Thursday, December 18, 2008

Part Of The Problem 9

Sometime around 2002 I saw this in neon. LAUGHTER (buzz buzz) SLAUGHTER (buzz buzz) LAUGHTER. Big red neon letters on a building in Grand Center, with the "S" flashing on and off like when you see a WAFFLE HO SE from the highway. I don't know who put it up, it was seemingly part of a gallery event in the neighborhood. That is art though, that which inspires thought and consequent art from others, so thank you unknown neon-light installation artist.
What an insight into the strangely-related and hard-to-pronounce words of the English language.
The line asking "will it take the bombs to wake us" was stolen from George Orwell's "Homage To Catalonia", I proudly admit it. His use of it was in reference to England's ambivalence to the civil war in Spain in the 1930s. The rest I would hope is self-explanatory, kind of a little anthem.


SILVER SPOONS AND PAPER PLATES (lyrics by Tim Rakel)

what gives you the right to laughter and slaughter
drank up the well, poisoned the water
and it seems like it will be a thousand years
for some people to be free
as apathy settles back in with the debris
will it take the bombs to wake us and open up our eyes
or will we finally see the truth of how the other half dies
the rest of the world doesn't eat
from silver spoons or paper plates
and death is not some side effect
in the search for the cheapest rates

what gives you the right to laughter and slaughter
drank up the well and poisoned the water
and it seems like it will be a thousand years
for some people to be free
as apathy settles back in, with the debris
cut off the heads of state, use their corpses to fill the hole
in this lousy culture that they traded for your soul
if they don't own you, you get called the enemy
you get called the enemy of ignorance and apathy
and the rest of the world
doesn't eat from silver spoons or paper plates
and death is not some side effect
in the search for the cheapest rates

3 comments:

matty lite said...

"How the other half dies"-- nice. That is real nice. I am gonna steal that from you, Tim. Thanks.

a. said...

In re: WAFFLE HO SE and Language

Se is a third person reflexive pronoun in the ablative case in Latin. So really, this is saying "BY MEANS OF THE WAFFLE HO HERSELF"

Well, it's sort of saying that.

Zed Naught said...

LET’S SELL THIS TO THE UNTWIDDLED CLITS OF BEJESUS

For those whose lawns drink
more than they do,
whose minds are smothered in
busy-ness, cathode and the
moss of self-help;
Whose souls are crushed by
dogmatic vines,
bullshit never
takes a holiday
nor ceases shooting its
wad on the
face
of truth.
In every other liar’s film
made with a filthy, lense
held by a
masturbating twit-git bored, dim-sum slurping
McSumer
a blitzkrieg called patriotism
insures that
the dump pump hump
is still
injecting
collagen into flaccid, lifeless
lustless
ignorant, jitter-fucking latte slaves
that go strutting
insect-free to the rapid-fire drum beat of
land fills under condos and $20,000 Volkswagons.
A piss-soaked woman gone mad screams
in a cathedral of
tourists
the only commandment,
“Don’t be an asshole!!!!”
as shutters click
and the intelligence of man
pays for a better set of tires
and some water-resistant rain gear
plus a meteorologist’s salary and
some wheat grass pills run through
bowels of an asian pussy cat with
a bumper sticker.
I skim the want ads, singing hallelujah
that the perfect job doesn’t want me
asphyxiating in a two-car garage
or
buying a scope for a rifle and shoes
good enough to climb that tower
as the roasted Thanksgiving turkey necks
gobble gobble up department store
cunts
That’ll be $49.95. Thank you. Please cum again
and the urinary tracts of the
barking security alarms
are in perfect health
as she writes out a
check for more safety.

So cackle and
jack-off through the crackup.
Masticate over an armpit soup
while dickheads of wigs swilling
their own cumaidsicle juice drip drop
aids virus tick tock
and the sick cops
slip chafed cocks in foreign crabgrass
articulated pussvortex
whores draped in velvet
because.

Brett Lars Underwood, 2004

Here! Sing it!