"You and me are molded by things
Well beyond our acknowledgment"
Stereolab

I had a friend in Austin who was the leader of a traditional Irish punk band.  He said something once about backing him up in a bar fight and was offended when my response was something along the lines of, "I dunno.  It depends on the situation."

He didn't like that.

Dallas 2007

We were friends, and I played Banjitar for him for awhile.  We went to see the Astros play in Houston, and we posted flyers on 6th street and Red River one night, when I returned from California with my wife.  The vibe was true and we were friends.  But once, while standing around in front of a tattoo parlor on 6th street with him and some chick, waiting for something that wasn't worth waiting for, I just up and walked away.  I didn't say anything, I just left.  It wasn't hostile or dramatic, and in hindsight, I should have simply said, "I have something else to do, I'm out," and acknowledged my friend and whatever trendy blow-up doll he was hanging out with at the moment, and then left.  To just walk away cold is extremely weird, at least, and is not the kind of gesture anyone would read in a friendly light.  But I couldn't stand there anymore.  It wasn't him.  I wasn't even bored.  Just far away.  Possessed of an overwhelming need to be somewhere else.  I simply wasn't there.

So I left.

In the 90s, we had a lot of disdain for "corporate culture," for anything that would absorb the individual into a formless mass of compliance and conformity.  We resisted any claim on our identity by anyone; "trend" was not a verb, but rather a noun to be avoided.  Being "weird" was good, even if the weirdness was eventually absorbed into the anonymous collective.  Social inertia is the way of the world.  Even if your achievements are truly amazing, and can be symbolized by such things as the Egyptian pyramids or the Eiffel Tower, at best, you will become a tourist destination.  You will reach the lofty, rarified air reserved for the very best humanity has to offer, and become a backdrop for the narcissistic selfies of the future.  There is no greater honor that has ever been bestowed upon mankind.

Except, perhaps, to have your corpse on display in a museum.

The sign in the photo above is full of corporate, state-sanctioned lies from the Mexican Dept. of Street Propaganda.  It reads, "I don't arrive alone, we all arrive."  "I don't arrive alone," but I have to use the feminine variant of "solo," indicating that I'm a girlboss who is more interested in being in charge than in "arriving" "with" anybody.  I'll come "with" you, as long as I'm in charge.

Fortunately for the fake revolutionaries behind the "pink rebellion," the corporate insurgency stylishly sandwiched between Mimosa Magazine and the Mexican government in the photo above, nothing screams subjugation and codependence like spreading your legs for a show produced by a major corporation.

The collective, compliant face of the fake rebellion.  Sorry kid, I don't want to have sex with your jacket.  You are molded by things well beyond your acknowledgement.

Nice try, though.

Where We Go One, We Go All is an annoying trope I've been wanting to dismantle for awhile.  A declaration by the weakest link in the chain to all the other links that might actually make it, "WWG1WGA" is a death sentence pronounced by the lowest corporate denominator to the individual links, who strive to be free from the chain altogether.  WWG1WGA says that to strive for excellence and individual liberty is futile, because "where we go one, we go all."

I'm sorry, but you're not dragging me to hell.

I get it.  WWG1WGA is supposed to be a declaration of unity.  A battle cry.  And, if the other parties are all as devoted to the cause as you are, a cry of solidarity it may very well be.  But I'd be careful.  If you're not in a literal elite special forces unit, I'd limit my "we go all" crowd only to people who are committed to going up.  Because, surely, some of the people shouting WWG1WGA are using it as a way of keeping people down.  Whether they know it, are aware of it, or not.

Misery loves company.

"I don't arrive alone, we all arrive" is WWG1WGA, en español.  Even though it can be twisted into a cry of solidarity among devoted individuals, it's a collectivist mantra at heart.  As the sign painted on the highway in Mexico indicates.  Even though it can be twisted into something useful, WWG1WGA has a strong likelihood of being the battle cry of the corporate against the individual, of the weak against the strong, of the zombies in the museum against those who are working hard to build an attractive setting for the narcissistic selfies of the future.  The WWG1WGA guy drinks pink mimosas for the government/wants to know if you'll let him drag you into a bar fight.  Even if he's wrong. 

Not necessarily.

But maybe.

Definitely maybe.

I dealt with a girlboss gatekeeper at a film school today, after walking uphill and alone through a hard river of Mexican concrete.  Bomberos, buses, and jerk trucks flowed past my feet like an internal combustion waterfall, and walking into the hallowed inner sanctum of the private school was like walking into a garden of brains, or a prison.  Because this is Mexico, the girlboss gatekeeper was friendly and not officious, but I wondered if the students in the glowing sepulchre weren't being trained at which angle to paint "pink revolution" to make it look more organic.  If I meet anybody who has a PhD in film and grassroots-looking revolutionary techniques from a women's prison, somebody who works at Mimosa Magazine and knows which font to choose to make the manufactured social movement look as punk as possible, I will have my answer.

Personally, I prefer the disparate, chaotic world of individuals.  Only individuals can spark a revolution, or a joint; collectivists and corporate girlbosses will never be anything more than followers.  Note the difference in the painted highway sign at the top of this article, and the photo above, of a public board in Parque Mexico.  Everything from dogwalking services to hidden vibes experiences to technological tacos are available in the world of disparate individuals.  Which do you prefer, the unrelated advertisements standing on each other's toes, elbowing their way to prominence, trying to make a buck, or the stylized declaration of corporate uniformity made by the members of the pink rebellion?  Where the highway sign says "where we go one, we go all,"

The board in Parque Mexico says that where we go one, we go alone.

Look at it again.  It doesn't say we're not together.

It only says that we're alone.

It's true.  We are alone.  We can be alone together, but if we're not alone, there's nothing to be together with in the first place.  So, even if it isn't cool to just walk away cold from your companions, all your punk-rock Texas baseball friends standing around like drunken Irish apples on the street, it might be the only true thing to do at the moment.  Say something if you can, but don't hesitate to walk away, if you have to.  It might not be cool, but it's true.  Whether it's the historical setting of the narcissistic selfies of the future, or a museum full of zombies, where we go one, we go alone.

Thanks for listening.