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Stockholm Syndrome
02:29
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"Bomb 'em all!" she says, "I don't really care," as she pushes her dirty mop and flips her dirty blond hair. And across the ocean, through desperation thick enough to cut with a knife, her heart beats in time with suicide bombs - a multi-level, symptomatic strife. And I'm still amazed by this system's sick propensity to marshal its victims in support of its policies. Slashing our own tires while professional liars throw gas on the fire and cash checks signed by empire. And the laughter from the convention center is at you, not with you. You're not invited to the Party's after-party, now that they have us exactly w here they want us: stuck in line, waving signs against our own best interests.
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We are pioneers in the science of bending our knees. We are on the verge of a breakthrough in the geometry involved in bowing our heads. And this sadness is just mechanical failure, just a cascading mathematical error. Everything we need to live is conditional upon these things that kill us. Cash registers close on our fingers while these four walls keep closing closer and closer. Every working day, we're extras in this shitty play, and at this point I think we all deserve a Tony. Cause if you knew the depth of my antipathy, there's no fucking way in hell you would have ever hired me. It might not look like much right now but while you're counting up the register we're drawing the blueprints for a better world - not based on bullying and maybe not so boring - in stolen moments, on the backs of old receipts.
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3. |
The New Synthesis
02:05
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Your dialectic of defeat is a space populated by some of the oldest 21-year-olds I know. But your cigarettes can't smoke it out of me, and 8 years of work haven't choked it out of me. And the wisest, most jaded group of scenesters assembled in the most comfortable bar means nothing compared to the expression of incipient analysis on a 15-year-old face. Circle pit beats drink-and-sit. We need a new synthesis: experience plus energy, by the kids/for the kids, both literal and internal. I'll take this cliche over your decay any day. Boil it down to independence and communication without pretense. The day I graduate from that is the day I slit my wrists. Since when did we aspire to turn into our parents?
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What the hell is this (besides ridiculous?) When did we go from Peter Pan to Lord Of The Flies? From dodging fists and spitwads from the cool kids' table to reproducing the order we claim to despise, but seem to have internalized? No ideas, just standard aesthetic essentials. This scene's become totally self-referential. We brought the noize but we forgot the perspective at home underneath a pile of records and clothes. Hanging out at the starting line, still pushing the message of a spent medium. Egos and rivalries like you'd find in an 11th-grade boys' locker room. When will this treadmill snap and throw us on our ass? This record's been skipping for 20 years now. I think the needle's stuck, can someone pull the plug? I can't reach it from where I am. We're starved for food we can't get in frigid corporate climates. This scene could be a giant all-inviting potluck banquet. Why can't we crack the dress code and get these shows on the road from being a tattooed white elephant to real relevance?
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"We sat waiting for the bombs to drop on battened-down basements and boarded up shops. The richest 1% smelled no-bid contracts in the air, while the rest of you just waved your fucking flags. The desert sun was hot that day but not as hot as the burning oil wells and burning hatred in our hearts." Who the fuck are we to sit and leisurely debate their doom from the air-conditioned comfort of a living room? And the images that make it through the filters clearly implicate our policies killers, while pro-war businessmen and fratboys feel a pressing need to pick up signs and add insult to injury. But they might as well be advocating gravity. And in the wings of the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital there is, to the best of my knowledge, no Iraqi burn ward. And I want to kick the teeth out of the smug, shit-eating grins, and I wish I believed in a hell for death-dealing liars to burn in.
The embedded reporters didn't think the embedded shrapnel in an 8-year-old girl's spine was news fit to print. I'm so fucking tired of sage proclamations from comfortable offices; profitable bloodbaths sanitized and tied with bullshit tourniquets. On top of this 500-year-old mountain of bodies and rubble the stench is choking me and the thin air makes it hard to breathe. But people's bodies weren't the only thing that broke when the bombs began to fall; emerging from the smoke came the final coffin-nails in the credibility of La-Z-Boy patriots and poli-sci grad students; cheerleaders for power and privilege. But I'm fucking terrified because if what goes around really comes around then we are all legitimate military targets - you and me, your mom and dad, your pets. And those orphans aren't going to forget who paid for and cheered their parents' deaths.
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