Kicking up an N*Stink
Far be it from the
muso-queer spotters here at
Dante's Handcart to
jump on the proverbial
bandwagon, but the slightly lubed
news that N*Sync's oh-but-we-all-
guessed-ages-ago highlighted
pop hooligan
Lance Bass has
emerged from the closet as an out &
proud homosexual
demands reporting.
"But
why?" we hear you giggle, coquettishly, like so many
pleat-
skirted Japanese schoolgirls fresh from those
hentai magazines you & your cousin
found under your
dad's bed. "Surely his
sexuality is his own
business and of no interest to
us?" And
obviously you're right.
Except that in this case, our sources tell us Bass' bottom-fancying
revelation might have unhinged an
important piece of the
internet.
While the boyband fans
foam at their collectively screaming
mouths, the
emo kiddies are doing some
screaming of their own -
only this time because art-photo-friendly
gloss gallery Myspace has been
sporadically offline since last
weekend. Government spokespeople have called for
calm amongst the
16-24 demographic, and
denied that there is a need to
stockpile hair
product, hooded clothing and
photographs of yourself from a variety of dubiously-
flattering angles.
Is it
too much to assume that the
gay in N*Sync and Myspace going
down the sink are devilishly
connected? Our hype-monkeys
don't think it is. In fact,
currently being run up the paranoia
pole is the idea that the
combined masturbation of
gleeful gay men together with the
frothing of
slash authors has created some sort of
super-
heated electromagnetic pulse, responsible for
scything Myspace from the face of the
net.
The
only solution, it would seem, would for
all non-heterosexual
popstars to either live
permanently in the
closet or accept a life in industries such as
hairdressing, airline stewardship or
VCR repair (all traditionally "gay
friendly").
Only in this way can we
prevent pipe-jamming calamity that
next time might decimate an even more
important site; online banking, for
instance, or that one where all the
hamsters dance.
Giving the Community Credit
Flopping
unsteadily from the zeitgeist
sphincter comes
Adam Phillips' newest
diatribe on happiness and the
laughably blinkered attempts we make at
achieving it. A Child Psychologist
turned Freud fancier, Phillips'
latest book
Side Effects (published July
27th) is a mental
frottage on human desire in which he
argues, citing the myriad
banals of pornography as example, on the
demands of personal
appetite and consumerism's attempts to
sate it.
"It's like the way pornography steals people's dreams. It gives you pictures of sex scenarios and so, unlike more imaginative forms of literature, stops you creating your dreams. Instead of having your own sexual fantasies the porn industry does it" (
Guardian 19/07)
In
Phillips' world we are constantly
developing our taste for
choice and, evolving
alongside that, the capitalist supply chain grows to
dazzle our aimless
lusts.
Dante's Handcart worry-possums
fear that this
masturbatory niche'ism is leading to greater and greater
segregation, splitting not only along
demographic lines but
individual ones as well.
As a
particularly aged and papery
grandparent can tell you, in the Olden Days there was only
one option. People
drank PG Tips,
listened to the
BBC World Service,
wiped themselves with
Andrex Toilet Tissue and
travelled each Summer for a six-day
week in
Brighton. Everybody was in the
same, cheery boat and
problems such as street-
violence, Hepatitis and
sodomy were unknown. The
community spirit was still solidarity and not
Vodka & Red Bull.
Roll forward twelvety
years or so and witness the growth of
tailored market forces, a
global shopping list from which even the
lowliest pleb can assemble a
lifestyle according to the minutiae
of their so-called "
needs". Pride events for every
culture, websites such as "
Rate My Penis Gourd", even the ostensibly harmless lesbian
funeral are all indicative of segregation by the tiniest peccadillo
.
Accuse us of being sweeping and
over-simplifying if you may, but we believe a
return to the ethos of
hardship can only be a good thing. A
sweeping and over-simplified excision of
unnecessary treacles and luxury
whimsy will allow every single sodding
one of you moaning bastards the
opportunity to whinge at your
hearts desire. And if there's an inhabitant of this
fair and speckled isle that
wouldn't choose a good spleen-venting
over and
above a 74 inch colour
television with
stand, then bring them out and let's
stone them to
death.
Love thy neighbour
While
suffering the night flight on the way
back to
Blighty, inflatable Empire State
hat under my arm and
sporting a "You
Killed the Two Towers So
I Couldn't See Them
So I'm Gonna
SUE You Bin Laden" t-
shirt, this
Dante's Handcart ponder-
monkey couldn't help but think about
minorities and the way people
express their
prejudices. Given the
news that my
Lib Dem namesake has handed in his resignation after telling a pro-
Israel correspondent to "
wallow in your own
filth", Bill Bennet's eye-
watering (if expected)
stance that gay people should really be
content with their birth family and
not expect to have one of their own, and that
Wiccans are being
hounded out of their jobs, it looks
like we're in dire need of a
better way to
demonstrate our
narrow-mindedness.
Given the
high altitude, the best idea to
birth its grimy way out of the
Dante's Handcart brain canal was a
duty-free style system of
personal allowances. Individuals would be
permitted a number of "
hates" based upon their personal
similarity to societal
norms, with the more "
normal" people obviously having
more (as is apparently the
standard way it works). Different
numbers of "hates" could be
cashed-in for various methods of
discrimination and vitriol -
two for a simple tongue-
lashing of a single-mother, perhaps, moving
up to fifteen to tell a
black person to move on the
bus, and escalating upward through
lynchings, tarring and
feathering.
Anybody found
exceeding their alloted "hates",
however, would immediately be deemed a
lawbreaker, therefore moving them
away from what is considered "
normal" and reducing their number of
permitted "hates".
Eventually such individuals would earn "
negative-hates", and either have to
hug gays or maybe
lick a
foreigner, something like that.
At
this point the
stewardess interrupted offering me the
choice of chicken or
beef, and so I only had time to
throw my in-flight magazine at a
mixed-race couple
before settling down to some
nice,
English food.
