I got a tattoo in an old school tattoo shop the other day, and they were playing old metal, so heard a couple from Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, even Dio. Even though it was probably a streaming playlist, it felt appropriate. I was once a young metalhead with degenerate style unkempt longhair and a jean jacket with bona fide Motorhead back patch. Ozzy actually came on and me and my tattoo artist talked about how we didn’t know if Dio was dead or not, and I said I had meant to look it up but never did. Fuck looking things up online, to be honest. Anyways, when I first got a record player back in the day, I had a total of 5 albums, all of which were taken from my uncle’s bedroom in my grandma’s trailer, because I think he got kicked out or something? It was Kiss Double Platinum, Ozzy’s Blizzard of Ozz, and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid gatefold, but for some reason the other side of the gate fold was busted open and held a copy of Volume 4 without the cover. Not a bad first 5 albums starter pack, to be honest. Thus, I could have some opinions about metal, because a bunch came about during my formative years, but I’m also pretty old school and believe that if you have short hair and a college degree, you’re not allowed to have opinions about metal music. At all. Hard stop. Also, in case you were wondering, being a cop is like having a PhD in Dumb Fuck, so they’re definitely disqualified as well. Any metal that cops love is anti-metal in spirit. Damn, forget I said that, because that’s bordering on having an opinion. I’ll stay out the metal opinions business and instead focus on fighting cops, like my original borrowed/inherited/absconded record collection taught me.
Showing posts with label ACAB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ACAB. Show all posts
Monday, August 4
Friday, April 12
SONG OF THE DAY: Shu Ba Da Dum Ma Ma Ma Ma (kudzu’d)
[A critical micro-analysis of the final chase scene from White Lightning, as submitted to The University of Universal Magnetics by Raven Mack, as part of my thesis on Southern Gothicc Futurism.]
White Lightning came out in the summer of 1973, and was part of a ‘70s genre of white lower class antihero movies. Burt Reynolds was in his initial wave of stardom after the success of Deliverance the year before, and played a former moonshine runner who was seeking vengeance in the murder of his brother, killed by local police. Placed alongside current politics, the movie stands in sharp contrast to today’s performative outlaw imagery that many white men have purchased as their identity, that somehow makes the dissonant alignment of “outlaw” with “backing the blue”, or supporting law enforcement. Reynolds’ character, Gator McKlusky, is a true outlaw, and has the prison record to show for it. Gator uses federal agents, under the guise of being a cooperative witness, to get a souped up Ford Custom 500, and eventually lures the corrupt sheriff, played by Ned Beatty, into a climactic car chase. Knowing every back road to the mile, despite his time away in prison, McKlusky is able to slowly lure the sheriff to going over an embankment and drowning in the river. In post-MAGA crime-fearing politics, the notion of killing a policeman would be never be seen in good light, much celebrated as a heroic victory, but White Lightning lays out the tale to our antihero’s benefit.
All media is propaganda of some sort, attuned to the creator’s biases, whether consciously or unconsciously. Rarely these days do we see underclass heroes who are positioned against corrupt authorities that are realistic and present day, thus easily translatable to real life corruption. It’s more often than not filtered through science fiction, against technological overreach or distant corrupt systems of power that are more globalized than localized. But the reality of the American experience is that those of us who suffer abuses at the hands of an ever-expanding police state do so at the localized level. It’s refreshing to see a folkloric antihero succeeding against the type of corrupt county sheriff that still very much exists in far more rural American counties than the average digitally news attuned brain could comprehend. And with local journalism pretty much gutted by venture capitalism and the movement to digital news sources over the past couple decades, any stories of local corruption are mostly word-of-mouth.
The end of White Lightning is a memorial parade for the dead sheriff, which Gator watches before driving off into the sunset. He didn’t actually cooperate with the feds, remaining true to his outlaw nature as a former moonshiner. The local people, unaware of the reality behind the scenes, still celebrated the sheriff, believing he stood for law and order in a decent way. These would be the MAGA people today, who somehow are the political marks standing alongside the parade route, waving flags for a corrupted leader, yet they believe in their minds, due to the propaganda they consume, that they are the Gator McKlusky, and antihero. It makes no logical sense. But in a world where the propaganda’s biases are far more pronounced, yet denied to an even greater extent, it’s hard to avoid. We’ve been culturally conditioned to think up is down, wrong is right, and openly corrupt leadership is a savior from corruption. We need more Gators, but all we seem to be served up are more flag-waving extras jockeying for digital position to watch the parade march by.
White Lightning came out in the summer of 1973, and was part of a ‘70s genre of white lower class antihero movies. Burt Reynolds was in his initial wave of stardom after the success of Deliverance the year before, and played a former moonshine runner who was seeking vengeance in the murder of his brother, killed by local police. Placed alongside current politics, the movie stands in sharp contrast to today’s performative outlaw imagery that many white men have purchased as their identity, that somehow makes the dissonant alignment of “outlaw” with “backing the blue”, or supporting law enforcement. Reynolds’ character, Gator McKlusky, is a true outlaw, and has the prison record to show for it. Gator uses federal agents, under the guise of being a cooperative witness, to get a souped up Ford Custom 500, and eventually lures the corrupt sheriff, played by Ned Beatty, into a climactic car chase. Knowing every back road to the mile, despite his time away in prison, McKlusky is able to slowly lure the sheriff to going over an embankment and drowning in the river. In post-MAGA crime-fearing politics, the notion of killing a policeman would be never be seen in good light, much celebrated as a heroic victory, but White Lightning lays out the tale to our antihero’s benefit.
All media is propaganda of some sort, attuned to the creator’s biases, whether consciously or unconsciously. Rarely these days do we see underclass heroes who are positioned against corrupt authorities that are realistic and present day, thus easily translatable to real life corruption. It’s more often than not filtered through science fiction, against technological overreach or distant corrupt systems of power that are more globalized than localized. But the reality of the American experience is that those of us who suffer abuses at the hands of an ever-expanding police state do so at the localized level. It’s refreshing to see a folkloric antihero succeeding against the type of corrupt county sheriff that still very much exists in far more rural American counties than the average digitally news attuned brain could comprehend. And with local journalism pretty much gutted by venture capitalism and the movement to digital news sources over the past couple decades, any stories of local corruption are mostly word-of-mouth.
The end of White Lightning is a memorial parade for the dead sheriff, which Gator watches before driving off into the sunset. He didn’t actually cooperate with the feds, remaining true to his outlaw nature as a former moonshiner. The local people, unaware of the reality behind the scenes, still celebrated the sheriff, believing he stood for law and order in a decent way. These would be the MAGA people today, who somehow are the political marks standing alongside the parade route, waving flags for a corrupted leader, yet they believe in their minds, due to the propaganda they consume, that they are the Gator McKlusky, and antihero. It makes no logical sense. But in a world where the propaganda’s biases are far more pronounced, yet denied to an even greater extent, it’s hard to avoid. We’ve been culturally conditioned to think up is down, wrong is right, and openly corrupt leadership is a savior from corruption. We need more Gators, but all we seem to be served up are more flag-waving extras jockeying for digital position to watch the parade march by.
Friday, November 13
SONG OF THE DAY: Tre World Freestyle
video
Hadn't even been six months since George Floyd got murdered by police in Minnesota. What the fuck? RIP Big Floyd.
Thursday, September 10
BLV3 L1V3S M4TT3R DVMB4SS3S...
"blue lives matter" dumbasses
pretending that they're outlaws
by licking the boots that tread
Tuesday, October 29
W4S G0NN4 WR1T3 4 H41KV...
was gonna write a haiku
with "the thin black line" and "blue
skies matter" but then didn't
Wednesday, September 18
D1G1T4L P0L1C3 ST4T3 D1GS...
digital police state digs
deeper into subconscious
of these blue lives bootlickers
Thursday, November 1
SONG OF THE DAY: Tennessee Jed
Fuck it, I listen to the Grateful Dead still
sometimes. Specifically this song triggers loving memories of barely remembered
times. Shit, I sing in my head “honey come quick with the iodine” like once a
month, and I imagine the iodine is actually an overthrow of our two-party
kleptocracy, which is run like a good cop/bad cop, where the bad cop is
currently just fucking shit up left and right, and the good cop turns to me and
says, “See? The only way you’re going to get him to stop fucking shit up is to
start talking to me.” Fuck I hate cops. BUT DON'T FORGET TO PICK YOUR FAVORITE COP NEXT WEEK! VOTE FOR ALL THE GOOD COPS! Some of them are even brown, and they do cool lip sync challenges on their social media accounts.
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