The drama of American Wrestling
the WWE, the WWF as was,
Always begins with Mick McMahon
Who comes on before
The main action; he explains
To the audience
The background to the action
(Triple H has slept with Bret Hart’s squeeze;
Gail Kim stole Melina’s man;
Chris Jericho dissed Steve Austin’s mom)
And although he might
Interact with the main actors, and wear
Dress appropriate to the setting
He is not part of the narrative.
Then comes the face,
Introduced by his accustomed
Epithet, a tune of his own;
He speaks, mostly in soliloquy.
Perhaps he is the Rock
Offering the opening of a can of Whup-ass
To Triple H;
Jericho threatening a Backbreaker Submission
to Tyson Kidd;
Another protagonist appears,
another theme tune:
The grim Undertaker,
Stern Steve Austin,
Duplicitous John Cena;
Another soliloquy.
A tit-for-tat exchange might ensue;
It does not end well.
All is blood and violence, and
The bell ends it.

Wrestling is like tragedy:
Q.E.D.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like
an evacuee who, not even two years old when made to go away,
stands, aged five, on a railway platform, about a week after VE day
not knowing who will come for him,
who sees one kindly, beautiful woman after another,
each time thinks, are you my mother, please be my mother,
and each time it is another little boy who is taken
and he is alone now when a scruffy woman with bad teeth
and the smell of cigarettes and poverty
calls his name and he thinks, I don’t want you,
I don’t want you to be my mother, and she is,
And he carries the guilt of that thought
For the rest of his life until one Monday night
He dies suddenly, aged sixty-one, in his own kitchen,
of regret and a faulty heart.

Devotees shall consider the miracles and portents in
the Gospel According to Me;
they shall consider the meanings of the stories,
hold them dear, write children’s books
where I am good looking and blonde and tall
and dressed in perfectly clean white and blue shirts
which are not covered in baby sick or whiteboard ink,
and they shall find meanings and yet take literally
the occasion where I say a single word
and everything turns to shit.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like
a woman who begins one day in her youth
to hear voices, dream dreams and have visions,
and who one day decides that she shall visit
a Spiritualist church, and say, look,
I hear voices, dream dreams and have visions, so tell me, what can I do?
And the people at the Spiritualist church tell her that she is special
and chosen by God, and that she will be a medium for them,
between the world of the living and the world of the dead,
but also, they tell her that some of the voices lie, and that
some of the visions are false,
and they add that most people will not understand what she is,
and that it is better for her not to tell them
that she hears voices, dreams dreams and has visions,
and so while they have lied to her, they turn out to have done her
a favour, because now she can function in society,
and she never gets sent to the large long room where the doors are locked
and the people shuffle around in dressing gowns
and stare vacantly because they have been given pills by
that hard-faced woman in white,
and instead she marries
and has children,
and apart from a tendency to declare people evil
and a sense of entitlement that many find inexplicable,
most people don’t think her that strange at all.

They shall argue over the different textual traditions of
the Gospel According to Me,
Wondering if at the root of these differing accounts a common source Q exists
That illuminates the origins of my story; until it is found, they say, they
shall work create a pure record of my sayings,
making use of the principle: lectio difficilior,
which is where in the choice between one or another of two or more readings
the scholar takes as read that the less likely or more unexpected given context
is more likely to be true, since the natural inclination of the copyist is
to correct and make safe.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like
two people who have a thing in a box,
and they are scared to open the box, scared that they might look at it,
but one day, they take it out of the box, and examine it, turning it this way and that
and then they fold it up neatly and return it to the box and say to themselves and each other
how foolish we were to be frightened that the thing might come out of the box,
for see, it has come out of the box, and we examined it, and turned it this way and that
And we folded it up neatly and put it back in the box,
And it shall not come out again, and nothing is changed.
And each of them looks longingly at the box from time to time
And wonders if it might come out again.

A movement shall arise, thanks to the readers of
the Gospel According to Me
of men and women
but mostly men
who are decent and honest and
not terribly well-versed in the history of human thought and feeling
who shall denounce it as a text of hate and discrimination
and stupidity and ignorance
and the opposition of science
and the whole situation shan’t be helped by the people
who use it that way
and no one shall be able to ask me what I was thinking,
because I shall be long gone.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like
one who was told through his childhood that he must always first do the things he
should do first, that he should never waste his time, for work must come before play
and he reaches the middle of his thirties and wonders, when is that play they
were talking about going to happen, and fears
that perhaps he is now too old to waste his time properly, and regrets
that he did not waste his time when he still had the chance.

The natural inclination of the people who shall study
the Gospel According to Me
shall tend towards seriousness; one shall come after me who shall popularise me and
make me a movement and he shall read my words and think,
I must turn away from the beauty of the world, and see how all things are damned
How nothing is beautiful, and how I must do my utmost to destroy beautiful things,
And he shall interpret my words to mean that we must be austere
And must never laugh save in the solemn knowledge that we are saved
And they are not.

People shall die over the interpretation of
the Gospel According to Me.
They shall fight wars and burn at stakes and go to electric chairs,
and some shall point at what I actually said, and say look,
he said that he wasn’t special,
that anyone’s work could have ended up here,
that he could have been anyone,
and that he isn’t coming back, not now
not any time soon
maybe not ever
and they shall take these people
and burn them at stakes and put them in electric chairs
and I think that if I knew that this was going to happen
I am not sure how I might feel about it.

You shudder.
In a flash of inspiration you see
The necessity
Of embracing all that is
Right
Accept a commission
On the basis of a
Fearsome reputation
For a column in the Daily Mail
Bearing the advice:
The project has failed
Give it up, think again
Poor people just aren’t adequately nice.

The age-old story: a privileged liberal type is all fervent and leftie, and then when he or she realises that poor people can’t actually be “civilised,” loses all interest in social action. It happens again and again. A lot of them end up writing for the Daily Mail.

You know what poor people actually need? Money. So they won’t be poor anymore. So what if they’re still not “our sort of people”? That’s irrelevant. Poverty is an evil in itself.

You must protect my interests,
Anaxagoras,
Work towards the failure
Of these colleagues who came to this place along with me
Who also left behind delegated factotums like yourself
(Be polite to these men; respect them as your equals;
Effect their elimination if at all you can).

You  must watch the stars,
Anaxagoras,
Maintain the accuracy of the charts I have left you,
Draw our nation’s horoscope
In the blood you will shed with your hands
While my hands are absent.
I am drawing the horoscope of the planet;
I follow the path of the comet,
And I shall be there to see where it shall rest
Or vanish, forever.

Already I have seen,
Anaxagoras,
A senator from that great imperial power stand before the cameras
Issuing stern denials that the phenomenon shall amount to anything.
I have seen a crew of pirates drop anchor,
Lay down their AKs, remove their bandanas,
Wipe sweat from shining foreheads, hands on oiled bloody singlets.
I saw a Coalition sergeant stop and sit on a pockmarked wall
Beside a boy he might have shot as an insurgent;
Both noted the object, wondered what force launched that attack.
I spoke with a nomadic herdsman of the region,
A filthy illiterate who through the translator
Babbled about contact with beings from another world.

The others,
Anaxagoras,
Expect the child to be resident
In the presidential palace
And while I see no harm in consulting the Coalition’s petty, puppet dictator
(What can he do? Really, what can he do?)
I wonder, privately, if the child will not be poor
Since there are so many more of them to be picked.
I dreamed last night of a hovel-dwelling teenager
In filthy blue donated sweats, her
Round dark accusing eyes watching me, taking it in as
I knelt in my charcoal grey suit, in my silk tie
That alone cost more than the seamed leathery husband will ever earn,
Knelt before the child whose face in my dream I could not see,
And to whom I offered what I will offer soon:
A Krugerrand,
A box of incense,
A jar of aromatic ointment used for embalming the dead.

— Daddy?
— Mm?
— Why is it raining?
— Well, the flowers and the grass need to drink and stuff.
— Daddy, why is it raining?
— Well. Um. It was sunny yesterday, so I suppose it’s the rain’s turn.
— But Daddy, why is it raining?
— Um, well, the wind blew and the sky turned grey and the rain came.
— Daddy! Why is it raining?
— [sighs] Conditions of atmospheric pressure in the air high above us necessitated the precipitation of clouds of water vapour into droplets of water which then fell to the earth below.
— Oh. Daddy?
— Mm?
— Why is it raining?
— The clouds needed a wee.
— OK.
[short passage of time]
— Wood?
— Darling?
— Are you aware that our son has just caused a panic in the park playground?
— Uh, no?
— Did you tell our son that the clouds were urinating on him?
— Uh, no. Why?

The slavedriver’s rhythm made you go numb
You’re crying for sleep, but there’s miles to come
They tore out your eyes, made you sightless and dumb, so
Row.
Row.

Count one. Count two. Count three. Count more.
Your hands red and tattered, chained to the oar,
Your overtime won’t get you paid anymore, so
Row.
Row.

They’ll whip you to death, man — keep those eyes front,
Put in some back, you’re fucked if you don’t.
You’re fucked if you do, to be perfectly blunt, but you
Row.
Row.

Client wants twenty-four seven support.
Sales promised the sun and the sun’s what they bought.
Your future depends on a tester’s report, so
Row.
Row.

You’re putting in eighty-five hours this week,
Sharing your sweat, you all bloody reek,
You’re nothing special, man, you’re not unique, so
Row.
Row.

Understanding is never the fate of a slave;
Be stoic, endure it, be brutal to stave
Off the toil that pursues you from now to the grave, and
Row.
Row.

Count five. Count six. Count seven. Count more.
Every stroke is the same as before
And the people who love you are left on the shore as you
Row.
Row.
Row.
Row.

She invited people to send stuff, letters to read, and she read things by several people I know (the first thing she read was by my perenially heterodox colleague and friend Ian Moore, for example, who took the picture). Tricia also read my own “Ninja Postman,” beautifully, which you can find on the video of her performance beginning at about 19.30.

But please look at the whole thing if you have time, and maybe some of the other people. It’s a brilliant idea, and I wish I had the chance to see it in person.

Inglourious Basterds (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2009, as if you didn’t know)

So the new Tarantino film, which I saw Sunday last. I have to be honest, I came out of it (with all my mates raving about how great it was) wondering whether I had just seen a great film or a really terrible one. One thing I was sure of was that it was by no means middling.

I could explain the plot, but frankly, plot isn’t the film’s strong point. It is all about the subtext, basically. The whole thing is about film. Specifically, about film kills Nazis. How film is an instrument of heroism and suicidal fury. Film, says Inglourious Basterds, is a weapon. This review, by the way, will give away lots of the film’s surprises. Not all of them, but quite a few.

So you have two plots to kill the Nazi top brass. A Jewish escapee (Shoshanna Dreyfus, played by Mélanie Laurent) ends up running a Parisian cinema in which a big Nazi film premiere is going to be held. She plans to burn the place down in the middle of the premiere using a heap of super-dangerous film canisters.

Meanwhile, the Basterds [sic] find out about the premiere and plan their own attempt on the top brass’ lives. The Basterds are this Jewish-American suicide squad, a cartoon bunch of sociopaths led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), who has a massive rope scar around his neck (decent enough shorthand for “bad, hard man”, and do you really need to have that explained more?). Pitt affects a Tennessee accent that is almost as bad as Mike Myers’ British General act when he rocks up for a bit later in the film (no, really. I mean, what on Earth?)

Few of the Basterds are really sketched out. One speaks German OK. One looks a bit like an Italian. One is only really there to sit next to Brad Pitt at the film’s denouement. Three of them don’t speak at all, and disappear completely before the film ends with no real explanation (more on that later).

The only one who gets anything like a character is Donny Donowitz, the “Bear Jew” (Eli Roth, director of crap torture-porn flick Hostel, and frankly not the greatest actor on God’s Earth) whose only schtick is that he beats Nazis to death with a baseball bat. The Basterds get joined by Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), a psychopathic German soldier who, after being tortured by the Gestapo, struggles (not much) with an irresistable urge to torture and kill Nazis in general and Gestapo majors in particular, and Archie Hickox (Michael Fassbender), a terrible British stereotype who is also a film critic. The Basterds hook up with the improbably named actress Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) who works as an allied double agent and try to infiltrate the film premiere.

I have to be honest, the Basterds don’t actually serve a lot of purpose in the film… other than they have to be there. Because the film is all about the subtext. They’re Adventures in the Rifle Brigade-style psychos scalping Nazis for no reason other than they sort of have to be running about in the background. I found Brad PItt pretty funny. I am not sure if it was intentional (again, more on that later).

A fabulously played Nazi detective called Col. Hans Landa, “Jew Hunter” (Cristoph Waltz, best performer in the film) vaguely links the two strands together, but only vaguely.

Anyway, at the end of the film most of the characters die and the Basterds win the war for the Allies, several months before it actually, you know, ended. This takes three hours to happen. A lot of Tarantino things go on. You know, lengthy roundabout dialogue that turns to violence, gory scenes of torture, a Mexican stand-off that includes a semantic discussion between its participants about whether this actually counts as a Mexican stand-off, quirky tongue-in-cheek graphics, that sort of thing. Tarantino stuff.

And if you miss the subtext, it is a terrible film.

Only the constant meta-commentary carries the thing, and if you are not, like me, the sort of person who only really enjoys a film if it says something, I suspect you may find it frustrating and annoying. Where do the three silent Basterds go? I mean, it’s not completely inexplicable: presumably they died in a blaze of gunfire in whatever altercation led to Private Utivich, the last surviving Basterd apart from that Brad, being captured, but shouldn’t there be a simple line of dialogue or something? You know, like, “The others?” “Dead, Lootenant.” That sort of thing. One second that would have tied that up. It’s not a complete film-wrecker, but it does weaken the strength of the film’s plot, and let’s face it, the plot ain’t that tight anyway.

No, it’s all about film as a weapon, and about Jewish revenge fantasies (and how maybe they’re quite good, about which at least one of my colleagues has, I know, some very strong opinions). And it’s about war films.

And here’s part of the problem. It embraces whole-cloth the genre clichés of the terrible American war-film. You can tell that from the very first moment, when the title comes up and the fake 1970s-style copyright notice appears at the bottom of the screen. It rips off The Dirty Dozen. And it does all sorts of stuff. The Americans win the war. Early. History gets mangled in ways that I would have spotted when I was nine. Just like a real American war movie.

And I found it hilarious. At the time, I took it as a marvellous pisstake of those shitty old movies. I should mention Adventures in The Rifle Brigade again, which was a comic a few years back and which was a fond but ultra-violent and completely obscene send-up of the classic “DIE NAZI SCUM” British war comics from the 1970s and which was completely hilarious… but only if you had actually read those comics as a kid. I loved it, but it didn’t work as a comic on its own terms at all. You had to have read that old stuff. Now as we were leaving the cinema on Sunday, the one friend I have who has also read Rifle Brigade called Inglourious Basterds “Rifle Brigade, the Movie.” And the bits with the Basterds were pretty much redolent of that.

And here is the problem. I am not 100% sure it was intentional. And there’s the thing. There’s this difficulty that comes from too much po-mo.  Is Tarantino ironic when he references those crap old movies? Does he actually like them? Does he hate them? Is he critiquing them? I mean, I largely had a great time in the cinema, but that was because I hate those old films and I read the thing as satire. And in retrospect, I am not sure it was supposed to be.

I think you should be able to tell from the film. Are all the continuity goofs and weird plot turns deliberate homages to crappy old films that did that all the time, or is he not paying attention? The very fact that this is in doubt is really the problem. Because like the old Rifle Brigade comic, if you don’t get the subtext of why the Basterds are there in the film (the other plot strand with the Jewish avenger lady who burns down the cinema is far more straightforward, more emotionally engaging, and makes for far less confusing viewing) then the bits with them in are just occasionally bloody and funny nonsense.

And you see, without the understood subtext, the film does not exist on its own terms as a narrative. Now. The title of this review is the very last line of the film. No one can really take that as insignificant. I think Mr. Tarantino knew exactly what he was doing with it. See, the problem is, I don’t think it’s really clear if anyone else does. And that says to me, “failure”.

And I think its failure as a film narrative without the understood subtext is probably the tipping point between terrible and great for me. I mean, visual essays exist and are valid films, but it’s not trying to be a visual essay. It’s trying to be a “movie”, however you conceive that.

If you see what I mean.

See, if it’s a film about the use of film as a weapon, death by film if you will, combined with a critique of crappy war films and what they’re about, it is a great film. But otherwise, if it’s a homage to cool old movies because they’re, y’know, cool, it’s a terrible one.

And I suspect — and I hate to say this — it’s really the latter.