Love's not dead, it just deserves to die ...

It's been a while now since I last experienced something like this, but tonight in this club, when recognising my shadow on the wall, for a quick moment instinctively went like, who the fuck is this, that's not me there, no way, that's not my silhouette, who's this bloke with this evenly round, round skull, if this'd be me, well, there's something missing, doesn't feel comfy, doesn't feel right, where are my lumpies, wanna have them all back, wanna be myself again, wanna be back whole, lumpies, warts, edge 'n' all.

Little while later, staring into the sunrise, earth still dark below, 11 hours of sleep in 4 days, too many beers too fast, eventually having hit the gate just 2 or 3 minutes before boarding (though still got a seat with the right view, you bet), and it's beautiful, sun still coming up, while I'm trying to figure out the words of my personal version of this Dead Kennedys song, and fittingly funny, for the life of me couldn't come up with the parts bout the money, cause that's what's different, give you that.

Love's not dead, it just deserves to die
when it becomes another stale cartoon
Who needs a friend scared to love and to feel
judging everything by money rules appeal

Harder core than thou for a year or two
Then it’s time to get a real job
Who needs friends when the money’s good
‘cept to take, take, take and never give

The more things change, the more they stay the same
We can’t grow, when we won’t criticise ourselves
Ripping people off, when they share their heart
When someone falls, are there any friends?

Neither pro-feminist nor MRA (Pt. 1)

I identified as a (pro-)feminist for a good part of my life. In Switzerland, where I grew up, in most parts women got the right to vote only in 1971, shortly before my 8th birthday. The last region actually had to be forced to implement it by federal law no earlier than late 1990, almost a decade after non-discrimination on grounds of race, sex, religion (to name but a few) had been written into the constitution in 1981.

So guess the notion women not being treated equally and this not being ok kinda came naturally.

On the other hand, frankly was pretty ill-suited for virtually all of the obligatory he-man-men type stuff anyway, both physically and mentally. My size was at no point above average, and don't get me started on build. Till I began working out at 30, was actually merely skin and bones, to the extent that I'm still glad having grown up before 'anorexic' and 'bulimia' became such buzzwords. (Well, at least no fat either -- before cortisone, that was.)

Also simply failed getting the point. I mean, what's the use, feeling good from making others feel bad? Since I've been a kid, most people always said I've got 'way too misantropic views'. However, always got plenty ideas of activities making me at least much happier than the average 'social' person always in need of putting someone else down first. A concept just beyond me.

Guess I was the perfect victim. Not actually offering the other cheek, but never hitting back. Which kinda results in the same. And of course in getting beaten up or worse every once in a while.

Took me literally decades to realise, plenty people are just cowards, going for people like me for some freebie kicks and punches, and the only way of getting rid of such is looking them straight into the eye, thinking, 'Ok, that's it, go on and I'll hit you as hard as I can.' That's the one funny part about it: Don't even have to say it. And the other: Of course suddenly there isn't any need of actually doing so anymore, but that's another story.

Rather had a knack at skills usually attributed to girls anyway, like languages and other 'soft' disciplines, while definitely not being a star at math and the likes. At seven even learned knitting, out of curiousity, but soon learned better than to talk about it to other boys. (Same as for plenty other things to most people in general, that is, especially 'grown ups'.)

Actually, when it came down to relationships, and there to e.g. adressing emotional issues on both sides, or commitment, mutual responsibilities, and plenty other behaviours usually attributed to women, turned out me being more female than most of my girlfriends.

Of course there were other traits where I'm no exception, on the downside I'm e.g. much, much better at nagging others into sex than keeping up with household chores. (While most of my girlfriends weren't so bad at some also exactly glorious 'female' routines either.)

So, during my twenties digged easily into feminist critique of male behaviour and gender roles in general, and plenty too. Feeling that in a social environment based on equality and without the typical patriarch games, life would definitely be more fun, despite the male priviledges I'd lose.

As said, self-identified as a (pro-)feminist for a good part of my life. Funny enough, took some 'feminists' to eventually change that. And though I still uphold the idea and the notion of making it true, had to realise that what's going down in its name in the real world being quite something else, with which I'd rather not associate myself, nor would want to be associated with either.

(to be continued)

Dissent or rot (Always felt like a Pariah Pt. 2)

Having grown up in a conservative household during the cold war, you can bet I was told about the brave dissidents within the then actually existing socialist countries. Being a good boy, of course admired them too. Actually a bit too much perhaps. Not for my tastes, but obviously for almost everybody else's.

Though barely a teenager, didn't take too long till I realised, while my parents did have two volumes of GULag Archipelago displayed in their bookshelves, hardly bothered reading any of them (ok, didn't do so myself till pretty much later). And when after Prague '68 many Czechs got offered asylum in Switzerland, surprisingly most of them being well trained lab workers or other studied professionals, not to mention usually not too adamant to criticise injustice here or elsewhere. And while my parents and other grown ups continued idolising foreign dissidents and their brave struggle, the longer the more I realised they'd be the last having the balls to stand up and risk anything for an unpopular conviction themselves.

Not exactly my kind of heroes, I'm afraid. And very unlike e.g. Adam Michnik almost a decade later, defiantly proclaiming stuff along the line of 'you can lock me up, but but you won't make me comply'. And while I might not agree with everything he was about lately, still respect him for having the guts of sticking with his creeds (though perhaps it's no coincidence that after Abu Ghraib western newspapers started qouting him considerably less -- if at all). Cause that's what it's about, not blindly doing as you've been told, but making up your own mind also if the consequences are a bit less favourable.

And while I despise violence and lynchmobs, when walking the street with the ordinary looking house where the torture cellars were and then visiting the nearby park, seeing the trees still standing where the people after liberating the prisoners had dragged the screws and strung them up in Budapest '56, couldn't condemn them either nor help myself thinking 'yes!'

But even then, even in my remotest dreams never dared thinking I'd ever be doing time myself. Even less in an increased security jail in the 'model country of democracy'. Not to mention that it'd be for the "thought crime" of having made a film the local authorities obviously didn't like -- just like in one of these dreaded oppressed communist countries they'd always been cautioning against at home and in school ...

Zurich Airport Prison, 2000

Which is where I finally started reading Solzhenitsyn's GULag Archipelago, beginning with the 3rd volume, embracing it like few books before. Cause, despite considering myself lucky, like after my short stint 'only' having to swallow cortisone for some 5 years insted of having been plain snuffed like in the 'real thing', it was all there: the humiliation, lies and deceits by the screws and administration, the 'games' amongst the inmates, but also the gallows humour, and the biggest paradox of it all: 'I'm grateful for the prison having been a part of my life. It was therein that I nurtured my soul ...'

Not to mention realising, the prison outside being only a slightly watered down version of basically just the same. But you know what? 'You can lock me up, you can abuse me and kill me, but you won't make me comply ...'

I've always felt like a pariah (Pt. 1)

As far as I can remember, before I was 5 probably not so constantly, though. Actually got along well with virtually all of the other kids. Until then only on a few occasions had this feeling that in the long run kinda just might not fit in.

Like e.g. when I persuaded my brother to polish this arrogantly gleaming new car in the street with sand together, making it look more natural. Gee, were my parents happy having a liability insurance. Though I must say they weren't too hard on me, more like, don't do it again, this can give us lots of trouble, so of course I obliged.

More difficult was when one morning I went with my then girlfriend to see where she went to kindergarten (she was a year older than me, but didn't have to go that day cause of holidays). Must've been after 12am when we eventually got back. Whole flat full of cops by then, and it was let's say kinda less easy than after the car episode. Though I could understand that my parents were worried, still never really got it what all the fuss was about. Maybe the first time I started realising perhaps I wasn't as free as I had imagined all the time, and not only me (though the girl's parents treated it considerably less as a drama).

Of course the real trouble started when I had to go to kindergarten and then to school myself, though grades weren't too much of a problem. Contrary e.g. to the plenty hippocrite grown ups in charge, handing out bollockings and punishment even when for everybody else it was plain to see it was THEM that were wrong.

Though I must admit, one teacher, once when giving a poor italian kid a dressing-down for a simple equation she got wrong for whatever reasons, after about my 5th attempt to set things straight actually listened to what I was saying, did the calculation again, and thereafter apologised to the boy. But even for the gullible 7 or 8 years old I was then, it was bright as the light of day that, had I not been the kid with the good grades and the respectable parents, probably she wouldn't have listened at all in the first place, so this remarkable incident not being much more than the famous exception proving the rule.

The other problem being plenty of the kids as well, convieniently just passing their anger and frustration on. Ok, probably was just kinda the perfect victim; first fitting the concept of the enemy, and second, though never having been really religious, I never hit back, not even tried running away, but actually just literally turned the other cheek, eye, side of the ribcage or whatever. Still have one or the other scar to remind me.

(Took almost 2 1/2 decades more till I finally gave in, rather literally drawing back my arm in order to get spared rsp. not getting f**ked over in other ways. Though without never actually having had to deal the blow -- and the coward bullies probably just passing it on to some other poor bugger not willing or able to hit back, or sometimes even just onto themselves if they couldn't find another victim -- which till today is the part still bugging me every time I manage keeping myself outta harm's way like that.)

Little surprise when playing indians and cowboys usually sympathised with the redskins and not the whities, getting extinguished by the latters, but at least knowing how to die beautifully and with dignity.

So, when eventually the lumps started growing, as mentioned was neither really surprised nor too embarrassed, but rather pleased, cause at least to me it made perfect sense, like getting a physical proof for what I had always felt inside anyway. And wanting to get rid of them now and getting into real trouble for it or not, actually I'd still be more irritated by never having had them.

Did you see him smile?
Mugshot, 1993, used on cover / poster
of The 'BLUTGEIL Case'
(Lump on the forehead already visible, while
the one on top increasing my height about an inch.)
© SSI / TV-STOP

'But you look like you're from mars!'

That's what my doctor said when I told him I'd rather not having them cut away after he'd suggested so when seeing me the first time with short hair.

Always thought that was a good one.

'So maybe I am from mars', I replied.

Would at least explain a thing or two, now wouldn't it?

'So you're a freak, and you don't even know it'

First line of the chorus of a song by local band Hylsen. Next one goes:

'If you're a freak, don't be afraid to show it'

Heard it first just about before I cut my hair.

Always seemed to make 'immediate sense'.

(Though that's another band).

Don't know, but up to now hardly anything someone ever did or said about the lumps gave me any real trouble.

Never had a problem accepting them myself in the first place.

Probably would've been more irritated by not having them.

Flaunting it

Just before they started growing real fast
Publicity shot, London 2003
© Guy Smallman

Waiting for the tube at Monument, saw this black guy walking along the platform. Walking fast and looking straight forward, maybe just a wee bit hard.

He had lots of burn scars in his face and on his arms and shoulders (and probably on the torso as well), and he was wearing a muscle shirt.

Woa, respect!

I always was (and still am) well aware that I'm in the lucky position that all my lumps still just fit under a cap (though I had to start buying bigger ones during the years to be able to go to work) and that -- unlike others -- I always had the choice to do what I'm eventually doing these months, i.e. having them removed.

Still, in the fraction of a second I just perfectly understood the way he was looking. And also why he didn't opt for a long sleeve.

The former cause it's not too pleasant when people stare, frown or even turn away in disgust just because of the way God, nature, fate or whatever had chosen to make you look like.

The latter cause it's no real use to try to conceal it at least as much as possible. People will always notice sooner or later anyway. And, bitter as it is, usually later is even more painful.

Respect, man! May you know people who take you for what you do and are and not for what happened to you once.

continued ...