Sobriety without Anxiety

The effects are subtle; you have your typical impaired judgment accompanied by incoherent speech (that comes with any other fifth of Southern Comfort); however, added with two lines of Columbia’s finest, the buzz transitions into a different entity. Your impairment is heightened as your heart feels like it’s going to explode. Your muscles pour out lactic acid bringing you to convulse uncontrollably, and finally the near-death comatose.

Jimmy D. is hovered over me with his two fingers on my carotid artery and one hand on my heart. With Regan Youth blasting in the background of the dingy Erie Eastside “Punk House”, Jimmy D. hesitantly reassures the fellow punks, “He’s going to be alive, but I’m going to keep an eye on him for the rest of the night.” Jimmy D. was the local EMT that was in the Erie Punk Rock Scene, he was very distinct, a skinhead with a barbed wire tattooed all around his neck, and dark rimmed glasses. That night, I partied like it was 1999 well because it was 1999…

Being sober and drug free has now become a badge of honor. From the ages of fifteen to twenty-one, I lived a lifestyle of rebellion for I didn’t get fucked up. I think it may of came from the fact that a girl a grade below me was gang raped by fellow classmates at a party, a friend decapitated while driving drunk, countless others killed by drunk drivers, or my own near-death experience. Maybe it was also the relationships I’ve seen ruined, families destroyed, or a myriad of friends that have been raped at parties. Within the Symbolic Order of things, drinking alcohol was the norm and wasn’t some transgression transpired from teenage angst. As one gets older the methodology is the same but the location different; you go to the bar, fuck some stranger while contracting an STD or get pregnant and its love at first sight. Nevertheless, this allure that mystifies globally is a rite of passage for most. As a rite of passage, it serves as an agency of social cohesion and homogeneity, creating a social order that identifies itself as a necessity and at times creating an excess, alienating those who do not fit within that order.

Just like many others, alcohol was an escape from insecurities, anxieties, and the horrors of reality. It was a bandage for a gunshot wound. As I lay passed out on an ant-infested bathroom floor, I can feel the vomit travel through my esophagus, burning with every breath. Shortly after, with a slight bit of consciousness, my friends huddle around me urging for the next onslaught of binging.

Looking back, the punk rock lifestyle was no different than the status-quo in which it was reaction to. With similar rituals and attitudes, the escapist apathy coalesced in an existence that may seem antagonistic but in actuality reinforced its own cultural excess. Fraternity house or rental hall, the same bottle Jack Daniel gets passed around and the “great escape” continues on.

The mechanization and distance from our bodies has lead experience to embody a simulated reality. As Guy Debord put it, “Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.” It’s only now that representation is an abstract parallax to suppositions of our lived-experience. The comatose of intoxication is a transgression of a lived-experience plagued by the daily rituals within the Symbolic Order. The lived-experience of forgetting and escaping is the trauma of the Real. One sip becomes the journey down the rabbit hole only to be found buried alive. The white elephant plagues your living nightmare.

After many trials and tribulations I’ve found my vulnerabilities. Though my journey is still in its infant stage, I’ve found that isolation is a byproduct of cultural alienation. Nevertheless, sobriety serves as an actant to pursue further self-examination and solace in the midst of displacement. In addition, self-examination without an agency can be the hardest yet rewarding feat. By enabling one to tackle anxiety in its authentic form, the quest of self-liberation becomes more monumental and the embodiment of autonomy in the heart of darkness allows one to persevere in midst of any catastrophe. A call for mindfulness in a dying world.

Agency in the Mouth of the Dragon

"When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out."
- Ho Chi Minh

Driving through the seemingly uncoordinated districts of Vietnam, one sees the remnants of a revolutionary dystopia. A lottery ticket hustle of an adolescent, the burnt red skin of a backpack-hulling Westerner, brand new Mercedes juxtaposed by a swarm of scooters, and the myriad display of counterfeit designer clothing; this is post-revolutionary Vietnam, this an apocalypse now. However, amongst the fruits of doi moi or (renovation) lays a creature that is becoming formidable to Western liberal capitalism.

Historically speaking, Vietnam is a nation that has risen from the excrement of two colonial powers, creating an indigenous resistance that squashed its opposition through unconventional tactics. Nevertheless, with an organic revolutionary spirit, guided by the hammer and sickle, comes to what the Jacques Lacan would refer to as Vietnam’s big Other, the bureaucratization of the proletariat. Either way, the questionable reality of a dying revolution is what agency will Vietnam acquire after the rice fields have dried up, the last forest burnt down, the below poverty income is too much, and another free trade agreement disenfranchising the people?

The Dragon has flown out and the affects of doi moi has created a new a beast that emulates Singapore’s authoritarian capitalist with the extreme privatization that makes any Western liberal capitalist eyes light up like the napalm that scorched the land. On the recent trip to Ho Chi Minh City, one can’t stop but notice the renovation that’s being conducted; however, upon further investigation there seems to be something off. It seemed that the majority of the construction conducted was privatized and from foreign countries. This is something that can’t even be fathomed even in the U.S. for most road projects are run on a state-level conducted through the Department of Transportation and it would be blasphemy to have the taxpayer’s hard-earned money going to some private company (of course banks and car companies are an exception).

Nevertheless, in a somewhat paradoxical manner, the liberalization of capitalism is far more unhinged then its Western counterparts. With an estimated $600 million USD contract with France’s Vinci Construction, Vietnam is building an 11km stretch that will consist of two tunnels, three bridges, and expansion of the already built corridor connecting from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City1. With almost a quarter of a million multinational corporations investing2 and further privatization in the agricultural sector3, the vision of an agrarian reform isn’t quite what Uncle Ho expected (but neither was his request for the remains of his body4).

Interestingly enough, the agency in which one would seek in modern day Vietnam is one that is overshadowed by the necessity of the bourgeois or in this context, the governing few. Of course, with progress in being one of Asia’s fast growing economy5, there’s no doubt that the parasitic liberal capitalist country like the U.S. would have ulterior motives such as nuclear agreements with an old foe6.

As the materialization of socialist utopia beckons onto Vietnam, the reality of a farce is enacted on stage. The master and slave’s role are still unchanged, accumulation of wealth still exists and the tragedy of alienation comes with it. With the bourgeois construct of commodity fetishism still looming over a dying country, happiness is comfort in the material and a historical necessity is nestled into abstraction.

An Ocean Without a Tide: Dalai Lama and Dislocation of Cultural Hegemony (Part I)

June 16, 2010 - The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, holds a press conference condemning any “violence” conducted by the Sea Shepherd conservation society. Shortly after, he hails his host country India, for maintaining “harmony” for over 1,000 years 1.

When did non-violence become the pervading ideology for Buddhism? Considering the history of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s Gelugpa (“Yellow Hat”) tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism; violence was an effective tool used to spread Buddhism throughout Asia. The title “Dalai Lama” (“Ocean of Wisdom”) itself was given to the Third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso, by the former Mongolian King Altan Khan who made Buddhism Mongolia’s religion and reigned terror throughout China during the Ming Dynasty 2 (not to mention the grandfather of the Fourth Dalai Lama Yonten Gyatso 3).

Ironically enough, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama himself advocated violence with the creation of the guerrilla cadre Chushi Gangdruk during the 1959 Tibetan Uprisings to halt Chinese occupation as well as to escape his own country4. More recently, he’s made great efforts to suppress followers of the saint Dorje Shugden 5, who was used as an oracle for his own escape from Tibet.

Many in the West have looked at the current Dalai Lama with great honor and praise; a messenger of peace and a beacon towards an altruistic, non-violent world. This message is also proclaimed from a somehow non-ego 6 manner surrounded by security personnel from both exiled Tibet and the government of India, 7 in sold-out stadiums across the globe (of course there’s no ego attached when you’re giving a speech to a packed stadium) 8,9,10.

The harm seems to be his ideological persistence towards non-violence, going as far as to say that “Violence is against human nature…” (I suppose he never looked around him) and that he would resign from his position if the uprisings in Lhasa didn’t stop back in July, 2008 11.

Conversely, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has saved thousands of lives through direct actions campaigns (which were ambiguously labeled “violent” by the current Dalai Lama, when not one life has been lost); condemning them publicly in Japan (the country where the illegal poachers are protected), serving as a great disservice to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and other groups whose aim is to stop the suffering and slaughter of endangered marine life. It’s this seduction to such extremes that keeps the everlasting Wheel of Suffering and contradiction to turn. Yet the buck doesn’t stop there.

In a July, 2009 Reuters article, the Dalai Lama expressed the importance of free-market capitalism and the benefits it has on multiculturalism; negating its most implicit violent ramifications (human/non-human exploitation, ecological degradation, cultural extinction, stratification, alienation, etc), adding that “Profit is a fine aim…”12. It’s the position of ideological cohesion of non-secular moral consciousness towards capitalism is what solidifies Mao Zedong’s infamous quote that “religion is poison.” 13 However, it’s not solely religion that is the issue but the ideological construct of non-secularism in compassion towards capitalism (capitalism with a human(e) face).

Nevertheless, the discontent towards the Fourteenth Dalai Lama isn’t solely the fact of an overt moral contradiction (though it is apparent) but more so the misguided agency and location projected as a spiritual figure of Buddhism.

Within Mahayana Buddhism, the emphasis of the teacher is extremely imperative; however, when there is such an internal contradiction, there is also a lack substantial validity to the teachings. In this scenario, the location of agency has been displaced into a self-attached, self-projected ideology that has transitioned into cultural hegemony.

Street Art: The End of Subversion

What once was symbolic of social rebellion is now another form commodity. Subversive tags, stencils, or murals spray painted on walls, only to be captured on camera, sold at posh art galleries or reproduced to hang in some college dorm. Simulacrum of the Spectacle.

Shepard Fairey, one of the golden boys of the street art world. Famous for his co-option of the slogan "OBEY" from John Carpenter's 1988 cult classic film, They Live with the imagery of Andre the Giant hovering above, redefined the aesthetic landscape for 90's street art. However, with time, Fairey has become anything but subversive and has fallen into being another commodity fetish. Whether if it's suing for copyright violations 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, confusing romantic portrayal of revolutionaries and reformists 6, 7, 8, marketing prints, the OBEY clothing line, or his magnum opus Hope poster; one can't really take anything antagonistic or serious about Fairey. Nevertheless, Shepard Fairey is the testament of how capitalism's post-ideological materialization has pervaded to what once was perceived as reactionary, now a household name. Interestingly enough, the buck doesn't stop there.

One could perceive street art as the liberation of an architectural aesthetic from the confines of a specific landscape as well as a reaction to legal jurisprudence within the constructs of property (property damage, vandalism, etc). Therefore, street art acts as an agency of antagonism in regards to the State. However, displacement to its original location, juxtaposed to a location of tolerance and acceptance, negates its ideological placement. The manifestation of this phenomena is designated legal graffiti walls, art shows displaying the simulacra-ed art, marketing of reproductions, etc. Nevertheless, amongst the dead there is still a glimpse of sunshine.

If there was an executioner for the consumer/capitalist driven, anti-intellectual, bohegoisie, it would be the Krylon® crusader Banksy. Culture jamming around the world and propagating an anti-capitalist, anti-consumer spirit (while maintaining to keep it "real" and illegal), giving life to a "dying art".

In his latest antic, Banksy made a film entitled Exit Through the Gift Shop, which brings insight to the devolution of street art and the egotistical trauma of those who fell victim to it. Knowing Banksy's antics, the viewer is left uncertain whether or not Mr. Brainwash (the movies center character) is fabricated and apart of the farce or is he an actual victim. The brilliance of the film isn't the factor of an egotistical artist being "humiliated" by the seduction of capitalism. On the contrary, Banksy's utilization of Mr. Brainwash was extremely strategic in exposing the absurdity of the street art movement. In one part of the film, Banksy states on camera, "I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that anymore. " This is a beautiful critique of the current post-ideological location street art resides in.

Like an unoriginal zine, street art has fallen victim to the abstraction of absurdity (as well as the the absurdity of abstraction). In it's D.I.Y. spirit, it has left people to "create their own canvas" but mistakenly create something that is as boring as their pretentious, fixed-gear lives (a stencil of two unicorns fucking serves only as a sight of sore eyes). With redundancy and replication, the artist(s) is not only the victim of their own farce but also fixed to the naivete of their social construct. Ideological displacement.

So what's the future of street art? How would something so brilliant (and later fall victim to its own ends) break free from its post-ideological debacle? As of now, the answer is as blank as the walls it left bare.

The Karate Kid: Multiculturalism Without a Race

If there was a movie that would reflect the ideology of multiculturalism, it would be Harald Zwart’s remake of the Karate Kid. Whether if it’s the film’s title (an instructional video of Karate is the only glimpse of the Japanese martial art), the non-existence of racial tension, or the homogeneity of the protagonists, the Karate Kid provides the misalignment that pervades multiculturalism.

Dre Parker, played by Jaden Smith, is a character that is displaced from his home of Detroit, Michigan to move to Beijing, China where his mother has found a new job. Throughout the whole film Dre encounters agencies of antagonism within language, culture, and the social. He cannot communicate with anyone because of ignorance towards the Chinese language, he is unaware of mandatory uniforms, and is perplexed by the channels on the television (Sponge Bob Square Pants in Mandarin). The breaking point for Dre is when he’s attacked by bullies who badly beat him when he attempts to talk to his love interest Mei Ying, played by Wen Wen Han.

With the utopian ideology of multiculturalism, the bullies never once confront Dre for being a foreigner or Black for that matter. This symbolic misrepresentation negates to realize an Other in relation to race but projects the placement of an Other that is completely dislocated to an actual representation besides possible teenage angst. This displacement is the ideological distraction of a false modus operandi to the viewer (males from the ages of 8-15), giving the semblance of a Symbolic, distanced from any realistic social antagonism (race, culture, sex, religion, gender, etc).

The cohesive mediator of the protagonists’ homogeneity is the coincidental comprehension of the English language. It could be argued that further alienation projected towards the antagonists is from their non-comprehension of the English language. This widens the gap of empathy and sets the ideological location of an Other.

Interestingly enough, Chakie Chan’s role as Mr. Han, the apartment complex's maintenance man, could be perceived as an ideological contradiction. Working class man that is disconnected from any social life due to a traumatic loss of his family yet is somehow fully fluent in the English language. Of course, it could be argued that he could have comprehension from working with Westerners but encountering even working class Chinese immigrants in America, this reality is pure fabrication. Nevertheless, it’s obvious that the importance of understanding the English language in film, closes the gap of alienation and further empathizing with any transgression displayed by the character.

Of course the perplexing nature of the whole film is the relation between Dre and Mei Ying. After kissing at the festival, in which all festival participants witnessed through their reflection from the puppet show, their action prompted anger amongst Mei Ying’s family, shunning any bond with Dre and Mei Ying. This displacement of anger was intentional and solidified the ideology of multiculturalism, negating any context of racial tension.

Furthermore, the Karate Kid still attached itself to essentialist connotations towards Eastern cultures with exoticism of the orient. This motif was presented when Mr. Han took Dre to the Mountains of Wudang, providing Dre further insight in the human psyche by viewing a relationship between a woman, played by Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - who wasn’t credited) and a cobra snake, stating that the snake was emulating the woman, not the other way around (a metaphor of dislocation that is apparent throughout the movie).

The conclusion of the movie is when Dre is participating in the Kung Fu Tournament and like the original, is hurt until the deus ex machina (what Hollywood film is complete without one?) when Dre is saved by Mr. Han’s ability to heal through the art of fire cupping (further exoticism) and inevitably wining the fight (Eurocentricism exposed once again).

So what can be learned from the Karate Kid? Just as any ideology, multiculturalism with all its naiveté can instill a sense of moral righteousness at the same time persist on with a methodology of deception and coercion, creating an idea to something that really isn’t, just like the title, Karate Kid.