4 Shots

What the hell is happening in South Africa?!? Olympic athlete and Paralympic gold medalist Oscar Pistorius, aka Blade Runner, kills his model-girlfriend. Bang, bang, bang, bang.

An accident he claims. Premeditated murder the cops shout. Oscar thought an intruder was hiding in the bathroom of his luxurious home in a high security complex. He took his gun. It was sometime between 3 and 4 am. He went to the bathroom area and shot 4 times through the closed toilet door. Result. Dead model-girlfriend. From Blade Runner to Gunner. And it was all on Valentine’s day. Blood and roses.

Then amidst the Oscar drama, a report is made public that a large percentage of South African beef burgers and sausages contain donkey, giraffe and water-buffalo. A Mc Deluxe gets a different meaning here. In Europe the meat scandal is about horse meat in beef, in South Africa it’s donkey style. So eating too many fast food burgers ain’t just bad for your waistline, it will also change your vocal chords! A bbq will never be the same again.

And then as South Africans tried to think where they still could find untainted meat, a cell phone video went viral. Police brutality in its nasty form.  Several men in blue wanted to arrest a man for parking his taxi on the wrong side of the road. The man resisted arrest… not too aggressively. Then the cops took the man and handcuffed him to the back of the police van and drove off while dragging the man behind the van. Nuts. Later that night the taxi driver died in the police cells. Cops brutality in the evil way. Animalistic. Inhumane. Bastards. After 24h of massive public and media outcry the cops got arrested and now face murder charges. Hang them high and dry!

Human behavior can be senseless.

But there is more South African insanity. Don’t know what that country did on New Year’s Eve, but 2013 is just kicking madly.

A man was sentenced to 4 life terms for repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl in 2009. It all happened in a town called Springs. Chemical castration comes to mind. Forget the chemicals, just use an axe! Flipping sick bastards! Tell his fellow inmates to have some fun with this freak.

That’s all….? NO! A father died and his funeral was organized. We are in the South African small-town of Grootgeluk. An Afrikaans word meaning ‘Great Happiness’. But the irony of it all came blasting through the sky. At the funeral the widow was shot dead and the son wounded. I guess there was no family gathering afterwards? Any discount for family funerals?

Human behavior is unpredictable,… even at the cemetery.

Then there was the crazy fire in the Kiss nightclub in Brazil. Scores of people died. And of course the usual sad fact that there was only 1 emergency exit door. Apparently some band  played with some fire stuff on stage and boom, there goes the lives of many young Brazilians.

And then there was the French army battles in north African sandpit Mali. A fight against crazy Muslim fundamentalists who already had destroyed plenty of ancient old art and manuscripts as they thought they were un-Islamic. Blown fuses in their heads. Indoctrinated beyond sanity. Deaf, dumb and blind. Fighting and killing and maiming and destroying in the name of religion. A religion that at its core doesn’t contain such hatred, but human spin and interpretation makes it a tool of war. Disgusted!

Human behavior too often cuts itself of from its own free mind.

Russia has officially banned the Pussy Riot ‘Cathedral’ video, saying it violates extremisms laws. If you wanna hit something you will always find a stick. Russia is far from using its own free mind. Stuck in a doctrine of total control.

Human behavior needs more punk tunes!

And let’s not forget the Arab uprising. Remember the falling dominos in Tunis, Libya and Egypt? Well the Arab spring has left the world with some dark clouds. Especially in the land of the pyramids. The dictator was kicked out of his Cairo palace but the first free vote brought in extreme Muslims who right away used their democratic power to turn the clock back and install “special powers”. The path to democracy is never easy and too often filled with ugly power plays. Meanwhile the butchery in Syria continues unabated. Killing fields of freedom.  

Human behavior is self-destructive.

Pools of blood.

Throw out. NY’s hardcore godfather Vinnie Stigma has just released his second solo album “For love and glory”. A fine collection of his punkrock roots influenced tunes. He might be old school, but surely Stigma ain’t dead yet.

C-Ya

Collateral – March 2013