Friday, April 27, 2012

DIVORCE

(The Fiscal Compact Treaty)

Once upon a time back in the dour day.
Wannabes called cops on
contraceptive machines.
And failed marriages sought vodka.
A queer got beaten up
Banged too.
Gay was semiotics.
And Kenny cutting edge.
U2 were out of control.
Priests wild with abandon.
Where a million took to the Pope's park.
And the 'cool kids' took to Galway.
Where milk bottles rained fire.
And funerals fed slaughter.

When even Hollyhead was intoxicating,
EU shimmered erotic liberation.
Borders.
We'll slip through them.
Fuck them all.
And booze ballads too.
Give me French.
Sex in a mini skirt.
'Liberte'
More even more
'Fraternite'
The days.
Phew.
Then more of them.
Until
They got long.
As they do.
The skirts too.
Then all a suddenly
French was German.
The exotic... accountancy.
And flesh that caressed Mediterranean breeze
Now pinched pennies
with frozen Nordic frowns.
And somewhere along the lawyered road.
Into the spelling of 'Equality"
(Without asking me.
What about you?)
someone
slipped
'Austere'


Get Divorce and all the other dramatic pieces of verbal and visual art in the critically acclaimed collection of digidelic delight 'I Love The Internet' here: http://itsapoeticalworld.com/book-shop/

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

WHAT’S THE STORY?






What’s the story?

What’s the story? What is the story? What is a story?

Beginning middle and end. End. There’s a start. We all get to the end.

Indeed. In deed. In fact. And in act. In the beginning was? Was what? Was the word.

Jaysus what was the word? The beginning? Of what? Of the middle?  Of the end?

Everything is the beginning of the end. The middle, though, there’s a tricky one.

You can’t solve the middle. Ask the East. The riddle of the middle: To get it you need

the beginning and the end. And how can you have the end? Cos the end has you. In

the end. Finis. C’est la vie. No two ways about it. No one way. A dead end. The end.

So just get your end away. Ah yeah. Run to bed. Run run run. River run. Burst the

banks. Break the dam. Escape. Release. The ejector seat. Yahoo you’ve beaten the

odds. A hero. Just for one … well whatever. Die in her arms. But for a second there!

Ah but you’ll be back again. Sure as there is shit in a goose. Sure as the word. As sure

as the story.

But what is the story? The story? How many stories?

Stories high. Stories low.

High brow. Lowbrow.

Lowbrow:  Here’s the cops. There’s the Indians.  Now the ads.

Ads? The admin of stories.

Ah ha. Here we are. Home turf. Mr. Bloom.

Mr. Adman.

Adman. Admen. Admin.

Creative. Creator? Ah la la Akbar. There’s only one God.


But comma here! What?

There’s only one story. Period.

Shove your clashes. And your civilisations.

One? One!

There’s only one story.

The story of our sacred word.

Must be High Brow now.

The writer wrote having no alternative. But sssssh! There is

an alternative – silence. Silence -  The Final Solution. Graveyard spooky.

Auschwitz spooky.

I can’t go on. I will go on, Sam says.  Roll the rock up and down the hill, like Jack

and Jill on endless replay. Play and replay. Play games.

What’s a game? Beginning, middle and end. But not necessarily in that order.

Storygames, made to make the grim grin.

In the beginning was the word.

In the end there’s the end.

And in between, who knows?

The end.

Silence.

POLITICIDE - IT'S PEACE NOT TERROR THAT TERRIFIES ISRAEL



Polish Jew Raphael Lemkin lost his family to the unspeakable and unprecedented horror of the Nazi's Final Solution. The fate that befell Europe's Jews led Lemkin to singlemindedly devote his life to finding a term to describe and, in doing so, assist him criminalise Hitler’s acts.
Lemkin rightly argued that the terms of the day, 'barbarity" and "vandalism, fell tragically short of describing “the assault on all aspects of nationhood; physical, biological, political, social, cultural economic and religious.”
Given the backdrop to this relatively new word, it is not surprising that genocide analogies to Israel's policy towards the Palestinians generate instant uproar. The uproar, however, rarely goes beyond outrage at the mistaken use of the word. Therefore there is little Lemkin-like analyses of what the Israeli’s Palestinian policy should be called.
Although rarely seen or heard in the mainstream media, the policy has been linguistically pinned down, though, needless to say, it has yet to be criminalized. Writing in the New Left Review Israeli Political Scientist Baruch Kimmerling coined the term “politicide.”
Politicide was “a process aimed at destroying a certain people's prospects - indeed their very will -for legitimate self-determination and sovereignty over land they consider their homeland," Kimmerling

The eminent Palestinian Professor Sari Nusseibeh argues that “peace talks” and the conditions and preconditions thereof are a mere pretence. Because if there is one thing that Israel fears more than terror, it’s the prospect of peace with the Palestinians. Nusseibeh- allowing for the looseness of human analogy - is like a cross between John Hume and Field Day era Seamus Deane – has been called the “most dangerous Palestinian of them all.”
And the usual “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Ironic for a man that has as much to fear from Hamas and other Palestinain militants because of his opposition to suicide bombers and violence in general Leftist Knesset Yossi Sarid has spoken with exasberation about the Israeli government’s constant complaint about no credibille peace partners. Yet when there are such figures they “do their utmost to insult them, to weaken them.”
Authors of the Israel Lobby john J Mearsheimer qnd Stephen M.Walt make the same point
“Olmert like his predecessor Sharon has no interest in negotiating a peace settlement with the Palestinians…Israel would prefer occupation to peace if the latter means giving 95% or so of the West Bank to the Paestinians,” they write.
They too argue that that the Israeli government does all they it can to undermine moderates.
“In order to achieve its goals, Israel has decided to avoid any peace negotiations,” wrote that well-known radical Jimmy Carter in his recent book “Palestine. Peace Not Apartheid.”
And the goals-politicide.
Israel wanted the best parts of the West Bank, the best land, the water etc leaving “Palestinians destitute within a small and fragmented remnant of their own land.,” he wrote.
Politicide, Nusseibeh comments is the only explanation, for the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces during one of their now routine assaults on Palestinian areas.ltu
IDF troops ransacked the Palestinian Authority's Bureau of Statitistics and the Ministry of Education - attacks that can only be seen as an assault on a people's identity. In a further display of such cultural vandalism, Nusseibeh points to an IDF raid on Al Quds Centre For Media Studies where the TV broadcast of  cartoons was interrupted to show pornography. The broadcasting facilities were then destroyed.

Like Israel’s initial support for Hamas to undermine Fatah, the government’s policy only strengthens those Palestinian factions that claim violence is the only effective tactic. But this is the way Israel wants it. If Hamas ceased firing rockets into Israel, the government would need to find a faction to continue the fusillade.

In order to successfully pursue its policy of politicide, Israel has to make sure there is no-one credible to talk to. So when Hamas started to slightly moderate its tone, despite being the government of the biggest prison in the world, Israel invades, pursues a policy of collective punishment and contimues laying the groundwork for another nihilistic generaton jihad.


Politicide, however, comes at a price. As Richard Ben Cramer writes In his Pulitzer prize winning “How Israel Lost”, Israel used to be “a nice little country with a problem” but now the problem has consumed the country. Everyone’s heart Is either heated or hardened. The stories emerging from the IDF about the gross human rights abuses in Gaza testify to the brutalization of Israel.
Israel can keep the land but lose its soul, Cramar writes, adding that even in the States the Leon Uris image is long gone. And no matter how hard the lobby tries, there is still a reek of something rotten in the State of Israel.


Politicide is a tragedy. One that's rarely challenged by the international commun counit, bar the occasional symbolic attempts by countries like Belgium who threaten to try and detain visiting Israeli Generals.
Some argue that in a world full of human rights abuses, such attempts are mere political grandstanding
But if injustice is not a sufficient motivation to rally a response to Israel's pretence of peace-seeking, then perhaps safety might be.

Israel, and the US have granted a degree of legitimacy to the theory that western liberal democracy is a con job designed to keep uppity arabs and other irksome natives in their place. Unfortunately the angry young man or woman in the oft talked about Arab street as well as their countetrparts in the Arab libraries and universities can find too much empirical evidence to back up this tragic view.
Israel needs to be told very loud and very clear that its insidiuos policy of creating fact is endangering not just the long term prospects of Israel but is endangering anyone getting on public transport in any city in the West.
Unfortunately because of our silence we are seen as complicit. And therefore, in the minds of 'generation jihad', we are all 'legitmate' targets.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

THE MASTER MUSICIANS OF JOUJOUKA FESTIVAL


If you are looking for an exotic far flung mind blowing festival that the hordes have yet to find, then this is what you are after.

A few days in a mountain top village with the non-stop schizophrenic healing drone of the Master's Musicians of Joujouka's drums and raita.

Their wild bewildering sound rings out across the mountains. Demonic in the most angelic of ways.

The Masters may be latest line-up in a 1,000 yr old band. 
But just cos there's no planes, Jack Daniels, coke and groupies doesn't mean that there has not been some acrimonious splits over the years.
Some rock n roll stories never change.


Basic but idyllic, here's a photo tour of last year's festival 


The festival is deliberately small to keep an intimate vibe going and let people stay in the musicians' houses.

Demand has been pretty high this year following the Master's opening slot on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury last year.

After officially opening the festival, the Masters went guerrilla and did a number of priceless impromptu gigs over the weekend...such as the one below at Glastonbury's stone circle.



So if you want the privilege of being there, you had better move now.

Booking now www.joujouka.net

Book Now for Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 8-10 June 2012 

Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival Joujouka, (Jajouka), Morocco.
The Master Musicians announce their summer festival will be held 8-10 June 2012 in their village in Morocco. Guests will stay with the musicians and their families and experience three days and nights of  ritual Sufi music in its natural setting. On Saturday 5 June the musicians will perform the Boujeloud ritual in the village square through the night. In July 2008 the Master Musicians of Joujouka hosted the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in their village in the southern Rif Mountains of Northern Morocco. The festival was a celebration of fortieth anniversary of Brian Jones’ recording the iconic LP Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (Rolling Stones Records 1971). The festival brought the families of old Masters now passed on and a group of visitors from abroad including old friends of the errant Rolling Stone.
In 2009 the Master Musicians festival moved to June as the temperature at the end of July can be above 40C. The festival was a great success and was reported on in The Wire magazine October, 2009.
Guests will experience life in Joujouka staying with the musicians and their families in their isolated village. The Master Musicians of Joujouka will play in intimate sessions around their madrassa/school. The highlight of the festival wwill be the village’s celebration of the Boujeloud ritual in the village square.
Places at the festival are strictly limited as due to accommodation limitations with the families in Joujouka/Jajouka. Guests will be collected from Ksar El Kebir the nearest town to Joujouka on Friday 5th June and will be brought to the village. Full board will be provided. Food will be prepared in traditional Joujouka fashion from locally sourced produced. Joujouka is a farming community well as Sufi trance music the village is famous for its beautiful olives and olive oil.
The festival is booking now. The pricee is €300 (Euro)
Guests will be collected at Moulay El Mehdi train station in Ksar El Kebir on June 8th and transported to Joujouka/Jajouka. For Moroccan trains see www.oncf.ma
Full board lunch and evening meal on Friday
Breakfast, Lunch and traditional Moroccan mountain feast on Saturday
Breakfast (all guests) plus lunch, and evening meal on Sunday
For payment by credit transfer please email me for details joujouka@gmail.com
Places are limited to 75.
If you have any questions please do get in touch. joujouka@gmail.com