Monthly Archives: July 2021

Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe: Revelation dropped on Netflix today -- or, at least, the first five episodes have. And while many fans are already commenting and commiserating that He-Man is largely absent from this tale that is all about a bitter Teela's quest to save Eternia, there's a mix of good moments in this, albeit blighted by the nihilistic plot points that come up later in the run.

The series opens with Skeletor and his forces mounting an attack on Castle Grayskull. Again. And pitting all their might against The Sorceress. Again. Only this time they deceive her, and she puts out the call for her champion, Prince Adam, who is attending a promotion ceremony. His friend, Teela, has risen to the rank of Man-at-Arms, equal to her father. When the distress signal is received, Teela leads the forces of Eternia to the rescue, while Prince Adam does his Shazam thing to become He-Man. During the heat of battle, Skeletor angers He-Man enough that he stabs Skeletor through the chest with the Power Sword -- exactly as Skeletor planned. The sword was also a key, and the keyhole was hidden behind Skeletor. The power that has been hidden by Castle Grayskull all this time is now accessible to him and, healed by Evil-Lyn, he takes it -- a move that has the potential to wipe out the entire universe. He-Man has moments to stop it, which he does, but in the ensuing explosion both he and Skeletor are gone, and the Power Sword has been split into two parts -- and vanished.

This is only the beginning of the loss of all hope in the series. Back at Castle Eternia, Man-at-Arms must tell the king that He-Man is dead -- and that He-Man was also Prince Adam. The king does not take this well, casts out Man-at-Arms, and barks new orders at Teela. But Teela, realizing that everyone she knew, all her friends, had been lying to her for years about Adam, is bitter and angry. She resigns her commission and storms out on her own.

The next time we see Teela, she's shaved half her head and takes missions for hire. Accompanied by her new friend, Andra, she accepts a quest from an older woman who turns out to be Evil-Lynin disguise. Ultimately, this puts Teela on a course from the now frail Sorceress herself to retrieve the two halves of the Power Sword and reunite them so that magic can return to Eternia and save both it and the universe itself.

The quest takes Teela and her companions to the two spiritual realms of Eternia -- Subternia, the underworld, and Preternia, paradise. In Subternia, Teela must face her fears, wth He-Man being among them. She retrieves the sword and Evil-Lyn -- yes, they're doing a Cruella on Evil-Lyn -- uses it to open a door to Preternia. But to get everyone there safely, Orco must make the ultimate sacrifice.

It turns out that Preternia's version of Heaven is just a retirement frat-house where dead heroes -- and, yes, Prince Adam is among them, so he's really dead -- relive their glory days and recount their many adventures. Our traveling heroes meet He-Ro (who looks an awful lot like Malibu Comics' Prime) and King Grayskull, the first to weild the Power Sword. But there's no sign of Orco, so did he really die earlier?

Well, yes, and maybe. But even if he did for sure, he wouldn't end up in Preternia. Because apparently that's only for heroes. When Adam decides to make the journey from paradise to Eternia with his friends (following the mortal sacrifice of yet another member of the team), he is warned that he would be mortal again -- and when mortals die, they just return to the earth. So their heaven is reserved only for a select few. Your average person simply ceases to exist, which seems pretty depressing.

Masters of the Universe: Revelation is incomplete. There will be more episodes to drop in the future. But the rumors about it being Teela's story aren't rumors, but facts, and Kevin Smith seems hell-bent on killing off He-Man for good with this series. There's a bit of language in the series, all of which comes from Andra. It's nothing you wouldn't find on a prime time sitcom, but at the same time, it's out of place in a MOTU cartoon.

The truly great moments of the show come when the men sacrifice themselves for the greater good -- Orco to save his friends, Roboto to reforge the Power Sword, and Prince Adam to return to Eternia and fix what went wrong. But there's also a pervasive feeling of futility, and a heavy dose of it with the mid-series cliffhanger.

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Heroic Nihilism -- The Eternian Apocalypse of Masters of the Universe: Revelation - Critical Blast

Sometimes, it all gets a bit much. Parts of the Amazon are now giving out more CO2 than they are absorbing; parts of Germany and Belgium have been devastated by catastrophic flooding; wildfires rage across the western United States. Thats just the planet.

Then theres the global health crisis, Covid, which also seems to be spiralling with no end in sight if all countries cannot simultaneously get on the front foot with vaccines that work against all variants. This seems like a battle that can never be won.

Ive coined something called the doom sigh. Its the sound I make when reading any article or listening to any report that has an apocalyptic undertone, which is currently, many. Sometimes I doom sigh so much theres hardly any breath left thats an entry point into anxiety and in that state, nihilism wins and I feel unable to cook my own dinner, let alone act as a soldier in the global fight against climate change and pandemics.

Im sadly old enough to know this pattern of media-induced despair and where it leads. For me, this is the path to defeatism a big internal enemy. The its all too much attitude soon enough takes you to a place of I may as well be selfish and just enjoy myself then, because we are screwed anyway. This is not helpful.

Another internal enemy is wilful ignorance. Not reading the news might save you stress and I have huge sympathy for those suffering mental ill health as a result of too much bad news consumption. But not being informed isnt an option if you want to be part of the solution. Controlled consumption of news may be a sensible strategy. For example, during the worst of the first wave of the pandemic, I would only get my information from Channel 4 News one hour a day. For the rest of the day, I focused on my immediate loved ones and work.

Despondency is not going to stop climate change.If you are experiencing it, like in John Bunyons Slough of Despond the thick bog of the careworn and guilt laden inPilgrims Progress, you have to get through it to survive.

To fight the climate change fight, you need to feel positive, confident and optimistic. We have to believe we can create positive change, even in fact especially, when things seem dire. Thats becoming increasingly hard when the bad news is raining down. But like that psychological trick you can play on yourself to make you feel happy forcing a smile if one doesnt naturally occur every day to boost your joy hormones, an artificial boost of can-do spirit is necessary sometimes, especially in the face of such odds.

I often wonder if, in advocating for the power of our personal finances and investment to change the world, I am backing the right horse. Should I instead be working on systems change, regulation or policy? Changing things from the inside rather than placing yet another burden on the shoulders of normal people who must do something, like switch pensions, to feel like they have done their bit? As Ed Gillespie, author of Only Planet, said in a recent podcast, consumer-led change can only take us so far.

But then maybe there are no magic bullets here even regulation and policy have their limits. Planet-saving strategies are all just pieces of a puzzle, with everyone trying to find the right place for their piece. As with the fight against Covid, we all have a part to play in stopping the spread.

The limitations of the investment world are also becoming apparent, with claims last week that the burden of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) box-ticking is becoming too much for publicly-listed companies, costing them time and resources. To private equity investors without the same reporting requirements and fierce external scrutiny from stakeholders, ESG is fat to be trimmed and profit to be made. This, it has been suggested, is a looming threat to the ESG endeavour.

Another is the apparent impotence of investors to preserve and rescue so-called natural capital: nature to you and me, but if you are an investor, its nature that might have some economic value in addition to its hopefully fairly obvious value in and of itself.

Peter Michaelis, fund manager for the Liontrust Sustainable funds, said recently that while the UN Sustainable Development Goals are a useful framework for sustainable investors, the goals for life in water and life on land are difficult to support with profitable investments there are simply not enough companies both making money and meeting these goals for us to support these SDGs meaningfully with our bank accounts, ISAs and pensions. My hope is that a convincing and genuine way to invest in nature will emerge one that doesnt devalue it. But it might be that nature remains something uninvestable and we will have to rely on alternative ways to preserve it that do not depend on capital markets.

Over the last six weeks, Ive had a broken wrist and a Covid infection. Despondency levels were high I was drowning in Bunyons bog. Doom sighing at the news, doom sighing at my own inability to function.

Im feeling better now. The planet can too. Healing, regeneration, renewal. Even now, after so much damage has been done. But we have to believe it is possible and feel that sense of optimism about solutions if we are going to create the ways to make it happen.

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My hope for a convincing and genuine way to invest in nature one that doesnt devalue it - iNews

On Monday night, Donald Trump issued his endorsement in next years race for Texas attorney general. Youll never guess who he picked. Let me give you a hint: It was not the guy whose name rhymes with tush.

Thus concludes the single most craven political career inhonestly, Im not even sure how long. Because no politician in my lifetime has brought more dishonor upon himself than George P. Bush.

Over the course of his five years in politics, Donald Trump insulted, disparaged, and slandered many decent Americans. One of them happened to be George P. Bushs father, the former governor of Florida, Jeb Bush.

Lets take a trip down memory lane with a (partial) list of the things Trump said about George P.s dad:

Then there was the time Trump retweeted a dudewhose handle was White Genocidewho made a meme of Jeb as a homeless beggar outside Trump Tower.

Now maybe you say thats just the hurly-burly of politics. Its just locker room talk. Nothing personal. Man in the arena. Whatever.

Except that Trump also insulted Jebs wifethis would be George P.s own damn motherand, even after a cooling off period, refused to apologize for it.

And then there was the time that Trump talked about George P.s uncle, George W. Bush, and literally accused him of treason.

George P. Bush surveyed all of this, thought about the family to which he owed everythingdo you think this guy could have gotten elected dog catcher in Amarillo if his last name had been Jones?and decided that he didnt just want to be the Texas attorney general. He really, reeeealllllllyyyyyyyy wanted to be the Texas attorney general.

So he did this.

That, my friends, is the idiot grin of a man who thinks that selling his soul is just another thing you do. Like snagging a clerkship. Or landing a job at Akin Gump. Or getting into private equity. You want to do a thing so you just . . . do it. The doors of life are open and all you have to do is walk through them, without a care for the consequences of whats on the other side.

It gets worse.

George P. Bush leaned into this entire affair so hard that he sold merch boasting about the betrayal of his family:

Please note the date: This is from June. Six months after the January insurrection.

What did this abasement and betrayal get George P.? A fat load of jack squat.

Surely George P. wasnt foolish enough to think that Trump would go so far as to endorse him. But he probably hoped that, by toadying as shamelessly as possible, he might keep Trump on the sidelines and out of endorsing in the race.

At the least, he must have hoped that Trump wouldnt weigh in until much later in the race, when, if George P. had good poll numbers, maybe Trump would be nervous about endorsing someone else.

But you must understand that this election, the Republican primary, isnt until May 1, 2022. Its more than nine months away. Trump endorsing this early effectively puts an end to the race. It freezes all of the party establishment and money in place, because now to be for George P. is to be against Trump. Aint no Texas Republicans fixin to do that there foolishness.

It may surprise you, but I would argue that this is the best possible outcome. Maybe not for TexasKen Paxton, who has been under a longstanding indictment for securities fraud, could potentially wind up in jail as a sitting AGbut for America.

Republicans needed an object lesson in the wages of Trumpism. A great many Republicans still believe that if they just get along, theyll go along. That if they keep their heads down, or truckle under, they can keep running their game. That so long as theyre not like those icky Never Trumpers, the revolution wont come for them.

To go against Trumpism is to court defeat. To abase yourself before it is to add dishonor to the bargain.

The funny partand really, this is the single weirdest irony of our entire nationalist odysseyis that Trump frequently ended his rallies by reading The Snake.

Donald Trump literally told the Republican party who he was and what he would do to them. It was not subtext. It was the actual text. He read it from a paper. Over and over again.

Most of the party, it turned out, wanted a snake. They embraced the nihilism because it promised a chance to hurt their enemies.

But men like George P. Bush refused to believeeven at this late datethat the story could possibly be true.

Let his shame be a reminder, a warning, and a lesson.

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The Damnation of George P. Bush - The Bulwark

Peter Rehberg and I met at school in the mid-1980s. He was born exactly a year and a day before me, and was in the year above me Verulam School, the single sex comprehensive we endured in commuter belt Hertfordshire.

My musical tastes had matured from the stadium synthpop of Howard Jones to Soft Cell, Bauhaus and, erm, New Model Army. My mates and I were mainlining John Peel's Radio 1 shows and one day after school, two of us ended up in a conversation about all this with Peter. He offered to do us some tapes. With characteristic efficiency, the next day my friend received a C90 stuffed with Jim Thirlwell's Foetus productions, which blew our teenage minds with its symphonic cartoon nihilism.

My tape was Psychic TV's Dreams Less Sweet album, which Peter suggested was best listened to on headphones in the dark. This simple act of generosity would prove to be a major turning point in my life. The sounds and music on Dreams Less Sweet were like nothing I had ever heard before and I was terrified and fascinated in equal measure. It would be my first initiation of many that took place in darkened rooms late at night...

Peter's enthusiasm and evangelism about music was equalled by his inability to fit in with our school's stifling regime. He was banned from using the stereo in the sixth form common room after several incidents with Swans albums and some turntablism with a Captain Scarlet sound effects record.

One day us older pupils were subjected to a business workshop to focus our minds on future wage-slavery. It included a lecture from an invited speaker about what industry meant to us (not a lot). This was followed by some group work, where we had to produce a visual representation of our impressions. Obviously this was a load of bollocks and the outputs were instantly forgettable. Except one: Sunday supplement magazines had been cut up as source material for a large collage featuring factory chimneys, smoke and barbed wire - emblazoned with the slogan YOU DON'T HAVE TO ROB A BANK. It looked like the cover of a Throbbing Gristle bootleg. The group's spokesman displayed the artwork to the teachers and about two hundred bemused kids. He muttered apologetically: I'm really sorry, Peter took charge of this one.

Peter kept a watchful eye and was always happy to provide suggestions as I hoovered up the Some Bizzare back catalogue and boldly snaffled the weirdest records the local Our Price had to offer. One time I visited him at home, talking two to the dozen about the Butthole Surfers' Locust Abortion Technician LP. My mentor proceeded to pull out the band's entire back catalogue from his floor-to-ceiling record shelves. We watched his copy of their insane Blind Eye Sees All video and made a pact to see them live.

I finally got to a Psychic TV disconcert in 1987, marvelling at the array of freaks in the audience. I hid behind Peter in awe as he casually struck up a conversation with the goddess Paula P-Orridge. That summer was a lot of fun. Peter's beaten up blue Volkswagen Beetle ferried us to the Rough Trade shop in Ladbroke Grove, or to incredible gigs like Big Black's final show and an ecstatically deranged performance by the Butthole Surfers at the Clarendon. Starting the car involved fiddling about with some wiring under the back seat and there was no stereo, so we'd chat nonstop about music up and down the motorway.

Our record and gig habit was funded by doing dead end jobs. We both briefly had weekend shifts at Tesco. I vividly remember Peter getting bollocked when it emerged that he had spent about an hour dropping Marmite jars on the concrete floor of the storeroom. He liked how they sounded. Neither of us lasted long stacking shelves, temping jobs in the school holidays were better paid and more varied anyway. Early one morning a group of us was being inducted into the tedium of order picking at some warehouse and I noticed the manager becoming increasingly distracted. His eyes were drawn to Peter's T-shirt, bearing the bold proclamation: SWANS: PUBLIC CASTRATION IS A GOOD IDEA.

We both reacted badly to authority figures and were too easily distracted by music so unsurprisingly we both completely fucked up our 'A' Levels. Peter cashed in the dual-nationality he had from his father and headed to Vienna. I spent a miserable year doing retakes while my friends regaled me with their university adventures. I eventually scraped into college in London. Peter and I stayed in touch. Being from London and possessing sheer drive was enough for him to blag some DJ slots and insert himself into music journalism in Vienna. On his next trip to the UK we interviewed Cabaret Voltaire's Stephen Mallinder together and visited the offices of Mute Records, where Peter grinned at Daniel Miller and told him that he blamed the label boss for the way his life had turned out. I had to pinch myself.

Peter's next phase was already in train. He insisted that I buy a copy of LFO's debut album. There was vague talk of an ambient project. But I wasn't ready for the off-kilter inventiveness of the early Editions Mego releases. Nobody was. By the time I got to Vienna in 1997, Pita was an established artist and there was a buzz about the Vienna scene he was at the heart of. I was one of the speakers at the Association of Autonomous Astronauts' first Intergalactic Conference, which had been organised by Konrad Becker and Marie Ringler of seminal arts and culture venue Public Netbase.

Konrad's 1980s recordings as Monoton meant he had a natural affinity with Peter's work, so I assume that is how Pita was given the role of DJ at the children's party that was part of the event's eclectic programme. He did not compromise one iota with his set and it was a joy to watch the kids run around like maniacs and pogo to the drones, glitches and walls of noise. It ended abruptly. Peter later told me that some of the parents had been shocked and had complained, but he was characteristically amused by this and exasperated that the kids' enjoyment had been curtailed.

I found it hard to keep up with him after this. We'd meet up in London occasionally for a drink or a gig and he'd stuff armfuls of Editions Mego product in my hands or email me a bunch of download codes. I know I'm biased, but I never saw him do a bad performance.

Peter's love for music also extended to the people who made it. In 2012 we got the train from London down to Bexhill for the We Can Elude Control festival at the De La Warr Pavilion. Our travelling companions included Russell Haswell, Nick Edwards (Ekoplekz) and EVOL. Peter joked that he'd made the journey to the event to check on my investments (i.e. his artists), but his taciturn emails belied a deep affection for the people he signed to his label and collaborated with. I watched him talking to younger fans after gigs and taking the time to find out about their projects. To their delight, the more persistent ones would be inveigled into shifting his gear out of the venue.

I last saw Peter in 2018 when he played a modular set at Sutton House, Hackney's oak-panelled stately home. His excitement about forthcoming projects and his infectious humour about his escapades were unabated. Peter's life's work was music. And he spent his time doing exactly what I believe he was supposed to do. Whenever I spoke to him, the thrill of discovery that we shared as teenagers was always there. It physically hurts me that we will never meet again. But those conversations, his music, the countless people he inspired, the hundreds of incredible releases Peter was involved with all of these are an abiding and monumental legacy.

Farewell Peter, we were lucky to have you.

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Features | Remember Them... | You Don't Have To Rob A Bank: The Roots Of Peter Rehberg - The Quietus