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Apocalypticop

(aka Fashion Police)

Screed of the Day: Age of the Hyper Cyber Cipher (22 June 2009)
Remember when we were told the work week of the future would be reduced to four days, as menial labor was eliminated through the use of our new high tech George Jetson machines?

We all know we now live in a time that runs as fast as humanly possible; get as much as you can as fast as you can. Jog on your lunch hour. Eat fast food (or any food) in your car. The Ipod feeds us our music in the form of a solitary buzz in lieu of a shared experience. And above all, put in as many hours at your job as you can in order to pay for it all.

It wasn't always this way. We have not been naturally selected to subsist like this. There is no Darwinian imperative here. We find that time spent with loved ones must increasingly compete with time on the job. We have a hyper culture of consumer driven desire— what we want we're not entirely sure of, but we're generally convinced it's something we need to buy. Our culture of impatience and time-on-the-clock has elevated disposability to something that is acceptable, rather than something that's seen for what it is—garbage in, garbage in.

Commerce = Obsolescence, Disposability, and the Never-Ending Upgrade. We are what we buy. The more we buy the mightier we are, the healthier our economy (it says so on the news), the smarter we seem to our colleagues and neighbors. We are valued through our glittering excess, and so we value others by the same insidious, subconscious standard. Including our “objects of affection” (family).

There are benefits, certainly in medicine, but at the price of the never-sit-down dance of rampant consumerism. The almighty dream of turning lead into gold has been realized, except we turn sand into gold, via silicon. Whether a breast implant or a laptop, silicon rules the day, allows for instant upgrades (software), will be obsolete next week, disposed of tomorrow. So buy another I-phone.

For many, shopping is why we get out of bed. Does it buy happiness? A range of studies suggests it does not. As our advertisers and news sources emphasize the benefits of investing and the security of a savings account, a duality appears. Either you emphasize financial success and other external goals, or instead you value more intrinsic goals (such as time with family). The shopping religion aggrandizes the individual at the expense of involvement with others. Only now we go a step further: instead of having friendships, we network. Instead of tending to our long-term relationships, we fight about threats to the institution of marriage. Instead of applauding gay people for tying the knot against all odds, we argue that they somehow threaten the heterosexual norm. And then we “rush” (how else?) on to the next stage in our consumer drive “life style”. How fitting.

“The antidote to a culture of impatience is an alternative sense of time, a sense of time that honors what's left of life beyond shopping.”—Richard Neville (much of the above borrows heavily from his ideas.)

“The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship”—William Blake

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

So Whoretense, what is it about your artcar, anyway?

$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

Complacency in the face of rampant Fundamentalism must be kept Out of Fashion by all means.
WHY?
Because nothing is Black and White... Because it's all about visibility:

1. Visibility in

ART

wakes you up...an eye-enema

can

call attention to that which you want to turn away from but can't, due to the

stun

to your embryonic sense of

normalcy.

Black and White is a Fashion choice, not a worldview.

2. Visibility in

LIFE

can keep you sane.
There are no space aliens coming to rescue us from ourselves. Suddenly, patriotism

has

become synonymous with complicency and silence.
Asking questions about alternative methods to cope with a world that

no

government will ever totally

control

--is publicly condoned no longer.

3. Visibility in global

POLITICS
can change the world. Something new under the sun:
The world sees ever more deeply into the legendary American lifestyle--
our freedom, our power, our creature comforts, and our willful and selfish ignorance.
Even though we've outgrown most of our gods, we still want to

pass

a camel laden with gold through the eye of

a

needle and make it to Heaven. But it doesn't work that

way.

Washington Fashion Police

Highway patrol, sheriff, city cop, etc--all assume a certain authority status by virtue of being what they are. I'm not a huge fan of the police in general, but that said they leave me alone. I like to think some of them do indeed serve and protect. Not all cop cars are black and white of course, but that is the generally recognized standard. Which also can be a nice metaphor, as in whether a person believes in values in terms of degree, or not. A near definition of fundamentalism is a view of life in terms of all or nothing. As such it is an almost perfect contrast to reality. Thus the Fashion Police car becomes what might be thought of as an 'anti-symbol'. Life boiled down to black and white, is no life at all.

How cute, toy 'google eyes' all over that car, look honey. But wait, they're forming some sort of--Jesus in Heaven, cover the children's eyes quick! Save us from the hippies! Or the radical right-wing wackos! Whoever it is, dial 911! (this actually happened)!!

The implications of playfulness around authority are obvious, at least to me. I never would have beleived that so many would react so strongly (love it or hate it) to something so harmless (and yes, a bit unconventional). The patterns and motifs formed by the plastic eyes across the car used to emerge only after extended admiration; nowadays many people don't seem to notice the eyes at all. Maybe there's to much else to look at, or maybe its that the eyes are getting a bit yellowed (jaundiced) with age? Or maybe people are trying to not notice; that happens a lot too. Most of the patterns may be seen as an attempt to convey the dual aspects of fertility--sperm and egg. There's a helix of DNA on the roof. So that whole black and white male and female right and wrong duality of life thing again.

To all those who say I'm just scrapping for attention, I say guilty as charged, and so what. Who isn't. This car is about as much fun as is legal. I'm never bored. Besides, I've always been fascinated by procreation, or at least how we go about it. "We" being the general we--since queers try not to populate, as a general rule.

The stickers came about later, though they are what most people see first. Not that its sluggish on the road, its got 250 horses somewhere under that vast hood. I just usually drive slow. It gets me around. One time in a local town overrun with Christians I had an encounter with one of the local sheep (there's more churches here than gas stations). I had car trouble so I'd stoped on a county road near someone's driveway, somebody's mom came out of her house and we had words, me telling her that the tow truck was on the way, her making it clear that she wanted me back in the car and away from her children, due in any moment off the school bus. After ensuing glares, she waited at the end of her driveway for her kids while I waited on the shoulder of the road for the tow truck. I expect she thought I was there to abduct them. Three of them got off the school bus; she had to physically restrain them from approaching. Christian Hospitality Sucks Ass. It turns out the fuel filter was plugged.

So why did I stick all this stuff on my car? Because you're not supposed to? Because I think its idiotic to spend a year's salary on a German sports sedan, so that strangers can see how you've "made it", when other people wonder if they can afford health care? Because I enjoy messing with people? Because I had to? More pics below...