interview with Matmos

interview took place on 6/2/10 in Montreal, QC

q: What do you think of Lady Gaga?
MC: I think she’s a good indicator of the low point which gay culture has reached. Talk about derivative, uninteresting, supposedly alternative…echk.
Drew: Yeah, i don’t know. I have a bunch of queer media and academic friends who have to write about popular culture, because that’s what they do. They’ve come up with various ways, with great sophistication, to declare how saavy her wielding of the lesbian phallus is in the “Telephone” video, or whatever. I just have to, at the end of the day, dig in my heels a little bit and say that i just get no pleasure from her. I think it’s garbage. I don’t give a fuck. It’s sort of in bed with various corporate interests that i don’t support. I don’t want to give her some kind of ghetto pass, and i think a lot of queers are falling for this idea.
And i mean the problem with that is, coming from me, that just sounds like a standard, avant-gardist person who hates popular culture, feels threatened by it, is snobby about it, rejects the demographics of the people who enjoy it; trashy gays like it, and i want to be a cool gay so i’d better not like it. But whatever. i have to be honest. I think it sucks, so fuck it.
MC: It’s just that everything interesting about her is stolen, straight up, from someone else. So why not go to the source, instead of this sort of pathetic imitation?

i, block

This blog has been an effort not only to another contribution to the discussion about cultural appropriation and its many manifestations but also a way of forcing myself to write again. When i was younger, there was no stopping me. I had a book and a notebook with me everywhere i went and burned through pages effortlessly. Pages of ideas, master plans, manifestos, rants, doodles, whatever. Everything that came to mind was, if not crucial, better out than in.

victory for the little guys: eska water forced to remove racist ads

Racist bottled water adverts pulled | Art Threat

For some reason they thought it would be safer (legally speaking safer, not more respectful or anything) to stereotype and demean Indigenous peoples in general than to specifially steal from and mock one particular culture. Check the video, but it’s really a ludicrous defense. Nobody ever steals from one particular Nation, because settlers don’t think there’s any difference between them or recognize their sovereign political/cultural structures. To mock inidigineity is to insult Indigenous peoples the world over by saying how anything that isn’t colonizer is backwards and ridiculous.

Amazing work, though, getting the ads pulled. From what i can tell from their facebook page, it seems like this was just a couple weeks work by lots and lots of people. Now they’ve issued an apology and are ssslllooowwwlllyyy pulling the ads. Lots of credit to the always brilliant Clifton Nicholas and everyone else that got the word out and harassed Eska til they finally conceded.

Islamophobia is so Gay

I read this article in fab a couple months ago that set off some alarms for me. This article was about the work of 2boys.tv, some kind of a Gay performance art project. Apparently they have a show called “Pas peur (No Fear)” that has, as a colorful backdrop, a torture scene reminiscent of Abu Ghraib. Front and center, however, we have a funerial drag performance.

the art of protest

“Through our images we are the creators of culture and it is our
responsibility that our images are of our times…”  Beautiful and inspiring art that can make one hate and love at the same time.

katy acts out

What a bad girl, kissing girls.  Well, a girl, but still, it’s not what good girls do.  But what’s her problem, why does she act out like this?  Tsk, she was drinking.  Well, you know, liquor is a gateway drug, onto the hard stuff.

we are all geeks, or not

This refrain, “we are all ______,” is what people say when they’re trying to identify with the cause in question.  “We are all Palestinians,” for example, when in fact we’re mostly not.  I guess it’s a weird way of saying that an injury to one is an injury to all, a very useful sentiment for developing links of solidarity and understanding interlocked oppressions.

another drop

This site is my contribution to the development of a praxis for addressing cultural appropriation.  That is, to help put these ideas into a working practice, to recognize the theft and recuperation that always happen in oppressive institutions and to help develop ways for us to combat appropriation and build on traditions that don’t rely on parasitism for survival.  I am a north american white faggot who thinks that “whiteness” is not an incurable disease and that even heteros can fix themselves if given a chance.

If this seems like a chunky mission statement, so be it.  It’s got to start somewhere, yeah?