Death and Night and Blood... (Hagakure)

The Japanese have always been a pretty suicidal race.  

At one time- ritual disembowelment was all the rage. 

These crazy blood-thirsty bastards would fall on their swords at the drop of a chopstick.   

I remember as a kid, reading about the author Yukio Mishima and his attempt to inspire a coup d'etat in order to restore the emperor by barricading himself and his fellow members of the imperialist group the Tatenokai in the commandant's office of the Ichigaya Camp- the Tokyo headquarters of the Eastern Command of the Self Defence Forces.  

With a prepared manifesto and banner of demands, he addressed the soldiers gathered below, & much to his surprise and dismay was mocked and jeered- at which point he returned to the office to commit seppuku (cut belly) as a symbol of protest.

It was a dog-root.  The member of the clan assigned the task of committing the necessary act of coup de grace (beheading) on Mishima as he lay bleeding on the Tatami wasn't up to the task.
After a couple of attempts, another member took over while the bumbler cut his own belly.  

The third in line successfully took both men's heads.  

(Watch Schrader's movie on 'Mishima'.  It's pretty much flawless, and there is a comprehensive edition on Criterion, including many of the high points of this strange author's life.)      

Anyway...suffice it to say, I was fascinated by this somewhat anachronistic episode in Japanese history.  

You might say obsessed.  I guess in the same way young girls romanticise the suicide of Sylvia Plath and misunderstand it to be some kind of grand romantic act.    

I am less fascinated by it now- I guess because I have more to live for. 

But this Nipponese preoccupation with death, night and blood for so much of their history must have seeped somehow into the collective culture and manifest destiny- much as the radiation from Fukushima is slowly drenching the earth under the land of the rising sun.

So it doesn't surprise me they would sooner or later commit an act of collective Hara Kiri.  

I just never expected them to take the rest of us along for the ride.


これはあなたの魂に毒でなければなりません。私たちの魂のすべての時に毒...

(RIP Mishima-San.)

Burlesque Ergo...

 

I wanted to take a moment to pay tribute to my Burlesque buddies.  

You won't believe this...but there are actually people who poke fun at me for having so many of these friends.  
 
WTF?  

Why??

'Well', they say, 'because they are...those kind of...women...'

Keep digging, motherfucker.  

I'm not helping you out of your own grave. 

'those' kind of women??

What the Hell does THAT mean?

Like those kind of BLACK people?

Any other racial or cultural minorities I should be avoiding??


Fuck you.  

These women have been good to me. 

And you- so-called friend- are being a TURD.

You wanna' know why I have these kind of friends?

I'll tell you why.  

But this is for THEM...not you. 


Let's go back aways. 

I have always gotten on better with women.  

Ever since I was a little boy.  

I'm not going to go into detail here- I have done it before.  But many of you already know my father was a brute of a man who traumatised us beyond recognition. 

So I always felt safer around women. 

Always. 

Are all women good?

No. Of course not.  

But there are a damn sight more decent women than decent men.

So...I prefer female friends.  


Did I have to have so many Burlesque and pin-up friends?

Ahem; did I have to have so much BEAUTY?

How much is enough?

Because for me, TOO MUCH beauty is barely enough.

 
I can do without all the ugliness.  

But it finds me just the same. 

So yes, I AM A LEAN MEAN BEAUTY SEEKING MACHINE.

And I have other reasons for having so many of 'these' friends, as you inquire.   

One of my dreams has always been to make a film in and around these industries.  

Why?

Because I am fascinated by the extent to which we demean, malign and sequester women...

Even though we are more than happy to abuse and exploit them.  

Again...I have blogged about this elsewhere, but to re-cap, one of my persistent, nagging themes has been the objectification and usurpation of the female gender.

It makes no sense to me. 

& I don't mean I ask questions like "Why do those shitty guys out there treat women so badly..."

I ask myself 'what is it in ME that treats them so badly.'

Was it all my misogynistic father's influence?

Or is it something in our DNA?

So...these are the things that fascinate me. 

Why do we LOVE women so (or at least, why are we so fascinated by them...)

& yet so fucking CRUEL?

So this is my life's work. 

I'm not going to untangle it in my lifetime...

Any more than being a Suicide Girl will cure cancer. 

But damn...we are gonna' try!    

& what better setting to explore these lofty themes than in the performance art of Burlesque?

I am an artist.

& I am naturally fascinated by other art.  

See the connection here?  


So I thought it might be wise to get to know more about it.  

Maybe befriend some of these artists in order to help visualise the characters in writing. 

I was a cop at one time, and even though I met a lot of strippers & sex workers...

I met very few in the burlesque and pin-up field. 

(That's right, critics and nay sayers; these are NOT the same.)


Which leads me to the reason I post this.  

To those people who say, in a snide voice, 'you have a lot of THOSE kind of friends'...nudge nudge wink wink. 

I say 'Yes I do.  

ps; GO FUCK YOURSELF.'  


THESE WOMEN HAVE MORE GUTS THAN YOU WILL EVER SEE IN YOUR PALTRY LIFETIME. 


These women work long hours, most of them for little pay under extremely gruelling work conditions...

have to maintain peak physical fitness, when they are not performing they are TRAINING to perform well...

Not to mention makeup, hair, costume, 

music...

choreography...

they deal with injury and yes...INSULT from small minded shit bags who wouldn't know a humanitarian gesture if it took them from behind prison style.  


And you are going to sit there in judgement of me for being friends with so MANY of these extraordinary, talented, INSPIRING women??

Eat shit and die. 

These women are a gift.

They honour ME. 

And the simple minded- are not fit to be cannon fodder for all these brainless wars we are having.

I have received so much more from these women than I have given them.

It seems unfair.  

They bring a light, a vigour, a kind of je nais se quois to my wall...

& to my life.  

So I want to thank them. 

It's not much for all their pain, heartbreaking effort and back breaking labour...

But I have to do something.

So...

THANK YOU. 

With sincere thanks to my dear friend Katt Hurst (Nada Von Darling) for allowing me to use her gorgeous images. 
 
This is what I'm talking about... 

Dead End of Bullshit.

Have you ever been in a conversation, and all of a sudden found yourself inexplicably wandering down a dark path of bullshit?

When you start saying something completely insupportable in order to back up something you just said...

something you believe so affirmatively that you can't let go of it...

you pull some wild hair-brained statistic, bogus factoid or other line of shit outta' your arse...

just to be right?


That's the dead end of bullshit.  

You have nowhere else to go.  

Not the person you told the bullshit to...forget them...

But you.  

The best trick I ever learned in becoming a better person was to call myself on such bullshit IMMEDIATELY I became aware I was doing it.  


Self awareness...& the courage to look foolish. 

Get's the bullshit EVERY time.

Cheesy dreams.

I dreamt last night that deep down, everyone was frightened; some were simply better at hiding it than others.  

& love- not money, fame, or possessions- was the only cure.  

Wild.  


Maybe I ate too much cheese before bed... 

Cast Away...

The species is in a helluva' state at the moment. 

& I admit...I'm a little bit frightened. 

Yes...I guess I could lighten up and distract myself by endlessly and interminably weighing in on the Miley Cyrus on-stage butt fucking incident...

but for some strange reason?

I keep coming back to the world crises. 

It's so difficult to avoid. 

Well, difficult for me.

& it's a seesaw for me- not a fun see-saw like child's play- but a strange almost pathological prevarication between trying to let go...

'don't worry be happy'...

& then tiptoeing back to look again much like I did as a child...peeking around the living room door to watch Doctor Who...

Equal parts terrified by the horror...and yet still compelled nonetheless to eavesdrop on the program from a safe distance...

only this time none of us are safe.

This realisation might be why I cannot resist reading the latest instalment in the greatest horrorshow the human race has ever known.

It's almost too much for me.

Almost...


I viddy the unfolding of this living nightmare...& when it becomes too much and I have to look away...

averteth my eyes...

inevitably...my gaze becomes directed inward. 


I have always had a sneaking suspicion that what is wrong with the human race is pretty much reflected in what is wrong with me. 

It makes perfect sense...but it doesn't make it any easier to take. 

I could have made changes a LOT earlier;

but I didn't. 

I treated my life and the world around me like my own private Sodom and Gomorrah. 

An amusement park of the damned.

& now...it feels like too little too late. 

I have lived a full life; I have nothing to be sad about. 

I have said of late I am content, and ready to die any time the gods want me. 

I have shepherded my soul to a place where it has evolved almost to the point of being set free. 

But I still feel dreadfully sorry for the kids who will NEVER get a chance to live as we did. 

To live those carefree days...before the rot set in. 

The live the life we had in the palm of our souls...

& then threw away.

HOGG HEAVEN

For me...Harleyfest was more about the people than the bikes. 

But the bikes are what brought the people here...so it's all good. 

I had the most amazing time...

and I can't wait for next year!!!!