Sinister: love and death

[ian]

(another disclaimer - i have been touched by lindsay baker's posts this
week.  none of the following is meant to trivialise what you've been
through, love.  i can't offer any words of wisdom or advice, but if virtual
hugs can help, let me know.  i've got a few packets of them around here
somewhere)


------------------------------------


Dear Sinister,

Why oh why oh why was a perfectly good evening's reading spoilt by
gratuitous references to unsanitary parts of the human anatome, in
particular those with connection to 'the sexual act'?
Imagine my shock when, on settling down for a quiet evening's family
entertainment, I am faced with multiple penii and references to homosexual
behaviour which I can only describe as grossly indecent.  I urge those in
charge to put a stop to this deplorable situation immediately.  I have made
complaints, in writing, to the relevant authorities.

Yours
Concerned of Wolverhampton ------


---- Mary Whitehouse died yesterday.  Or perhaps it was friday.  The weekend
has turned into that pleasingly amorphous yet never-quite-big-enough entity
known as "the bleurghurhguhgh period".  so i'm not quite sure when the
poisonous old cow was flung from the face of the earth into whatever
festering cess-pit deserves her.  but she's dead.  that much i know, cos huw
evans* wouldn't lie about such a thing.

to many of you, this clearly meant nothing.  it certainly has no b&s
relevance.
but i feel it deserves comment and so i find myself writing another
sinister-obituary.

mary whitehouse was perhaps the most famous "family rights" campaigner this
country has ever seen.  she was a great friend of margaret thatcher, and
enoch powell and she fought a life-long battle to defend the viewpoint
such political luminaries espoused, tackling any media unfortunate enough to
suffer her blue-rinsed blows.

highly politically influential, especially during the 1980s, she brought
various injunctions against broadcasters and publishers for the "filth" they
peddalled.
the most infamous of these was her successful prosecution of the Gay Times
for printing a poem in which a roman centurion fantasised about having sex
with jesus, this being the only successful prosecution under the UK
blasphemy laws ever brought.
the editor of the publication in question received a fine and a nine-month
suspended sentence and society got the message that gay behaviour was,
officially, "obscene" -  a court had said as much.  and a few more teenagers
struggling with growing up gay overdosed, but nobody really cared.

and now, she's dead.  forgive me for this, but it seems like a highly
overdue dose of capital punishment.  but i've never believed in that.
(i believe in peace- (bitch)).
i thought i'd be glad to see her shuffle off this mortal coil (why is it
called a coil?  should we update and call it a mortal condom?  or a
diaphragm?).  as it is, i'm suprised - pleasantly - that i don't feel happy
at her death.  i just wish she'd never lived.

can the world ever be better off for not having someone in it?  in my better
moments i like to feel like everyone has something to contribute.  but what
if that contribution is to bully, restrict, and spread hatred?  what if
enoch powell had never lived?  would we be a happier world?  or was there
something he did, just once, that was worthwhile?


was their contribution to provide something so extreme, and hateful, that it
gave people something to rail against?
---------------------------------------

nearly done with that subject, you'll be pleased to know.
L7's "pretend we're dead" is playing in the background and it seems
appropriate.  i wonder if that's what the likes of thatcher, powell and
whitehouse wanted.  a nation of "individuals", looking after themselves, and
nobody else, thinking regulated thoughts, living ordinary lives, and
staggering towards their graves looking forward only to the sleep they
hopedeath
will bring.
sometimes i look around me, and feel like one of those zombies.  so i try to
escape the undead state.  i've found some fine cures for it, too.  notably
love, laughter, and music.

music is a fine escape.  our undead generation, and perhaps a few of those
before us, find some life in the words of a certain scottish band.  or
perhaps a big english band, or perhaps a big american band.  if it makes you
feel alive, it doesn't really matter.  just a momentary connection with
life-the only thing bigger than death-is all it takes.  because it is when
you connect that you're feeling life, rather than just living it.

i saw a scene from "the seventh seal" last night on channel 4's 100 greatest
movies, death appears to a man on a beach.  the man says i know you, you've
always walked beside me.  and i think its true.  death will always be there,
offering his embrace.  he comes in colours.  black - comforting and warm;
white - terrifying and painful; red - instant and unexpected.  but the thing
to do is reject that embrace.  because, sooner of later, you won't be able
to escape it.  and he may never let you go.

and, one way to escape it in your waking hours, believe it or not, is belle
and sebastian (phew! got in a reference).
in fact, this list combines love,laughter and music, so perhaps its the
ideal synthesis of all three (can a synthesis have three things in it?  i'm
not sure) : sarah clarke thinking what question she'd like to ask belle and
sebastian, and concluding they'd probably give a boring answer, and making
her own
up, richard gillanders talking about singing "sexy eyes" to a woman with
only one, kirsten kenyon talking about -well, let's face it, she could
probably talk about watching concrete set and it would be interesting -

all of this recalls me to life.  and i thank you for it.

i wanted to go over what you've all said this week, but i think i should go
now.  as the buddha once said:

"piss, shit, wank, fuck, arse".

oh no, sorry, that was me.

ian

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tomorrow will bring happiness
Or at least, another day

Phil Ochs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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