Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.07.2003, Page 11
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me, feeling a sense of thrill whenever he
made any changes to the text. At the
very same time, Elvis was just beginning.
He was anarchist in behaviour, he was
every taboo rolled into one. He had a
homosexual haircut, he dressed like a
homosexual, he moved like a stripper
and every song resembled rape in the
way he used the microphonestand
as a partner. There aren’t any colour
pictures of him, the ones that we have
are in black and white, or counterfeited
colours. We don’t get to see him as he
was, dressed in a red jacket and green
trousers. If we had, styles would have
changed a lot earlier. He sang white
trash in a negroid manner, but it worked
both ways, the white man began to
sing black and the black man began
to sing white. This is the reason why
ideals about equality managed to brake
through and why events did not turn out
that much worse when schools were
integrated. When white people played
black songs, the teeth were pulled out
of the music. But Elvis still had bite,
and brought unadulterated black music
to the masses, and hence recognition
of blacks. So when schools were
integrated, it was because of Elvis.”
Master has spoken, and his incisive
intelligence has begun to illuminate
things. “One of your other loves is comic
books,” says Grapevine, attempting to
drag the conversation down to its level.
“How do you like Spider-Man?”
“Spider-Man always annoyed me. It’s
that damn aunt of his. She is portrayed
in such a manner, probably reflecting
tension within the writer, that it irritates
the reader so you want to punch her
face in. She is a very good portrait of
someone who pretends to need help, but
is a master of instilling guilt if everyone
doesn’t sit and stand as she wants. This
type exists. But Batman is a much
better venue for philosophical thought,
and ever changing, yet still using all the
elements of the Batman myth created
by Bob Kane, just as the theatre of the
middle ages tended to use the same
characters over and over.
Grapevine does not know much
about medieval theatre, but Batman is
something it understands. “Have you
read the Dark Knight series?”
“It was a return to the roots,
cutting out the campy humour that had
characterised him for so long. Batman
had become very gay, but once he had
become more evil, lurking in the night,
he seemed less so. Everyone is insane,
both he and the criminals, although he is
on the opposing side, two sides of the
same coin. He is always playing a form
of Russian roulette. It’s not self contempt
so much as a general contempt for
mankind. Comics often escape the
censor, because they are considered
too irrelevant. So they often get away
with biting social critism. In Hollywood,
the studios tend to censor themselves,
but ways are found to get through. In
the Eisenhower era, gays could have
a laugh because authorities were that
deaf and dumb. Some Like It Hot is
extremely gay, and a film worshipped by
gays, but no one else seemed to realise
its implications.”
The similarity between Caligula and
Icelanders
From Jack Lemmon in drag the
conversation turns to social critism.
“Poverty is increasing. People are
fooled with the carrot “good times are
coming,” so they invest heavily and
unsoundly. Everyone becomes heavily in
debt, and have no choice but to continue
being where they are, doing the jobs they
do. It was the same in the old farming
society when people where literally
banned from moving about.
Nero and Caligula were
both men who were reasonably sane
before they came to power, but then
suddenly become raving mad. A bit like
Icelanders. In most countries, it takes
absolute power to corrupt absolutely,
but here a little power is enough.
People like Jónas frá Hriflu (mid-20th
century Progressive Party politician,
parodied in a Megas take on Dylan’s
John Wesley Harding) espoused Nazi-ish
art, even after the war, and he was also
responsible for putting the girls who had
associated with American soldiers into
concentration camps. Of course, it was
men who ran the corrupt government,
and women tended to be victims. One of
the reasons Icelandic men took second
place to the soldiers was Icelanders
complete lack of courtesy. Gentlemanly
behaviour must have been known here at
some point, but had been forgotten and
replaced by rudeness. It’s amazing that
they actually wrote predesigned reports.
These claim that it wasn’t corruption,
only a few tarts selling themselves, or
worse, doing it for free. But these men
would sell their own grandmother, and
not even hand her over once they had
gotten the money, and then sell her over
again.”
Prozac or sex?
Grapevine has learnt a lot that afternoon,
but still is no closer to discovering the
road to eternal happiness. So far, it can
imagine but two possibilities. Loads
and loads of sex, or, failing this, a lot
of Prozac.
“Oh Master, lies the road to eternal
bliss in taking enough prescription drugs
so that you are rid of this endless craving
for sex?”
“Prozac and sex are mutually
exclusive. If you’re getting rid of your
sexual urges, you’re going contrary to
the point of it all. You have peace, but
you have no purpose anymore. In the
end, reproduction is our goal here on
earth. There isn’t any other.” It is as I
suspected.
“And so it will be until our old stepmother
Earth, who has killed almost all life
on earth several times, gets tired of
being raped and brings an end to this
experiment too.”
“But is there anyone directing the
experiment?”
“It is up to ourselves what we do,
but there is no thought, no bald Matrix
scientist behind it all.”
So, there is no God. It all boils
down to sex, then, if reproduction is
the only way we can reach immortality.
How should this be conducted? Should
we get married or should we sleep
around? Some claim that marriage kills
creativity.
“This was always obvious,” says
Master. Relationships can bring you
some beautiful moments, but those
games should always be ended when
they reach their climax.”
“Is this why you’ve never gotten
married?”
“No, that’s just because I’m
impossible to have about the house.
The creative person is dedicated to his
work and doesn’t care about anything
else. He cannot sit still on a couch with a
beer in his hand and watch TV. He’s just
not interested in that, so he’s not made
for relationships. And sensitive men can
just forget about it. Women have shown
time and again that they’re not interested
in that sort of thing. You can be that for
yourself, it relieves a lot of stress, but
out amongst people you must put up a
front. If you can’t be cool you get beaten
up. But if you have a menacing look in
your eye, you can avoid conflict.”
Why revolutions are hopeless
Icelanders, it is true, are very much in the
habit of beating each other up, especially
when drunk, and the Sagas speak of
people who were killed just because they
could be. But yet attempts have never
been made at revolution, despite this
seeming propensity for violence,
Master speaks: “There have been two
uprisings in Icelandic history. One was
when the label of the Brennivín bottles
was changed, and people protested and
refused to buy it.”
“And the other one?”
“It was when the nation sat at
home on the 1000 year celebration of
Christianity in 2000. Not very active
rebellions, perhaps, but nonetheless...”
“It is very much like Icelanders to
protest against the small things and
ignore the big.”
“Exactly. No one expected any
trouble on the 30th of March (the riots
that broke out in 1949 when the Icelandic
government joined NATO), but yet, just in
case, they trained a group of men, the
white guard as they were called, and
the people found to do the job were
Icelanders who had been in the SS and
were transported home from Norway at
the end of the war. How do they respond
then, if they are really threatened?”
“Well, these days people are
becoming more radicalised than they
have been for a long time,” Grapevine
opinions hopefully. But Master has seen
it all before.
“But then the same thing will happen
over again. CIA diverted money to
them, to know where they had them.
They then became dependent on CIA
financing, which could be stopped at
any time. Protesting is a very expensive
business.”
We are now reaching the heart of the
matter. “What is to be done to make the
world a better place? What can we do?”
“There is nothing we can do. There
is no us and them. They are us and we
are them. People protest against the
industrialisation of the highlands, but
they won’t mind once it’s taken place.
Perhaps we can put up some cardboard
cutouts of nature in the summer for the
tourists.”
And so it is. In the end, successful
revolution is out of the question, because
it is our own greed and, frankly, stupidity
that we are up against.
How George Bush stole history
Master continues: “The existence
of Bin Laden is open to doubt, a CIA
spy that pops up when needed, if not
in Afghanistan, then in Indonesia, and
doesn’t seem to exist otherwise. If you
don’t have the enemy you need you must
create him. The Nazis said that if they
hadn’t had the Jews, they would have
had to invent them. Saddam Hussein,
however, existed and is probably still
alive and protected to some extent by
the population.
“The Robin Hood, or John Wesley
Harding of Iraq?”
“No, he’s done too much wrong.
But the people probably prefer a local
dictator over foreign occupation. For
instance, the day after US troops
entered Baghdad, artefacts from the
National Museum popped up on sale in
New York and Rome.”
“Stolen by the US?”
“This has been claimed. Who else
would be able to put them on sale right
away? The Iraqis wouldn’t, even though
they might have wanted to. It is an old
tradition to plunder a conquered country.
This is the cradle of civilisation. It is
interesting that Bush was so interested in
destroying the birthplace of civilisation,
and thus changing the history of ideas,
when he’s chopped it into pieces and
shipped it out.”
“But aren’t there religious reasons as
well, in bombing Babylon?”
“God has already taken care of
Babylon. And he’s active elsewhere,
too. Building the two Twin Towers in
honour of money is a far graver insult
than the Tower of Babel. Two planes
arrive, and God spits on the ground.
The US government, of course, knew
what was about to go down, in much the
same way as the Nazis knew about the
burning of the Reichstag, but did nothing
to prevent it. Once they could point their
finger at the enemy, they could go about
abolishing human rights and getting rid
of their enemies. To reach to power you
need to be a bastard, and what is good if
this is the government?”
The Heart of the Matter
“So what can we do? There’s no one
worth voting for and all revolutions seem
to accomplish the opposite of what they
set out to?”
“The good guys are always by nature
weaker than the bad. The victory of
good is never more than symbolic, and
then only in retrospect. When the Nazis
were beaten in World War Two, they were
beaten with Nazi tactics, so fascism
won, and so completely that almost the
entire staff was flown to Washington to
continue their work. Then came the
Korean War, which was a good dress
rehearsal, as was Vietnam, which was
carpet bombed into oblivion. To save
it they had to destroy it. Everything is
so insane that there’s not anything to be
said anymore.”
“So the only thing the sensible
person can do is to resign himself from
everything, and try to ignore it?”
“Well, you can try to express your
opinions as clearly as possible, and give
those who are still struggling ideological
weapons. But everything is just so
insane. Bush comes to power through
forgery and fake vote counting. Under
any other circumstances, other power
elites would have protested over the
dubiousness of the election. He had
done what a politician is not allowed to
do, drugs, but he became born again, so
that’s alright. Christian fundamentalism
is also a good excuse to hate 95% of
humanity, although he´s probably not
Christian at all.”
“But isn’t sarcasm powerless to fight
this? There have never been as many
satirists let loose as during the Weimar
Republic, but they failed to laugh Hitler
of the stage, who was the one man who
seemed deadly earnest. What can we
do?”
“You can make fun all you want, and
some people will laugh, but then evil
clenches its fist and punches your teeth
out.”
So there you have it. Everything is
hopeless. Grapevine leaves genius to
do its brooding, somewhat wiser but
necessarily happier.
Building the Twin Towers is a far
greater insult than Tower of Babel
was. And God is still active.