It’s time to get down and talk about the Afterlife.
A bit of context before we arrive at the BEQ.***
It’s a real game of thrones here in tubbyland. Being an Absolute Monarch in this century of Neo Liberalism, free market globalization and Human Rights is a big ask to put it mildly. After years of terrorizing the various wives, their spoilt and none-too-bright offspring plus a host of unpaid feudal retainers, life has been reduced to FUP – fear, uncertainty and paranoia.
And just before we get to the various issues relating to the Hereafter, there is a small homework task which now seems so beside the point ie what does Marxist and post Marxist academia have to offer the world today?
If ever there was a middle-ground Marxist, it would have to be Perry Anderson, editor of New Left Review and author a number of tomes including Lineages of the Absolutist State (1974, NLB, London). However, soon after publication, it was blown out of the water by Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, which offered a totally different perspective on the nature of power, strategy and tactics not based on class interests.
Depiction of failed regicide Damien’s death – the center piece in Discipline and Punish.
A bit more fun is the youtube interview with Perry Anderson as it puts a face and personality to a Maximum Thought Leader of 1970s. Anderson is definitely an international Englishman of a type, even if Harry Kreisler our interviewer is not the sharpest object in barn. And his choice of tie wear is beyond disgusting. (Jeff Minson, one of my past supervisors, and a serious heavy hitter in the Foucault department also resided at Berkerley.)
Anyway, having provided a thin veneer of intellectual context to this post, its time to return to the immediate fraught situation, that being the really rotten life-prospects experienced by Absolute Monarchs in the 20th/21st century. Think Qaddafi, Nicola Ceausescu, Enver Hoxha, etc.
Since I strongly suspect that some of tubbylands denizens are plotting regicide, and here there are a raft of possibilities – poisoning, hot tub drowning, garroting when intoxicated, death by chain saw, etc – its time to take evasive action and avoid this very uncomfortable fate.
Consequently, I’ve organised an Advance Health Directive specifying no medical interventions whatsoever. In effect this document focuses on dignity in death combined with lots of painkillers. While euthanasia is all but banned in tubbyland, this option means virtually the same thing, since medical staff give you a hotshot of fentanyl, Big Pharmas answer to morphine on steriods ie it is 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. As an addendum. pharmaceutical opiods kill about 150 people daily in the US, for the most part in the Trump-voting northern Rust Belt states, so I suppose there is a sunny side to contemporary Corporate Capitalism.
Fortunately, even the most despicable Absolute Monarch gets a second chance if he embraces the Christian Pantheon. Express a bit of regret no matter how insincere, you enter the Promised Land and enjoy eternal life as an angel or some similar Medieval construct.
S…, what an awful fate, existing as some sexless creature with fluffy feathers adulating the Lord in some eternal praise loop. Sort of like some repetitious Angelic Bot. Viewed in this light, I’m certain that the Reader will gain a renewed appreciation of the Cardinal Sins – pride, greed, envy, lust, gluttony, wrath and sloth.
Anyway, having cardinal sinned to the maximum – which, after all is the duty statement of an Absolute Monarch – and rejecting all that Christian redemption drivel, I’ve opted for another path to eternal happiness.
And you guessed correctly. I intend to return as a back up singer/dancer in a band. Lots of possibilities here, but I will settle for this at the moment.
The other day I visited one of my regular Op Shops, which are sort of like Oxfam minus the sexual exploitation by its employees.
Most towns in tubbyland have three or four such shops and I visit about 20 a month in my drives.
“How much do you want for that old pair of speakers”?
A bit of consultation among the very nice women who ran this place.
“Five dollars each”.
Done, since I had a look at the back. B @ W’s about fifteen years old and Made in England.
All in all, they are brilliant since that bring out the qualities in piano not delivered by modern speakers, and they really shine when there is a lot of brass instruments.
Matched up with really big screen IMac which has a great sound card, you can be sure that the kangaroos and snakes are getting a serious musical education.
Which brings me to all the contemporary Neo Afrobeat bands to be found on Youtube, given that Fela died in August 1997.
kingtubby1
