Punks and mavericks, fuck off forever!

[imomus]

It's been a week when our own culture -- the decadent, collapsing West -- has been at its ugliest and most insecure. On top of the greed-toppled financial sector, there was Damien Hirst calling himself a "punk" and John McCain calling himself a "maverick" and saying economic fundamentals are "strong", before trying desperately to redefine "economic fundamentals", "strong" and "are".



But it's the claim of very rich and conservative people to be "punks" and "mavericks" which really infuriates me. Here's Damien at his Sotheby's auction, where he raised an unprecedented £95m on work he's made -- parodies of his already-kitschy old stuff -- in the last couple of years.

Looking more like Phil Collins than Johnny Rotten, dressed in tummy-bulging Bono-black, with stubby skull rings dotting his stubby greedy piggy fingers, Hirst justifies his obscene wealth with a reference to the massively more socialist and egalitarian Britain of the 1970s.

"I was a punk, I guess," he explains. "I was a bit young to be a punk, I was 12 in '77, but I quite like it when you do things like this. People say you can't do this, you've got to wait to go into an auction house. But I think at the end of the day I knew it would upset quite a lot of people and I quite like that."

Punk rock, for him, then, is about upsetting people, enjoying it, and making lots of money in the process. We're not talking Wire's Pink Flag here. More like red top, red rag. It's the tabloid end of punk Hirst likes, the "filthy lucre" end, the "malady-not-the-remedy" end. It's obnoxiousness-as-virtue. It's "I've got mine, screw you, but love me while you hate me!"

Hirst really has got his. Your house may be being repossessed, but this is his house, Toddington Manor.



If you're a maverick, you need hundreds of rooms. You need to charge around all that empty space like a stag, headbutting tapestries, snorting and whinnying. You need to store dead animals in the Regency Suite and formaldehyde in the maid's pantry.

Of course, you could just say "I'm very rich and getting much richer, as the super-rich tend to do in today's Britain, and as nobody else does. Oh, and I live in a castle." But no, that would never do. You have to say "I'm a punk". It's the respectable way, these days, of being evil, irresponsible and annoying. It earths all resentment. "Hands off Mr Skull-Fingers Hirst, he's a bit podgy and looks like Phil Collins, but he's a punk!"

In my essay Nasty, British and Short (written just after I moved to New York in 2000), I tried to tackle what "punk" means to Britain. I think essentially it's become shorthand for the beginnings of Thatcherism, and for a preference for local maladies over international remedies. In a way, punk has come to stand, in Britain, for the domestication of evil:

"Lydon's evil cackle at the beginning of 'Holidays In The Sun' reveals him as an innocent who has decided to incarnate a malevolent view of human nature in the classic manner of the Dickensian pantomime villain," I wrote. "In The Sex Pistols, Lydon incarnates the British contempt for human nature. He becomes a parody of the malady, and is an immediate success in Britain. When, later, he and his nemesis McLaren try to embody the remedy to the Brutish disease, making records like 'Metal Box' and 'Duck Rock', the Brutish stay away in droves, fail to buy, and use bargepoles when parlaying. Bow Wow Wow with their sexy Eiffel towers and their odes to Louis Quattorze and home taping stiff too. The Brutish do not want the remedy. They want the malady. The remedy is always foreign, it involves a loss of identity. The malady, however horrible, is forever Brutish."

[Error: unknown template video]

And this brings us to McCain, and my fear that he will win on November 4th. When I see McCain, pretending -- as in this recent ad -- to be a "maverick" and yet representing more-of-the-same, I see the malady of America. When I see Obama, I see a remedy for America, a chance for it to redeem itself. And I'm afraid, like the Brutish British, the Americans (or a big chunk of them) are going to plump for the malady over the remedy. Because the malady has come to define their sense of self. The malady -- like punk rock -- is national, whereas the remedy -- like reggae-inflected post-punk -- is international.

The claim that more-of-the-same McCain is a maverick is laughable, of course. The idea that McCain and Palin "fought Republicans" while being Republicans is a ludicrous piece of mental gymnastics. But posing as a conservative "maverick" is likely to play as well in America as posing as a rich "punk" does in Britain. It might just work, because this mythology -- no matter how blatantly paradoxical -- is embroidered deep in the culture. Put it this way, when I think of the parallel world in which McCain and Palin win, it doesn't seem far-fetched or alien. In fact, it's a world which shares the values a lot of Americans have right now. It's who they are. It's the malady, the one they know, the one they like.

"Winners and losers are both mavericks," I wrote two years ago, recording my first impressions of America after Japan in a piece entitled Never Blend In. "They resemble each other here in their refusal to play by the rules. Some end up in jail, others running companies. My flight has featured lots of personal announcements from the founder and CEO of Continental, telling us how he started the company, how everyone working for it is exceptional. Mavericks. Give 'em a big tip! Because they're individuals, and so are you. There follows a song with so much virtuoso soul melisma the singer manages to put 12 syllables into the word "I"."



And here's Marvin Gaye -- tragic, alcoholic Marvin, shot by his own father during a row -- embodying the maverick in a poster campaign which Obama could well copy, if he wants to appeal to the malady heartlands rather than the remedy coasts. Never blend in, Obama, it's hell out there!

As for me, I'll be happy if I never hear anyone calling themselves a "punk" or a "maverick" ever again. Give me a world without rich punks and conservative mavericks and it's beautiful inside my head forever.

Comments

[dignam.livejournal.com]

I almost never see you get steamingly pissed off. I think you should try it more often, because "...the Americans (or a big chunk of them) are going to plump for the malady over the remedy. Because the malady has come to define their sense of self." is the most succinct shaping of the issue I've ever read.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Senator McCain's claims to being an independent whiz kid do rest on a basis of fact, but one must bear in mind this was always a case of a conservative man disagreeing with other conservatives, and had nothing to do with grand philosophical differences as such. He has been simply a Republican US Senator who could not be relied upon to safely and consistently vote along party lines, much like Lincoln Chaffee or Joe Lieberman or so on.

This makes him a political maverick for a given definition of maverick, and the American media (or the US Congress) often has rather narrow definitions of what is maverick behaviour. No understanding of McCain's claim to independent thought is possible unless one realises that his disagreements have been within the same broad consensus and that is what he is expressly referring to whenever he leans on that particular crutch.

The difference is superficially fairly minor. Senator Obama was ever so slightly misleading in saying Senator McCain has voted along with Bush 90 per cent of the time. This is actually true on average, but McCain's voting behaviour has often altered depending on political circumstances. Of course, even when he has been feeling particularly "maverick", he has voted with Bush much more often than not.

But to be satisfied with that is to discount the relative importance and gravity of the individual issues actually under consideration, which naturally vary from vote to vote. Only a thorough rundown of those individual issues can distinguish whether or not Mr McCain's conservatism is in any way different from Mr Bush's almost identical conservatism. (My money is on "largely not", but we'll see.)

[hideandseekfest.livejournal.com]

Thanks Momus, this is head-on brilliant. America and Britain, on the couch... Looking at what happened to those punks is instructive. John Lydon, now seen presenting nature programmes on Channel 5 and hurling racist abuse at Kele Okereke - McCain Punk. Joe Strummer - so affected by his years at the top with The Clash that he exiled himself from music (and Britain) for a long stretch, and came back performing sweet music until his death - Remedy Punk. Julien Temple - punk filmmaker turned ambitious Hollywood helmer, now back in the UK, making ambitious, difficult films (including a great documentary biopic of Joe Strummer) - remedy punk. I produced Julien's last film - it's a film opera set in Australia, coming out on Channel 4 at the end of the year - maybe that's a 21st-century punk experience. Phew - all that punking. I'm off to play a game.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's interesting how the Sex Pistols keep reforming, but mark one PiL never does.

[(Anonymous)]

McCain voted with his party 90% of the time, while Obama voted with his party 97% of the time. So technically McCain is more of a maverick, more willing to "reach across the isle."

As Richard Sennett says, we live in a capitalist society which is obsessed with the user-friendly, convenient, and comfortable. This mindset is incompatible with democracy because we are not willing to make the effort to learn about the world around us.

We have become accustomed to put more stock in the superficial differences in products (their "gold-plating") than in their fundamental function or construction. In this way, even Apple is part of the problem as they continually make minor superficial revisions to the ipod. Fundamentally, the difference between their mp3 player and the ones on offer from other brands is pretty small, but is it any wonder that nobody is interested in the candidates' policy, but only external appearances?

[(Anonymous)]

Even in the egalitarian socialist seventies, rock stars aspired to the stately home lifestyle. Even John Working Class Hero Lennon had a stately home at one time.

What differentiates Damien Hirst from Jeff Koons for you, Momus? Why do you befriend and write songs about one, and not the other? Isn't Koons the very model of a modern superstar artist, selling a sculpture at Sotheby's last year for $23 million?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree with you about Apple. Products like the iMac and the iPhone, when they first appeared, were radically different from anything else around. If they were political candidates, they would have lost the election (with 10% market share), but as products they were inspirational -- which is why, copied endlessly, they no longer seem so incredibly different. They blend in, now, because they really did change the world.

[(Anonymous)]

according to Alan McGee (your ex boss?) in the Guardian the other week, Queen were punk. maybe thats where damian hirst comes in..

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Koons and Hirst share some traits, but Koons has inflamed my imagination (and influenced my work) whereas Hirst hasn't. It'd be hard-pressed to explain why. I think it's because I find something Brechtian about him, and also Beuysian; he's become a fully-integrated, fully-fictional character, with a philosophy attached (albeit one less sympathetic to me than Beuys'). Hirst is just greedy and grubby, and his art is just clever enough to be genuinely banal, whereas Koons' is just stupid enough to be banal in a clever way.

I may have bought snake oil, though. Koons can certainly sell it.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"Punk" just means "good" now, to some people. Meaning "good-because-obnoxious" (rather than, for instance, saying Queen were "good because gay").

I'm just waiting for someone to call Hitler "the original punk rocker" and stress his working class roots. Hasn't Julie Burchill written that one yet?

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm. Banal is banal, is my feeling, however clever or stupid that banality is. I don't honestly see a lot of distance between Hirst and Koons; they're playing the same game with different objects. I'm not surprised to find (when I googled Hirst Koons) Hirst saying that Koons was a "massive influence" on him: "'We all owe a debt to Warhol,' Hirst explains, 'for making it OK for artists to do many things: to celebrate crap! To enjoy junk! To make money, for fuck's sake! But Jeff picked up the ball and ran with it."

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Hmm, the closest statement I can find is -- wouldn't you know it? -- Dutch. "Hitler was a speedfreak" by Johnny Cohen and the New Age Nazis (http://1000aspirines.com/?p=44), "100% punk rock holocaust from the rock'n'roll master race!"

[(Anonymous)]

Didn't your own idol once proclaim Hitler to be the first rock star?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Banality signposted as banality is something different from work that is simply slick and banal, though.

Koons and David Byrne in discussion, 1975

[imomus.livejournal.com]

[Error: unknown template video]

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, seems to me that the opprobrium being hurled at Hirst will spatter on Warhol's shoes, too ("Business is an art, probably the ultimate art"--AW). I don't see what's so wrong about an artist becoming wealthy off his work instead of all the sleazy middlemen, unless you subscribe to the hoary romantic/puritanical old crap about an artist starving in his garret. Seems that what you really object to is Hirst's personality. Which I can understand: his work isn't compelling at all, and is often downright stupid. All impact, no resonance.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. But Hirst plays that game as well. I guess it's how you prefer your postmodernism served, if you want it served at all.

Re: Koons and David Byrne in discussion, 1975

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I have to say that when I met Koons, he was incredibly gentle, considerate, polite and seductive: he managed to make it feel like everything was focused on me. "I've noticed a lot of people talking about you on the internet," he said, and asked about when I was next playing live, what I was recording, and so on.

I haven't met Hirst, but I've been to his restaurant in Holland Park, and Gazza and Chris Evans sat there smirking malevolently in my direction, obviously making remarks about my eyepatch and strange clothes. A totally different atmosphere, a British attitude of overt aggression and rudeness (with tabloid paparazzi lurking outside) combined with hype, celeb culture, and high-profile marketing. And a strong sense of "Fuck you if you haven't achieved wealth and status, we have!"

[(Anonymous)]

They were radically different, in a superficial way. Sort of like how Obama is this wonderful breath of fresh air, despite his voting record being nearly identical to all the other democrats in the senate.

[(Anonymous)]

Your attack on Hirst seems rather ad hominem. You mention (twice) that he's a bit podgy (as middle-aged men often are), that he looks like Phil Collins (I don't really see it myself), that you don't like his jewellery. That's about as intelligent criticism as saying Momus looks like Gareth from The Office with less hair and even less dress sense. As for Hirst's fabulous wealth, you undermine your criticism by then telling us how wonderful the megawealthy establishment artist Jeff Koons is. Hirst is around your age, isn't he? He probably knows people you know. Do I detect a whiff of oh-so-British sour grapes?

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Interesting to note what "punk" really is and was, when now, at least in internet circles it's seen more frequently as a suffix to 'steam-'.

[(Anonymous)]

What doesn't bode well for my country is that in this campaign I have seen at least 5x the ads for McCain than I have for Obama and I don't have TV but I imagine it's the same on there. It frightens me because of this thing I recently read by Jung, where he said that individual people operate on a conscious level but masses of people far more on a subconscious level.

Everything said in that ad are logically outright lies but if you asked me to describe what I saw in detail, having just seen it once, I would say you know, the flashes of light, the cool After Effects-y 2.5D style, the waving American flames, the word Alaska, etc. Since television puts people in a semi-conscious state in the first place they aren't thinking logically when they see this anyways.

I wanted to research and see some comparative stats on ad-time between the two campaigners and when I googled "presidential campaign ad-time" the first site that came up was "An Antichrist Obama in McCain Ad? - TIME"

I think we are in trouble.

Adam Bruneau

[(Anonymous)]

American flames = American flags

heh Freudian slip
Adam

Good post

[uberdionysus.livejournal.com]

It's depressing how punk was co-opted. Punk was a shout of rage and rebellion like Dada before it against all the injustices and insanity that ruled the world. But within a few years, it was, as you say, almost totally co-opted by bullshit. It became a free floating signifier of rage and rebellion without any of the negative signifieds that punk was stand against.

At least Dada had the good sense to simply die after a few years, as its members turned to Surrealism or whatever else caught their fancy.

Not that there wasn't and isn't still people who really know what punk is all about. Just that they've lost the word to people who are wholly against everything their for. (Think about The Ex or Crass who are still following the old school ethos.)

In Momus-world rebelling is conforming. So what, then, is an “unconservative”?

[(Anonymous)]

As a white, Anglo-Scottish protestant who pays his taxes (I assume), doesn't take drugs, lives a quiet monogamous life with his female partner, believes in moderation, healthy minds and fair play and staying within the law – you might even fall into the broad social group 'conservative', no? You are 'minimum trouble' to the smooth running of the system. If capitalism was a game, you'd be 'playing ball'. (Does John McCain give a hoot what clothes you wear or records you buy or write in a blog? Absolutely 100% not. No amount of comment is going to install neo-communism.)