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Rats In The Gutter
The Blizzard
Jesus H Christ is it a crime to be messy these days or what? Seriously, the optimisation metrics, this ideology of converting every micro-event into revenue is becoming very effing suffocating. Like seriously, is there no inch on god’s green (ish) earth safe from the parasitic reach of The Economic Incentive? In this vacuum packed cat suit of a social climate the rats wonder about the true value of performative politeness, and whether we might be better off showing each other our teeth every once in a while; especially seeing as the edicts of politeness are rooted in maintaining bourgeois orders, vertically stacked ones of the haves and have nots etcetera. This is obviously not licence to treat other people badly, but it is something of a call to consider the essential mysteries of being human and act accordingly, to treat each other as the exhaustive evolutionary miracles we are rather than a collection of standardised pathologies and KPIs, with trackable social-media interfaces. God forbid we should try to confuse the lines drawn for us by acting outside of them, however this might look . Something of a necessity, actually, when those lines are put in place by a sprawling network of genocidal imperialism.
Anyway The Devil Wears Prada 2 is out! While one rat feels meh about it the other is candidly surprised by how not shit it is. Obviously things could’ve gone either way. While Sam hasn’t seen it (on principle) Johanna breaks down all the ways it tries (we’ll assume limply) to lambast the vacuity of fashion under late stage capitalism, which is as far away from being art as Christopher Luxon is from being a competent prime minister. But just like Luxon, Prada 2s more cutting critique’s of capitalism overall are…absent. But I guess you’ve gotta give it its chops, that a film about fashion coming out in a world where luxury consumerism is provenly anything but benign (this isn’t 2006 anymore) could even attempt to have some acumen, some awareness, even though it clearly doesn’t reach Sontag levels of criticism. I guess it’s sort of like watching a criminal lawyer (maybe Epstein’s?) monologue about the evils of lying. Or watching an evangelical christian pastor with a DL Grindr account lecture a room of depressed normies about the sanctity of marriage. In a nut shell, the call is coming from inside the house.
Do you remember Hopoating your friends on the playground? Playing Buck Buck with the hopes of grinding on the jock? Join us at patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter
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Hessian Skort
48:30|Behind the paywall the rats discussed the importance of Journeying, and this side, where the freebies never cease, they discuss Learning, a symptom of journeying, but also not a given. The lessons must be EARNED. Like, realising ‘things’ in your thirties, which some (meaning anyone in their early twenties) might compare to going roughly into that good night, without realising that later life isn’t just an extended tragedy when your proximity to adolescence can no longer be pretended, like most American media would have you believe (because the teenage brain makes for better consumers). Also on the minutes this week; Ken Russels The Devils which gets a 4k remaster this year and which both rats are VERY excited for, the discrete charm of a Hessian slip (somewhere between Courtney Love and a North Korean internment camp), the various obsessions and peculiarities of Mossad, and a real argument for the posthumous canonisation of one Aileen Wuornos.
Fear and Loathing at the VMAs
47:23|In this dystopian fever dream we call reality, with everything worsening apace (faster than a forgotten cube of Colby in the back of the fridge) it’s easy to forget that we once had different aspirations, that we once expected a rising gradient of liveability from our world, and not the agonisingly slow decline we all know and loathe. And yet the punch might be in really rubbing our faces in the muck, and NOT in fey delusions of well meaning individuals with authority and resources suddenly remembering they have a conscience and choosing to do things differently. Because if the room’s filling with smoke, then we may as well get high on the fumes of a dying world, rather than strain for a vanishing high ground that’s only going to be rubbed out by fracking or data-centre related erosion anyway. Or something. Also, Taylor Swift is a caucasian anti-christ and her musical offerings are more harmful to culture than the loss of our enlightened gay elders during the AIDS pandemic. Charli forever.What is the connection between Epstein and the manosphere? Patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter
Dirty Work or Hardly Working
44:54|Because this is nothing if not a searing political podcast holding power to account with a smorgasbord of stolid sources and bonafide facts, the rats would be remiss not to mention Nicky Hager’s latest blockbuster Dirty Work, in which a concerned citizen (aren’t we all) finally takes down The Ugly Bitch Forum, FKA The Tax Payers Union. In a turn of events shocking to absolutely no one with more than three braincells left, it turns out the Tax Payers Union (who are most certainly NOT an actual union) are pretty much American flavoured lobbyists of supreme evil and networked corruption. Because undermining public spending on things like, idk, health education and the arts, is not something an organisation that’s allegedly ‘for the people’ spends its time doing. Good on you Nicky, from us to you.Behind the paywall the rats unpack the parallels between Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire and Salo Patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter
Hoard of Smaug
55:43|to ask the question is AI art even art, a working definition of art itself has to be established. Which is far too labour intensive a task for the rats this week, who are battling their own personal demons, none of which have anything to do with the ongoing culture wars lol. On the table for the non-paying customer this week; dramatic readings, the dismal stylings of cultural theorist and proto Marxist Mark Fisher, Pink again (because like a shit stain she takes more than one rinse cycle to be gotten rid of), and finally the ancient battle between the working poor and the professional class.Desperate to hear the Rats perform buttrock karaoke? Find that and more at Patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter
Crumbs from the Factory Floor
48:10|We are haunted. Haunted by futures that never happened. So says mark Fisher, of Capitalist Realism fame. This week, the rats get critical and robustly discuss Fisher’s Hauntological musings, in which the despair of cancelled utopian futures filters down into production choices in popular music. Also on the minutes of this penitently delayed but hopefully well received gas session; the lows and lows of online hate, cookie sacks, and the unbearable lightness of jokes at the expense of is men.What recent film has Samuel contemplating his sexuality? Find out at Patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter
Plane Person
53:05|The rats are beleaguered besieged and generally against it but defy some very material odds and physically reunite in Big Daddy’s studio for much delayed session of grievance airing. Which this week includes; a generational loss of moral objectivity, taking things in good faith (cough), the myriad charms of Ninajirachi, the fetid horrors of an executive government, and mushrooms again (see behind the paywall for yet more mushrooms content).
Fuck It.
49:06|Anti bullying doesn’t sound like something the rats would be into. And it isn’t. But for a brief moment, one of the rats was poised to be its spokesperson in an already saturated market of travelling virtue signallers; like troubadours but more patronising. Also on the agenda; the gung-ho mentality of Sylvia Plath (who didn’t let two failed suicide attempts stop her from eventually knocking it out of the park), the strange beauty of intentional absences, the art of scamming, the endless hospo horror of Mothers Day, and the uncanny freedom of Fuck It.Unconventional cooking tips like substituting kewpie mayo with jif and more over at Patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter
Nepo-leon Dyna-might [be nice to inherit a career in the arts]
45:07|What is nepotism? Is it something the rats should feel sore about being born without, or can they live and die without it? It looks like a sweet enough ride from the outside looking in, but in all seriousness, what’s in a name? Also on the agenda for our freeloaders this week; how Charli XCX’s pending album is already hella Skins coded (Skins > Euphoria obvi), how tax and civics are complete mysteries to anyone under the age of fifty (and even then), the financial pipe dream of ever being in Edinburgh Fringe again, and why our love of Tamatha Paul is the reason we will continue to keep our distance from her (it’s for her own good).If you benefit from nepotism, help out some beneficiaries at Patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter
Pennywise
42:38|Happy Fourth of July! Just kidding. There’s no way either rat would ever attach positive affect to a day celebrating the most obnoxious landmass this side of Pangea (and wasn’t SHE a bitch). But the rats WILL settle for shitting on its golden child Taylor Swift whose wedding, despite being a BIG SECRET, we can practically remote-view with full accuracy for the Shein-flavoured polyester nightmare that it most definitely was; and, not to be bested (and certainly testifying to the spiritual pettiness of the whole American race) Beyonce’s surprise release of new music to pull focus from the White Devil (quote Ivy Wolk) probably landed as well as Lena Dunham’s awkward speech about all football players being secretly gay. The rats LOVE a wild and unfounded speculation about a male celeb’s secret fruitiness. However, the gays probably don’t want to be tarnished with that big white brush, except for the beige gays who already worship Taylor (and to be clear, Taylor gays are the ones that think salt is a spice and consider Twilight ‘literature’). But enough about an empire in decline; this week the rats also discuss contemporary NZ art. Specifically, is Dick Frizelle’s Mickey to Tiki a problematic faux pas, a benign piece of pop history, or a prescient foreshadowing of our inexplicably deepening relationship with a neo-colonizer? Okay yeah the rats can’t stop themselves from harping on about America. But that’s like, only because their new ambassador here wishes we’d renege our stance on nuclear power/weaponry and like, this is pretty much the beginning of an ugly and drawn out end of American hegemony, which if we had any sense as a country at all we’d get well clear of; just like you’d get clear of the smelly drunk guy at a house party who no one can remember inviting, but that everyone’s afraid of because he seems totally volatile. Yeah. Merika.Where do the rats fit on the spectrum of Kats Mansfield to Bonnie Blue? Find out at Patreon.com/RatsInTheGutter