UNDERCULTURE

Good
I didn’t get to the PE Report on Friday. Sorry. I guess that my mind was firmly focused on Robert’s kick-ass birthday party on Saturday. Holy Shit, what a fun time and what great food (all thanks to Imagination Food). I am beginning to sober up now. It’s all good.

Bad
The phrase “I’ll be there like a bear” never really bothered me until recently. Maybe it’s just me, but I take offense with people just showing up, shitting in my woods and eating my salmon.

Zimbabwe’s been on everyone’s mind of late and with good reason. Everyone seems, in fact, to have well thought-out and well-reasoned opinion about the situation. They offer clear and simple solutions that take into account all the social and economic factors, and they… oh, no, wait… They don’t.

In fact, if I hear one more person tell me that his intelligent and well-reasoned solution to the Zimbabwean crisis is to “shoot him,” or “give me 5 minutes with him,” I think I’m going to cry.

Ugly
Two weekends ago, I was fortunate enough to attend the Seether concert for free. It was passable and decent, althought I must say that the supporting act were pretty kick-ass. All in all, I had a good time, so why talk about this in the ugly section? Well, because as I oftn state, people are dicks and Port Elizabeth concert organizers couldn’t, apparently, organize their way out of a wet paper bag.

The concert was well attended. By all counts, there were about 3,500 people there which is all great and fine, until you take into consideration the number of ticket sellers for the bar (1), the number of lines to the bar (1) and the number of bar staff (about 5). This resulted in most people having to wait in line in excess of 45 minutes for a beer. I can only react with open-jawed amazement.

Luckily it was quickly replaced with hatred and thoughts of violence towards all the rude cunts that pushed in the line. Die, piggies! Die!

Good
First and foremost, John Cheese of Juvenile Comedy has released a new article about celebrity sex videos. As always, it’s a treat. Enjoy it. And, talking of all things PWOT/Cracked/JC, there’s yet another Photo Shop contest. I didn’t get anywhere in the last one (grumble) but you can still see some of my entries in the PWOT Files. I will win one, one day. And then they’ll pay! They’ll all pay! Bwah-ha-bwah-ha-ha-bwah-ha-ha-ha!

I know that this is going to sound strange in the Good section but I have been going to gym at 06:00 AM every day this week and I’m loving it (I apparently needed, as I can feed 12 cannibals). The only problem is that I am now too tired to paint. I suspect that sleep deprivation may have much to do with my current level of incoherence.

And to change the subject completely, I got to play around with the Nintendo Wii this weekend and I cannot tell you how much fun and entertainment that really is. There really is nothing quite like a bunch of unfit grown men jumping and flailing around drunkenly in a living room.

Lastly, I have a link of deliciousness for you: There is a game play trailer for Dawn of War 2.

Bad
In other, more disturbingly goatse-esque news, a friend of mine (who begged me to remain nameless) had a birthday party this past weekend. It was, as good parties are, enjoyable, drunken and mostly harmless. Some of the gifts, however, were a little… erm… strange. Don’t take my word for it, be the judge:

In as bad a taste as it was, there was an apparent rationale behind the purchase. I was told by the gift-giver that it was cheaper than a blow-up doll and that no man would need anything beyond the essential anyway, so a doll would be wasted. His logic was sound. His rather base and utilitarian approach to coitus made me see the light. Let’s face it: he’s right. Clearly, all women should just be seen as largely inessential filler around some holes.

He gets my award for most sensitive guy of the year.

Over lunch last weekend, I developed a theory, which I would like to throw out there for comments. You see, something had been bothering me. I encountered a lot of people who are not the “traditional” racist, in that they don’t despise, fear or otherwise actively seek to undermine another race. They are reasonable enough not to use the common lies (”they” are dumber, lazier, etc.) and they do not, as a rule use racial slurs, monikers and fallacious statements (”they” are stealing “our” jobs, etc.). But, despite this, they still have a very patriarchal, skewed view of the different races.

Extrapolating from my poor, limited personal experience, this seems most common amongst the “Old Guard” South Africans, as well as the overwhelming majority of foreigners (especially European foreigners). And what they have in common is that they just seem incapable of viewing members of different ethnicities, races and cultures as equal. The whole concept just seems completely alien to them.

And that was my revelation. It seems, intuitively at least, correct: it is not that these people are “actively” racist it is simply that they are incapable of seeing themselves as equal. So long as it been drilled into them that there is a hierarchy, an order, in which they are above others that they don’t know how to think otherwise. They have never been equal to “the other,” both at work and socially that they are incapable of accepting “the other” as an equal without rationalizing (”he’s quite hard working for a x” “it’s their culture to be late but he’s always on time,” etc.).

This allows them to pay lip service to the abstract concept of equality, of championing the cause even, all the while treating everyone else, naturally, as a lesser human being. You can see it so clearly when the cognitive dissonance runs rampant at every mention of “the other” being better/richer/stronger/etc. And I don’t even know how to even begin to fix that.

Ugly
A lot of people think that Belgians are deluded and make claims of having invented everything from plastics to saxophones, and everything else you could possibly name, it is now clear that Belgians invented the Internet! Woot! Put that in your pipe and smoke it (courtesy of Andrew). Now you’ll never hear the end of it.

Good
I managed to get my hands on some free tickets to the Seether concert so I’m moving them up to the Good section. yes, I am that cheap and transparently corrupt. I hope that rest of you learn from it.

And for those of you who think I bash religion, here’s a special link especially for you. This movie looks like it’ll be a hoot. What are the chances of it playing in Port Elizabeth, you think?

Oh, and check out my super-cool Beernought at the bottom of the page. I made for the latest Cracked competition: Jobs too awesome to exist.

Bad
Just to prove a point, on this Friday the 13th, I’m posting nothing bad. Not that I think that the superstitious will understand the clever joke, because superstitious people are morons.

Ugly
It is time for the Grahamstown Arts Festival again. And if you don’t know why I put it in the Ugly section, then you obviously haven’t been there for the last few years. it has gone from a haven of refinement and taste into a cesspit of mediocrity. I will still try to go through and give it the benefit of the doubt, of course, but I’m not holding my breath for anything besides beggars, cheap Chinese toys and risqué suburban titillation disguised as avant-garde. The only benefit, apart from the cheap booze, as far as I see it, is that it gives a lot of the locals from the Border Country an opportunity to wave their banjo-playing fingers at the decadence of the modern kugels.

Maybe one day, “artists” will understand that being broke and dirty and misunderstood doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a struggling genius. Sometimes, being broke, dirty and misunderstood is because you’re a talentless hobo. And the reverse is true too: just because you’re a successful and acclaimed “artist,” it doesn’t always mean you’re not a talentless hobo.

This painting is the latest in the current series I am working on. I finished it quite quickly as I had it pretty much crystal-clear in my mind. It is called The Menace and it features some deliciously “wet” textures and a pretty high tonal contrast. A lot of people have commented that it is more of a joyous homecoming image, and not so much a menacing and brooding figure. I answer that they haven’t looked at it long enough.

The high-quality, large version can be found here.

Good
Aha! I bet you thought that I’d dropped the PE Report again. Well, you’re wrong, Mr. Poopypants’s! I just couldn’t get to my PC on Friday because I was getting fat and drunk with Robert in Cape St. Francis, while poor Danni worked and studied at the Trattoria. Still, we got home in one piece, despite torrential rains and Nordic colds.

I do have a new link for you, courtesy of Andre. The site is called Hayibo and it is South Africa’s answer to The Onion. It makes for a deliciously wicked read. Oh, and talking of Andre, I would like to take this opportunity to wish the very best to Robyn and Brad, who are both completely insane and bat-shit crazy enough to want to run the Comrades Marathon. Good luck, all of you fucking crazy nuts partaking this year!

Sunridge also sees the opening of a new pub, namely the Keg and Swan. I haven’t been there yet but early reports talk of a friendly atmosphere, beautiful women and much to drink. I guess we’ll have to investigate soon.

Bad
Last Thursday, Jackie came over to the house and cooked a mouth-watering curry for us. She brought Alec over, who regaled us with tales of his impending date with a young lady (it went very well, he said). We drank. We drank a lot. The net results of which was that I woke up able to neither go to gym with Mike at 06:00 nor, apparently, able to stand properly. Rumours abound that I may have still been drunk.

This, in and of itself, wouldn’t have been so bad if I didn’t also have to pack my bags for the weekend in Cape St. Francis. But, pack my bags, I did, and this resulted in me spending the entire fucking freezing cold weekend with 4 pairs of secret socks (don’t ask) and 1 t-shirt but no jacket, jersey or a single item of clothing vaguely designed to keep the heat in. So, mental note and general lesson: Do not pack your suitcase drunk.

Seether are coming to Port Elizabeth. I probably would have put this in the Good section if I had received some free tickets or had the money to go and see them but, because I am mean and petty, will put them in the Bad section instead. Don’t get me wrong, I have listened to them. They do pretty good Live and Nickleback covers and I am sure that, one day, they will feel confident enough with their talent to write their own songs.

Ugly
On a more serious note, I have noted the emergence of a truly bizarre conspiracy theory/urban legend/myth of late, one that I am sure that you have encountered too. It sounds pretty rational at first, as most conspiracy theories do but then soon steps off into the truly crazy.

The theory goes like this: there are crime syndicates that burgle suburban homes (So far, so good. It is plausible and, for the purposes of the discussion, acceptable. After all, they existence of criminals is undeniable, and we can all accept that some can work together even though the evidence points more to the majority of crimes being due to opportunity rather than planning). This is followed by the idea that these syndicates have lookouts which chose the homes to be burgled (Ok, while this is still within the realm of the plausible, it is certainly more tenuous. Think about it, if you were to break into someone’s home, would you trust a simple lookout’s opinion about targets? Wouldn’t you investigate it yourself? And if you would, why need a lookout at all or, alternatively, if the lookouts have such skills, why aren’t they committing the burglaries themselves? As I said, tenuously plausible…)

But the real clanger, and the crux of the myth/theory, is that these lookouts mark the houses to be burgled with different coloured bottles (i.e. brown for dogs, green for alarm systems, etc.). The details vary from person to person but the main thread remains the same: coloured markers are used to identify the houses. And it is really here that the entire thing falls apart: where are the people walking around with bags filled with of different coloured bottles or rocks? How do the syndicates know which bottles belong to which? And, with the amount of litter in this country, how do the burglars tell the difference between “real” littered bottles and “accidental” ones? How come only suburbanites with emails are the only ones who can crack this cunning “code?” And detectives, whose job it is, can’t? Also, in this day and age, wouldn’t a coded SMS be cheaper, easier and faster? How about a note of paper or even a face to face meeting? Why one Earth would a person walk around the suburbs with piles of rocks or multi-coloured bottles and risk get caught when they can just remember the addresses? Etc. As you can see, it falls apart for the same reasons other conspiracy theories fall apart: it is built on blind assertions and un-supported claims. The moment you even look at this with a critical eye, you see that it is based on nothing more than paranoia.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I will, like any good skeptic, gladly change my tune and stop laughing so hard at these ridiculous myths, the moment someone steps up with some solid evidence or a framework that actually makes senses. I have looked for it, trust me, but I have yet to get past people blindly repeating “it is true.”

If you have any trouble understanding that, you are more than welcome to visit me. My house is the marked with a clear Millers bottle.