Praying for the Night Thief

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 19:31

It’s hot in Villette. Officially even it’s a heat wave. Around the house here it must be 35 to 38 degrees. Honestly, I like this weather and only wish the idea of Global Warming would hurry up and make this kind of weather normal and longer lasting just to get the damp out of the old bricks of Bru-town. Meanwhile, Werchter, that strange Belgian version of Woodstock that is phenomenally popular here has ended for this year. Kind of like an Anglophone pop version of the Nuremberg Rallies with 21st century pagan overtones for the Euro masses – minus the racial issues and the national socialists (for the most part) but certainly it’s all totally capitalistic. I find it weird to be honest. I’d rather watch excerpts of it on the news just to remind myself why I don’t like such crowds.

You wouldn’t believe how much fun I had last evening watching Al Jazeera in Arabic. Al Jazeera - with that incredible logo that CNN is secretly jealous of - was featuring a documentary on Hamas and the military part of that organization which was really compelling and kinda like the end scenes of Bruce la Bruce’s film Raspberry Reich. Although I know some Arabic I didn’t know enough to follow the storyline of the program. But watching Al Jazeera without knowing Arabic is way more interesting than that boring CNN – after all Al Jazeera - like Mecca Cola is to Coca-cola, is perhaps a ghost subsidiary with the same economic aims. Because I am such a fan of Al Jazeera I secretly want to learn fluent Arabic so I can get a job as a Western Anglophone Journalist who can proudly say I work for Al Jazeera – this would be useful at parties and I think the pay would be pretty good too. Plus for the first time in my life I would be gainfully employed and the irony of that would be personally delightful. The thing is when you watch Al Jazeera without knowing much Arabic the effect is like watching that inane EuroNews (broadcast in seven languages while remaining overtly Franco-centric) program called No Comment. No Comment is the only thing worthwhile EuroNews does. A few minutes without a propagandistic voice over of something playing out in real time caught on video for a few minutes. Like, why isn’t there a No Comment channel? So this evening I watched my version of the No Comment channel – Watching Al Jazeera without knowing much Arabic. The thing is the documentary of the military part of Hamas (and not the admirable Democratic social services part of Hamas which no one in the West is interested in which was the real reason the Palestinians voted them into office) has little more than self made weaponry and alot of stones to throw like David hurled toward almighty Goliath. Incidently all those Palestinian boys you see in the media throwing stones at Israeli soldiers carrying all those machine guns, well, those Palestinian boys are the new Davids and heroes of the story over there in the unholy land of today. No matter how distressing the news of the day tries to be nothing cheers me up more when watching CNN than to see Palestinian youngsters hurling stones at Israels incorporated military might. They are really good at throwing - too bad they don't have any baseball fields to play on like their Israeli brothers have. But I digress. The Hamas documentary was unintentionally hot plus the documentary talking head was kinda swishy – it was sooo like Fight Club in Arabia. The forces were all very homemade compared to the slick American or Israelis (is there a difference?). Actually I was thinking it would be interesting to document these impoverished Palestinian forces compared to well funded Israeli forces – and then why not do like the shocker of that unforgettable Apartheid era documentary that simply showed a black South African family home spliced up in scenes of a white family home. Like do the same with the Israeli and Palestinian various home lives including the decades old refugee (concentration) camps. But the Hamas military was so DIY (do it yourself) like - In French they have a good word for it but I don’t know how to spell it - cheapo-tage. Which means something like makeshift – Jerry rigged. Etc. At the same time I find it really distressing when there is a guy with a Qur’an in the right hand and a machine gun in the left but I do like those turbans covering the face. I am just not so certain that a machine gun and Qur’an go hand in hand. Maybe those Jihadi warrior boys should spend a little less time oiling their big machine guns and instead spend more time reading up on the Majestic Qur'an that they like so much to brandish about. The thing is I would though love to go train like in that documentary (because I could use the exercise and the camaraderie of it) or perhaps just so I could enjoy the ambiance of Arab masculinity and humor in the communal showers afterwards. The documentary I think was, if you know the Arabic language, a real shocker but when you don’t know the language it is all rather funny because honestly I don’t know what the Israeli’s are so worried about. I just find it curious when Democratic movements elect leaders that other more powerful nations don’t approve of: Then you see what a lie Democracy in the West is today.

The night before last night I watched Paradise Now on a DVD region one disc on my computer which I can do by not switching the computers region player more than three times (which is a tedious task as the prompts in my computer for this are in Dutch and I am never certain what choice I am clicking on). Could technology facilitate greed any more tediously? Anyway it was too hot to do anything else than to watch TV. But I couldn’t get the subtitles to play – who knows why – probably Hollywood Zionist Conspiracies at work on a technological level in my computer… But watching Paradise Now in Arabic without subtitles gave me the opportunity to enjoy the cinematography and actually watch the movie and see how much Arabic I actually know. So I am even more annoyed with the Oscars months later after their big night: It wasn’t just Brokeback Mountain but now Paradise Now not getting the attention it deserved that is pissing me off. Why can’t some bright shining star worth following like Susan Sarandon start an intelligent and humorous alternative to the Oscars? But what I find curious is that it’s July and I am still pissed off at the Oscars.

Meanwhile my right foot is rotting off. I have this massive plantar wart. I am actually beginning to wonder if one can die from a plantar wart. Leprosy and gangrene perhaps already are setting in. I mean Rimbaud died of something like foot cancer didn’t he? I should photograph it for an almanac of strange medical conditions because it’s so scary looking. I think I am a cash cow for my doctor. I go in two or three times a month for this and pay money (23 euros) even though I am mostly reimbursed by the insurance (God bless Belgium and their belief and commitment to social security because lack of health care for a nation is the real definition of terrorism). So every time I go to get my foot treated my doctor gets paid by me and the insurance. I think there are more sophisticated treatments that don’t drag on over years. I am actually ashamed of what my foot looks like. There are cracks and crevices around the warts so that it looks like a dual mini moon crater on the ball of my right foot. They are compound warts in a mosaic pattern of different little fuckers otherwise known as plantar warts forming two big separate life form entities. I haven’t named them yet but they seem to answer to “you little fuckers”. I pulled the dead skin off to expose the growths so that hopefully the air will help them heal – so now it looks like an old push button light switch. Remember those? Kinda brassy – one button white Bakelite the other black. Speaking of Bakelite how many people out there know that Bakelite was the original high quality durable plastic invented by a Belgian by the surname Baekeland? I used to think Bakelite was like literally plastic baked lightly that gave Bakelite plastic its antique charm and value… Those nice old, now antique, push button lights, in case you have forgotten, when you pushed one the other one popped out… Well my foot is just like that except the lights don’t go on or off when I push it – but the sensation of pain does go off like you wouldn’t believe – it can best be described as broken glass stuck in my foot sole. For this - Sometimes I despise my doctor. I suppose I will miss this critter (the wart not the doctor) when it’s gone. I spend too much time obsessed by it because it hurts like hell half the time. At the moment I bike everywhere because I can hardly walk. I could use a walker or a cane or perhaps soon a wheel chair but I am too vain so I bicycle. Bicycling in Brussels is life threatening just like the condition of my foot. Why risk your life climbing Pakistan's K-2 - our planet's second highest mountain and much less touristy alternative for an adventure and the rush of defying certain death when you can instead bicycle in Brussels? Brussels whose urban fabric evolved prior to the great American Auto Age was inflicted on the rest of the world and consequently many streets were not built to accommodate the automotive beast of the Apocalypse. Or how about the curse of all the space hogging parked cars that go with it - to say nothing of the noises or the smells and stress of perpetual life threatening forms of transportation. Then idiot drivers who refuse to share the roads with the bicyclists and it’s only a matter of time until something nasty happens. Then when you add oversized SUVeez (suburban assault vehicles) that were designed to transverse parts of Africa without proper roads to these little streets and the suburban bourgeoisie driving them and you begin to think having unprotected sex with as many partners as is humanly possible is considerably safer in this day and age than riding your bicycle in Bru-town.

The other day to cheer my father up with some humor I thought to send my dad this funny rewrite of the 23rd Psalm which was a witty commentary on the Bush II regime in a nutshell, well die hard patriot WWII Vet Pa Kettle in old Ohio did not like the 23 Qualms about Bush II which if you write us and ask at the Experiencing Belgium desk we will try to send it on to you. In fact my dad is such a CNN/Bush II sucker who sees an Arab Islamist under every rock in Ohio that I refuse to go home and visit him (my dad not the guys under the Ohio rocks) because even his e-mails piss me off. Better that we have our weekly edgy and disagreeable phone conversations and skip trying to spend a fortnight or two* together in his little plastic ticky tack house. We really are polar opposites and I am sorry, he is my dad, and he loves his country and his President more than his family, so fuck him he can rot in Ohio with everyone else contentedly stuck there. He can hang out with his like minded friends and family members. And don’t give me grief about this. My lawd during the American Civil War – The War of Northern Aggression – families were divided like this so why should now be any different? I don’t want to hang out with my Bush II loving swing voter sucker for the Bin Laden trap fear of terror though adorable Dad – who at his age has nothing to fear but the imminent arrival of the Grim Reaper of old age – the original terrorist. I can’t bite my tongue when I am around my dad and be polite and respectful because I would have to bite my tongue completely off. Honestly it is better that I face up to not seeing dear old dad in this life again. Given what we know about each others points of views it’s sad and I blame the Reagan/Bush/I/II Regime Administrations for terrorizing my family with their stupid greedy fear tactics. Just tell me why the states gets off pretending to be like Israel and afraid of everything… as if on some subconscious level the Americans know there is actually something like Karma/God's Judgment for what we all enable the US to do by way of our votes and taxed dollars (to say nothing of our petrol addiction). Fear is a consequence of America’s wretched Foreign Policy – And the Bush Regime plays that fear and spins and baits it even more for their own profit. Just listen to junior Bush every time he gets played in the media the first ten words out of that slack lipless mouth will be about the threat to Ahmerka and that never ending war on terror... Would someone please teach that Bush guy how to pronounce accurately the name of the nation he leads. Otherwise we might have to start changing the future spelling of the United States of America to something more in line with the history of the Castilian lisp in Espanole – you know like having to pronounce Ibiza as ebeetha because of some sweet pea leader who wore tights and had a bit of hair on the tip of his tongue for some reason which we won't go into here. And how is it that Bush guy has all the Republican politicians under him trained to be parrots of threat and terror too. That and that American foreign policy subconscious neurosis of a forgetful stupor is because I think deep down Americans know something is wrong and they are unwilling to consider the fact they might all be wrong. First of all they can’t walk anywhere because despite all the sidewalks and wheelchair ramps the sidewalks around their neighborhoods don’t go anywhere for you have to drive everywhere.

Those Americans just don’t grasp foreign policy because they have so many debts to pay and so little vacation time to think about anything their country is doing abroad. Although how anyone can stomach the likes of the heinous Guantanamo Bay being perpetrated by a land which embraces the paramount idea of Lady Liberty (as if she were a trademark logo stolen for Hollywood cinematic entertainments) is beyond me. Guantanamo today being ignored by the Americans - its all too much like Auschwitz being tolerated by ordinary Germans way back when. And then all Bush II can do is blame the “liberal” NEW YORK TIMES for chrissakes (see ** point below) Bush you can do better than that even without a telepromter can’t you? If you think the NYTimes is liberal try reading some blogettes on line like this one would you. The Bush II guy fails at everything he does for the nation and all he can do is blame the New York Times (for doing their job which is a lot more than one can say about Bush holiday maker junior and his administrations regime which props up his lazy idiotic illiterate ass) – If Bush would have some balls and just say my Daddy made me do it (which would be the first honest thing he said in office) or probably more accurately my mommie Babs with that pearl necklace made daddy make me do it then maybe we can forgive the W for being an imbecile result of a the first dysfunctional family in office and chuck him and his WASPy family out of office. Would someone please organize the Million Machine Gun March on Washington DC to take back the country? Compared to Bush junior, President Castro looks down right likeable and dignified – a nice bearded father figure and as durable as father time too. Why do I care about the states? Remind me. I like the weather in North America and the south west landscape and sky are unbelievable but more and more I just see a land of spoiled adult children and over weight people frothing like a bitch dog in heat from the relentless sexual male sexless advertising – fat lost souls in SUVs who do not know the first thing about the rest of the world. With a citizenry duped into being a consumer human resource by a ministry of propaganda, lies and misinformation that uses sex to sell everything unimaginable and unnecessary – while at the same time representing men as without external sexual organs. Consumers addicted to compulsive forms of sex for release from this capitalistic matrix at a time when sex still comes with life and death consequences… I don’t know it’s just so fucked up. Hyper sexualized children and pre-teens running around with over sexualized consumed middle aged mid and large sized Americans shopping the ailes of Wal-mart shed buildings – living their lives out of big cars and big parking lots and big houses with Big TVs and big sofas… and small minds…

Sometimes I just can’t shake having seen the movie the Matrix (which is probably why that filmed spawned two stupid sequels because perhaps the original Matrix movie was just too dangerous a concept to turn loose) – everything about my former home life in Ohio back in the states is so synthetic and devoid of meaning and purpose. A synthetic electronic environment designed to distract an economically farmed out humanity from faceless corporation conglomerate from the reality of the obligation of other peoples suffering. At some point capitalism must surely collapse in on itself and we all know that collapse is long over due and the longer over due it is the bigger the collapse will be. And don't think the Bushies aren't poised to cash in on the great fall.

And all I can think about is some parts of the Book of Revelations (from the Bible in case you have forgotten about that piece of propaganda and history) where the return of Christ** will be like a thief in the night. I always liked this poetic analogy even as a kid – I can’t put my finger on why those few words can cause goose bumps but it does feel like it's very close - we will all see what that prophecy meant – little by little – night after night – a whole community gets ripped off by the thief in the night. If it happens it won’t happen all at once like Rapture Christians are taught to believe. Perhaps like the state of the states, little by little as if there were a thief in the night, freedom and liberty were stolen by the oil and energy corporations in charge and it won’t be anything like what they told us in church. Or who knows I could be wrong. But I wish something Biblical, Qur’anic, Revelatory, like from all the Prophets of Old Testament would happen because this world is too much to bear. Rampant materialism to numb our conscience from the terrible things man does to each other just to maintain a life of luxury and selfishness.

The Dali Lama was totally right when he said all of today’s suffering can be traced back to another person’s greed – why don’t we ever learn and start stopping our incessant wanting for material unneccessities in life? Why don’t we want the things that matter – to give those in need from our excess so as to alleviate if not stop suffering?

Well if you are still reading this then please just get up and get out of Ohio or Iowa or Oklahoma or anywhere and stop thinking you can’t have a life elsewhere outside of the US Matrix. It’s time for the Great American Diaspora to hit the rest of the world. A mass exodus of consciousness… We all die – that is a given but we all don’t have to die in a state of being like Ohio or the shopping malled of a once great and admirable land and nation. I’m not exactly happy in Belgium and I often times have doubts about living in Brussels at that but I sure am ever thankful to be here than in the states and certainly I am happy as all hell to be out of Ohio. Poor, poor Ohio – Ohio and the conservative lying election rigging Taft Republicans politicians who made the dreary brain drained mess that is present day Ohio – well I don’t feel sorry for them all anymores. You get what you deserve. At this point the only admirable thing Ohio can do is turn itself over to the descendants of the Indigenous tribes that once knew the hills and valleys and woodlands and plains and prairies and wet lands and water ways of Ohio like the back of their hands. Perhaps they can return the delicate ecology of Ohio back to what it was before the industrial agriculture and suburbanization of freeway culture took over and polluted everything with an unforgivable fascist form of shopping mall Capitalism. Who knows maybe then the forgotten swarms of the swans of Ohio will return. That way all those reintroduced Trumpeter swans, the largest of the swans and native to Ohio (like me), will return to shit on all those SUVeez just after they pull out of the automatic car washes.

“Independence Day”… the American’s might not know it but on a subconscious level they want their ideas of freedom and liberty returned to them. The rest of the world meanwhile just wants independence from the Americans and their greedy corporations of post Marshall Plan Western accomplices. It's time for a new Independence Day perhaps the Democrats could hire Bin Laden as an outside consultant if he weren't already working for the Military Industrial Complex wittingly or unwittingly. I dunno maybe its time on this fourth of July to think about a bearded turbanned Paul bin Revere proudly carrying a Kalashikov and a gilded Qur'an while driving a tank over the White House Rose Garden flower bushes... Now that image is way more American than we American's feel comfortable enough to admit.


*By the way two fortnights would make a month you stupid MTV addict – just remember what Gudrun from Raspberry Reich said about MTV's Madonna – in two words – Counter Revolutionary!

** Muslims consider Jesus Christ not the son of God but a Prophet and are obliged at this point to offer peace and blessing to his name – Funny how for most cultural Christians the name of their lord and God is a common swear word. Muslims like the Christians believe Christ will return – let’s hope so for there seems no other way out of our self made planetary mess of human “civilization”.