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Tales From The Other Side - Alternative Culture to enlighten a mediocre mood

 
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Pop Culture Miscalany - Tales From The Other Side

Death of Marvin Gaye

July 1st 2008 02:58
Marvin Gaye Painting
Painting of Marvin Gaye by Ronnie Wood


Marvin Gaye was a singer songwriter most famous for his song ‘Sexual Healing’. His death was one of profound tragedy, in it’s unusual circumstance.


Marvin Gaye was born ‘Marvin Gay’ but added an e to the end of his name to disassociate himself from his father. He was very close with one of his duet partners, Tammi Terrell.

Following her death from a brain tumor, Gaye became seriously depressed and didn’t perform for two years.

He continued to have success musically, though soon after his main hit, Sexual Healing, he went back into solitude, moving in with his parents, where he reportedly had suicidal feelings several times after fighting with his preacher father.

Marvin Gaye was killed on April one 1984, the day before his birthday, shot to death by his father. His father was to be charged with first degree murder, changed to manslaughter after the discovery of a brain tumour.

It has been suggested that Marvin Gaye’s death was in fact the result of a conscious suicide attempt of sorts.

Image by Steve.Wild under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.
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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture, Miscalany, Music
   


Hell Bank Notes

May 1st 2008 21:56
In Chinatown the other day I bought myself a wad of ‘Hellbank’ notes. I thought the name was just one of those cute mistranslations. However, browsing a bit of reading, I found the truth was quite different.

Hell Bank notes are simply paper money with ‘Hell Bank’ written on them. They are not play money though, and have a specific ritual purpose to be used at funerals. When a person dies, the money is burnt, in a careful way (either folded or put in an envelope, due to the concept that burning real money brings bad fortune). The basic concept is, as within other cultures where paper effigies of consumer products are burnt, that the money can be used in the afterlife.


Hell Bank


Hell Bank money is never given to other people, as it is seen as wishing their death.

Hell Bank money got its name from a loose translation of the ‘Underworld’, where the departed are said to go to atone for their mortal sins. The term Hell does not hold negative connotations in China.

It is rumored the term was introduced by Christian Missionaries, and adopted with new meaning as a term for the underworld.
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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture, Miscalany, Religion
   


I hate my Dad

January 28th 2008 13:44
There’s a protest on. Cars are stopped at the lights, waiting for the protesters to walk by. The first comes by with a Placard and yells “Down with Howard, War Mongering bastard”. The second comes along with a massive placard – “Destroy the neo-fascist evil Capitalist system!” Then a third comes along with a placard and yells;
“I hate my Dad!”


It’s a joke, but the message does convey a certain seriousness. The idea that those in our society – protesters, dissidents and radicals are simply acting out of our own anger against authority and fighting outside wars to avoid dealing with our own issues, is, sadly, not redundant.

The difficult thing to understand about righteous battles and causes it that there is no visible difference between the man executing his actions for a noble cause, and a man doing the same for a vengeance. The eye sees the same man, whether he is in Iraq to liberate the citizens in the name of liberty, or just wants to ‘scare up dem sand niggaz’.

Anti Bush Sticker Car
Hate Bush? Or just Anything?


This is a scary concept, especially when we regard the important role rebels and dissidents play in our society. It was dissidents who gained women’s rights, gay rights, Aboriginals rights. Dissidents have fought against injustice for many years.

This raises a question; is hatred – rational or otherwise – an essential component of a shift towards positive change? Women needed to hate their oppressors, as did Aboriginals and homosexuals. Without a powerful tide of resentment towards the Howard government, we would have never seen the birth of the Rudd Government.

Do we ever push for what is right? Or does society simply wait for the right moment to push against what is wrong? It has often been said of Australians that we do not vote Governments in, but out. We vote not for but against.

Does humanity really have those who fight for what is right? Or are we just a pack of lost kids waiting to seek revenge on the eternal omnipotent authority figure who consistently slips like mist through our fingers?

Image by TJ Scenes Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Politics, Pop Culture, Miscalany
   


Scissors, Paper, Rock, PAIN!!!

January 17th 2008 13:32
Scissors Paper Rock
PON!


This is a story from Japan. Now, I really don’t know how widespread this practice is, but I’m guessing it’s probably pretty wide, looking at some other precedents that I’ll get into later.

What I can tell you for absolute certain, is this game was common practice in the boys dormitory at Meitoku Gijuku, a boarding school where I spent some time, in Kochi, Shikoku Island.

Scissors, Paper, Rock is a national treasure of the Japanese nation. There it is called ‘jan ken pon’. If you win you can call out Katta! (I Win). If you tie you call out “Ai Kodde Shou” and redraw.

The boys dormitory loved this game. They played with a variation however. You’d have about five or six players at a time. They would all play and redraw until half got one option, and half the other. I.e. 2 rocks, 3 scissors. The winners were safe at this point, and all the losers would rematch until there was only one loser left. The loser would then pull up their shirt sleeve up, tense their muscles and wait. Then, one by one their competitors would, sometimes following a room long run up, punch them in the arm as hard as they possibly could. This was not by any stretch of the imagination, soft. The solid thump of fist on flesh would almost echo. There was no real winner, but it was generally accepted that the loser was the first one who couldn’t stand up after being punched.

Some Japanese blokes walked around with their sleeves barely concealing green bruises.

The Japanese have a reputation for these kinds of games. I recounted this game to one Japanese Uni student and he just shrugged. ‘There is a game’ he told me, ‘with a helmet and hammer on the table. When one person take the hammer, you have to take helmet and put on, before he hits you on the head.’

It seems hard to imagine that in a country where the culture is as homogenized as Japan, that such madness can flourish. However, anyone who has been there will tell you that this kind of violent game is not ‘in spite of’ but rather ‘because of’ this kind of culture – tiny explosions jumping out to address the stress of maintaining respectability with a spot of well earned RAH.

IMAGE by Meme! Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.
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Brechtian Theatre

November 15th 2007 12:11
Brecht.
Bertolt Brecht was a famous an incredibly influential dramatist and stage director of the early 1900’s. His styles was strongly influential, and can be best seen in his own well known play ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle and in the film Dogville.

CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE.


DOGWOOD (SPOILERS)


Brecht’s unique style is known as Brechtian theatre. One of the main ideas of the genre was that the Audience could not be separated from the subject of theatre through the illusion of the fourth wall. This was known as Verfremdungseffect, and was used to, in the words of Brecht, “prevent(s) the audience from losing itself passively and completely in the character created by the actor, and which consequently leads the audience to be a consciously critical observer."

This could be achieved in many ways. Sometimes the cast would ‘spontaneously’ burst into song. The events of a scene would be described before the scene began to avoid allowing the audience to get involved in wondering what would happen. Actors would break the fourth wall by addressing the audience directly, using Didacticism. These elements combined would help create an emotional separation that instead encouraged audiences to use their minds to truly interact with the message of a piece.
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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture, Film, Miscalany
   


Chindogu

November 1st 2007 07:19
There is very little that can compare to the pure awesomeness that is Chindogu. Chindogu (From Japanese Chin – Unusual and Dogu – Tool) are inventions that serve a purpose, however, one that ultimately is useless. This is usually because use of the devide would be so technically difficult (such as the solar powered cigarette lighter) or would cause too much social embarrassment (such as the face framing spaghetti protection mat) that they are effectively unable to be used for their real functional purpose.

This description though, is inadequate in its simplicity. The Chindogu society offeres a list of requirements something must reach before it may be considered Chindogu, as can be found here


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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture, Miscalany
   


Banksy

October 29th 2007 06:01
When God sneaks out at night to stencil an old brick wall, he’s making a picture of Banksy. That’s how awesome Banksy is.

Banksy is a well known artist and trickster, centred in England. He is most famous for his stencils, produced illegally in public spaces around England


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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture, Miscalany, Subcultures, Music
   


Kiddie Energy Drinks

October 25th 2007 03:24
Remember Bad Boy, that brand with that feisty Eight year old with big muscles on T-shirts – think a white version of little boy 50 Cent. Well they’ve branched out from clothing. Now they make energy drinks.

badboy energy drink

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Drugs, Politics, Pop Culture, Health, Miscalany
   


Listen to Noah?

October 19th 2007 09:44
“Um, guys?” says Noah.

“What


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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Politics, Pop Culture, Miscalany
   


Your Popsicle’s Melting

October 18th 2007 12:45
Café Press is a nifty little webpage. Using its tools you can set up pages to sell merchandise with your own designs on it.

I has one shirt with an image of a Popsicle on the front pocket. On the back pocket it had the phrase ‘your Popsicle's melting


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Is Racism Justified?

October 4th 2007 13:30
We treat different people in different ways. We have to. People are different. We don’t try to demand folk with wheelchairs climb the stairs, and we don’t ask Vietnamese actors to play Michael Jackson in the biopic of his life.

However, when we decide on how to treat people based on race, we run into the issue of racism. The best way to describe racism, I find, is to regard it as ‘racial discrimination’ – specific discrimination based on an individuals race or ethnicity. And there is a question of if racial discrimination is ever appropriate to which I would have to say “yes”. Now it’s very easy to get all indignant and be all like ‘that’s not cool man! We’re all the same on the inside! Don’t be hating


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The Dancing Man

July 20th 2007 12:30
hammertime
Sometimes you've just got to break it down...


I was working at the Mall site of my book shop a while ago. This means I sit in a little section outside of the shop, selling books to people in the middle of the plaza. My position is facing Supre, a clothing shop (for girls who are way too young or way too skinny). Supre is playing some bad pop music. As I stand there, pretty bored (nobody is buying books today) some dude walks past


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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture, Miscalany
   


Blackspot Shoes

June 25th 2007 11:09
I don’t care about fashion. Not really. Ask my mother and sister, they’ll tell you how poor my taste in clothes is. However, I want this pair of shoes.

Blackspot Shoes

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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture, Miscalany
   


Hare Krishna Spam

June 19th 2007 11:30
Gouranga
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga


I got an unusual Email the other day


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No, YOU’RE like Hitler

June 16th 2007 09:14
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. This well accepted fact of the Internet is known as Godwin’s Law, also referred to as Reducto Ad Hitlerum.

Basically, it refers to the inevitable practice of somebody being compared to Hitler, or a group being compared to Nazis, within a debate or disagreement


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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Politics, Pop Culture, Miscalany
   


What is Creative Commonss

June 4th 2007 08:26


The great thing about this video is that because it was licensed under CC on the original creative commons webpage, it has been remixed with the audio


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Posted By: Brenton - Category: Pop Culture, Film, Miscalany, Internet
   


Disney Nazi Film

May 19th 2007 06:40
Crazy stuff…

Can YOU work out the Moral of the story?
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