yeah, so it's kinda fly that so far the list of celebrities who've turned up in my dreams is a great one if you limit it to music - B.I.G., the RZA, Beth Orton (don't hate on Beth just because she ain't Cat Power, that's mean). Admittedly there was that one with Vin Diesel but at least in that the whole *point* was that he was a bit of an imbecile.

But anyway, the funny thing about this dream was that it was all META, man - in it, I was sheepishly describing the very blog/diary entry listed above, and confessing to my own f.i.b. / groupie status, whilst at the same time my subconscious was clearly pandering to the same. Wooh.

(Any details will have to be disclosed in the presence of alcohol, but let's just say I'm kinda impressed that even my id thinks that making your own clothes is cool. Go, id.)

I can find nothing to disagree with in this review of Comet Gain's Réalistes. That album's sitting in my discman right now, and it really is a record that makes me want to use the term 'indie' in a non-pejorative sense again. And you should know how difficult a task that is. Current faves: 'Labour', and the title track, which is going on any mixtape I make in the next year.

"Are you alive to love? Do you like to dance? Can you clap your hands? Does feedback thrill you like a touch to the thigh?"

Say yes.

by numbers hypocrisy

The Evening Double Standard want to ban Tatu, because two young girls kissing is obviously sick paedo-porn. They helpfully illustrate their point with a photo of the two young girls in question. Kissing.

Also:



Both of these via Pop Justice.

You couldn't make it up.