Today is May Day, and more than 5.9 Billion other people on the planet know that, but here in America, May Day means nothing. May 1st is the day of the working class. American workers do not consider themselves working class; if, in fact, they are, they latch onto being middle class, even when poor, unemployed, or disaffected.

This day is celebrated as the day the working class won the struggle for the eight-hour day. While this day was born through labor disputes, the end of slavery, and the Civil War here in America when in 1872 workers won the right to work only eight hours, it is the empowerment of labor that smacks of Communism, and so May Day in the United States is more a Socialist event than a reason for any type of celebration.

Instead, America is waiting for the now more famous Cinco De Mayo or May 5th when it’s time to hit the Mexican restaurants to get drunk like on St Patrick’s Day. The day could just as well be referred to as Margarita Day. That this upcoming Mexican day of observance for the conquest of Mexican forces over the French in a battle on May 5th, 1862, is of no consequence to us party people.

Oh, and St Patrick’s Day, or “Get Smashed While Wearing Green Day,” is a Roman Catholic feast day celebrating Saint Patrick of Ireland who lived from 387 to 461 – what are we drinking for here?

The movie “What is it?” it and this is a big swing could be described briefly as an absurdist look at control, reality, good, evil, normal, and abnormal. My take on this surreal jaunt into dislocation is that this may very well be a synopsis of how Crispin Glover might see the media, its role, and its effect. You should stop reading here if you are going to see this film!

Simply put, the movie looks at layers of control, of who is really at the top and what is the ultimate outcome on those below. This begins with the “pearl” in the clamshell as our true earthly power; he is the majority shareholder of the corporation. Naked and twisted and without visible authority, others are acting on his behalf. Those others are weak, ineffectual monkey mask-wearing slaves crawling in and out of their holes, making offerings to the corporate benefactor; these are the producers, studio chiefs, and CEO. Next in line is the Director, played by Crispin Glover. The fur-clad dude who, when required, will bow down to the corporate chieftain but more typically surrounds himself with yes-men and women waiting for him to take an interest.

The succession of power continues to flow downstream as our Director, from afar, seems to control the actions of our main characters, an ensemble of Down Syndrome people Crispin has brought onto the silver screen. With the same voyeuristic intensity and curiosity, we stare at the details, guiltily we can’t help but study their disfigurement, and we hang on to their utterances, which, for the most part, are incoherent. The analogy here is I think Crispin is showing us our idols, our Hollywood stars, himself.

Finally, at the bottom of this ladder are the snails. Those things move too slowly to escape even the slow reactions of these Down Syndrome characters who have ultimate control over and exercise that control over the snails through acts of childish, innocent cruelty. Not really aware of how cruel but damaging to the point of killing that thing which they hold close momentarily.

The message ends up being that the twisted corporate grotesque figure who emerges from luxury plays back a repeating message of ignorance, which he himself helped create but is now forced to repeat again and again. The Director pushes his actors to be the spectacle so that the audience is under its grip while, through their own innocence, poisoning and thus killing those who have no voice below them – the masses, the spineless audience.

Thus, the film is a mirror of corporate control pushing an agenda of stupidity via its studio, who use its Directors to create the spectacle where we are forced to watch these celebrities even as they unwittingly destroy us (our intellect) with their banality and apparent innocence.

As for some of the Nazi symbolism, my take here is that symbology used for control we construe as good or bad, and as the swastika is typically a negative, Crispin short circuits us by throwing a symbol we immediately identify as evil. I believe the intent here is to make the audience think about how they see these symbols. The swastika behind the image of Shirley Temple is a perfect juxtaposition where we can annoy ourselves with the merging of the ugly and the cute, but what he really shows us is that if we replace the swastika with a dollar sign, then the image and symbology is acceptable. While Hollywood doesn’t overtly use the dollar sign, it effectively does so in its use of designer clothing, expensive cars, well-furnished homes, and the gratuitous display of a wealthy lifestyle that smacks of dollars. Hence, our image of wholesomeness isn’t questioned when we look at the brute force induction of our senses into consumerism, but in the dark world of Crispin’s view, you see the naked aggressiveness of symbolic manipulation for what it is – ugly manipulation meant to make you squirm.

The Johnny Rebel song is another bone in the film that rattled a few cages. For me, this is a brilliant use of song to demonstrate institutionalized hatred. Crispin has the guts or luck to have stumbled upon using this to tell his audience that yes, we use stereotypes, ones that are meant to infuriate, but that we can package it into parody or use it in such a way that you won’t understand precisely what and why it was used, but there is this undercurrent of hatred that can and is used for the sake of manipulation, but do you really care enough to speak up?

The role of god is played by Shirley Temple. God floats in the form of a doll on clouds aloft to calm the artist as conflicts with the desires of the corporate vision interfere with the Director. If, as you watch this film, you replace the images on the chair of Shirley Temple and swastikas with that of Jesus and dollar signs, you may better understand the context of the idol, symbol, meaning, emotional suspense, and intellectual manipulation, both here for shock value and as used subliminally by mainstream media.

The man in blackface is the ego of our audience. Vulgar in his appearance not only due to the blackface, which is sure to offend, but because he wants to look like everyone else, and if urbanized invertebrate is what is ‘in’ at the moment, so shall he become it. He is reducing himself to be as insignificant as the snail – using makeup, injections, desire, and possibly other means to become the idealized version of what he thinks he should be instead of coming to be and knowing one’s real or true self.

The movie does not come over this cleanly; it is rough, raw, in a sense violent, pornographic, and quite disturbing, I’m sure, to many people who may stomach its entire 90 minutes. Oh, and this is part one of a trilogy.

I liked the movie; it is engaging, and it may even possess elements of genius. This first impression and attempt at interpretation might very well be way off, no matter though, as, at a minimum, I believe Crispin presents this film for the sake of his audience to ask the question represented by its title, “What is it?”. No doubt, this film is a genuine peek into the imagination of a thinking artist who definitely has more to say than the scripted silliness that has been piped through him in big studio roles that are less than what an artist may earnestly want to portray.

Thanks to the management of the Loft Cinema in Tucson for taking this on, and thanks to Crispin Glover for taking the time to visit Arizona and show us his new film. Good luck watching it; better luck figuring out what it is.

View the trailer or visit Crispin Glover’s website at www.crispinglover.com

Above image Copyright Crispin Glover

I received Throbbing Gristle’s Live at Camber Sands this afternoon in the mail from Mute UK. After hearing TG Now studio recording from earlier this year I was impressed with the effort put into the recording from a band who hadn’t worked together in 23 years. Upon completing this last live gig, the band released a recording of the show 10 minutes after the end of the show; that is the CD that arrived today.

It was great to hear the chemistry of the Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Peter Christopherson, and Chris Carter meld after so many years of acrimony between them. Their feeling for the time is right on the mark; after hearing the new CD, I felt that they had taken the 70’s style of Industrial Music and brought it forward to 21st-century Industrial music. Instead of the manufacturing and grime of the ’70s, the soundtrack was transformed as an accompaniment to the service sector Kinko’s and Starbucks’s landscape of today.

Unfortunately, the group revisited old grounds when they performed a few songs from the old days; I suppose to keep the fans who attended the show feeling they got their money’s worth. For me, I would love to hear more of their interpretations of the current moment. From TG Now, the songs Splitting Sky, Almost Like This, and How Do You Deal are three of the best soundtracks I’ve heard this century; only X-Ray leaves me flat. On Live at Camber Sands, the band delivers a sobering show which, knowing that their good friend Geoff Rushton (Jhonn Balance of Coil) had recently died, is understandable. The mood of the performance was heavier than and not as focused as the TG Now studio or the live recording that was made immediately after TG Now was recorded. I still have a profound interest and great respect for the new recording as it is an absolute snapshot of our times via TG’s view of things but TG Now is more precise and far more prescient.

Camber Sands setlist is as follows as it is not printed on the CD and is not the easiest list to find: P-A D, What A Day, Greasy Spoon, Live-Ray, Hamburger Lady, Almost Like This, Splitting Sky, Convincing People, Fed Up, Wall of Sound.

My only wish is that this not be the last ever recording of Throbbing Gristle.

About a year ago, I installed Skype but had no one to talk to. Today, I use it to talk with Michael Geesmann in Berlin, Germany, and Caroline uses Skype Out to talk with her mom in Frankfurt, Germany. Michael is an old friend from Frankfurt who now makes a living working out of his apartment selling various small gift items on eBay. Since last September Michael and I have talked for free for a total of many hours. Another old friend, Olaf Finkbeiner, is also using Skype but he is rarely available. Using Skype Out Caroline has talked with her mom for about a dozen hours with a cost of only .02 cents per minute. Voice over I.P. or VOIP is a dream on broadband, but using Skype Out to call our friend Jay Patel in Bombay, India, on his cell phone hasn’t worked out yet; the connection is far too noisy and impossible even to establish anything resembling a conversation. Having a chat window open while at the same time talking is the best of both worlds – telecom and the internet; as we talk, we send links back and forth, introducing each other to various websites.

The past months have seen us take a curbing to go out for dinner. The restaurants within a 15-mile radius have become progressively more boring. Cooking at home, on the other hand, has become more and more enjoyable the more comfortable I get in the kitchen. As I eat more vegetarian meals, I also become more aware of shortcomings that might be part of the diet and am learning how to compensate and ensure we are eating balanced meals. Just yesterday, the USDA released its new dietary recommendations, and there is a heavy emphasis on more fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds and less meat, sugar, fat, and salt.

Finding the balance of how a healthy diet works is not all that easy, though. At the moment I try to balance in my mind’s eye what we are eating over the course of the day and try to approximate what we need and where we fall short. This is a failing proposition; while we are probably getting a healthier meal, I’m not at all comfortable that the food is giving us everything we need. So I refer back to maybe trying to realize my idea for software that would help guide us to finding that perfect mix of food items.

This evening we had a dinner of Sambar, a south Indian soup which is supposed to be served with Idli’s – that I don’t make as of yet. Instead, I altered the recipe from a soupier to a more stew-like meal. My version contains the following: urad dahl (split urad or urd bean), channa dahl (split chickpea), toor dahl (yellow lentils), Kabuli channa (garbanzos or chickpea – larger than channa dahl), mustard seed, curry leaf, cumin, coriander, turmeric, green chilies, ginger, garlic, red onion, peas, corn, Mexican squash, crookneck squash, bottle gourd (doodhi), tomatoes, carrot, celery, cilantro, tamarind paste, and sambar seasoning.