Category Archives: culture

art, culture, philosophy, politics

>ABOUT PORN!!!!!

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Diego Beyró, Orgasm series 2008 (oil on bed sheets)
Click the images to enlage

What about porn? It’s an established culture, deeply rooted in today’s modern consumer society. Porn is everywhere, and since the arrival of the Internet it is everyfuckingwhere – and people are fucking everywhere too! There’s no escaping porn. And people wouldn’t really want to escape porn, because then it wouldn’t exist, right?

I’d say most of us get sexually aroused by watching (some kind of) pornography, there’s no shame in that. It’s a combination of that suggestive attraction and our simple biological needs, I guess. Still there are people trying to ban porn and inflict censorship. I can understand that to some extent, but no porn ban will ever last. Porn is in the mindset of just about everything and it’s all over the mainstream media (MTV, Sex And The City, commercials, fashion…). Big cable operators offer adult channels and giant hotel chains offer porn on pay-per-view (as well as the mandatory Bible!).
However, to me porn is more honest than hypocritical shit like Slitz, Café and Moore (Swedish equivalents to Esquire, GQ etc); auteur maestro Micke Eklöf’s olden goldies are definitely the most honest porn films in existance… Jesus. Christ. Spermafesten.
Some might argue that that kind of men’s magazines are sensual, leaving a lot to the imagination… Hoho. Fuck that shit. Please.
This is a consumer society (stuff you can put a price tag on is real, the rest is uninteresting) and pornography is big fucking business (and thus very real). The attitude in Slitz is just plain braindead and awfully sickening.


Here’s what I’m worried about, though. It seems like today’s extreme sides of porn are becoming norm. Degeneration is at hand when humiliation, throat gagging and ”forced sex” (a term I stumbled upon just recently) is what’s expected in commercial porn. This is what bothers me. Where’s the style and intelligence? All I see is commercialized crap. People making money off the humiliation of other people. To each his own, you might say, but of course it affects society in the long run. If rape sex and stuff like that isn’t forbidden fruit anymore – if it has become your everyday treat that you’re bored with – then what’s next? Commercial child porn? Yeah, I know it sounds sick, but society is grotesque and respect is nothing but a seven letter word. It lost its meaning a long time ago. This will show as porn is driven to new extremes…
I have nothing against porn per se, but when degenerating extremes become commercialized norm… Well, I guess it’s a sign of the times. Zeitgeist.


René Magritte, The Lovers 1928 (oil on canvas)

To finish this off I’d like to quote a brilliant essay written by Lou Reed, an essay that might skyrocket this blog’s visitors count by millions. ;) Lou shows what commercial porn is all about: exploiting humiliation. I just love his take on that porn spam shit that contaminates our mailboxes every hour (thank God for Gmail, the best spam filter ever. Who reads these mails anyway?).

”Welcome Lou” by Lou Reed

Hey Lou! These chicks will do anything for a Buck. Horny bored Housewifes are waiting for you. Watch these Bitches be ANALLY DESTROYED. Big Black cocks! How do they do it! Insane Penetrations. A Fucking Baseball Bat. No B.S. These horny women will do Anything. Why Be alone. Japanese Hardcore Anime and Kentai Art. Nasty! Over 25000 xxx by today’s best Asian Artists. These women will moan for you. The Fleshpussy. Tighter and better than the real thing and they won’t TALK BACK! Order now Mr. J. Watson of Akron writes, ”I increased the lenght of my penis by 3 in. in one week. Girth by 2 in. My wife is delighted and so am I with your invaluable product. Bigfuckin African Bros put it to the white bitchin Ho’s. What these sluts won’t do. Facial Cum Shots and our Famous Cum Shake. Yes that’s Right – I want it – I have a HARD time saying NO! Check out my home tape collection from me and my HORNY girlfriends right now! I like it in the bumbum. LOU!
See the girl next door being POUNDED! Ron wanted to shoot his wad all over MY BIG BOOBS! I finger myself at the same time. Watch The Glory Hole. These Bitches don’t care who they suck. Watch this Bitch vomit all over herself! Hear her gag and beg for MERCY! Facial Fantasies caught On Film! Sex Without Strings! Defanged and Declawed Gerbils For you Anal Ecstasy. Captain Croaker’s Anal Adventures on the Open Seas! Me and my crew go out on the open seas on the SS Stabem and find some Backdoor Virgins for your video/dvd delight. A millionaire a yacht and some sluts. INSANE PENETRATIONS! This guy said he loved my ass so much he would LICK IT! Hunting down Moms Across America. Watch these mature bitches take the Big Pony! This slut sucks a fuckin horse off till HE BLOWS IN HER MOUTH. what won’t these horny wives do for money. Why Be Alone. There out here waiting for YOU. College Chicks or their mothers, Lou. See celebrities caught on tape with their pants down. See your favorite stars. Morgue and mug shots. What did they REALLY DO?! Piss Place – watch them make a SPLASH! You’ll never miss a single drop. Live Web-Cam. On command – these sluts will DO ANYTHING YOU WANT! TABOO INSERTIONS! KINKY LADIES TAKING IT DEEP. See the Space Shuttle Booty! Thelma Tounge – Tight Asses Pounded Hard. Wet Teens. Homeless Black Women! Instant Access. Extreme anal Sex! More Extreme! Crazy! Wild! Ruining Rectums since 1998!
Her first Lesson. Real Home Blowing! Young Sluts on Wheels. Watch what she does to that Bentley! Dirty Anal! Nasty Anal! My Body wants your body Lou! 1000’s of porn clips free free free!
She put it in her mouth for the very first time, These BABES are waiting for you! Panty staining Teens! Cute young Babes with FARM ANIMALS! Smile your on Fisty Camera. My name is Young but I’m 18 and Horny! Women doing men Women doing Women! What’s Left. It’s Insane. Garbage mouthed pigs squirting cum shots and cooking pancakes at the SAME FUCKING TIME. Goddamnit get Loose. How does an ungly pig like me get the beautiful Bitches! I don’t know MONEY MONEY MONEY! Watch this Mom put AN ENTIRE REFRIGERATOR UP HER BUTT. It don’t get Better than this Jonesy. Latin Asian Greek chicks waiting for you!!!! Respond for Chrissake. Do you need Viagra – cheap cheap cheap. Horny dogs and their masters. Wowee! Waiting for you Waiting for you Waiting for you! Sex Crazed Whores with Big Tits! Respond! Respond! Snatch Party! They’ll Hunt You down To Suck you Off!
Screwing Machine! Come See Huge Dicks pounding their tight Little Pussies as these Sluts Scream for more! Woman with PHD’s Taking it up the Dung Basket. Hear them BEG IN 5 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. My God! Respond Please! Respond Please! These woman are Waiting For you. Fornicating Giraffes. Erect Baboons. What are you Waiting for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quoted from the book XXX 30 Porn-Star Portraits by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.

art, culture, literature, movies

>Watchmen – Illuminating reality

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Yeah, you know, that old graphic novel (i.e. comic book) by Alan Moore (writer) and Dave Gibbons (illustrator) which is now being adapted to the screen. I love that comic. It’s kind of Ny Moral in a nutshell.

Because to me Watchmen is about the delusion and condemnation of humanity. It’s about what happens when we abuse power and responsibility, when ”soft-spoken” fascism dictates the rules of everyday life. When people who think they know what’s best for you tell you what to do. It’s about what needs to be done to save humanity. And it asks two questions:
Who watches the watchmen?
Does the end justify the means?
The solution to humanity is rather dystopic and misanthropic, I’d say.

When Alan Moore unleashed Watchmen in 1986/87 he created a whole new way of looking at comics. All of a sudden comics where of literary value. When TIME Magazine picked the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present, Watchmen was right up there alongside The Catcher in The Rye (J.D. Salinger), Catch-22 (Joseph Heller), 1984 (George Orwell), Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy), Tropic of Cancer (Henry Miller), A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess), Lord of The Flies (William Golding), Gravity’s Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon), Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut), The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) – to name my personal favourites – and other novels by William Burroughs, Doris Lessing, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ernest Hemingway, Salman Rushdie, Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene, Toni Morrison… The list goes on. Watchmen is also the only graphic novel to win a Hugo Award. All this elite stuff is almost hard to believe, but when reading Watchmen you’ll understand. Or else, in a fascist kind of way, they will make you understand, with the help of the written word, commercials, money, capitalism, corruption, chaos – a maximum overload of information. That’s how it works. But constantly being told what to do raises scepticism amongst individuals, and anti-authority works both ways; some like it, some don’t.

Watchmen thrives on the complexities of life, of being human, and adds to that the odd twist of what it would be like if superheroes – or rather masked ” heroes”, devoid of supernatural powers (Dr. Manhattan excluded), acting as vigilantes – really existed in our modern world. What if God all of a sudden walked the Earth? ”Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”, quoted from Genesis chapter 18, verse 25.
Obviously, it’s not that easy.
What Moore does is that he gives coherence to these complexities. In his own words: ”it is possible to think about politics, history, mythology, architecture, murder and the rest of it all at the same time to see how it connects”.


Catching up on Alan Moore, and watching The Mindscape of Alan Moore DVD (watch it here!), I find I really like this guy. Check out what he says about information in this great interview:

Information is funny stuff. In some of the science magazines I read, I’ve found it described as an actual substance that underlies the entirety of existence, as something that is more fundamental than the four fundamental physical forces: gravity, electromagnetism and the two nuclear forces. I think they’ve referred to it as a super-weird substance. Now, obviously, information shapes and determines our lives and the way we live them, yet it is completely invisible and undetectable. It has no actual form; you can only see its effects. Information is a kind of heat. I would suggest that as our society accumulates information, from its hunter-gatherer origins to the complexities of our present day, it raises the cultural temperature.
I feel that we may be approaching a cultural boiling point. I’m not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing; I really don’t know because I can’t imagine it, quite frankly. But I think we may be approaching the point at which the amount of information we are taking becomes exponential, and I’m not entirely certain what kind of human culture will exist beyond that point. Except it will happen sooner than we expect, and the difference between us and the kind of people that will exist after such an event will be vastly different than the difference between us and the hunter-gatherer society we’ve evolved from.

You’re saying we might not be able to recognize human beings of the future that well.

Yeah, it could be a quantum leap, a sudden, massive and unprecedented leap. Boiling point is a good analogy, because what you have before that stage is water. What you have after it is something that does not behave at all like water; it’s a completely different substance altogether. And that’s what I see looming for society — and it’s probably necessary, probably inevitable, probably scary. That’s my prognosis. I suppose, as an artist, one of the obligations upon my work is to try and prepare people for the more complex world, to try and make it more palatable and accessible to them and not quite so frightening. That would seem to be a worthy goal, illuminating reality.

On another note: As for the nobel prize in literature I’d suggest we give it to Cormac McCarthy. Or Iain Sinclair. Or why not Alan Moore? But maybe it would do them and the fans more bad than good, so let’s not make it complicated.

PS. If you’re really interested in Watchmen, you should check out The Annotated Watchmen!
And here’s a Watchmen Wiki…
And this blog post pretty much concludes that Rorschach is a Jew…
As you can see, we’re dealing with information overload here as well.

And as for the movies, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V For Vendetta and Watchmen, here’s Alan Moore talking about his disgust for Hollywood, stating clearly that the comics ”were written to be impossible to reproduce in terms of cinema”. He obviously hates them all.

culture, philosophy, politics

>Know thyself! – The criticism of life

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Matthew Arnold, author of Culture and Anarchy, claimed that art is the criticism of life.

In our society people are viewed through a lens which magnifies wealth, power and bloodlines, where instead it should magnify the moral qualities of character. We tend to praise those who perform great deeds, but neglect those who aren’t that very explicit or ”successful”, the ones who lead their ”hidden lives”. The world only cares about status, and is completely blind to the worlds within us. This dependency on status is all we read and hear about wherever we go.
Art, literature and music may help us notice, understand and appreciate those hidden lives that are waiting to be born. Most of the times, the hidden values being offered through culture are those of most interest to the ones interested in moral qualities. This is where we find philosophy and radical ideas rarely talked about in the mainstream arena. This is where spirit and man collide, as opposed to society where spirit and man collapse.
Society teaches us to judge a book by its cover, to depend on status for credibility and to look up to the rich and famous. Culture might help as a cure to society’s sickness.

I do not wish to see men of culture asking to be entrusted with power; and, indeed, I have freely said, that in my opinion the speech most proper, at present, for a man of culture to make to a body of his fellow-countrymen who get him into a committee-room, is Socrates’: Know thyself! and this is not a speech to be made by men wanting to be entrusted with power.
Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1882)

Earlier posts related to this subject:
Intelligent misanthropy – Part 1
Intelligent misanthropy – Part 2

art, culture

>Engravings of symbolism into flesh

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>Originally posted May 19, 2007.








Look at these tattoos. They surely represent more than just something nice and cool to look at. These engravings speak of something that matters to the one wearing them. They represent death, life and the madness of it all. That ugly truth staring you right in the face.

For me, to have a tattoo inked forever in the flesh should definitely mean something more than wanting to show it in front of your buddies, looking at yourself in the mirror, wearing that tank top wife beater…
The more shit you show off with, the more unsatisfied you are with your miserable life and looks. If you’re happy sporting the latest fashion tattoo, then fine. It’s your choice and you’ll have to live with it. If you’re in it for looks only then you’re just vain. Nothing wrong with that as long as you’re aware of your vanity and lack of confidence.
That’s how I see it. Or rather, that’s how I’d look upon myself if I had tattoos that meant nothing to me.

The tattoos I have are for me, not for somebody else. They represent something I truly believe in. As cliche as it may sound, that’s what matters. Still, to each his own, as they say.


The Public Enemy symbol
First and foremost, I got this made because Fear of A Black Planet by Public Enemy is one of my top five albums of all times, all genres included. It means so much to me for so many reasons, I’ll probably dedicate a whole post to this amazing work of art someday (the album – not the tattoo), even though it deserves an essay, maybe even a book. It’s that good. But it needs to be remastered! The levels are way too low and it bugs the hell out of me everytime I listen to it.
But anyway…

The symbol pictures a man in a classic hip-hop pose, arms folded, caught in the sniper’s crosshairs. This man is about to be taken down by the people in power, because he’s a public enemy and thus automatically an enemy of the state. (Actually, the man is apparently E Love, L.L. Cool J.’s sidekick at the time, and the symbol is drawn by Chuck D. himself, but that’s another story…)

To me this symbol represents rebellion, courage and the will to power – power to the people, to the individual and to the true folk soul, the spirit in man. To never deny your convictions. No comply!
As for the “will to power” concept, as coined by Nietzsche, it does not mean “a desire for and of power” as – for example – the Nazis interpreted it, but rather a display of creative energy put to use. And a whole lot more. Also, Nietzsche’s Will to Power manuscript was extensively manipulated and falsely edited by his fanatically anti-Semitic sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Go figure.

Nietzsche says:
I do not speak to the weak: they want to obey and generally lapse into slavery quickly. In the face of merciless nature, let us still feel ourselves as merciless nature! But I have found strength where one does not look for it: in simple, mild, and pleasant people, without the least desire to rule—and, conversely, the desire to rule has often appeared to me a sign of inward weakness: they fear their own slave soul and shroud it in a royal cloak.

It’s about respect – a word that’s been extremely worn out and lost its meaning a long time ago in the hip-hop community, where it is commonly used, thanks to soulless, mindless fucks praising the shit that flows on MTV.
Respect and rebellion. Evolution of the mind.

The PE symbol was engraved into my right arm by Mange at Evil Eye Tattoo, in 2001, I think.

To be continued…

art, culture, literature

>American Splendor

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>Originally posted March 24, 2007.


Comics, that’s kids stuff, right?
Well, that’s what I thought as well for quite some time.
As a kid I was kind of obsessed with Spider-Man for some years, but by the time he’d went black I was out there riding my skateboard and listening to records instead. I guess I wasn’t into comics that much after all. I still find Spider-Man among the coolest of superheroes, though. He’s metal, you know, the way he shoots his net making the sign of Satan:


However, I didn’t quite realize that there were “adult” comics (except for the crappy “erotic” shit) until I got hold of some anime movies (which I bought from the drummer in Sator, by the way! This was in 1990…). Those movies made me rediscover comics in a way. But since the style still was that wild and crazy shit it didn’t make any lasting impressions. It was fun for the moment and then forgotten about.

In 2003 I saw American Splendor. Yeah, I’m one of those late losers who discovered Harvey Pekar through that movie. I really loved the film, so I bought Our Cancer Year, one of his and his wife’s comic books that they based the movie upon. And it fucking touched my soul, I tell you!


American Splendor is all about life, death and the things that matters – things and thoughts that at first may seem pointless, but after some consideration may turn into mindbending visions. It did for me.
I spent a lot of time thinking after reading Our Cancer Year, the same kind of thinking that may occur after reading a really thick, good book or seeing a mindfucking movie. I just love the way that a few strokes and a few lines can get your thoughts going.

Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff. That’s probably the best and most accurate summarization ever, even though it’s become quite a tiresome cliché since the movie hit the charts.

Harvey’s life is drawn by a lot of different artists (Our Cancer Year excluded, which is fully drawn by Frank Stack), and that in itself makes this comic really interesting. Here’s just a few examples of how some artists perceive our man:








And of course I identify with Harvey. He’s just an honest and literate guy with a sense for politics and music. Him being a Jew and just being so goddamn tired of the exploitation of the Holocaust is a revelation. This strip is from 1994:


And the cover of The New American Splendor Anthology has the coolest quote:

When I was younger I thought about women constantly… I was always running around looking for a good time… Now I’ve matured, my priorities have changed. I’m aware of what’s really important: CRUSHING MY ENEMIES.

The fact that I discovered American Splendor so late bugs me. I’ve missed so much. Harvey’s been doing his comics since 1976! Bah…

Harvey Pekar – homepage and blog
American Splendor – The movie
A list of some of his comics

Other adult comics that’s touched my soul lately:



culture, music

>The return……

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>Originally posted March 08, 2007.


It’s been a long while since B-Girls got down.
T-Love said it, and she said it ten years ago. So where the fuck are all the ladies at? Being a woman in the rap scene is definitely not the easiest of tasks, but every once in a while it’s time for one of them to step up and shine.
I’m talking about MC’s who can rock the mic and spit lyrics that kill, and who’s got skilled producers to back them up.
We’ve got Lady Luck, What What, Sonja Blade, Leila K (!) and sadly not that many more (in my opinion and to my knowledge). Sure, there’s always underground female MC’s ready to pop, but they rarely show their skills. Too bad.
And please, don’t give me crap like Missy Elliot. She’s just super wack.
Lady Sovereign? Eh… Well, for fun maybe.
Lil’Kim? Hmm… Every once in a while. At least she’s portrayed really cool in this photo:


There’s probably some really cool female grime artists as well, but that’s not my kind of rap really, so I can’t speak about that.

So it was back in ´97 that T-Love made this super dope track Return of The B-Girl. She was supported by Kool Keith, one of the most sexist dudes in the whole rap industry, but also one of the very best. How awesome then that this amazing collaboration turned into one of the fattest hip hop joints ever.
Listen to the song and fall to your knees pissing. It’s that good.
Download the Return of The B-Girl mp3 here! Do it. Now.

And listen to the lyrics:

There’s a lot of girls rhymin on the mic with no direction
Don’t know why they flexin, forgot rules and lessons
The essence: beats and rhymes and shit
I’m about to show these bitches that I’ll die for this
…
It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you
Sorry for the wack shit you slept through

Yeah, it’s been ten years of wack shit. Where are you now? Please, I’d love a re-return of the B-Girl. Hear me now, T-Love.

—–


And get this book: