When the original reason for buying the www.gothclub.com.au domain flittered away, my next idea for it was to make it a hub of the local goth club community.

To that end, I’ve always wanted a few other people contributing content… But it never really happened for whatever reason. I’m assuming because not enough people really know about the site yet.

Well, I’m going to change all that shortly, but before I do, I’d like to get some more writers on board writing about the things that I have almost zero interest in. Mostly because it gives a wider variety of content… But also because it takes the stress off me to keep this stuff updated regularly. Lastly because it provides people with a bit of variety of writing style. Let’s face it, we all know I’m one of the most amazing writers of the modern world, but if you eater angus beef every night, it gets boring after a while. Especially if you’re a vegan.

Soooo if you’re an aspiring article writer, or just want to have a rant or two in a public forum, by all means, become a writer for the Goth Club!

Just go an use the newly installed Contact form and ask for an account.

Writers will even get their own profile pages. Zounds!

I like to think of myself as somewhat erudite bastion of civility and culture… even though in person I speak like a highschool drop out and generally wear the kind of clothing that would have to have a Kmart label in it to get ranked as “fashionable”. Hey, I drink wine, and I can tell the difference between a Gamay and a Bordeaux. That’s pretty fucking classy compared to some of the people I know.

Part of being classy is keeping up with the artworld, outside of comics and album covers, and to that end, I keep my eye open on various news feeds here and there.

I’m also a consummate prankster, and know a good one when I see one.

A few days ago, Artlurker, one of the contemporary zones of wankery that insists it’s at the forefront of all that is avant gardè, edgy, and filled with suppressed didactic meaning, gamed its readers in a rather large way, and thus the art world got gamed along with it.

They posted a story about a gallery work called “The Rape Tunnel”. Whilst the original story and comments have been taken down, Google remembers all, and cleverly cached it here.

When I read this story in early October, my bullshit-o-meter went through the roof. Initially, I thought this was another one of those stupid projects, like the artist that intended to chain a dog with the water bowl just out of reach and let it die if no one moved the bowl. Then I realised there is no way this would go ahead, as the supposed artists “Richard Whitehurst”, and the gallery director are basically conspiring to commit rape.

2 minutes of Googlefu revealed no previous gallery, no art journalist named Sheila Zareno, no artist named Richard Whitehurst, and no former tunnels of any kind, let alone punching people in the face.

However, looking at some of the reactive comments, it makes it bloody tempting to perhaps start one, and have some wanky description of how art is imitating life that imitated non-existent art, inner rage at soceity and the homoerhey is that more chenin blanc for free at my opening night that was paid for with my government grant? Sweet!

But I digress from the main point. This story got covered in actual news papers, because no supposedly real journalist bothered to do a damn bit of fact checking. It got published somewhere else, so holy shit, we better publish it too! How is it that none of them even wanted to talk to the artist or gallery owner about the work?!

And this goes to show how easy it has actually become to game certain segments of society, and gain a few fleeting moments of notoriety. No doubt, the original writer of this article is likely to be able to come forward, and get a decent job at a real paper, having done what the majority of papers now consider their primary business… outraging readership enough that they might consider looking at the news.

The outcry from the general public, both over the original fake article, and Artlurker exposing their ignorance when it was revealed to be a hoax is amazing. It ranges the whole gamut from people insisting that they’re retracting a failed publicity stunt, to others saying how the editors are worse than Hitler because rape is something we should never talk about… ever… except inside our therapy circles… and it’s not funny!!! (unless you’re raping a clown)

It makes me think that not only will the general public be pretty easy to game, but I could probably pull off a massive hoax of my own, and not just get away with it, but probably make some money on the side.

I’m thinking of selling off franchises in my religion…

So, as it turns out, Godhood is a giant franchise… At least it is, if you’re a Mormon.

This is beyond the pale… And the bit about how got created black people as “negroes” is pretty fucked up. I guess this explains why there aren’t any black Mormons. Although if there are, they’d have to be stupider than the regular Mormons for falling for this shit. Then again, they do have polygamy and telemarketing as their two biggest draw cards.

Still, seems like this particular religion is something for those that could be out thought by a jellyfish.

Now don’t get me wrong here. I’m not an atheist.

I just find it hard to believe in a god that that is omnipotent, merciful and just if said god “works in mysterious ways”, allows people to suffer, sends you to hell for not believing in its endless love, and actually has any kind of reasonable competition (kinda blows the omnipotency out of the water there).

I believe that such a god maybe existed once, but they abandoned humanity long ago after seeing what a fuck up we made of it.

I know I would.

More Halloween cocktail goodness!

Naturally, because they’re for parties, some of them have to be sweet… but they can’tall be nothing but booze, right? Well, yeah, they can, but some people out there like to pretend they’re having a manly drink once they remove the umbrella from a Cosmopolitan. And because this is a cider drink, this is for them.

(more…)

« Older Posts — Newer Posts »