Right we need to start with some important points:
2. Their real name is actually Marylou Vanina Mayniel, which, I dunno, sounds a bit like
No?
(;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)
Protest with love, baby
Clap your hands
Stomp your feet
And if you want to
You can shout Hallelujah
We found love
We found love
We found love
Protest with love
Protest with love
Should we, though? When we are combatting forces so lacking in love, so bereft of humanity, is there really a benefit to having ‘love’ on your side? Will the oppressors eventually down their arms with a shrug, saying “Fair enough, they’ve been the better person here, played an absolute blinder, have to admit when you’ve been morally beaten, fair’s fair”? My first reaction to someone enthusing that we “Protest with love” is picturing those fucking Portland, USA gimps wearing unicorn and frog fancy dress costumes to somehow protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Fucking liberals! If you’ve bought into the propaganda about politics being a binary choice, and you see one side acting like that?? Whooo! Trump 2028 baby! USA! USA! USA! Seriously, I know next to nothing about Portland, but I know that I fucking hate it!
Another reading to the song would be to protest with love in our heart. Which, fine, listen up liberals, I kinda agree. I would never phrase it like that, because that sounds gay as hell, but I can at least understand the feeling in a certain sense. Again, if you truly believe that politics is a binary made up completely of the right and liberalism (which is centrist, swinging to centre right when capital is threatened) then sure, yeah, whatever, speak of the benefits of your own side rather than just complain about the other. That Blue Sky Heroine Kamala Harris lost an election because her only policy was “I’m not Donald Trump”. The deteriorating shell of the Labour Party currently in power in the UK have only ever used the fact that they’re not the Tories/Reform as a potential vote winner, all the while pushing policies that both of those right wing loony bins might balk at for being “A little too racist“. ‘Not being the other ones’ only really works for the people who were always going to support you, probably because their Dad did and they think politics is like supporting a fucking football team.
Kings in the Jungle, Slaves in the Field
[one more shot from The Oracle, who has written enough on this blog to have their own category on the site. They’ve long been a fervent believer in the music of Cam Cole, which you will have gathered from their review of the 2023 Freaks in a Field festival. However, Cam Cole’s new single was released a couple of days ago and Kitty HAS THINGS TO SAY]
I’ve loved Cam Cole for nearly 7 years. Since the days when his music sounded like it was clawing its way out of a dark alley at 2 a.m. Raw, ragged, alive, and impossibly human. I promoted every track, shouted from rooftops (not sorry for pissing off friends, family, neighbours, my kids). I annoyed everyone and embarrassed myself frequently. All part of being in the outer circle of the fan circus. I didn’t care; I’d get the tracks in people’s ears one way or another.
she’s what i want and I want her
Aaaaaaaaaah, love, isn’t it? Don’t you love love? Don’t you love love, where you finally find the one who allows you to live your life and not make any sacrifices. Love, where you don’t need to make any effort at all, just vibe? Love that allows you just be yourself, right? Love, where you and your soulmate just sit in each other’s company and feel? Love, the kind you clean up with a mop and bucket, like the lost catacombs of Egypt, only God knows where we stuck it?
Or maybe your love is the passionate sort?? Maybe your love is defined by long periods of anger and trauma interspersed jarringly with incredibly lascivious and incredibly loud sex? Your love is broken cutlery and broken backs? Your love is screaming in anger but occasionally screaming in pleasure? You have one of those steamy relationships like they do in the movies, right? Your relationship is sometimes that argument scene in ‘Marriage Story‘, sometimes they’re outside the house doing a ‘STEEEEEEEEELLAAAAAAAAAAAA‘, but sometimes it’s the opening scene in ‘Betty Blue’, you know warram saying?? Seriously, the only place I can find that clip is on porn sites! Hot! Spicy! Nobody else understands! They only hurt you because they love you, right?
BACK TO MY WAYS LIKE 2019
I mentioned the epic road in my awakebutstillinbed post. One of the most notable things about the eight minute soul cleanser is now it acts as an early and definitive primer on the wider themes of the whole album, and would likely have been the title track had the band not come up with the far more metal album name ‘chaos take the wheel and i am a passenger’. It’s all there: the anxious combination of living the life you’ve always dreamed of while still being dragged down by dejection and doubt, all backdropped by a tour bus hauling itself up highways on the endless cycle of boredom/validation/loss/boredom/validation/loss/boredom/validation/loss…
On what I guess would be the 20th track on ‘Dissent, Penance & Destroy’, my mate Efficax lays out a similar mission statement:
Fuck around and find out,
Fuck around and find out,
Fuck around and find out,
Fuck around and find out,
You told me,
Fuck around and find out,
Fuck around and find out,
Fuck around and find out,
Find out find out,
You told me,
Fuck around and find out,
Fuck around and find out,
Fuck around and find out,
Fuck around and find out,
You told me,
Fuck around and find out,
Fuck around and find out,
Fuck around and find out,
Find out, find out.
fvckaround
And around they fuck, with great discoveries being made. They also fuck as well, you know? You get me? Like the songs fuck? Like there are songs here that just law out vinyl sheets to protect the furnishings, squirt baby oil over every surface and just get down to it, yeah? Are you following me? Do I need to draw a diagram? Because you know I will.
JUST A HEART BROKE BITCH, HIGH HEELS, SIX INCH
Once or twice I prayed to Jesus
Never heard a word back in plain English
More like signs or advertisements
Telling me to be keep consumerising
The Fields
Firstly: No, I’m pretty sure ‘consumerising’ isn’t a real word
Secondly: capitalism really won’t leave anything alone, will it? Won’t let anything just exist if it isn’t somehow commodified. And maybe I’m only really able to remark on this because no fucker reads this blog, it doesn’t make me any money at all, so I’m not even reaping the benefits of my own commodity. I’m instead producing excessive amounts on Content™ for WordPress and then sharing it on X (formally known as ‘X formally known as Twitter’) so it can be a small piece of those companies’ endless churn of millisecond flashes of dopamine hits. And then the lines of code scrolling past people’s eyes on the screen are commodified and sold to advertisers as proof of ‘engagement’. But only after these people have logged into the site using their name, address, phone number, bra size and blood type, ensuring that their very existence as a statistic can be commodified and sold to people who need to know the exact sample size of people worth advertising their new bracelet that’s designed to work well with a AB RhD positive blood type, as it cascades across it from a slice made on the wrist. It’s fucked up, is what I’m saying.
I MET HIM AT THE BAR, IT WAS 12 OR SOMETHIN’
Why do we stick with the ones we love? Do we even love them anymore?
OK, OK, I’m being as needlessly cynical as only a single person can be. I’m sure that out of all the people reading this who are in a relationship, not an insignificant amount of you truly love the person you’re with. 35%, maybe even 36% or 37%. Not as many as 40%, that’d be absurd. I’m sure that a good 35% of the people in a relationship reading this would say that they absolutely love the person they’re with. The rest, though…?
“God make me famous/If you can’t, just make it painless”
When I was younger- and older. And recently. And presently. And probably tomorrow, because changing one’s opinion is one of the hardest thing for a person to do, despite my pontification on the previous entry– I never used to understand why famous people committed suicide.
I mean, I would consider suicide on a near daily basis sometimes, and often attempted it*, but of course I would: I was a useless and completely inadequate human being that nobody loved. But these people, these people were stars! Everybody loved them! Even if you were as ugly or as ginger as I was, if you were a freakin’ celebrity girls will throw your wet knickers at you and tattoo your name on their vaginal lips with a rusty nail and a broken biro**.
Necessary Evil 