Francois, 47, 4'9" with the physique of a hobbit and eyes which face in opposite directions (east and west, respectively) enters Pimping Pussies most days between the hours of 4 and 6. Francois hobbles over to his favorite table, orders a Bud Light, and after consuming three of these, is inebriated enough to cackle merrily to himself and dance like an extra from 'Saturday Night Fever' with whoever is unfortunate enough to be in his proximity.

Francois has known tragedy in his life. Just ten months ago his mother, with whom he had lived all of his life, passed sadly away.

"It was terrible", recalls Mike, the Pussies' handyman. "He used to come in, order his beer and cry."

One day Don the head waiter saw him, and demanded to know why Francois was weeping so copiously. His mother just died, came the reply.

"Well, if he'd spent a little more time at home lookin' after her, and less time in the fuckin' titty bar she probably wouldn't be dead!"

A pragmatic response.

Francois finally got over his tragic loss when, on Halloween, he won third prize in the Pussies dress-up competition for his memorable effort at recreating Russell Crowe in Gladiator. He recalls this moment, eyes dimmed with tears, every time I hand him a new Bud Light.

Before my heart was softened by over-exposure to the darker side of NY, I may have labelled Francois Prick No. 8 in my 'Pricks I Have Known' Series. But now, older, wiser and sympathetic, he gains a special place in my heart and that of my readers as Gladiator Francois: Favorite Pussies Client of June 2nd, 2005. Congratulations Francois.

Oh and a message for Lyova: I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN YOU BASTARD!!!

RIBBENTROP MOLOTOV PACT

In the nervous summer of 1939, my hometown areas were squatting quietly inside the newly reborn Polish Republic - a country uncomfortably sandwiched between Nazi Germany and the USSR. Six years later, we found ourselves stuck on the western edge of the Byelorussian SSR, looking with the fat eyes of regrets at our extended cousin networks, which were thriving on the other side of the border. How did this happen?

On August 23rd 1939, when the rest of the world was closing eyes and producing wet dreams instead of looking Hitler in the eyes, the foreign ministers of Germany and the USSR, Ribbentrop and Molotov, met to put their pens upon the greatest and most diabolocal pact that was ever produced. Their primary concerns were to secure non-agression in the case of war, which at that time was already in Hitler's oven. It may seem strange that two such radically oposed ideologies can reach this common agreement, but then like now it is not ideologies that are primordial in strategies, but the real Politik.

What is most profound about this pact is that it contained the famous secret clause that cut up Eastern Europe between Stalin and Hitler. In the end, it is because of this that I am now in Byelorussia and my cousins are not. It is also for these reasons - because these lands upon which I have grazed throughout my life were so deeply impregnated by the blood of many battles - that this history sprints through my cardio-vascular tract. I have learned from the greatest masters how to play these games. These men that I hate but which I must emulate in order to become primo. Everybody knows what the outcome of these old histories is, so I will not bore you with it, but there are three things that are of particular importance to our game:

1. Hitler betrayed Stalin in 1942 and launched operation Barbarosa.
2. Stalin emerged victorious and the USSR was the only country to gain territories in the war.
3. Remember, the most essential clause of the Ribbentrop Molotov Pact was secret.

OUR RM39: The Present Era

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship:

This is how it began. A message posted soon after I received the first immunity. Clearly this Ritchey was also a keen strategist and deft with politics. She backed the winning horse, unlike Eddie, who became our first victim thanks to his attitude and post.
We formed the core Politbyuro cell of RM39 between us. The agreement was to each occupy ourselves with the recruiting of various sub-cells, to which each of us would have exclusive access as controller, thus gaining our sub-cells' trust and also keeping the greater structure disconnected. The fundamental idea is to make it difficult (or ideally impossible) for the various cells of the structure to communicate with each other independently. Everything must thus pass through the Politbyuro. Furthermore, we endeavour to blur the chain of command by not revealing exactly who was involved in the alliance and certainly not saying who was in the Politbyuro! In this way, we could achieve several results:

1. Our sub-units could not debate with one another about strategy.
We would always create an artificial debate with our sub-cells, giving them two or three options to vote off but always directing them more in one direction. The debate was rigged. The result was expected and programmed.

2. Our sub-units could not plot against us.
Not knowing who was in RM39 meant that each unit was at immense risk if they tried to contact other supposed members of the alliance. If they made the wrong choice, they would be revealing our alliance to the opposition, thus weakening themselves, because they were, after all, members of the strongest group. Also, they risked betraying themselves to the Politbyuro itself, since they did not know exactly what bonds we had with the other sub-cells.

3. Our sub-units could easily be manoeuvred against each other.
In the example of the vote against Lois for instance: she would have been able to foresee her defeat (and possibly defect) had she been aware that RM39 had sentenced her to exile.

I was primary controller of Medya, whom I recruited off the den with this message:

As controller, it was my duty to nurse him into trust, however I never agreed to give him the iPod which he demanded from the very beginning. Ritchey had Lois under her wings and, as far as I am informed, she cooperated suitably with us. Mimi was on a different level. Ritchey and I both had contacts with her, although Ritchey was doubtless her primary contact. Mimi was not part of the Politbyuro (as far as I am concerned) but we always held her in highests esteem and discussed truly and sincerely with her the votings. We also had more reasons to fear her because her posts were always top class and she was more independent in her contacts with the oppositions. I take this occasion, once again, to tip my hat to her, eventhough we are now in opposition.

RM39 also frequently voted in coordination with the so-called "Merit Badgers", although the coordination was only achieved through Politbyuro of course: mainly Ritchey who would iChat with James or Willow. These coordinated votes also helped us mask our identities and number. The sub-cells of our organization would look at the results and wonder if there were really seven members. We also did not seek to crush the Merit Badgers when we could have because we found that it was useful to keep two alliances in order to draw people closer to us (for protection from the other alliance). We also kept Joel in the game longer than expected. This was because I personally appreciate his provocative character but also - from strategics' poinnt of view - in order to polarize the other votes. As long as he was here, the lone voters would vote for him, whilst the alliances voted off the lone voters, thus preserving themselves.

Around Challenge no.5, the threats and rumours of defection grew higher and, surely enough, Medya went across to the Badgers (probably enticed by iPod bribes). It was also very worrying for almost everyone in our organization when Mimi received a vote against her. This further created suspicions against Lois.

Finally, I would like to point out that RM39 was truly the greatest and most massive (visible - because, despite your words Ritchey, it was never secret, never meta) alliance in the competition. Not only from the points of view of strategy but also of excellence: five out of the eight challenges were won by our elites, and this is not the result of strategies and trickeries, but of solid work, creativity, humour and commitment.

R.I.P. : The Bitterest End

I voted my dearest comrade, Ritchey, off. This was by far the hardest, most painful and emotional moment in this game. At the beginning I believed we were but allies in class struggle; in the end I came to realize we had become close friends. Throughout this competition, we spent many hours discussing animals, music, politics and such things over emails and iChats. We shared stories from our homelands, our childhoods, our dinner plates. I gave her tales of famous slavic bisons that wandered far and wide, she gave me the rocky mountains and the giant elephants that swim unto the shores of the Pacific Ocean. These past months have been hard for me here, far from home and missing it, but thanks to my comrade there were many pleasant times and stimulating exchanges.
She was my friend. I loved her. I killed her.
Please accept this homage:

first of all, i really need to apologize to those who put their faith in me. it hurt that i had to betray them, especially willow. i have lived my whole life full of merit and according to the scout oath... and until now, have done rather well. but the moment i was accepted to this contest, i questioned how far 'honest & trustworthy' would get me. but what happens when i make a promise to be dishonest and untrustworthy? this is a dilemma i toyed with. my conclusion was STALIN. its important to note, however, that part of this pact was to act completely independently of each other until the very end... thus my feeble attempt to rationalize "honestly lying" (something i would only dare do with my mothers age; shes 37). so... i think its absolutely necessary to write this post as such, completely independent of STALIN.

the merit badgers begin with one single comment. i knew right away that this would lead to something special, but lo... it was too late. my alliance had been made, and i had to stick with it. of course, that wasn't going to stop me from making sure 'the merit badgers' would get as far as possible without breaking the STALIN pact. my only fear was that i would have to one day make that fateful decision between the two; the pact built on love, or the pact built on fear and deceit. i'm thankful i never had to make that decision as lyova did, i know that it was hard for him. and of course it was awful for me to see willow go, knowing there was nothing STALIN could do to help her (that lyova hadn't already done once... sorry mimi). but... see... already im talking about STALIN. enough of him, the badgers are what's important here.

so, as the name suggests, 'the merit badgers' was built off of merit. our quest was to insure that the game was not swallowed by strategy, and encourage votes to be cast according to those that were making the 'least ultimate' posts. but in order to do this and simultaneously guard 'the merit badgers' hides... willow and i still had to utilize strategy (i don't think i have to point out the double irony here). we needed to insure that RM-39 (better known as 'ritchey, mimi, lyova and crew') were well aware that we were honest in our intentions, and that they could trust we would tell them before voting a member off. this meant that while they did intend to vote us off, they would wait until we were the two remaining 'non RM-39ers', because we posed no threat and were a predictable opposing force. of course, it helped that i knew lyova would never vote for me, but there was nothing in our pact that would prevent him from voting off my dearest ally willow.

so. willow and I were very careful to remain in contact with the other alliance, and make sure that they understood our intentions were genuine. unfortunately, my poker face wasn't good enough to fool the others, lyova made the first tactful STALIN move and tipped me off that word of 'JAMES' votes were in the air. this also meant that lyova was in a position where if he had to defend me, it might expose our meta-alliance so, i had to become myself as likable as possible. in the event that voting me off came into question, there had to be enough people reluctant to vote me off that lyova wouldn't be in danger of being the only one opposed. now, i don't necessarily think im that charming, but rather i believe i have a tendency to be overwhelming with my desire to please.. this simply gave me an excuse not to excersize restraint. so, i offered help were i thought it was needed, complemented (a little too much... as always), and even kissed ritchey's toes when i learned she was a member of 'dear nora' and 'the badger king' (no relation to the badgers of the merit kingdom).

but... its also important to note that i was completely honost in such flatteries. i do indeed love ritchey's music (she ranks even higher than kim hiorthoy and david sedaris!!), and i was more than happy to help mimi with her photo's... and of course i do absolutely love mimi's weblog (which deserves this). of course... i did agree to give medya my ipod (something he made requests for from each contestant) if the two of us made it to the top three... that was sort of dishonest of me. but wow, was that ever a weird situation. i don't know how to communicate with him anymore. im too shy for confrontation, so i've been pretending to be completely ignorant of the whole phenomenon. naturally, thats only because i am at a complete loss as to what to say to him about all this. maybe i'll share some of those MSN chats later, to show what i mean. but what do you say to someone you liked and trusted, when they turn out to be a total loose cannon? god, he was a challenge away from being an honorary merit badger! oh, and lois! i feel awful! she contacted me about joining the merit badgers right before leaving. i had hoped that our honesty would cause the other alliance to crumble and defect, but i had no idea what to say when i knew she was getting voted off with medya in the next round! sorry lois, you would have been an awesome addition to our team. and medya... well... im not really sorry about anything. no... i am. im sorry you think ipod shuffles are really that great; in taiwan people get them just so they can look rich wearing those little white earplugs.

on another note, i've been thinking a lot about a class i almost took a few years back in college. it was a require theme course called 'strategic games' that was suppose to analyze strategy and the use of it in history. there were no papers or test in that class, only games. our entire grade came from our performance in these games... one in each lesson. for the very first class we played an old war game that was invented by... well, i forgot... but i think it had something to do with 'the art of war'. anyhow, it is a two person game where each person writes down on a sheet of paper A or B (and in some versions 'something hard' or 'something soft', aggressive/passive ect). if both players put A, each would get 1 point. if both players put B, they each lost 2 points. if one put A, and the other B, the A would lose 6 points, and the B would gain 6. the idea being that it simulated old battles; back when there were rules against germ warefare, fighting before dawn, straight battle formations, ect ect, and the game assumes that both sides are equally strong. picking A means fighting with merit and obeying these rules, B means guerilla warfare... A and B results in the A getting demolished, and the B gaining a distinct advantage for the rest of the battle, and two B's result in massive losses for both sides.

so... the first day of class we were instructed to pick someone we had never met before. naturally, i picked the next most harmless person in the room (being the incredibly shy dolt that i am). we were then explained the rules of the game, asked not to discuss them with our opponents, then told that the highest scores would get passing grades while everyone else failed. the catch was that our scores would be the result of only the very first round. so... we all played, and it turned out that the battle between my partner and i was the only one in the class that resulted in two A's. unfortunately, that also resulted in two F's, for passing grades for that assignment were only granted to those who had chosen B while their opponent had chosen A. i became really excited by all this, and was determined to prove to this class (mostly business majors) that pacifism was the only true winning strategy in the long run. but... this never happened. the next day i switched into a creative writing class.

the idea remains though, and i've continued thinking about this experience all throughout the ultimate blogger competition. on one hand, i had planned on dealing straight A's throughout the entire game, but somehow, in a rather large step out-of-character, i agreed with lyova to deal out that one final B that would give the advantage to us for the remainder of the game. i sold out on pacifism. i still hope, however, that history will one day reveal how the ghandi's of the world will always win in the long run. if this is truly the case, my one ultimate B will become my ultimate demise, while willow's straight A's will send her to a whole other ultimate victory somewhere well beyond this urban(honking) battlefield.

so... there you have it. my cards are on the table, i have no more secrets to hide... and dealt my one and only B. naturally this puts me in a rather awkward position as far as STALIN is concerned. im rather vulnerable at this moment... should lyova win this challenge (his post is likely to blow mine out of the water, i know this because i've helped with a few pieces already), he could just as easily pick mimi as he could me. and no, i haven't prepared anything in the event that that happens. at this point, no amount of faith will reassure me that an alliance built on B's is beyond turning its back on one of its two founding members. so, i guess thats the hole i've dug with my lies, and i wouldn't dare beg lyova for mercy. im pretty proud of what i've done actually, its a new leaf turned. i've certainly worked hard enough for it.

so, im really very exhausted. please, let me know if there was anything i wasn't clear on, or anything else you'd like to hear more about. i know there are plenty of questions... please ask, im an open book(blog?).

There is no best. It's all subjective, and the fact I'm still here and Willow and Ritchie and Sonny and Crash et al aren't, is all to do with downright luck, and being in the right place at the right time when that tactical email hit my inbox... We're all winners, every one of us. If I was a better technical person I would now have a small video piece of kittens and cute, feral creatures hopping through meadows, with some 'Little House on the Prairie' type themesong, good American heartwarming, sentimental slush. All I have is a picture of a small Jack Russell terrier hastily snatched from Google several minutes ago. I've been at work all day. But...I love you guys. I love you all...

Yeah, whatever.

I'm still here because I'm a writer. I'm not a visual arts expert like James, or a sexy Russian God with an obvious boner, or a cute, versatile bubbly Portlander, or a cute, versatile, funny Portlander, etc etc, but I have words, and along with my ability to kiss butt, some good fortune and strong partners, they're what I wielded as my light saber all the way through this competition. Here's how it went for me....

Challenge One: Ritchie and Lyova email me and tell me to vote for Eddy and that we must forge an alliance. I agree, and omit to inform them I have already voted for Lois, so strong is my desire to seem at one with the alliance. I voted for Lois because she seemed disapproving of me. I dislike disapproval and try and thwart goodness and sense whenever possible.

Challenge Two: Ritchie emails me to tell me she has her period. Me too! We are one. Along with the Russian God, we vote for Karsh. I am indiscriminate in my voting, I'm just asslicking Ritchie and Lyova so they don't vote me off.

Challenge Three: James helps me with my photo, and I win. We refrain from discussing tactics. I sense that James is a gentlemen, and aligned strongly with Willow, who scares me because she is nice. Ritchie, Lyova and I vote for Joel, because Joel is mean, and a bit of a prick. Later on we discover that Joel is actually quite sweet. Oh well. There must be no regrets. We must make sacrifices to construct the empire.

Our attention turns to picking on the stronger contestants, feeling that the weaker will fall by the wayside as casualties of their own accord. We decide Willow and James are great threats, but our efforts to defeat them are thwarted by Willow's immunity. No matter. There are plenty more little puppies with which to make the fur coat. The slaughter continues with the innocuous and gentle Sonny as our next victim.

Challenge Five: Ritchey wins. A pleasing result. One must be supportive of one's comrades. But a tie in the voting reveals our alliance power is waning...

Challenge Six: Putting voting in our hands results in a flurry of realignments. As I work 16 hour days, I miss these emails and realignments. Medya emails me to ask me to let him in on our alliance. I ignore his email as I don't receive it until the last minute. The results of the voting revealed Medya, Lois, Willow etc don't like me at all... my suspicions start to grow about the strength of the Russian God's commitment to the faith after the results. Ritchie and I attempt to assuage our fears with excessive emailing about nothing, and we wave farewell to Medya, who turns out to be the real prick, far more of a prick than Joel could ever aspire to be, and Lois, who lasts with dignity until the end, but was extremely enigmatic and distant and slightly foreboding at times.

Our desire to crush Willow grows. It becomes an obsession with Ritchie and I. We plan her demise deep into the night, relishing the destruction of one so nice. It is sick, twisted, dark. It keeps me alive in those darkest hours of sixteen hour shift days in shitty jobs. It gives me strength. And then... we vote her off, the pinnacle of the game, our game... and immediately both feel really mean for doing so and post nice messages on her blog.

Women are bitches. We suck.

Perhaps, James, you missed out the real truth on your post for Challenge Six, which is that Lyova is actually a woman?

Only a woman could have dealt such a mean card to his fellow comrade and supporter, the lovely Ritchie. I felt Ritchie's fall. She was brethren. Lyova - you are a cunt of the highest degree.

But you're still my dream man.

I know that my former compatriot is ruthless, single-minded, and overwhelmingly onanistic. He overpowers the delightful James with the strength of his duplicity, his charm, and his efforts to satiate his greed for ultimateness. It's so damned attractive. I can feel that my weakness as a woman could lead to my imminent demise, and I am resisting with all my strength.

At first it was indiscriminate slaughter, then ruthless assassination, and now fortune and betrayal.

If I had not won immunity in the last round, I feel sure that it would have been my carcass at the wayside, being pecked at by vultures, and Ritchie would be here now.

To be Ultimate is out of my hands. I dodged the bullets carelessly and gleefully alongside the ever-faithful Ritchie, and survived the double crossing with a timely immunity.

I am now strong, and yet sadly weak, even as the former holder of the blessed US passport bequeathed to me by Urban Honking. The incredible journey is drawing to a close. Is it a passport to Ultimateness, or merely to further treachery, betrayal and a final goodbye?

In the latest blogman video, you remember with awesome nostalgics the summer of 1994, and this also was a truly momentous year for myself. I am thinking that perhaps it will be in your interests to see and hear how things was on the other side of the world in that era, ok? And I must say that it was also massive hardcore, full power and total throttle!
The Jarocin festival for music of the young generation was the bigest and best rock festival in the East block. Here, in the dismal 1980's, young people could gather in sonic rebellion against the dictatorships of communism. Those years was very grey for everyone, but in this magical place you would find people that contradict and, dare I say, subjugated their realities in multifarious manners of dress, talk and dancing habits. Here, the people put the safety pins into their cheeks, consumed copious amounts of alcohol and enjoyed punk music to the oblivious point! It was a time to spit in the face of the totalitarians and marxism-leninism in particular. You would meet people here that you rarely saw in everyday life. Awesome people. Awesome music. Awesome struggles. And I, for one, was digging it!It happens that the epochal summer of '94 would be the last time I make the pogo at Jarocin. Of course, at that time we believed - as does your Bryan Adams - that "it would last for ever", but the times were changing in radical ways and it was dawning on everybody, notwithstanding the mayor of Jarocin town himself, that the festival was part of the bygone eras. In the tender years of slavic punks, the rebellion was directed at an evil regime and the prevalent conformists of that era. But with the emergence into capitalist democracy, there was much factional violence, as the punks spent most of the time in organizing urban warfare against the, at this time very fashionable, skinhead movement. And so it was in '94 that the violence swept the festival.
This was not radically inhabitual for me then, I remember many streetfights and vandalisms, and as a young anarchist, it was dangerous to walk about the town in small numbers, because you must always risk ambushes by the opponent guerillas. Personally, I think I was maybe a little lost at that time. I didn't see the impending gloom that struck at Jarocin '94 until it was too late: 70 seriously injured (of which 40 policemen), 300 metres of vandalized buildings, many anihilated vehicles, 6 volleys of rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannon, 3 hours of battle... and, worst of all this: the end of an epoch.
Because of these tragic events, the Jarocin festival received a bad name, but it was not always like this. Above all, it was a place for young people, for anarchist counter-culture, for music. Of course, there was always a deal of violence, but it rarely made results as bad as that of '94.
Eight years before, maybe the best band of Polish New Wave, Republika, played their show that started with many large quantities of tomatos and soured milk being projected onto them, so that the musicians had to ask the public "Does somebody have the rag so that we can clean the instruments?" and surely enough a rag soon was thrown at him. Fifteen minutes later they begun to play and blew away the audience, so that, in the end, everybody was asking for an encore, but the singer says: "You are not a public that is deserving of us! Go to hell!"

Maybe the most powerhouse of the punk bands, titled Dezerter also made great concerts here, in the epochal festival of 1984. Many of the songs I have posted on here is by them, and as you can feel inside your bones, it is like being in contact with God, or maybe rape, or something truly awesome that will never make you untouched and mollusc as you were before!
I was too young to partake with Jarocin when it was King. This is probably something I will always regret. But I acquired multifarious cassettes of the concerts there and I have digged them so much, the tape is getting thin! Ah yes! For you Americans this is exotic, but 1994 is also the first appearance of the CD in my regions (but no one was really buying it until some years later, because the pirate cassettes were cheaper and also the CD players were expensive). After Jarocin, the people also became rich, the punks became fewer, the skinheads (thank god!) also dissapeared and they were replaced by these rich kids the "skates" who wear the big trousers and Vans (I think it is also very popular in USA, yes?) and urban thug, which we call "sportswear", that beats you up but without any political motivations, just to retrieve wallet and watch. I myself also abandoned my radical attitudes that year. The apocalypse of Jarocin was too much for my brains. Later that year, I discovered Miko Mission and Ryan Paris, and thus was another adventure begun: the more smooth, classy and trendy of Italo Disco, to which I adhere until this day.

the exhibit explored "the conversion between comics and contemporary art" and featured some of the most exciting young artists in east asia, including my favorite yoshitomo nara.

lately, taipei seems to be a hot spot for new and exciting film festivals. the first one i attended was the tailly high film festival featuring young directors from taiwan, japan, thailand, and korea. the tickets were cheap, so i was able to attend nearly every single film on the program, and soon got intimate with the doorman/projectionist (sweet! no ticket, no problem). i'd sit through three or four of these films in a row, jotting down notes and critiques in a little brown notebook. the most inspireing for me, was peep show tv from japan, the collection of korean shorts (man that country has problems), and the washing machine from taiwan. it was refreshing to see these young and critical voices in east asia, making films with the same materials and budgets i have available to me.

bands such as VARO, peppermint, chasing sparrow, the nipples, nylas, LTK commune, and the ladybugs are just a small piece of the incredible new music coming out of taipei. synth-pop, shoe-gazer rock, and (the less desirable) metal are very prominent growing scenes in taiwan, and great new venues for these shows are popping up all over. one of the significant events for me, was promoting the lucky dragons & nylas show in november. though i didn't do that great of a job as a promoter, i did get to spend time with luke and met an incredible amount of young musicians, distributors, labels, and producers. the second big event for me was the childish music multimedia concert, where i was introduced to lullatone (whom i've adored for several years now), kazumasa hashimoto, sora, yuki hayashi, and mondii (of spekk & plop). this re-evoked my passion for melodicas and simple melodies, and reminded me that you can never own enough nobukazu takemura.

one thing i was hoping to investigate while i was in taiwan, was children's literature. my ex-girlfreind introduced to me, 'jimi' (a full name in chinese, i promise), who is now my all-time favorite writer/illustrator. since i first read his book... um... the one that looks like this, last october, i've been recognizing his paintings in advertisments, commercials, stationary, subway tickets, juice boxes, and record covers all over taiwan. his art is colorful and imaginative, and his stories... well.. i don't know how to explain them, but they make me cry more than i'd like to admit. although i have yet to find english translations, sitting down with 10 year old students and have them translate each page for me has been one of my fondest memories teaching here.

so... i hope that wasn't too long. i'd hate to bore someone. its just horrible to try and choose three significant pop culture events out of this last year, when my whole year was built off of them. every single significant event in my life in taiwan either occurred during, or as a direct result of such an event. and... god. im going to stop now... i feel like im writing a five paragraph essay for WRT 150. anyhow... if you haven't heard of any of these artists/directors/authors/musicians, then please check them out. let me know if your interested, i'd be more than happy to send cd/dvds or an email packed full of juicy hyper-links. ok? ok.. bye bye

Pop Culture is what we think of when we think of America. Blue jeans, Coca Cola, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Andy Warhol… America is condemned for irrevocably wiping out the corner shop and individuality, and replacing it with sameness, with mass-marketed produce, with stereotypes. And then it’s simultaneously hailed for contributing to the world economy, for giving us a fizzy drink in a can we all recognize and feel safe with. America confuses me. The inter-relationship between event and the consequent spawning of low-brow culture as an offshoot confuses me. It confuses me that everything in America becomes a commodity, something we all recognize, we can all buy in a store, we can all slag off publicly but go home and enjoy privately. Giddy consumerism, laissez faire attitudes, hard partying, excess… this defined New York up until September 11th 2001. New York itself was a product of popular culture. And then it all changed when the twin towers came crumbling. And the twin towers were chosen because they were the defining emblems of that braggart assuredness of the 80’s and 90’s, that untouchability the United States exuded to the poorer countries in the world, that hated and exhorted machine of globalization consuming us all.

So there, I mentioned it, my first ‘pop culture’ event, an event which has been written about to death, photographed, studied, argued over, which started a war, which gave birth to a sickening new 21st century. Although 9/11 wasn’t pop culture, what happened afterwards was - the newspaper articles, the books, the films, the TV articles, even the War. It started a chain of events which has led to the irrevocable sadness of this once exuberant city that I love, that I desperately want to call my home.

I sat with a gay friend in an Italian restaurant several days ago and the more Martinis he consumed, the more the words flowed, words you never say until the alcohol unleashes them.

“The city changed immediately. You hugged people in the street, people were holding hands and singing in Union Square. I came out of the subway three days afterwards, and suddenly I’m praising Jesus and praying to God with a fat black lady from Harlem who I’d never met before. The streets were always crowded in New York, people were spending, and then they weren’t. And it’s still recovering. It’s still going on. I don’t know if it’ll ever recover.”

I went for a sedate journalist’s lunch with some photographers and writers for Harpers and Outside magazine at the weekend. The travel writer who was hosting the lunch suddenly whipped out a picture he took of the planes going overhead his apartment. We were all of us non-native New Yorkers, and sat quiet and sickly fascinated as he described waking up, looking out of his window, seeing a plane go careering past, getting that first phone call, heading up to the roof of his building, watching, watching in silence with the rest of the city. There are some things you never forget, some stories you will repeat over and over again, and some stories which become engrained into the consciousness of the people, into the popular culture, transforming it irreparably, affecting the government, the economy, the social make-up of the people.

What 9/11 means to myself and my friends is immigration. After that fateful day, the United States government issued a call for ‘Special Registration’ – the demand that men over a certain age from predominantly Muslim countries come forward for interview. Kamal Essaheb, a talented young law student from Morocco who I interviewed for an article several weeks ago, took his family along. He recalls how undignified the procedure was. The waiting. The questions. “Do you know Osama Bin Laden?” “Do you hate the United States government?”. Special Registration resulted in a deportation order going ahead against Kamal and his family – they had slipped out of status through his father’s employer screwing up his visa application. He’s an amazing young man. He volunteers for victims of domestic violence, and has the potential to be one of the country’s top lawyers. His story was finally picked up by the New York Times this week. I wonder if it’s too late for him though.

After 9/11 popular culture changed. It became ferocious. It was OK to hate – to hate the French because they opposed the war, to hate Muslims because ‘they’ had instigated the attack, to hate immigrants because they were responsible for the loss of lives in the tragedy, to hate Mexicans, to hate anything or anybody who disagreed with certain accepted doctrines, beliefs, behaviors. And it spread across the world. It’s OK to hate Americans now, it’s OK to blame every American for an unfair war, for the fact a McDonalds replaces your favorite local coffee shop, for the decisions one man makes regarding the lives of millions of others. It seems like the heady consumerist days of the 20th century have just led to unmitigated anger, indiscriminate fury, a Greek tragedy of national proportions, the desire to strike out as if that could assuage all the fear and the anger and the confusion of 2001. The Patriot Act was passed. Immigration laws tightened. The number of work visas was reduced, if you got married the wait time for a green card was extended from 3 to 6 months, it became a more convoluted, bureaucratic procedure to gain even a tourist visa, immigration backlog increased dramatically. Even in 2005 the REAL ID act is a direct consequence of the fear gripping the US after 9/11 regarding immigrants and ‘difference’. It’s a racial fear. And it’s ironic that one white girl from the UK can recognize that, at the same time as suffering because of it despite my ‘preferential’ color.

The fear is irrational. The killers of 9/11 were all in the United States legally. One even got issued a visa posthumously after the attack by the INS. Special Registration didn’t reveal a single thing about Osama Bin Laden’s whereabouts. Iraq had no relation to 9/11. Immigrants rarely take American jobs – we take the jobs American’s don’t want. We all know this. We’ve all argued, attended demonstrations, read The New York Times and the BBC. But it needs repeating. It has led to a terrifying concentration of power in a government who are telling their people it’s OK to hate, and who are holding them continually in fear. The popular culture I see around me now thinly veils a predominant feeling of hatred and suspicion. I see this more than the average person because I’m an illegal, and like my friends Kamal and Amy, we’re the ones who don’t have a voice. We can observe though, and observe we do. We’re the butt of society, because now there’s no Iraq to hate, or Afghanistan to hate, they need somebody else – the people who make this country so different from the blonde-haired, blue eyed, apple-pie ideal. ‘They’ isn’t all ‘you’. I would never be so presumptious as to lump in all the Liberals and brave people who deplore war and sympathise with those who’ve suffered needlessly because of extremist Al-Qaeda supporters. But the facts have to be faced. The driving force in the United States are those who started a war, who sent messages to the people directly after the 9/11 attack that ‘muslims’ were ‘to blame’, and have increasingly concentrated power into one solo, clown like figure, to the detriment of many honest, hardworking people – the man who read ‘My Pet Goat’ on that fateful day.

2001, 9/11, Special Registration, the War and fear of difference – this saw popular culture turn into exclusive culture, a culture just for ‘real’ Americans, ‘non-muslim’ Americans, Americans who were born here. Indirectly, it’s led to me being stuck in this country while my visa gets mulled over by INS officials, and probably rejected. It's led to Kamal facing deportation proceedings. It's led to my friend Amy having to work in a retail store despite her 23 years in the United States, her college degree, her intelligence and her ambition. They can’t be too careful you see. After 9/11 and all.

It makes me so sad.

Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

as paid homage by my very first completely solo filmic effort (albeit co-written by Andrew Peterson):
Marianna Ritchey Presents: George Lucas' The "Star Wars:"

It's inconceivable to believe that one could possibly be unfamiliar with the infamous Trumpington, the anonymous gossip columnist of Cambridge University, but one must face the facts, and realize that perhaps one's fame did not extend outside the lonely Fens, or even outside East Anglia, and thus a little introduction may be desirable...

Yes, in a former life I was one amongst a long line of gossip columnists for Varsity, one of those tawdry student rags headlining drunken idiots and privileged boaty types who spent their students days idling away life on the River Cam, drinking Pimms and fucking skinny rich girls with obsolete titles. After thirty years of gleeful rumor-monging, the treasured column passed on secretly from writer to writer, Trumpington was mercilessly killed by a fat editor called Jane who now writes for the Guardian, and whom I despise. I should find nothing more satisfying than revealing to you all Jane's little obsession with small mammals and plastic tubes, but alas the photographic evidence was destroyed by her fearsome breath. But Trumpington lives on in his many guises, of which I was one. And Trumpington, like the Phoenix, shall be reborn from the ashes of Jane's tindered celluloids, to give you the latest hot gossip from New York.

Oh where to begin dearest readers?

It has come to Trumpington's increasing attention the rather alarming obsession one prominent U.N. diplomat and former Bill Gates consort has with a small, Brazilian stripper in a seedy Midtown bar named after an appalling eighties movie. Said diplomat was seen escorting the young lady to a local wine bar in a state of heady intoxication several evenings ago, only for the young lady to cause rather a raucous by her youthful looks, lack of I.D., and habit of falling off chairs onto nearby customers. Could the Irish charmer be losing his touch in his attempts to touch-up the young slut? Or perhaps he's merely thinking of moving deeper into politics, and is consequently researching the darker side of Manhattan in an attempt to bond with his illustrious counterparts at the U.N. You can't hide from Trumpington children. You're rather big, but you're certainly not clever after that amount of tequila.

A prestigious Manhattan firm is facing rather a crisis at the present time due to an anonymous blog found on one of the company computers. After a quick scurry through the online archives, it was discovered that all fifty employees of the company were addicted to the blog - which detailed one employee's successful perpetration of the company despite her lack of a valid working permit for the U.S. The company is in a flurry of panic in its attempts to locate the brazen hussy and assuage the company fears of imminent bad press. Hmm. Who on earth could this be? One message for you all a little Mimi whispered in my ear... Catch me if you can!

It seems blogging and work certainly don't go together, after another New Yorker was recently hauled up before his company executives after foolishly revealing the name of his network station on his blog, with rather too many details regarding a certain right-wing talk show host. The poor little blogger is now facing rather a large law-suit - similar to that launched by STAR magazine against the delightful Stephanie, a former employee of theirs who just happened to pitch the draft of her novel to a relative of STAR magazine at a major publishing house. Poor Stephanie forgot to omit a few lairy details in the novel which centred around working for a celebrity obsessed publication... but news just in! Stephanie has just won the court case against STAR, rendering them liable for damages. Tut tut. It seems writers and the workplace just do not get along. When will the world realize there should really be a separate place designated for all the wordsmiths of this world - I suggest New York. Move the Republicans out to Afghanistan, and the writers in, and we could all get along...

Well, that's Trumpington for you. Short, sweet, and rather exhausted after 16 hours of dancing in six-inch heels. But from that lofty height, one gains a perfect view of New York sleaze...