Oh dear
Is it wrong of me to find a wanted killer attractive? I glanced at the cover of the Herald Sun on the way to work this morning, and was slightly disturbed to realise that Hell's Angel gunman Christopher Hudson was actually kind of hot, in a rough trade sort of way.
I'm going to hell now, aren't I?
Comments
Did you check out the shirtless pic HAWT!!
i have his shirtless tattooed pic on my fridge! ..
Perhaps anonymous should lighten up a little.
Wrong crushes happen all the time. It doesn't detract from the heinousness of this man's crime.
you say anonymous should 'lighten up a little'? what a callous thing to say. he knows the family of the victim. he has every right to take the tone he did.
show some respect, all of you.
I also respect and commiserate with how you must be feeling regarding the family of Brendan Keilar, the man shot and killed by Hudson.
That said, I'm also very much aware of the intrinsic connection between sex and death, amor and le morte, which is what led, in part, to this post that has so offended you.
Sex, and sexual desire, are inarguably physical, as is death, and thus the two are forever linked.
What is orgasm, after all, than a giving up, however briefly, our conciousness and the control of our bodies, and being swept away by a force beyond our control? Little wonder the French call orgasm 'the little death'.
I do not believe in silencing my desire, nor keeping things hidden and silent. This blog is a testament to that.
Thoughts and feelings kept repressed are never healthy. Better that they be given voice, even if that expression is done in a way others might find distasteful and repugnant.
I'm sorry if that is how this post has seemed to you; it certainly wasn't intentional.
Let me ask this: how soon after the Challenger space shuttle explosion did you hear your first jokes about dead astronauts? For me, it was a matter of hours.
I believe that by laughing at death, we diminish our fear of it, and its power over us. That doesn't mean I am laughing at the memory of those whom death has taken.
My deepest respect to you, and to the family of Brendan Keilar - and to the life he lived, and untimately sacrificed, by coming unasked to another's aid.
I haven't seen you in about a decade, but its good to see you're still finding big hairy hetero acting guys attractive.
just curious.
Conrad - what can I say, I'm a creature of habit. i hope you're well, btw.
stan - possibly not, although i have no doubt i would still be writing about him in one way or another. i've explored my father's sudden death as the subject of poems and spoken word pieces; the untimely deaths of friends in short stories; and written about sex and death, in various guises, for over 15 years. it's just something that I do. *shrug*
Check out his own website (though it's not been updated since he went into jail), his Wikipedia entry and the photo that makes the point.
Actually, I find the discussion here quite fascinating. It reminds me of Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies, looking at the boundaries between what is and what is not acceptable to say. I imagine (possibly incorrectly) this sort of issue pops up quite regularily in different contexts from a gay point of view (even more-so in other countries where admitting you are gay not only breaks people's expectations of what they thought your were even if you happen to have open-minded friends, but also societies values).
Apart from "I think" vs. "you think", maybe you could write a post on speech and these sort of social boundaries, like why such speech does empower you, or why people do find such speech offensive. Would, say, cultures that don't fear death so much find it offensive to the same degree?
oh that's right, richard -- you're a 'writer', an 'artist'. you're excused then.
feel free, then, to continue to publicly blog about 'beating one out' a day or two after the next poor bastard is murdered on our streets. but not if it's a relative or lover of yours, of course.
your attempt to equate the 'little death' of orgasm to the big and very public death of this solicitor was self-important, patronising and arrogant. and weak. your kind of 'anything goes' mentality is the reason why society is at such a crossroads. no, i don't believe in censorship, either, but i do believe in bounds of common sense. even of, gasp, sounds incredibly old-fashioned...decency.
i believe you head some major arts organisation... can't wait to see what you program.
can't say i'll be attending, either.
how many of us were a little disappointed that he turned himself in and didn't die in a shootout with the police? or have acted like experts when talking about bikie gangs? sure you might know the family now but how many jokes have you told about other peoples' misery?
you can make your point about 'sex/death' and all that crap without flippantly referring to 'appropriately violent metaphors for masturbation'. LOL!
by your reasoning, if the mx or the herald sun does it, then it's a free for all. in any case, richard watts wasn't 'articulating what a mainstream newspaper was exploiting'; he was simply articulating his own selfish desire.
he's already admitted he probably wouldn't do it if it was a relative of his in the news; but it's someone he doesn't know so that's OK.
in fact, what the hell has anything you say got to do with the points that have been raised here?
but considering that you barry obviously don't then i can say that i am truely thankful that there are such pillars of virtue in the community nay in the human race as yourself.
In addition, if the post had come out in a few weeks from now, to err on the safe side of acceptability, much of the impact, and why it is interesting, would have been lost to many
i doubt however that anyone who knows the victim has been offended by this. Why would they? They are far too busy attending to the recovery of the survivors and the burial of their father and husband to read this...
I'm glad you said it Richard, cause I thought the same thing when I saw the front page of the Age the other day. The man is hot...no getting away from it...and it does give you pause I suppose because we're not used to thinking about evil being beautiful.
Unfortunately it often is otherwise it wouldn't have such a following.
richard began it in such a crude way. i know decency and restraint are old fashioned, but he could have showed some, and put his brain to work to discuss the points you raise. it was the flippancy of his comment that maybe irritated people..