While dinner was simmering, I listened with half an ear to an interview on Discovery's 'The Big Idea'. The host was speaking to some interesting young males who do what is called, Ultimate Fighting. While half the screen was filled with gut wrenching scenes of a man beating his fist into another man's nose, the other half was filled with a face explaining 'the purity' of the sport. Please. The way they respond to criticism, is to point out how many people die, or are paralysed in other sports, like Football. Celebrities like Pamela Anderson, Cindy Crawford and Iced T say they regularly go to watch Ultimate Fighting. Right, so they're off the list of credible popular personalities.
Ultimate Fighting is human cockfighting in the 21st century, broadcast by American television networks; it's an orgy of violence and blood. The people who are entertained by this sort of thing ought to sign up for the next War, and stay there.
In 1999 I met an interesting Scottish guy (who had a gorgeous blonde sister). This guy was nuts. He had a pile of videotapes, and on each one were Bloodsport type tournaments, training documentaries (men performing karate kicks while standing under waterfalls of melted snow) and violent Van Damme-type movies.
Small talk with him was him describing a punch, a move. Later he explained how, as a bus driver, he stopped a bus, got out and beat up a driver who was honking the horn behind the bus.
My impression was that this guy was always looking for an excuse to beat someone up, constantly training to prepare himself for those beatings, and in a perpetual state of healing from the last encounter. His knuckles were scabs, but I'm no longer clear if he got that in a brawl or from punching a plank in his back garden. He'd punch it ten times hard. I hit it once, half as hard, and then winced in pain.
There was something about him that I liked, but I mostly felt sorry for him. It seemed to me, that if everywhere you go you are ready for a fight, you're guarded and reactionary, ready to pounce on someone who knocks into you, or makes a comment, if that's what your focus is, then eventually you're going to find yourself in a fight you can't win.
Ultimate Fighters
Speaking of which, in Florida a Burmese Python (yes, not endemic to the area, probably the daughter of an escaped pet) swallowed an alligator. Once the alligator was in the python's stomach, it may have pawed and scratched as the stomach acid started chewing into its leathery flesh. Or perhaps it had a bad case of gas, producing the same burst-belly syndrome in the python as happened in a rotting Sperm Whale that exploded in a Taiwanese city not long ago. Whatever the case, both these monsters ended up dead.
Giant Squids have one mortal enemy, Sperm Whales. This is truly a battle of Titans. Adult Sperm Whales often carry cars and lacerations inflicted by the Squid's powerful arms, during these fierce battles.
And then there is Alien Vs Predator. The Alien looks like a hodgepodge of squid, prawn, spider, wasp and T-Rex. Predator looks like a hybrid crab-lizard-rastafarian.
Predator is the odds on favorite, until the Alien reaches the breeding phase. At that point, all bets are off.
None of these Ultimate Fighters are dumb enough to fight their own species though.
Sinead 'o Connor
And speaking of Rastafarians...
I once went to a concert in London (The Fleadh '98) with almost no money, just to watch Sinead 'o Connor perform. She was one of my favorite musicians when I was a teenager, and I didn't want to miss an opportunity to see her live. I even got thrown off the train (for failing to produce a valid ticket) between London and Reading. I managed to sneak backstage after the concert without a pass, and got to within a metre of Sinead. Watched her adding sugar to cups of coffee in her camper after the concert, until a woman beside me screetched: "SINEEAAAAD!" She looked up and looked right at me. I went back to Bristol a happy young man.
Today I saw her on a chat show, to promote her latest album, "Throw Your Hands Down". It's a new approach, because now she is singing with a reggae band. It works. But Sinead's lost her charm for me.
During the interview she removed her shoes, sat crosselegged, and alternately picked at her feet and massaged her bald head. She is a very strange woman with very strange habits. She says, "I knew God when I was born. I never had to search for him." That's fine, except she starts the interview by describing her boring existence (for its involuntary celibacy) and then her and her host indulge in a few minutes of suggestive repartee. She asks him, "is that a hicky you have on your neck." I'm not sure if I understand her, or what she stands for. Perhaps all she really wants is attention, epitomised by her bald approach. Attention is fine, unless you're a spoilt brat, a delinquent or just plain confused. She's a fine musician, and at least in her music, she appeals. Today in the bus I was wondering whether there was any point to these Sinead 'O Conner lyrics:
She took my father from my life
Took my sister and brothers oh
I watched her torturing my child
Feeble I was then but now I'm grown
What makes this bizarre is that the 'she' refers to her own mother.
A troubled childhood is one thing, but being a troubled child for the rest of your life is not something to admire. Here's another opinion...
Irish missed
by Felicity Monk
Singer, songwriter, priest, Rastafarian, mum, lesbian, twice-married and recently retired (again), Sinead O'Connor is easily one of the most interesting – and controversial – musicians around.
Born in Dublin in 1966, O'Connor had a troubled childhood. Her parents separated when she was eight and she went to live with her mother, whom she later accused of sexual and emotional abuse. Her father won custody of her when she was 13, but soon after she was sent to a school for girls with behavioural problems. A nun gave her her first guitar and started her on a path that would be life-changing.
O'Connor studied voice and piano at Dublin's College of Music, recorded her first album at 14, and had a deal at 17. She made her debut in 1987 with The Lion and the Cobra, but it was her follow-up album featuring Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U" that brought O'Connor, then 24, international recognition.
The shaven-headed, doe-eyed beauty was never short on shock tactics and as a result was often the target of condemnation and negative press. In the past she has spoken in support of the IRA and widely criticised the Catholic church – she tore up a picture of the Pope during her 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live. Then there was the time she refused to sing at a New Jersey concert if "The Star-spangled Banner" was played prior to her performance, prompting Frank Sinatra to publicly threaten to "kick her ass". "I would have been honoured if he had kicked my ass," she told an American reporter in October last year, "and the fact he even mentioned my name is good enough for me."
In April, O'Connor announced her retirement from the music business. She declared that one of her final recordings was for a track on – wait for it – Dolly Parton's upcoming tribute album. Figures.
This article was published in 2003.
So I wonder whether I want to close my eyes and listen to her sing when I am not sure whether I still support a lot of her dogma.
Nobody's Perfect
We're not perfect, but surely there is a middle ground between Superman and Clark Kent, between Paris Hilton and Sinead 'O Connor.
We live in a sick and distorted society. I recently watched a documentary on the American comedian (Sam Kinison, Why Did We Laugh)who says, "Why do we send bags of rice to millions of starving people in deserts? Why don't we send them buses and suitcases and get them out of the desert? Get them to where the food is."
We live in a world of cargo pants, rap and nonsense. The trouble is, fewer and fewer people can tell what makes sense and what doesn't. But help is at hand. A series of Reality Checks are on the way to wake us all up.
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