Spider

The lost art of storytelling

Watching Flash Forward on Monday I had a nagging doubt throughout. That it would be rubbish. Not now, I was quite enjoying it, but sometime, maybe six months time, it would be rubbish. I would give up caring. And it began to ruin my enjoyment of the show. Could I really continue watching it under the strain of knowing its enjoyment would never last. Having read that they had the story arc written for 5 series worth of show just seems like an unbearable pressure - I'm going to watch this for 5 seasons? I don't think so.

Where I think the problem lies is in the structure. It starts with a huge event, and everything is downhill from there. It can not possibly sustain itself, the further it gets from episode one, the worse it must get. This is how it seems. It can not build to anything, it can not gain momentum, it can only lose that which it started with. The signs were there in episode 2 as we heard declared a couple of times, "We must stop this happening again," or "What could be worse? This happening again." All we have to look forward to is that which has already happened.
The problem seems to be that the huge event at the start of the show's run, guarantees a big audience at the start, and then you they maybe plot a graph of viewings falling off as the show deteriorates into a series of empty questions. The graph showing that they'll have lost the viewers to get them cancelled sometime during season 6, and then they'll rush some answers into the last couple of episodes and everyone will end up feeling cheated. The opposite curve, start the show off "slowly", gain momentum and then viewers through good reviews and word of mouth, build characters, involving storylines which aren't just a series of pointless mysteries is just too slow for some.
Heroes was my last brush with such a show. The first season worked well, kept up the interest throughout, finished pretty well. And then it went downhill. Can't even remember when I stopped watching, think it could have been the start of season 3, or the end of season 2, who knows. It was when all the talk of earth-shattering consequences got too much and it became apparent that the huge talk was a mask for a lack of anything substantial actually happening - a succession of "powers" as a substitute for characters, adding new abilities to old characters as the mood took - a mess. Concentrate on the small things and the big will come. Loss the small things and everything else crashes.
True Blood on the other hand, now there's a show. One can imagine a Flash Forward version which would have started with the Vampires announcing themselves, and then huge panic in the population and then... for season 2... werewolves, anyone? Whereas the actual version is great, a gothic soap opera, everyone thinking about sex all the time, graphic violence, great use of lighting for effect, tripping in and out of reality. And the "coming out" of the vampire in the past, the odd reminder of the politics through snippets glimpsed on the TV, but this isn't about the event, its about the people. After watching the first episode I remember thinking, "well, it was OK, for a first episode, it'll probably get better." And it has. It hasn't peaked in the first 5 minutes, unlike I sense Flash Forward may well have.
The point could well be illustrated by using the example of a recent film, District 9 - In District 9 the mothership is always present, inert on the skyline. It doesn't involve itself in the story or become the focus of the story till the very end. It's just there, while people live in its shadow With Flash Forward this shadow becomes the only focus, nothing else matters, the characters have no chance for a light of their own. In True Blood, we have a similar thing to District 9, the presence of the vampires "coming out" is simply a background, in the foreground is the characters and their stories. There is the possibility of escape, freedom for the story. The event enables, rather than smothers.

Keep it Goin' Louder

Video for Major Lazer/Ricky Blaze/Nina Sky "Keep it Goin' Louder" -



Nice tune (and for those who haven't already, buy the Major Lazer album like yesterday) and the video's low-key, but good, unobtrusive blending of cartoon and live action.

"Froze by desire"

The xx performing "Islands" off Later...



Theirs really has to be one of my favourite albums of the year. Absolute class. I think what I particularly like is their ... cool ... It's a cool borne not out of detachment, like so many others, but of attachment, a distance created to sing of the claustrophobia of attachment, being too close... This is a cool I can love: a cool that loves...
And Islands is one of the best tracks on there, though there are so many, it's a tough call.

Stapleton Sex

New Ghostface video. Not sure there's a lot to say about it. Just watch it and look forward to the new album -

"My Heart is King"

This video of Sunset Rubdown's "Black Swan" is pretty much the coolest music video ever... Pitchfork's description of it is spot on - "music video-as-peyote hellscape." Check out the Sebastien Tellier reference (or not...) from about the 1:35 mark, and the coolest bit of the video - the dancing skeleton, from about 4:50 -



This is one of my favourites off the album Dragonslayer and the album has to be one of the best of the year. Video does justice. Still loving the "You were hoping for something a little more realistic/you were hoping for the head of the Queen" Despite the many times I have listened to the album this video has just reminded me that I haven't listened to the album enough - and I never will...

District 9: Are we not men?

District 9 is quite a film. A few thoughts, not so much answers as questions.
Given the obvious parallels between the aliens and, given its South African location, apartheid, as well as making the leap towards the Jews under the Nazis, a leap made less by the medical experiments and talk of genetics around the aliens, as well as parallels which can be made between the aliens and more contemporary situations of immigration (article here which runs through many comparisons which can be drawn, including in the South African context, not apartheid, but the influx of Zimbabwean refugees), I think it is interesting that other discriminations are still shown in the movie - not everything is subordinated to the aliens/us dialectic, other discriminations occur along with it and inform the "main" discrimination. For instance there is still discrimination between black and white - from the way the black assistant to Wikus is the only one not given a bulletproof vest and the patronising way he is treated in the early scenes, to the fast food joint where the whites are served before the blacks.
The other discrimination in evidence is gender. The role of women in the film is one that could probably be studied at length. A film that is shot in the shadow of the mothership yet featuring few women. Are there female aliens? The scene of the "abortion" is strangely motherless, a makeshift incubation chamber feeding the eggs. The MNU seems a place run as an old boys club, with any women being peripheral. The main female role is Wikus's wife who has no real presence of her own, she is there to memorialize Wikus and is used to entrap Wikus. The only "proper" female presence in the film is in the academic "commentary" that is interspersed throughout the film, and if I remember correctly, these academic contributions are limited to the sociological. As if this is the only "proper" role for a woman - not intervening in events themselves, but commenting on them after the fact (Wikus's wife and the academic both). And doesn't the mothership have a similar role - constantly present, yet unable to intervene. Not wishing to spoil the film I shall just say that the end can also be looked at from this perspective. It might be stretching the point a little to see in the aliens, and in particular the way that Wikus's infection is presented to the public in sexual terms to frighten the public, a certain fear of the female as other.
The fact of the academic commentaries themselves being a part of the film is in itself interesting. What is their purpose? Are they simply signposts to the films meanings? Can a film which commentates on its own allegories be considered allegorical? Does the self-contained commentary not actually serve to illustrate a certain fissure between "reality" and the academic work on that "reality?"I'm reminded of the way that Zizek suggests that liberal work on criminals is used by criminals themselves, "I couldn't help myself committing the crime, it was society's fault." For all the truth of such analyses they can not be used to absolve the individual of guilt. In District 9 we see the disparity between the commentaries of the "reality" and the "reality" itself - no amount of context can excuse/explain the action on the ground - something escapes explanation/reason. At the same time the presence of these commentaries remind us that interpretation is always a part of reality itself, not an entirely separate realm, so that if someone on the ground says, "we'll leave the explanations to the experts, we just do what's necessary/what we're told," that's not enough either. What is missing from both is an appreciation of a certain enjoyment present in the work, demonstrated in the film by the way everyone, the army in particular, take great pleasure in their work, the sadistic pleasure in killing aliens for instance, but also the relish in which Wikus goes about his bureaucratic task.
In this sadistic pleasure one can see the fact that the other as literally an alien is a simple leap from the dehumanised image of the "other", the immigrant, the Jew, etc., to an actual representation of the other as an alien. And yet this is a little misleading, because isn't the essential point not the alien-ness of the other, but our own non-human-ness? Which is to say why must something be considered human before we grant it dignity? The fact that Wikus utterly refuses to truly identify with the aliens even after the genetic change starts to take effect emphasises this. One does not have to consider oneself an alien, or consider the aliens as human to treat them with respect - despite his lack of identification with the aliens he still finds the idea of shooting one of them in cold blood to be horrific. There is a certain competition in the film between these ideas. At the start of the film we see the aliens at their worst, they are not painted as sympathetic refugees. As the film progresses there is a certain softening, we see the aliens desire for home and the doting father alien. But against this we still have Wikus's non-identification with the aliens to remind us of their utter difference.
To return to the gender theme, what I am tempted to see here is the placing of the alien into the abstract universal concept of Man. What we have is not so much a humanising of the aliens, but the aliens showing themselves as men through the second half of the film, the action half (I have seen some criticisms of the action half, as if it somehow turns the film from social commentary to generic action film, but I think the action half adds to the meaning of the film). The absence of women then becomes explainable through Lacan's "Woman doesn't exist." Humanity in the abstract is always male. Consequently, the aliens can only show themselves worthy of salvation by becoming men. Their mission? To reach the (passive) mothership.
This is further complicated by Wikus's desire to remain human at all costs. He expresses this through action, action which threatens their salvation. And yet, in the scenes with his wife after the event, we can see that it is not in his actions which he is remembered most significantly, but in the trivial objects he leaves behind, the presents he made for her. The essence of the human is present not in the (male) action, but in (female) memory.

Major Lazer Live

Just come across this stream of the Major Lazer show from the Notting Hill Carnival. Quality shit don't come close to describing it... Listen. Believe. Buy the album. It can be summer forever...



(Not sure if that player is working properly... if it ain't, you can go here to listen to it)

Big Brother isn't watching

A few more thoughts on Big Brother 10 as it draws to a close (the inevitable cancelling of the show is another matter whose inevitability renders it redundant - not many shows last as long, not many shows endure so much malicious publicity and still (relatively) thrive - they've been writing it off since what, the second series?).

First off Marcus, who has definitely outlived his usefulness. The key moment for Marcus came several weeks ago when he noted that everyone in the house had their roles and his was the role of "rebel," consequently he just had behave the way he did - he had no choice. I couldn't agree with him more in that. I often write on the structure of the house and the way roles are assigned despite, rather than because, of the housemates personalities (check the tags for Big Brother, save me searching for links... laziness on my part...). Since then the mistake Marcus seems to have made is in believing in his autonomy, or rather, believing his autonomy is his to simply declare, instead of being a constant work. In such a situation the only actual rebellious thing to do would be to not rebel. By simply going along with his assigned rebelliousness, he becomes a pawn. So, having seemingly forgotten his declaration he now seems to believe that he is special, different to the other "mugs" in the house. He really doesn't give a fuck you know. Has he mentioned that? Everyone else does, but not Marcus, he is special. Like everyone who goes into the house doesn't have this conceited view of themselves... His "rebellion is now simply boring. How many times can one see him in the diary room slagging off Big Brother before it becomes just as dull as the platitudes of other housemates on this being the greatest achievement of their lives? Of course there's people who'll say, "but he's being ironic, he's joking." Well yes. He is. But it makes it no less dull and it makes it worse. He's a rebel at one remove, a rebel whose rebellion has no effect, a rebel designed to make the system work: a joke.
Leading on from that I have a problem with the standard formulation that such and such a housemate is bad because they so obviously only want to win the money. So? It's a gameshow, they've spent 12 weeks in there. Let them have the freaking money and enjoy it. Why not wanting to be in the game when you've gone in there to play a game is a virtue is absolutely beyond. The desire to win some money does not preclude the ability act as a decent human being. Isn't that the defenders of capitalism's basic position?
Lastly. Rodrigo. With all the rule breaking, "rebellions," in the house isn't Rodrigo's position the only correct position. And I include Big Brother "himself" in that. When Big Brother announced that it was changing the rules to allow nominations talk, Rodrigo went in there and pointed out to Big Brother that this was a fundamental rule and how could they consider changing it. Brilliant and totally right. The rule change simply showed the lack of power of Big Brother. They could no longer find ways to make people abide by the rules, so they changed them. Rodrigo, by taking the rule literally - for Rodrigo it was divine ordinance, not some ironic rule to be changed on a whim - becomes a subversive figure that Marcus could only dream of. Everyone else was in the trap of irony, business as usual, not realising the shift in power. Rodrigo, having identified the lack of power, should have overthrown the rule of Big Brother and instituted his own revolutionary rule.
Now that would have been worth watching.

Surf Solar

New Fuck Buttons video "Surf Solar", really whetting my appetite for their new album Tarot Sport (out Oct 12th). Not so much the video, which is pretty cool, but just comes down, more so than most videos which take on a life/meaning of their own, to visuals to complement the track, allowing the music to take over. And it really does take over.

House of Flying Daggers

Raekwon, new video, "House of Flying Daggers"



Off of Only Built For Cuban Linx II, out early September. If this track is anything to go by should be a classic. The video is kick ass as well, gory animation, severed heads, blood, detached backbone, and more. Quality stuff.

Big Brother and Groucho Marx

Been thinking about the Rodrigo/Charlie "relationship" and remembered a Groucho Marx quote that Slavoj Zizek is fond of using:

"This man looks like an idiot and acts like an idiot - but this should in no way deceive you: he IS an idiot."

Which applied to Charlie/Rodrigo would go something like this, "They look like they hate each other and act like they hate each other - but this should in no way deceive you: they DO hate each other." (Of course it can also be applied in its original form to David...)
Being so used to finding hidden meanings everywhere, ulterior motives and with a certain mass market psychoanalysis behind us, it is too easy to just say, "ah yes, their arguments are a classic case of repressed love." Why is it not possible for the opposite to be the case: that the moments of tenderness serve to disguise the truth of the moments of absolute hatred towards each other? In this version, Charlie and Rodrigo are trying to occupy the same place in the house - that of the joker, a role which can only be occupied by one person. All their arguments basically stem from jokes going too far, turning into violence. They are not trying to repress their true feelings at these points, rather these are the moments when their true feelings come out. The rest of the time the laws of society mean they have to repress these feelings: in the Big Brother house it is the emotion of hatred that is the main taboo, everyone has to get along, or at least create a semblance of getting along, so why should we imagine that it is love that is being repressed, rather than hatred?

Love Still Sucks

Just done an updated version of my Love Sucks mix from a while ago. While I liked the roughness of the last one I thought I'd do one that was actually mixed "properly," and here's the result. Obviously the tracklist varies a bit through the necessity of mixing, so here it is-

St Elmo's Fire dialogue/Arab Strap - Blackness
Eminem - If I had
Shellac - Prayer To God
Major Lazer feat. Amanda Blank & Einsten - What U Like
Clipse - So Fly (Now We've Had her)
Sebastien Tellier - Sexual Sportswear
Dream Academy - Please Let Me Get What I Want
Lil' Wayne - Do's and Don'ts of Young Money
Nas - If I Ruled The World
Penthouse - Tongue Kung Fu
Big Black - Kerosene
(The Rza as)Bobby Digital - Domestic Violence
The Velvet Underground and Nico - Femme Fatale
Sin With Sebastien - Shut Up (And Sleep With Me)
The Besnard Lakes - For Agent 13
Kid Cudi - The Prayer
Manatees - iiii
Muggs - Rain
NWA - A Bitch is a Bitch
The Alchemist feat. Prodigy - Keep Your Heels On
The Killbots - The Whore (Without A Name)
Spiritualized - Broken Heart
Burial - U Hurt Me
(?) From Mullholland Drive Soundtrack - Llorando (Crying)
Cresa Watson - Dead
The Shangri-Las - Past, Present and Future
Whipping Boy - We Don't Need Nobody Else
Smog - River Guard

And here's the link to download.

Whose Fantasy is it anyway?

Just watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off again and having recently read the whole Ferris as product of Cameron's imagination theory I was looking out for that as well. What mainly struck me about the theory after watching the film was just how unnecessary it was. The film goes to great lengths to point out just what a fantasy figure Ferris is to Cameron, Cameron himself points it out, Ferris knows it. Ferris is set up as the opposite of Cameron, not just in personality but the loving family vs the absent family, popular vs invisible (Ferris is missed from school, Cameron not at all). The point is that whether or not Ferris is a figment of Cameron's imagination doesn't alter the reading of the film in the slightest. Even the events that don't effect Cameron could be seen in the context of his imagination, he imagines all the attention that is being lavished on Ferris, by his principal, his sister, everyone really, in his absence, as a counterpoint to the absence of attention he receives while he is there. But again there is no altered meaning depending on the realness or otherwise of Ferris.
It could actually be that the film is more interesting if we do read Ferris as real, because then we have to ask the question, "why is Ferris hanging about with Cameron?" He's popular with everyone in school and yet he chooses to hang about with the miserable and boring Cameron? Looking at it from this point of view we can actually envisage a third reading in which Ferris isn't a product of Cameron's imagination but that the whole film is a product of Ferris' imagination. It is Ferris imagining his own over the top popularity, his own daring personality. He imagines Cameron as a witness to all his deeds, a way of reflecting his fantasy back onto himself, "wow, imagine what Cameron thinks of me," a way of making himself feel like someone to be looked up to and admired. Perhaps our 2nd Ferris is simply a fairly ordinary middle-class kid ill in bed imagining what he could be doing, imagining what is happening at school in his absence.
But anyway, whoever is having the fantasy, it really is the greatest film...
And here's a cool Ferris related video (which I saw on Discobelle) of Diplo's "Twist and Shout" remix, put over the parade scene -

I might like you better if we slept together

Video for Amanda Blank's "Might Like You Better" -

Not much to the video, but simplicity is sometimes a good thing, and it's still pretty good (the best bit is the popping balloons right at the start), although it does seem to remind me of some hairdressing advert, can't remember which one, but it does anyway. The tune is immense though. Loving it.

Close To The Ground

Not had chance to check the new Sian Alice Group album yet, but here's a taster which makes me want to. Video for "Close To The Ground" -

Hira, the ghost of Big Brother past

A few thoughts on Hira from Big Brother 10. It is pretty obvious that Hira does nothing. Of course, she was Alice in the task and entertained with her epic cake eating, but on a personal level, she does nothing. There is no tension between her and anyone else, no love interest, no friendship, no nothing. Unlike Angel her aloneness never becomes loneliness. She is simply there. In this I think she could very be seen as the ghost of Big Brother past. Watch as other people argue or whatever and you'll see her wander through the background of the scene unnoticed like some apparition. As if she's from an entirely different years' Big Brother, destined to forever retrace her steps, with no heed to events in the current house. No matter how tense the scene unfolding before us, if two people go into another room to converse in private, she'll be there, wandering back and forth in a distant corner of the room, seemingly unnoticed by those having the scene. And it doesn't seem to stem from nosiness, but seems a compulsion, a compulsion to pace forever the Big Brother house...

Even her exercises, so gentle, seem to be just a trace of exercise, a reminder of all those who have ever used the Big Brother to keep fit, but a reminder which doesn't disturb the present.
When she does speak she is like some fairy godmother, encouraging, not so much offering advice, rather motivating, like some old housemate returned saying "do whatever you can do, do what I didn't, fulfill your potential," and then fading away, having engaged in the house but never really becoming involved.
She has gone beyond being merely boring. She has become the very figure of Boredom itself. And in this she is a whole lot more interesting than the tiresome whining of Lisa and David...

John Hughes RIP

Just a quick RIP John Hughes post, before I sit down to rewatch Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And it's from that film that I will base my tribute. So many great films, so many memories, but the one scene that really stands out for me is the scene at the Art Museum which is just amazing, I think it's one of my favourite moments in any film, and it comes in the middle of an already amazing film. The scene both seems out of place in the film - with the comedy all around it, we have this moment of art appreciation - but also absolutely a part of the film at the same time, the whole thing is just really touching and raises the film to a whole new realm of brilliance. And the accompanying version of " Please Let me get what I want" is just classic as well. John Hughes certainly knew how to pick those tunes.
Couldn't find the whole scene on youtube (which is maybe a good thing, go watch the film, if you've not seen it before... where've you been, and if you have seen it before, you probably already have this scene etched in your head and you've probably just rewatched Ferris Bueller or are just about to...)- but here's the whole song with a few stills -



and here's the last 40 seconds or so of the scene, with Cameron mesmerized ...

Execution

New Pink Mountaintops video for "Execution". Not one of my favourites off of "Outside Love", but still, nice video, with "hot" birds replacing the band on teh instruments -

Big Brother 10 and the limits of reason

Last week I wrote this:

The biggest users of reason in the house are Bea and Halfwit. The point I would like to make is that reason is the most successful tactic that a Big Brother contestant can use. In the face of everything you go to the reasonable position which thus makes your opponent seem unreasonable, aggressive. The point is that reason should never be equated with honesty. In the same way that in politics reason is used as an ideological prop to capitalism - "You want a revolution? Be reasonable, look at what usually happens in revolutions, they never work. Capitalism may have its problems but it's the best system we have, yes there's inequality, but until you have a reasonable alternative let's just settle for this..." Reason becomes a way for the privileged to keep their position of privilege.
It is "cultural capital," something I remember from my Sociology lessons, the middle-class are better versed in the laws of middle-class culture so that in a society where "we're all middle-class now," they have a distinct advantage over those less well-versed in the unwritten rules. See how Halfwit by persisting in the reasonable position managed to become the favourite to win the show as everyone else turned to slagging him off, making themselves look bad - their anti-Halfwit sentiments became the opposite of reason.
And now Bea joins in the reasonable brigade. Note the way that with Kenny she started off by being sarcastic to him (the comment on his shoes) but as soon as she got the reaction she desired she returned to the position of reason, making Kenny hated.
And the whole thing demonstrates how hard this position is to criticise. Every time I criticise Bea or Halfwit I am berated for my views based on the fact that they are just so damn nice. Well, yes, maybe they are nice, but that niceness should be seen as the ideological construct it so blatantly is, and, in a show famed for disliking game-players, for the game it so obviously becomes in their hands.

So, what happened? From such a position of reason to Bea becoming the bitchiest housemate (though she does have quite a lot of competition), to Halfwit basically going "nanananananana I'm not listening," to Lisa after he'd criticised her?
While at first glance the 2 things might seem opposed, recent events have simply confirmed my central thesis. Which is that reason wasn't so much the "natural" basis of Bea and Halfwit, but a tactic, a heavily ideological tactic at that. And a tactic that it didn't take a whole lot to break down. Of course, along with their recent outbursts there are still moments when they are alone together when they still have their reasonable discussions, even if these are interspersed with moments when Bea uses their moments alone to bitch.
I am tempted to suggest that Halfwit's schoolboy behaviour in his argument with Lisa stems from the comment Bea made to him about no one having told her they'd fancied her since she was 14 - he has reverted to that age on the back of this comment, perhaps some unconscious memory rising to the surface, but that seems too easy. The other theory I like, but again can't agree with is that Noirin leaving has changed the entire house. Noirin as the structuring principle of the house, the centre, around which everyone else revolved, and her leaving has left everyone out of orbit - there is no centre from which they can take their bearings, all previous positions are lost. But that places too much emphasis on Noirin I fear. No, I think the best answer is that we see the limits of reason here. When faced with unreason, reason has nowhere to go but into unreason itself. We need look no further than the continued use of war to bring other countries round to the idea of liberal democracy - when rational argument is ignored there is seemingly no other way. For all of Halfwit's reason when faced with Lisa he has nowhere to turn but to laugh maniacally in her face...
In Bea's case we simply see that where the tactic she employed with Kenny - being off with him and then when he turned on her acting all innocent and hurt - has failed with David, she tried the same thing but it failed this time, ended up making her look bad. Her niceness is now seen for the facade it could only ever have been.
What we can also see is the unshakeable confidence of the middle-class. Halfwit with his, "I am never leaving, people like me, you are leaving Lisa," speech, and Bea with that awful demeanour of, "how could anyone possibly dislike me?" Which really does show the limits of their reason...

Pon De Floor

New Major Lazer Video, "Pon de Floor" -

Still loving the album, got it on my IPhone pretty much every night, and this is one of the best tracks (though I'd probably say that of about ten of the tracks). Good video, keeping it simple, just mad dancing in mad house...

Work Hard, Play Hard… Bitch.

Avril Lavigne has been giving a few clues about her new album, due in November (found these stories via here and here). From this story:

"It's a lot different from anything I've done before. It's not a pop rock record. This is more about emotion and feeling."

Which I'm hoping doesn't mean a succession of ballads... This quote, from here, seems to imply that that might not be the case:

Deryck Whibley, who has used the couple’s home studio to produce eight of the nine tracks she’s recorded so far. “I think this is taking the spirit of what she’s done on previous records so much further,” he says. “It’s way more meaningful, has more of an impact, more emotional. It makes me feel something more than the other stuff. And I wanted to match that musically with the track.”

Which I like the sound of, especially combined with this from Avril:

“[Best Damn Thing] was intended to be fun, to be rockin’,” she explains. “All I had in my mind was my live show, running around on stage, getting the crowd involved. This record, I just really, really wanted to sing. We started recording each song, some of them, just with acoustic guitar and the vocal and building it from there. It’s stripped down. I love performing that way, so I really felt like it was time to make a record like that. To just make it all about the vocal and the performance, and the vibe, and the emotion.”

While I don't mind The Best Damn Thing, it definitely lacks the depth of the first two albums, so if the new record is going to build on the first two, it certainly sounds like a positive thing. The 3rd album, which it might have been thought would see the sound mature, seemed very much a regression, more teenage than what she was doing as an actual teenager, so hopefully the new album will rectify that and The Best Damn Thing will go down as an anomaly in her catalogue.
She is also using some old songs for the album:

a love song Lavigne wrote when she was 15: “I always really liked this song,” she says, “and I never recorded it.” There are other songs from her past on the record, too, including one she wrote at 17, and one she wrote at 20. “I always had material, but some people that I worked with didn’t really care, because they wanted to write the stuff,” she says, when asked why the tunes haven’t surfaced before. “Some people were just like, ‘Ah, whatever. You’re a little girl. What do you know?’ I know how this works. It’s my fourth record. It’s not rocket science. I think people doubted me before, and I’m finally just like, ‘I’m doing this.’”

Which on the one hand could be considered a regression, or even laziness, but on the other hand, given how much I liked the first two albums, and the lyrical content of the first two albums, I am at least willing to give the benefit of the doubt. It will certainly be interesting - a mature album that harks back to songs she wrote in her teens. And given what I have previously wrote about Avril Lavigne I find this quote revealing, especially as regards the third album:

“I was always really honest in my lyrics,” she says, “I think more so when I was younger, and now it’s kind of come back to that. Just like, you know what? I’m not trying to write a perfect pop song. I’m just trying to write a song that’s honest right now, even if something sounds weird or a lyric might not make sense to someone.

In summary - looking forward to the new album, which after The Best Damn Thing, I maybe didn't think I would be. Which isn't to say it's a bad album, but continuing down the road it created may well have resulted in one...

On Big Brother and Reason.

A couple of thoughts on Big Brother.

Firstly the whole seemingly unstoppable downer people seem to have on Big Brother. Big Brother 10 has been a good Big Brother. Not sure there can be much doubt about that. For drama and comedy and all the other things we've come to expect from Big Brother it has been up there with the best of them. I don't pay much attention to the viewing figures, they're down, I read, but I've been reading that every year since the dawn of time (or so it feels like). As far as I'm concerned everyone's been predicting the demise of Big Brother since day one, and so it seems as if everyone in the media will keep having a go at it until it does end when they'll be able to crow that they were right all along. The actual content of the show, whether it is any good or not, doesn't matter to these people. The simple fact of the show's continued existence is the offence in itself.
On the other hand there have certainly been missteps this season. The cancelling of the live feed being the most obvious. If the show is suffering from a drop in casual viewers the last thing Channel 4 should have done is alienate the hardcore fans, making them likelier to stop watching, or making them less loyal in their responses to the show. There's always been controversy over the difference between what happens in the house and the edited highlights, so the lack of live feed can only further criticism of this aspect, meaning that fans can be as critical of the show as the haters. The aspect of this that is most stupid is the way they said they were cancelling the live freed to concentrate on the website and yet the website is just the same as it has always been. Saturday night Tom left. The website wasn't reporting this until well into Sunday morning. And the Twitter feed also seems a wasted opportunity. While it could/should have been a real time look at what's going on the house instead it very often becomes nothing but a link to the main website, advertising when new content appears there, and the content on the website is not real time by any stretch of the imagination. It is a waste, pure and simple.

And on an entirely different note, the second point I want to make is on the show itself. On the use of reason in the house. The biggest users of reason in the house are Bea and Halfwit. The point I would like to make is that reason is the most successful tactic that a Big Brother contestant can use. In the face of everything you go to the reasonable position which thus makes your opponent seem unreasonable, aggressive. The point is that reason should never be equated with honesty. In the same way that in politics reason is used as an ideological prop to capitalism - "You want a revolution? Be reasonable, look at what usually happens in revolutions, they never work. Capitalism may have its problems but it's the best system we have, yes there's inequality, but until you have a reasonable alternative let's just settle for this..." Reason becomes a way for the privileged to keep their position of privilege.
It is "cultural capital," something I remember from my Sociology lessons, the middle-class are better versed in the laws of middle-class culture so that in a society where "we're all middle-class now," they have a distinct advantage over those less well-versed in the unwritten rules. See how Halfwit by persisting in the reasonable position managed to become the favourite to win the show as everyone else turned to slagging him off, making themselves look bad - their anti-Halfwit sentiments became the opposite of reason.
And now Bea joins in the reasonable brigade. Note the way that with Kenny she started off by being sarcastic to him (the comment on his shoes) but as soon as she got the reaction she desired she returned to the position of reason, making Kenny hated.
And the whole thing demonstrates how hard this position is to criticise. Every time I criticise Bea or Halfwit I am berated for my views based on the fact that they are just so damn nice. Well, yes, maybe they are nice, but that niceness should be seen as the ideological construct it so blatantly is, and, in a show famed for disliking game-players, for the game it so obviously becomes in their hands.
To tie the two thoughts above into one, the people who criticise BB10 for falling ratings etc., may well be right empirically, reasonably, but that shouldn't cloud their agenda, that they have been wishing Big Brother to fail since day one.

Chessboxin'

Absolute killer video - Wu-Tang Clan "Mystery of Chessboxin'" video redone in Lego. Unmissable.

Wu-Tang Lego: Da Mystery of Chessboxin' from davo on Vimeo.

Compare it to the original

Raw Meat

New Hell Rell video - "OK Your Dead"



Nice video, just Hell Rell and meat (definitely no homo...)
On related Dipset business - the new JR Writer mixtape is hot, go get it from here, a coupla tasters





"We Like The Cars," and I can't even drive...

Outside of the comfort of hope

Catharsis: A release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit.

Envy. Been listening to Envy a lot in recent days. First time in a while. Trying to get at the core of their brilliance. 2 things emerge.

1) The hope of the soaring instrumentation vs the despair, frustration, anguish of the singing combining to create something beautiful. So many other bands do the cathartic thing but Envy rise above, which isn't to say it isn't cathartic, but it goes somewhere else, somewhere beyond. Where the beauty lies is in the dissonance between the two elements. The power of the singing means that the hope of the instruments never gets the better of it, never allows the emotional outpouring of the screams to point forward, to move beyond the present - the music gives us the illusion of a a future while all the time the singing tells us that there is nothing but the insistent present. Yet, at the same time, the hope of the instrumentation is never drowned out by the screaming. It's always there, soaring above. Neither element wins out, there is a violent tension at all times. Perhaps in the quiet moments we could imagine that the future wins, but the contemplation of the vocals implies a looking to the past, and again the tension comes about, a tension which is only heightened by the eruption of the vocals into violence, never dispelled.
The past is another illusion, the futility of the screams tells us that - what was will have been an illusion, what is still to come will only ever be an illusion, we only ever have the present. This is what the vocals tell us. The music on the other hand builds on the past to point to the possibility of the future.
I want to suggest here that what this dissonance between the two levels represents can be equated to something else: that what the vocals are insistent against is the music's vision of hope. I take this idea from Lee Edelman's No Future, and his idea of "the queer" as a figure against "reproductive futurism". I'll quote from the first chapter:

... politics, however radical the means by which specific constituencies attempt to produce a more desirable social order, remains, at its core, conservative insofar as it works to affirm a structure, to authenticate social order, which it then intends to transmit to the future in the form of its inner Child. That child remains the perpetual horizon of every acknowledged politics, the fantasmatic beneficiary of every political intervention. ...
the queer comes to figure the bar to every realization of futurity, the resistance, internal to the social, to every social structure or form.
Rather than rejecting, with liberal discourse, this ascription of negativity to the queer, we might ... do better to consider accepting and even embracing it. Not in the hope of forging thereby some more perfect social order - such a hope, after all, would only reproduce the constraining mandate of futurism ... - but rather to refuse the insistence of hope itself as affirmation...

Is this not what we see in Envy? The vocals refusing "the insistence of hope itself as affirmation," as expressed by the music. And further, in the very anger, despair (whatever name you wish to give them) of the vocals, can we not see the impossibility of which Edelman speaks:

When I argue, then, that we might do well to attempt what is surely impossible - to withdraw our allegiance, however compulsory, from a reality based on the Ponzi scheme of reproductive futurism - I do not intend to propose some "good" that will thereby be assured. To the contrary, I mean to insist that nothing, and certainly not what we call the "good" can ever have any assurance at all in the order of the Symbolic. ...
Such queerness proposes, in place of the good, something I want to call the "better," though it promises, in more than one sense of the phrase, absolutely nothing. I connect this something better with Lacan's characterization of what he calls "truth," where truth does not assure happiness, or even, as Lacan makes clear, the good. Instead, it names only the insistent particularity of the subject, impossible fully to articulate and "tend[ing]" towards the real."

Outside of the comfort of hope and railing against the illusory future, is this not an apt description of the vocal power of Envy? "the insistent particularity of the subject." And the "impossible fully to articulate," leads us nicely into...
2) The language barrier. This is of course not an issue for everyone. But not knowing Japanese, is an issue for me. I have never (till today for the purposes of writing this) checked out any translations of Envy's lyrics. I think the lack of understanding of the words actually enhances the pleasure of listening to the music, not in some mysterious, exotic way, quite the opposite. It is because the lack of meaning allows for the illusion of a full communication, of a non-alienating language. When listening one knows precisely what is being said at the same time as one knows nothing of what is being said. Words don't get in the way of the meaning. One is free to have them communicate whatever it is one wishes to have communicated - one appears to come closer to meaning here than one would come if one knew precisely what was being said. Having looked at the lyrics, they do seem to be quite good anyway, nothing too concrete, but I still prefer to not know... to stick with what I want them to say.

Crimes against Art

When I first saw this article about Lars von Trier's Antichrist in The Sunday Times I commented that it should have been in The Mail. And now The Mail speaks out on Antichrist. So, what's the difference between the 2? The Sunday Times bothered to watch the film before saying it should be banned...
Here's the Mail's reasoning for not having to watch it:

You do not need to see Lars von Trier's Antichrist (which is released later this week) to know how revolting it is.

I haven't seen it myself, nor shall I - and I speak as a broad-minded arts critic, strongly libertarian in tendency. But merely reading about Antichrist is stomach-turning, and enough to form a judgment.

The classic, "I'm not your usual call for everything to be banned type," excuse. But of course you do have to watch it to know how revolting it is. The point of the BBFC is surely that very thing - they watch it so we don't have to watch too revolting things, or that we know we are going to be watching revolting things, is Christopher Hart arguing that the BBFC shouldn't have needed to have watched it, they should have just known it should be banned by reading the plot synopsis? The Sunday Times at least makes a wider point about the BBFC:

The nastiness, meanwhile, is so nasty that it leaves one wondering what the British Board of Film Classi­fication (BBFC) thinks it is for. It may not be necessary — I’m agnostic about this — but, as it is there, how come Antichrist got an 18 certificate uncut?

But the board of classification has classified it. It is not the Board of Film Censorship.

Back to The Mail and even after admitting to not having seen it, he goes on as if he had:

Since sex and violence are both intrinsic parts of human experience, art and literature will necessarily contain both. There are few more horrific moments on the English stage than in King Lear, when the Duke of Cornwall gouges out the aged Gloucester's eyes.

I must have seen the scene 20 times and it never fails to appal. But although superficially similar to the atrocities of Lars von Trier's Antichrist, it differs in every significant respect.

Shakespeare is dramatising the tragic universe we inhabit, human evil at its worst, and the hidden moral process by which Cornwall will eventually be punished for his cruelty.

The world of Antichrist, by contrast, is blatantly amoral, without any sense of justice or retribution whatever. Its mingling of sex and violence, the cheapest and nastiest trick in the book, is usually one which the BBFC pounces on in a straight horror film. But here they are blinded by their own cultural snobbery, swallowing the lie that Antichrist is Art.

How does he know this about Antichrist if he hasn't seen it?

The best bit though is this:

If I were to see Antichrist, I don't believe for a moment that it would incite me into copycat violent behaviour or make me a danger to others. But it would poison my mind and imagination, with explicit, ferocious scenes of sexual violence that would stay with me for ever.

Isn't that good enough reason to ban it...

The fact that it will give Christopher Hart nightmares is enough to justify banning it in this bizarre world. He doesn't need it banned from cinemas to prevent him being scarred for life, he just has to not watch it, which it seems he has no plans to do anyway - or are The Mail going to force him to review it?

The Sunday Times takes a different take, although it is also wrong. Bryan Appleyard very much seems to be against it, not because of its explicit content, but because it is a bad movie:

Antichrist may be seen as just another movie shocker, concern about which will be seen, in time, as quaint. But I don’t think so. Its sheer badness and the undergraduate cynicism of its director raise this to a different level. Why did Trier shoot those scenes the way he did? Not in the name of art, but to compete, to do something, anything, to stir the jaded sensibilities of an age stunned by screen violence. And the suckers in the art-house crowd fell for it.

Which is one of those arguments that one often hears, that art films can get away with more than simple horror movies because of their pretensions and because the ordinary man in the street won't be watching them anyway. And it is this, that this is just another shocker dressed as art that seems to lead Bryan Appleyard to suggest it should be banned.

This pretension is one that at least leads to some humorous outrage in the article -

Then, just as you think it’s all over, the film contains one final obscenity, which left me insensate with rage. On my way home from the screening, this shot almost prompted me to throw two bottles of wine through the window of Oddbins. I’ll come back to that. ...

I said I would tell you about the final obscenity in that last shot. It was just a dedication of the film to the late Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky is the Shakespeare or Titian of cinema, an artist of the highest order. Trier, at his best, is the Jeffrey Archer. My rage was uncontrollable. But, just in time, I thought, “He’s not worth it,” and the Oddbins window survived another day.

A board that protects us from crimes against art, now there's an interesting idea...

Make Her Say

Kid Cudi - "Make Her Say" video -



Love the tune, great vibe - video, nice split screen, nothing too special...

The starry skys above...

Making of video for Avril's Black Star fragrance -



Seems to be the most pointless thing ever, Avril in front of a green screen, everything added later. Technology renders the "making of" pretty obsolete, people sat at computers? Very interesting.
Other than that, there's a certain ridiculousness to Avril stating that working on a green screen and having things added later was "funny, cos nothing was there and I had to be in my own world and had to make up images in my head. So it was a challenge." The advert features Avril grabbing a bottle of perfume and throwing it to the camera. Which doesn't sound too challenging to me. Trying to give weight to an advert is not very dignified.
The most interesting thing is that she wanted the message to be "reach for the stars." Ignoring the fact that the only message that is important for the advert is "buy my perfume, buy,buy BUY," what I suddenly realised is that the logic of the advert is the exact opposite of this. Instead of reaching for the stars, the perfume, as capturing the essence of the star no longer requires the reaching, it is provided on a plate, thrown at us from the advert. What was once beautiful and great and bright has been reduced to a crappy bottle of perfume. The perfume is not raised to the dignity of a star, but the star is reduced to a throwaway product.

Woman Doesn't Exist part 2

The last time I posted on Big Brother I wrote:

...Sara from last year's Big Brother. She was assigned the role of flirt/tease and it was by fully assuming the role that she succeeded in showing just how ridiculous the assignment was. She didn't deny it, or apologise for it, or claim she just couldn't help it, she just continued in the role, eventually forcing Rex and Darnell into such a preposterous misogyny that the constructed nature of the role was obvious for all to see - resulting in both of them being evicted before her. There is always a certain distance attached to such roles, hence the way to subvert them is not to deny or apologise for them, this is simply a way of passively accepting the roles, or to actively accept the roles (as Angel does), but to fully assume the role, to show it for what it is.

With Noirin in Big Brother 10 we have the opposite of this. Noirin basically accepted that the "blokes" were right, that somehow her behaviour had caused the "blokes" to misread into her actions more than was there. She didn't continue in the role, but accepted that the "blokes" were right and apologised for her behaviour. And where did this get her? Alienated from everyone. Her power utterly gone, she was left in the centre of an absolutely futile argument in which all her previous admirers were against her and those she had chosen to side with had no emotional investment in her with which to defend her adequately.
The scene at the end of the episode where she played a little "prank" on Rodrigo was very interesting. No longer in the role of temptress, she casts about looking for something else to do, but the role of the prankster is a role that is already overburdened in the house. It seemed a great turnaround from Noirin as passive centre of male attention (something that the camera shot emphasised - from the other night with Marcus in her bed, the same camera captures her alone, seeking out Rodrigo's bed) to active prankster - the prankster as attention seeker - whereas before the men came to her for attention, now, stripped of her power she must seek.
The point being that she should have continued in her original role - as Sara did last year - rather than allowing the "blokes" to decide her role for her. The sight of Marcus and Halfwit's smug, self-congratulatory little chats together in the armchairs was horrible, as was Marcus saying, "come over here" and Noirin meekly obeying.
And yet it was Kris, who been mildly offensive to Halfwit who got evicted...

Black Star

Here's the commercial for Avril Lavigne's new perfume:



Her comments on the video raise certain issues:

“I think the TV commercial captured the edginess and fun of Black Star and made the commercial something I am really proud to share with everyone,” the Canadian pop star told fans on her official site. “I wore pink and black with studded accessories. I think wearing my own stuff and staying true to my style is a huge part of what makes me who I am.”

On the one hand the advert tells us "Be your own star", by wearing Avril's perfume, the belief that one can buy individuality on the mass market; on the other hand Avril points out the ridiculousness of this idea - by wearing her own clothing range (I'm assuming this is what she meant), she gets to be who she is, not by wearing the mass-produced clothes of another star, but by wearing the mass-produced clothes under her own star.
Consequently, even Avril's being is mediated through capitalism, she captures an essence of herself through the belief that such an essence can be captured by capitalism. Which is to say that the simple point - that it is obviously impossible to capture one's own individuality through the mass-produced style of someone else - is made more complex. If even the originator of this style can only be herself through the mirror of the capturing of her essence in the market, what hope for the rest of us?
Of course the main point is that even Avril doesn't get to "be herself" through her own mass-produced clothes. To refer to the first 2 albums in which she played out the struggle of (the always impossible) "being oneself" vs "being for someone else", "selling out" - authenticity vs advert. What we see is the utter victory of the advert - her self is no longer something inside, but wholly alien to herself, it is in the clothing line, in the perfume. And this is what we see in the advert for "Black Star", Avril Lavigne wanders in, sees the black star that represents her, grabs it, holds it for a moment, before throwing it on to us - Now it is available to everyone, but from the first the essence was outside.

Beautiful Detroit

New Eminem video for Beautiful -



Wanders about a decaying (I'm assuming it's) Detroit. Nice way to link his personal struggle with the struggle of Detroit - "I can't admit or come to grips with the fact I may be done with rap, I need a new outlet."

Stillness is the Move

Here's the video to the Dirty Projectors "Stillness is The Move":



It's a great song, floats along on the vocals and funks along in the music, nice combination. And the video is pretty random, on a hillside, dancing, a llama, some "wolves" and running with the wolves and walking with the llama, some odd trouser decisions.
Bitte Orca is an album that I've seen talked about in similar terms to The Mars Volta's Octahedron. It is an "accessible" album after, the implication being, a series of esoteric nonsense. Not having spent much time on the Dirty Projectors new album, and not being much of a fan anyway, I wouldn't like to comment too much on them beyond saying that I really like the new album on the couple of spins I've given it, admittedly more than I liked the other albums. On The Mars Volta I would say (and I still haven't given the new album enough attention, I've been distracted "doing my homework", getting far too into Frances The Mute and Amputechture) that it's not so much about accessibility, but about restraint. The album still has its more "obscure moments" and the sound hasn't changed too much, just the longer freak outs have disappeared. The point about accessibility is misleading because it's not such a muddying of the sound to make it appeal to people who can't listen to their other albums. It is still very much a Mars Volta album, rather than being the Mars Volta "pop album".
I think a comparison can be made between this album and Amputechture, but whereas that album concentrated the rock element, even within the different instruments being employed, it didn't really go for the long noodlings, this album tightens the rock element, keeping it under wraps, there is always a tension of what is about to be unleashed, an album of musical violence under restraint. In a way exemplifying the title of the Dirty Projectors song. Stillness is the move.
Further comments on The Mars Volta album when I've managed a concentrated listen, hopefully in the next few days.

Death of Auto-tune

Somehow Jay-Z passed me by till recently, but I'm making up for lost time, with Blueprint, Reasonable Doubt and The Black Album, all in regular rotation at the moment.
"D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" is also getting played heavily - full of great lines, my favourite, "I know we're facing a recession, but the music y'all making gonna make it the great depression." Here's the video, which includes some cool explosions (a rack of clothes among them...), a card game interlude and an actual haircut.



And here's Jay-Z performing it at the BET awards, complete with a watching Beyonce.



And a bonus Kanye video, for "Street Lights", not one of the best off 808s and Heartbreak, meanders a little, the video reflecting this with Cartoon Kanye (assuming it is Kanye, don't look much like him) driving his fancy car round a fancy cartoon city - alone...

Woman Doesn't Exist

Back to my favourite subject - Big Brother and the way their personalities are constructed (check the Big Brother tag over there---> somewhere to confirm it). A few (hastily (un)constructed and) brief thoughts on gender in the house.
It's outwardly surprising (given it's 2009) that barely anyone in the house, in any series, ever manages to escape the stereotypical gender role assigned to them. Only outwardly, because if the structural thesis of the way identity is constructed in there is correct, then the easiest way (consciously or otherwise) to assimilate into the group is to fully occupy ones gendered position. In this series perhaps the most obvious example would be Lisa, whose "punk lesbian" aesthetic is at odds with her easily slipping into the role of the mother (look how she throws a protective arm around Sree, whose behaviour is obviously wrong by any standard, but to his mother he can do no wrong The question here would be why does she not do the same to Halfwit? Because he refuses the role of the son, preferring to attempt the father's role despite his complete unsuitability for such a role...). The one person we might expect to subvert her role, doesn't.
Here we can bring in Lacan's "Woman doesn't exist" to explain things. The abstract "Woman" is not a category, woman only exists via a symbolic type- mother, whore etc., consequently the women are immediately given a role to play. The men meanwhile are "free" to do what they like (in the sense that they can chose the role of "man", rather than a specific type of man. Lacan's other thesis, that "man is a woman who thinks she exists", comes into play here). Kris and Charlie seem (live feed would help here) to simply "exist" in there, almost literally doing nothing, either lounging in the garden or preening in the bathroom. Sree, in his nominations, criticised Angel for never doing any housework, yet he himself does nothing, Kris and Charlie do nothing, Marcus does some tidying, and thinks that this token gesture entitles him to lord it over everyone else.
Do Sophie and Karly, who also seemingly do little work occupy the same position? I would argue not, look at the way Marcus reduces them to their female organs. constantly making reference to their breasts, and, in a broader example, his conversation about how the house doesn't have a dumb blonde in it, before conferring that role on Sophie for her lack of horticultural knowledge.
Sree does the opposite and puts Noirin in the place of the virgin, criticising Marcus for his over sexual language, affronted that anyone can see Noirin in a sexual way. His love is a pure love, unclouded by the actuality of Noirin, hence his love blossoming so quickly and Noirin's exasperation at him.
Angel perhaps? Her ennui and alienation seems to be more fitting of a male position. And the difficulty in fully placing her could well have caused her nomination this week - she just doesn't fit. But I think she is best viewed as the negative of the stereotyping, she is not subverting her role, rather she occupies the same logic, only in reverse - she calls the other women fat, refuses the housework etc..
Perhaps the best example of how this logic can be escaped is Sara from last year's Big Brother. She was assigned the role of flirt/tease and it was by fully assuming the role that she succeeded in showing just how ridiculous the assignment was. She didn't deny it, or apologise for it, or claim she just couldn't help it, she just continued in the role, eventually forcing Rex and Darnell into such a preposterous misogyny that the constructed nature of the role was obvious for all to see - resulting in both of them being evicted before her. There is always a certain distance attached to such roles, hence the way to subvert them is not to deny or apologise for them, this is simply a way of passively accepting the roles, or to actively accept the roles (as Angel does), but to fully assume the role, to show it for what it is.

Hate the Haterz

Seeing as I wrote about his other statement, I thought I'd have a look at his new statement, which you can read here.
This bit is pretty revealing:

I am sorry. And I mean it. No one is forcing me to write this. I am not feeling pressured to say this. I am speaking out because I realize that the last few days have been more hurtful to me - and many others - than the repeated blows I suffered to my head in Toronto this past weekend.

He seems to be saying that words can be more harmful than violence. Isn't he? Which seems odd coming from a man who has been whining on about the right to say whatever he goddamn feels like, and a man who makes a living saying hateful things about people.
I'm a little confused as to what the point of the apology is. I see people suggesting it's damage control to protect the Perez Hilton brand, but surely the Perez brand is being a spiteful little shit, or am I missing something here? His whole behaviour before, during and after the "incident" seems completely in character, if he's apologising for his actions then, he should just apologise for his whole career.
Instead we get silly self-justification:

Hindsight is always 20/20, they say. I should have been the bigger man and walked away from an unfortunate situation. Instead, I chose - in a very misguided way - to stand up for myself and only made things worse by how I - under pressure, anger and extreme emotion - handled the situation.

The funniest bit of this statement (why didn't he release this statement as a video?) is this:

Victims should not be mocked.

Why doesn't he just come out and say, "DON'T MOCK ME!"
Idiot (and I ain't jumping on the hating Perez bandwagon, I been hatin' long-time, his campaign against Avril Lavigne started it off, but there's so much more there as well - hate the haterz).

The Children of the night make their music

Here's a series of pictures stringing out the Angel from Big Brother 10/Nosferatu comparison, using the subtitles from the film -

A mist descends:

As Angel enters the Big Brother House:

She peruses the house, perhaps regretting her decision to enter:

But, eventually she finds some solace:

But someone in the house senses that all is not well...

Nothing can save him, as Angel claims another victim...