the riff n raff rebellions vol 1

i predict that, in the near future, mairka was suffer a major terror attack.

Investigators will discover that the terrorists were making their plans, via email, uninterrupted

when asked to account for the intel meltdown, the CIA will answer, the emails were too long,

“we don’t have anyone with the attenuation span to read them.”

HOPEPUNK? WTF is that?

Yeah, that’s what I thought when I stumbled across the term the other day.  I am no literary scholar, but I figured this much out without having to Google it: following on cyberpunk and steampunk, it’s a sub genre of sci-fi, and works labeled as such  must instill hope.

The term was coined in 2017, in response to Trump taking up residence in the White House. From what I gather, my new book, THE RIFF N RAFF REBELLIONS VOL 1. can rightly be labelled hopepunk.

I started writing my book in 2010, as I watched the ignition of the Arab Spring .

Interestingly, there would be no Trump presidency if not for the Arab Spring.

The Arab Spring begat Occupy Wall Street.

Occupy Wall Street was a miracle of sorts. There’s no way a small mob of stinky hippies pitching tents on a green space in the epicenter of crony capitalism should have caught fire the way it did. No way it would have happened when I was protesting everything (I hasten to point out that  I was never a stinky hippie!).

Marx said that two things are needed for a revolution: the objective conditions,

and the subjective readiness.

These must exist at the same time.

Any wannabe revolutionary will tell you that the objective conditions are always there. The subjective readiness is a little harder to figure out. If you give ’em an inch, they will take a mile, but how many miles will they take before people say NO MORE?

The subjective readiness was there in the early autumn of 2011 when the Arab-Spring-inspired Occupy movement started. The Mairkan public had been raped by Wall Street (2008 super nova of Fanny May and Freddie Mac. Obama fueled the fire by bailing out the banks, who fueled it even more big handing out bonuses to their execs; they didn’t just fiddle while Rome burned, they partied hard. That’s why Occupy exploded.

That, and the fact that we are no longer solely dependent on mainstream media for our news of the world.

Occupy got so much traction that the mainstream media could not ignore it. Occupy woke Trump’s core, the trampled-undefoot victims of globalization. They started looking for a champion. Call Trump an idiot all you want, but my bet is that he was fully aware of the gift presented to him by Occupy, and jumped on it.

Bernie Sanders’ core was also woke by Occupy. But Sanders is a socialist, which is the same thing as a dirty, Godless communist to most Mairkans, especially those who lived through the Cold War

And he’s a Jew, to boot (and, let’s face it, many Mairkans would love to boot a Jew, or two). So, Sanders was unpalatable to Trump’s people.

A Trump vs Sanders battle for the White House would have been far more fascinating than Trump vs Hillary. But without the Arab Spring, and subsequently Occupy, it would have been Jeb (EMPEROR BUSH III) vs Mrs. Clinton.

Clash of the empires, but prima facie meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

But that’s not how it went down, as we all know. What started when a kid in Tunisia got so fed up with the constant bullshit of the authorities that he burned himself to death in the streets lead to Trump’s victory march to DC. The Butterfly Effect writ large in the Age of the Internet.

The Law of Unintended Consequences. It’s a strange, strange world we live in, n’est-ce pas?

And now a new age stands ready to be born into the lit world. Hopepunk is, or can be, a ripple in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Four years before the term hopepunk was coined, Muhammad Yunus (2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner) called on the writers of the world to do our part in making a better world.

Yunus’ contention is that we create the societies we IMAGINE. Take a look at the major sci-fi works of the 20th century and tell me he is wrong.

The creators of those works cannot be blamed for the fact that we have built the world they imagined. As some clever someone quipped, 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.

If we IMAGINE the world we want, we will build it. That’s the hope of hopepunk. That’s our new job.

And hopepunk may be the hope of the lit biz, which is dying in a world where new generations don’t read books anymore. What the scions of the lit biz have to understand is that hopepunk can be a monster, which can not only bring new generations back to books, but help build a better world.

Those scions need to understand that they cannot dictate what hopepunk is. Hopepunk need not  be all Pollyanna. There can be some snarl to it (it is called hopePUNK, after all). Leaving contentious, inflammatory works out in the cold may well result in the promising genre being dismissed as little more than Sunday school sermonizing, albeit without having to run the risk of kids being molested by religious perverts (and please, let’s not pretend religious perverts don’t exist, for gawd’s sake).

In order to make the lit biz big wigs understand the point, I cede the floor to Ray Bradbury’s response to news that his classic, Fahrenheit 451, had been censored, little by little, with each new edition that had been printed:

“The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/ Republican, Mattachine/ Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme”

full quote here

Bradbury is vomiting in his grave every time he thinks of “sensitivity editors”, as well he should be.

As much as I believe that there is hope in hopepunk, I don’t really think the scions of the lit biz are gonna get it, let alone embrace it. If they take a fancy to it, they will try to neuter it. Still, we can hope. Strangers things have happened, right?

Or, we can get the job done without the lit biz. Occupy didn’t need mainstream media. We now have the tech to skate around the big lit biz people. And we can do it. Stranger things have happened, right?

I took my clever solution to the Redskins vs redskins name brouhaha to a Redskins subReddit. Aside form on smart ass, it was crickets.

So, I took it to the NFL subReddit, where a couple people called me an idiot before the post was removed

if i told people i was selling a new-to-you drug from India, i’d get 1000 times more interest than i do when i say i am selling a new book.

they’d have no idea what the drug is, or what it will do to them,

but they’d take the chanceS, anyway.

But they just say NO to books.

wha-hahahaha!

I have been playing around with words and ideas for the past couple days, as is my wont, trying to come up with an opening argument in my case to sell THE RIFF N RAFF REBELLIONS to the world.

Just before sitting down to get down to it just now, I checked my Facebook memories, as is my wont, because I mine those fat veins for gems deposited and too often forgotten, and because it is a special new day, because I FINALLY have a book for sale, and I wanted to see what I was up to on this day in the past.

Evidently, I shared the Camus gem with my friends, most of whom I don’t know, on this day eight years ago. As soon as I saw the words on my screen I knew it was the place to start, because my book is a rebellion. And so I shall – start my case with Canus’ truth, and continue the act of rebellion that is my life, that is – as Mozart’s Requiem plays randomly on my YouTube shuffle (and I do hope that is not a portentous overture from the Evil Clown Gods Who Rule the Universe, but make note of it, if that should come to pass, because it would be evidence of… some damn thing, n’est-ce pas?).

Boys and girls, of all ages, of the jury, we do, indeed, live in an unfree world. As some sage, Internet meme guru recently quipped, modern slaves are not in chains, they are in debt.

Clever because it is true, yes? But there is more to the meme than meets the eye.

We are all indebted to those who came before us, fought for the freedoms we enjoy, and were often imprisoned, beaten, shunned, and murdered for their efforts to create a better world. Start paying your debt to them and you will free yourself, and future generations will be indebted to you.

I have been cognizant of this undeniable truth since I was but a boy. I have long understood that I can only pay my debt to those genuine heroes of the human race by following Canus’ aforementioned imploration. Volume 1 of THE RIFF N RAFF REBELLIONS is my latest, perhaps my greatest, attempt to pay down my debt.

I started writing the book just about nine years ago, inspired by the opening of the Arab Spring. I wrote the book in the hope that it may inspire others, especially teens, to rage against the machine.

I could have churned out a dogma laden screed, as too many have done before me, but what the Hell is the point of that? A screed is a screed, is a screed, after all, and the world ain’t needing no more of all that tiresome jazz.

In a world where each successive generation from this point forward will chant TLDR as a mantra, you have to infuse a lot of fun into anything longer than 140 characters if you hope to open/change minds with mere words.

Thus, the underlying message of the book is simple: rebelling is fun! Riff n Raff have fun while saving the world, and so can you. I know this to be true, for I have had a Hell of a lot of fun over the course of my life, as I openly and gleefully mocked anyone fool enough to think they have power over me, and a right to try to stop whatever the fuck I was up to at that particular time. If y’all to do the same, you will see for yourselves just how much fun it is.

But in order to savour this flavor of fun, you must first overcome fear.

Fear enslaves far more people than debt. Fear is the reason the human race is so far behind schedule in its march to civilization.

The entire history of humanity’s attempt to civilize itself comes down to three words: assholes oppressing cowards. Fear them not, if you want to be free. The more fun you have while shaking off your shackles, the less you will fear.

I understand that’s a lot to ask. I understand that we are trained to fear the assholes who oppress us. But I also understand that there is some, ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me,” in each and every one of you. I wrote this book with the hope that readers will free their minds of the fear that keeps them from paying down the debt they owe for what freedoms we have.

Above all, this is a book of hope.

But it is not a collection of inspirational meme worthy quotes, ‘cause, let’s face it, those get pretty damned trite, pretty damn quick, and no one should even attempt to eat an entire box in one sitting.

Reading the book will be more fun than watching naked lepers bungy jump, more fun than pissing in a toaster.

Riff n Raff know how to have fun!

I am often told that I am years ahead of my time. I have never understood how, or why that is, but I suppose there is some truth to it. I finished writing THE RIFF N RAFF REBELLIONS VOLUME 1 about eight years ago, so maybe its time has come.

Bogart famously said, “The problem with the world is that everyone is a couple drinks behind.”

Knowing that to be true, it is my pleasure to announce that the bar is open. Riff n Raff are serving courage cocktails. Place your orders, and don’t forget to tip my kids.

Here it is. Come and get it!

Yeah yeah yeah, I know Gandhi was not buried. Whad’ya think I am, schtoopid, or somethin’?

On October 2, 2019, the 150^th anniversary of the birth of Matatma Gandhi, I thought I would be celebrating the launch of my first book published by someone other than myself, THE RIFF n RAFF REBELLIONS VOLUME 1. The book, a trilogy of silly-serious novellas, stars fifteen year old best friends, Riff n Raff, who repeatedly save the world. They prevent a nuclear war, solve global warming, and end hatred. They never resort to violence, choosing, instead, to employ their one superpower, the one superpower we all have, which is LOVE.

Setting October 2 as the launch date was not by accident. Given that I am living in India, for the moment, and the publisher is Indian, we thought it would be fitting to send the tales of hope and love out into the world on Gandhi’s birthday.

We were not the only ones who sought to capitalize on the Mahatma’s birthday as a unique opportunity to launch an artistic project.

The producers of a Bollywood film also caveat emptored.

The launch of my book was halted on September 27 because the cover featured DJ Gandhi laying down some fat beats, while Riff n Raff, and the other heroes of the Utopian yarn dance to his grooving grooves, while the villains look on scowling.

People inside my publisher’s team were afraid that this would lead to mobs of irate Gandhians turning violent.

The film that launched on the same day is titled WAR.

I will say, for the record, that I admire the cheek of the film’s producers. More so than their craft, but never mind that.

Unless I missed something, irate mobs of Gandhians did not storm the theatres across India where the film made its debut. Not so much as a single protest was mounted against the film, unless, perhaps, a few dismayed Gandhians threw popcorn at the screen, but I doubt that. Quite the opposite, in fact, if the film’s Wikipedia page is to be believed: “War set the record for the highest-opening day collection for a Bollywood film in India. With a worldwide gross of over 400 crore ($4 million, give or take a couple shekels), it emerged as the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2019.”

I was one of the million or so people who coughed up to see the shoot-em-up. I couldn’t help myself. The irony of it all was just too great to resist.

I started writing my book while the Arab Spring was kicking off, in December 2010. Yes, the uprising was my inspiration to pick up the project that I had abandoned a decade earlier. To say that my struggle to get the book published has been frustrating would be a massive understatement. Time and again, I was told that there simply is no market for an anti-war book in this age of perpetual war.

One of the reasons I came to Inidia is that I had seen an interesting interview with Aamir Khan, one of the giants of Bollywood.

The interviewer says that Bollywood films are always about hope, whereas Western films are about despair. Khan nods his head in agreement. My book is all about hope.

A friend sent me the 2011? interview when I told him I was striking out, yet again, this time in Istanbul, and thinking the land of Gandhi might be my next stop.

 Although her song is about a personal romance, I can apply Pink’s beautiful plea for hope to my hope for humanity at large (and my book’s possible contribution to that hope).

Just give me a reason
just a little bit’s enough
just a second, we’re not broken
just bent
and we can learn to love again

 So I packed my bag and flew off to Calcutta.

The thousand seater theatre was packed. Easily 99% of attendees were males under the age of 30. Young and dumb and full of rum, they hooted and hollered the moment the blood started to spill on the screen. Hell, they could barely contain themselves when the Indian national anthem played prior to projection.

I’m not gonna give you my opinion of the film, for I was not there to do a review. I was there because, well you know why I was there.

But I will say this much about the flick: although I loved the dance scenes, I was a little disappointed by them. I knew there would be dance scenes, of course, but I was hoping that the combatants would call a cease fire in the middle of a gun battle to bust some moves with some busty Bollywood babe-atollahs (and I’d love it even more if the next Rambo film would do it, too!). Ah, but that would be too discordant, wouldn’t it? Maybe even sacrilegious, huh?  

The young and dumb and full of rum boys are not monsters. A dozen or so of them even asked to take selfies with me during the intermission, just after taking sellfies while standing and simpering  next to the film poster in the lobby (I am very much a visual anomaly here).

I watched about 10 minutes of the second reel before handing my half eaten box of two day old popcorn to the ten year old muncnkin making monkey noises in the seat next to me, and taking my leave. They’d gotten my money, they weren’t gonna get anymore of my time. I’d seen enough.

The young and dumb and full of rum boys are not monsters, I repeated to myself on my way home. But they can be turned into monsters. Alas, has ever been thus.

But where the fuck is the hope in the land of Gandhi today? I contemplated that for an hour, oh so, while staring into the void from my rooftop. I suppose, I said to myself, it is in Gandhi and his message.

So, I made my way to my computer and watched Gandhi for the first time since it came out in 1982. That was the year this rebel found his cause. Along with If You Love This Planet, Gandhi made me an activist, instead of just a complainer.

On the bizarre night of October 2, 2019, I really needed some of Gandhi’s wisdom to give me a reason, just a little bit’s enough. I am happy to report that I found it while watching the three hour masterpiece.

And I laughed, as I realized that it was a Hollywood film that glorified Gandhi, not a Bollywood production. The irony did not stop on that day; it just kept rolling in front of my eyes.

So, what is it that Gandhi said that gives me hope? The quote is used in the film, of course. Twice, as a matter of fact. The second time comes right after his assassination at the film’s end, before the credits roll.

“All through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Think of it: always.”

Here’s hoping, little big man. Here’s hoping.

Everyone knows that banning, or burning a book results in increased interest and sales. But what would happen if the publisher, and everyone involved with the making of the book, were slaughtered mercilessly? Preferably starting with the artists, and excluding the author.

Would it be even more astonishing, and profitable if the victims were massacred by disciples of Mahatma Gandhi?

Those are the questions I had to ponder long and hard a week and a half ago, just five days before my book, THE RIFF n RAFF REBELLIONS VOLUME 1, was scheduled to launch.

Well, that’s a fib; I knew damn well that such an atrocity would boost interest and sales of the book. So, the questions I actually had to ponder were: was it worth it, and if so, how could I convince my publisher that it would never happen, and hope that it did?

Okay, that, too, is a fib, because I did not believe, for a second, that publication of my book would result in mobs of murderous Gandhians laying waste to the office and everyone inside. Nor, for the record, did the publisher, but no argument could convince the other conspirators that there was any point risking it.

Now, i have zero doubt that my silly/serious book will be controversial, if it becomes widely read. But I could not have imagined that having an illustration of Gandhi DJing a dance party would be the most contentious thing about it, and I am endowed with a fuckin’ eh wild imagination.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, we will never know just how insane Gandhians would become by seeing an image of the Mahatma spinning some vinyl (and it’s not as if I was the first to come up with the idea).

because we have agreed to kill the cover.

So, for those of you – too few, boo hoo – who were anxiously awaiting your chance to read my magnum opus (thus far) are going to have to wait awhile. How long awhile? Fucked if I know. This is India.

If you really don;’t know what I mean when I shrug and say, this is India, let me see if I can explain in a way that will amuse you, and hopefully not result in me, or anyone I know, being disemboweled.

When I leave here, wherever I go, I am going to open an Indian restaurant. And I’m gonna name it… TOMORROW. I will name it TOMORROW because, no matter what you order, expensive or cheap, complex or simple, you ain’t getting served until TOMORROW. And everyone employed at the restaurant will be an artist (so, you may not get your meal until NEXT FUCKING WEEK!).

I swear, the only job Indians finish is fucking. And even in that, they stop for tea. Three times, if you’re not quick about it. So, if you are getting jiggy, hot and heavy, down and dirty with someone from the land of Gandhi (aka TOMORROWSTAN), and they get up and just walk away in the middle of all the passion, you’ll know why: because it’s fucking tea time.

I’m gonna be an asshole, and leave you hanging, scratching your heads and wondering WTF?, for the moment, but when we pick the story up again, I will explain just why it is not absolutely beyond belief that Ganhians might have killed us all, if we went ahead with the cover.

For now, good people, I leave you with this, which I know to be true, from more experience than i wish i had gained over the course of my life, so far: FEAR IS THE MOST PERNICIOUS THING IN THE UNIVERSE.