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How to Kill Zombies without Brains: Violent Expression Vs. The Plutocracy During Covid-19

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Part One: Ascetic Advertisements, Bored Billboards and Cunty Capitalists

Boris Johnson didn’t die of the coronavirus, and that makes me sad. Before you wax righteousness and morality against my person, hear me out. Not only would the levels of poetic justice have been orgasmic to those of us who see this bigoted, racist, pathological, quasi-buffoon pieced together by the skin from microwaved skimmed milk, ropes of silver-specked, Eton-based semen, and the black hearts of white slavers – who appropriated shamanic rituals by imperial rule to create such a Great White beast – for what he is, but it could have been the example of the indiscriminatory equalizer that is COVID-19. For this heinous cunt to have died under the NHS’ care that he and his have tried to undermine and privatize throughout these austerity-stricken years, from a virus he largely ignored as it didn’t run with his pro-Brexit shenanigans, as the how-the-fuck-did-that-happen Prime Minister of such a pompous, privileged and growingly poor (economically, morally, mentally) country, would have been real neat.

Donald Trump and Boris Johnson Grafitti in Bristol, UK

As frightening, deathly and grief-inducing as this pandemic is, I believe it could be the dangerous path we must tread toward tectonic change in a world where fascism festers as the cataclysm of capitalism has shown its weak spots like a videogame boss with a glowing boil revealed in a routine of hack, gash and resplendently splash in the making-it-rain of green dollar bills. Now is the time to slay the titan of all industries that allows pampered, rich man-children who never had to learn wthat ‘no’ means to govern the poverty-stricken they’ve manipulated with promises of patriotism. To see the innards of insular thinking and anti-immigration rhetoric bleed over the floor that we, the working-class will undoubtedly mop up. But rather than sweep the viscera beneath the carpet, we have a chance to decorate the halls of humanity as we see fit going forward. Cleaning house will never have been so personally rewarding, so pragmatic toward not just a pay cheque but a down payment on a future where we are all in debt, meaning we’re all free to find holistic happiness away from a system that etches our worth into our ‘education’, unifies the dreams of the majority in the national lottery, or a decent claim from a broken leg on cracked pavement. But dead or not, the fallacy of Johnson, Trump, Duterte, Putin, Modi, Morrison, Bolsonaro (and wouldn’t you know the cast list for this populist play stretches on and on), of each of these vapid, morose morons is gleaming for all to see.

G Tyrant – Resident Evil – “Guess Where the G Spot is?”

Those who still don’t see it, well fuck them. You can lead a twat to water, but if he doesn’t drink then there’s always drowning. But for those of us who do – and I’m not talking left vs right now because I’ve travelled far from that fickle tug-of-war – acknowledge the innate and systemic problems of not just the players but the game, then shit, let’s utilise our engrained pragmatism to create a praxis of pariahs that topple the plutocracy. Now, you can wax on my person – and the You is also an open invitation to any of the named bullies above to put a hit on me and come a-knocking themselves. I’ve practiced, taught and watched enough Kung-Fu to tear out all of their acidic weapons (what’s a tyrant without a tongue?) in a flutter of manga-esque quick cuts and gushes of Tarantino-pastiche blood, from the montage of suiting up in PPE, to the pinch and pull of that most worked muscle of these frumpy fucks, ending with me wiping my ass with a tongue more full of shit than my actual small intestine. Bet you didn’t expect me to be such a naïve idealist though?

A fight scene so bloody that the MPAA demanded monochrome, and damn it, Tarantino obliged resplendently.

https://youtu.be/Upwg6JMtyCg

Advertising is the lexicon of capitalism. How disgusting a sentence is that? Very. Whilst waking up routinely early during this lockdown, I sometimes watch a film with breakfast that’ll still finish by 9.30am, so that I can feel a semblance of routine (a semblance is all I want), in that I can decide whether to read in the sun (in Britain, good chap?), write; a pointless university essay, an author website, a novel pitch, an essay full of violent expression, game, light up a J or get on Youtube for a home workout or see what skate parts have been uploaded in the last ten hours. That morning’s film was The Greasy Strangler. Yup, sold. The only thing was that it was on Channel 4’s streaming service which shows adverts as if you’re watching terrestrial or paid-for TV as usual – something I’ve not partaken in since my teen years living with my Mammy. I’d scanned a couple of reviews and this grotesque, vile, depraved film full of prosthetic penises (macro and micro) and garish murders  certainly sounded better than letting my malted wheat/ wheat biscuits go soggy as I scanned through the cacophony of movies I might one day be bored enough to watch.  And though I enjoyed the mad as mouse-home-invasions (don’t ask) movie, keeping its promise of greasy strangulations deranged delinquents and gross-out black humour, it was the adverts that most disturbed me. For a 90-minute film, Channel 4 tacked on six minutes worth of adverts spanning a total 12 minutes. From local lotteries showing Britain’s most-boring convulsing over winning £7.88 (if you haven’t learned that I like to exaggerate by now then, perhaps you should do something more constructive with your time), Britain’s most-foolish mandating their governmental message (ohhhhh, sick burn) telling us in Verhoeven, Cronenberg, Carpenter-esque ways to stay at home lest Robocop, James Woods or Rowdy Roddy Piper kneecap us, America’s most expensive pizza in Dominos proclaiming it’s the ‘official food of coming for one (episode, slice, piece of mental self-harm) and staying for twenty’. Dude, give me Michael St Michael’s creased leather body stood over his most recent victim, fingering said victims noseless face and then slurping the watery juices like it’s a cola tip-top on a summer’s day over watching a hacked TV trailer with ‘reviews’ – ‘an absolute (insert superlative here)’ –  scrawling past any morning of the week.

The rhetoric used in appealing to a capitalist society’s materialism is brainwashing. I’ve written many a poem about gun’s buying men, tit’s selling cars for cars to sell tits, etcetera, because our buying into it, accepting of it, is becoming so ingrained that I’ve had people comment on the lack of adverts on my logged-in YouTube as I spam Premium trials or now just pay for it just so I don’t have to be part of the incessance of insistence. I’m not willing to do be a fucking pawn. I will watch, eat, purchase, whatever I want (or afford as a full-time student/part-time worker, Mercurian poor boy from a poor family SCARAMOUCHE, SCARAMOUCHE, CAN YOU DO THE FANDANGO!) without being mind raped. If more of us denounce adverts rather than chat about them at the water cooler, if a great number of people delete social media not just because of its sycophantic sideshow of caricatures but so they aren’t canvases (canvi?) for marketing and advertising execs looking to bone the boss whilst earning a bonus, if we challenge the social norms that demand we all be doe-eyed consumers of spiritual and physical augmentation (and it’s not even in the alluring neon funk of K Dickian Cyberpunk yet) then I believe we might just see the glowing teste of The Titillating Titan of Terran Capitalism that we can slash at with a battle axe.

Pro-Tip: when sat on a plane, you may have a cardboard banner on the back of the chair that’s inches away from your eyes. That banner may be an advertisement for an overly-expensive ‘meal’ deal, another flight (dude, give me a fucking chance to save up), or perfume. With enough dextrous pressure, you can slide out this cardboard advertisement that’s beating you in a staring contest, tear it up, and deposit it on the next litter collection that passes by the aisles. The same can be done for those A4 broadsides in front of you at urinals or on the back of the door you’ll stare at as you poop.

Movie poster for ‘They Live’

I understand that it’s very easy to speak in these sweeping generalisations. So many groan when words like ‘capitalism’ ‘patriarchy’ ‘populism’ ‘climate crisis’ ‘social upheaval’ ‘revolt’ ‘cactus dildo’ are uttered, but this is what violent expression is about; assessing what you have to say through observant introspection (ala Alan Watts), commanding it to challenge the neigh sayers, and becoming aroused from the groans of said neigh sayers – arousal is a joke but it can lead to much-needed tête-à-têtes if both sides aren’t just proclaiming their assimilated opinion is better than the others’. Why is it easy to dismiss these words above, but not the words of politico pigs who lie outright to our faces, to our general hive mind, lie about being sexual deviants (I don’t mean that in the Christian way where anything but missionary is mission impossible, but those that believe part of being a man is raping girls and boys and bragging about it with immunity because it’s ‘locker room talk’), lie about their numerous, costly fucks ups that, as the consensus would have it, doesn’t affect them, only those they govern (banks, you don’t just have our savings for personal exodus from the isles of Empire but you have our taxes, don’t fucking forget it).

I mean, The Guardian actually has a ‘fact check’ device in its articles that cover Trump. That’s the president of the laughably named United States. We’re so childishly fickle when it comes to allowing the gods of men carte blanche in their deceit and deviancy but when someone says the words ‘Maybe, just fucking maybe, we shouldn’t have billionaires, should share resources justly, and could be nicer to people who aren’t white,’ as a certain clown once said, ‘well, then, everyone loses their minds!’. All of the taboos of yesteryear are gone. Fuck, I’m partly the way I am from all of the sex, violence, swearing and crime I saw (culturally and otherwise) as I was growing up. Taboo is almost taboo which, you think is awesome, then you see a set of adverts showcasing insipid idiots clapping policies that’ll all but socially disable them. Or you watch Netflix’s Wild Wild Country and become more enraged at the pedantry of ‘patriots’ so fucking fearful of their comfort zone and common knowledge expanding to the point of finding empirical value in spirituality that isn’t the cult of Jesus over the maniacal ramblings of those clapping their ‘messiah’ as he rolls by in a Rolls Royce.

This is What Violent Expression Looks Like in a Music Video.

Yes, I’ve joked about those aged ‘patriotic’ types dying off because of Corona. That this pandemic could be the scourge of the white man (I know I’m a white man but I promise, I, like many of my generation, are anomalous and soon to be the new norm of delicate, dutiful human beans only too willing for utter equality through systemic change) and his wrinkled Klan. Those who voted for Trump and Brexit are the ones seemingly dying off. Now, I’m not trying to make light of anyone’s deaths. Shit, Corona has made me deal with my own mortality in ways much healthier than I have previously. No one is safe. But, like the pragmatism of the working-class warriors of my upbringing, having nothing else but love and hand-me-down lessons to dole out most times, everyone apparently gets their comeuppance. That can seem a moot concept as a bullied, loner child, one that is a simplistic atheistic grasp at there being balance to the universe, but as I’ve grown, I’ve realised it’s starkly untrue as the bad guy’s keep on winning. But that’s why we’re in this mess in many ways. So maybe my timeframe of this aphorism’s truth was simply too short, problematically filmic in how I’m conditioned for the heroes with a thousand faces to save the day.

To close out this first part of Violent Expression vs The Plutocracy, I must remind you that its fucking horrendous that humanity’s most resplendent showcases of soul have come from places of repression. Our subjective paradox a bruised coccyx bone from the pebble beneath the trucks of our flailing bail. But aren’t we all repressed right now? Taking our government-allotted hour-long walks as we practically commit inadvertent suicide via auto-neurotic asphyxiation (holding your breath as you walk by somebody), forming exterior queues to reaffirm our normal queues inside the supermarket, not being able to comfort a friend who needs the physical substance of love, having your best laid plans become moot (more on that in the next article). We are repressed. And whilst it’s nice to think of the amount of self-discovery, introspection and newfound artistic adventures that will hopefully be born out of this (in a fucked up way, I actually feel like the artist I’ve wanted to live as for so long with all the time away from an external world I like only to dip into; I can write more both in content and mode, learn how to express myself in illustration finally, plan to shoot a movie, craft mad collages of mine and my partner’s photocopied genitals, pursue digital things like photo editing, etc.) there’s even more we can get from this. At best, it’ll be a needed break from capitalism’s oppressive regime of meetings, calendars, homework, timeframes and all of the other modern stressors we just aren’t meant to abide (much more on that next article too). At worst, it could be the loss of a loved one, a home, a paycheque, etcetera. But we don’t have to be idle as the system buffers. We can meditate on how we, me, you, us, can come out swinging at Skynet, or whatever digital corporation ultimately tries to use all of this digital time (my Google searches are getting gnarlier) against us.

Down The Bong Hole – Pick-Lips Road “Home is Where the Art is – Get to Creating!”

If this virus can do anything good for the non-millionaires with ideas of self-awareness coming out better on the other side of the soft apocalypse, it’s that we realise the fallacy of a phallic system that supports the grey facial bristles. That we each have a say, and saying such to our neighbour, lover, mother, or the Other, means that communities grow. During my eighteen months of travelling the world, I was privileged enough to become engrained in so many disparate hearty cultures and communities. The bigger the small communities grow, the less lambs there are for the laughter of the lunatics who designed our asylum. In a time of mass monopolisation and corporate puppetry of countering the counter-cultures, we must satire, we must strive to not just survive but thrive. We must prove that we aren’t simply worker-bots that do what we’re told as long as we get our weekend binge of alcohol or daily dose of caffeine and anti-depressants. But if not. If it’s the fucking Apocapitalist of George A Romero’s Dead, then meet me in St Louis because Abbie & Ilana will be there with weed, witchcraft and a New Woman Order for where we head from the ashes.

Aaron uses words as weapons because he understands that the pen is mightier than the fleshy sword many other white men have written with for time immemorial. He also uses literal weapons as a Black Belt Third Dan Kung-Fu instructor, falls off his skateboard often, denies his working-class rites to explore this pale blue dot, and writes about it all - whether poem, novel, or article - with vehemence. He believes in violent expression, exuberant individualism (he's co-founder/editor of Cape Magazine) and the omnipotence of marijuana.

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