This week’s episode of Hard Ticket has really fucked with my conception of who this character is supposed to be. This Is Spinal Tap and The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash clashed in a truly calamitous battle of the bands. This cosmic struggle is miraculously upstaged, however, by my first ever shout-out on the Hard Ticket podcast. As a result, I no longer know who I am or what I am doing. I was content to be a passive observer, drinking in Jeff’s sultry timbre, whilst running the dulcet tones of Tristan’s utterances along the rim of my metaphorical and literal anus. Now, someone’s slipped a finger in, and I am left to question my place in the cosmology of the Hard Ticket universe. Am I the critic, watching and reporting from the audience? Am I merely one more character on a stage of fools? Or am I backstage, getting my hole packed by a vaguely paternal homunculus, losing track of this metaphor as I lose track of my orgasms?
This Is Spinal Tap is a documentary about titular metal band Spinal Tap. Confusingly, some people seem to think that this band doesn’t exist, even though I literally watched their story unfold with my own eyes. I think that’s called the Mandela Effect, but I may be remembering wrong. This ultra-memorable, oft-forgotten metal band consisted of David St. Hubbins, Viv Savage, Mick Shrimpton, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls—no relation to Biggie. As the band struggles to sell tickets to their tour promoting new album “Smell the Glove”, we get a glimpse at the deep bonds which connect these artists. Through their trials, they break up and come back together. Except for Mick, who after exploding, very much does not come back together.
The Rutles walked so that Spinal Tap could explode. This documentary features a series of snapshots from the titular Rutles as their careers progressed. Interestingly, the trajectory of the band closely resembles that of the Beatles. Unlike their inferior competitors, who they were often unfairly compared to, none of the Rutles have gone on to play a concert in Tel Aviv though. Good on them for supporting the BDS movement. After all, all Israel needs is cash.
Speaking of Israel, I think we should discuss documentary Jeruzalem in closing. I have blocked most of this movie from my conscious thought, maintaining a clear apartheid between this experience and the rest of my brain. But now that the movie has been mentioned, I think I owe it to my faithful and non-genocidal readers to point out that this movie is not actually true. It is a work of hasbara (propaganda) from the Israeli government. A recently unearthed Wikipedia article has all the details I can’t remember because I think I was still drinking at the time. If not, I should’ve been. The movie starts with a scene of Jewish and Muslim priests performing an exorcism together, which is explicitly illegal in the real world’s Israel. Shortly after the zombie apocalypse begins, the Israeli Air Force begins bombing parts of Jerusalem, which locals assure our indistinguishable tourist protagonists is totally normal and fine. Because for Israel, it kind of is. They are eventually saved by a Palestinian man who takes them through tunnels he learned as a child, before being immediately killed. The only other Palestinian character in the movie commits suicide, making him the Israeli’s ideal Palestinian. The movie ends with the deceased brother of our POV character, now an angel, leading her from the tunnels to see Jerusalem swarmed with flying zombies that might be demons? It’s a confusing and unnecessary movie that I am super happy to be forever connected to in my first ever Hard Ticket shout-out. In closing, my hard ticket goes to This Is Spinal Tap.
Also, I decided I can be both art and artist, that’s totally fine.
Hard Flickit 