CAUTION: I swear... my
actual default mo[o]d[e]
Dear Jamie,
Late November 1988, I
bought Véronique Sanson’ Moi, le venin vinyl. An album I listened
to secretly as it didn’t fit well among my Punk, dark-new-wave collection: how
could I explain to my peeps that I loved that black flatbread disc while canvassing
a back-combed hairdo à la Siouxsie &
The Banshees? (La zarma de honte t’vois).
Allah, I listened to it on an endless loop almost like a mantra: “... ET dans sa robe rose ; Elle avait mis des
choses qui détonnent… Et le camion explose ; Elle a donné sa vie pour ta
cause… Allah, Pourquoi le feu et la misère ; Prie pour la fin de la guerre ;
Délivre-les du Mal… ”.
Two months before the release of her
record,
Salman Rushdie was publishing
his
Satanic Verses. On
Valentine’s Day 1989, he received a
fatwa from the ayatollah in Iran. On 2 March 1989,
Véronique explained in
Libération
and later in Oct 89 @
Lunettes Noires pour Nuits Blanches
why she couldn’t sing
Allah à
L’Olympia in Paris.
Following
Chantal Akerman’s death and my article on her
NOW’s
exhibition @ Ambika P3 (until 6 Dec 15), I’ve been
listening to
Allah again, realising it
was produced by the singer’s ex,
Michel
Berger (which
Mortelles Pensées seems
to be dedicated to him after she left him for
Stephen Stills –
Neil Young’s
music partner): [
Moi, le venin is the
only record I own by the lady but what a sumptuous raging and poetical
galette reflecting on dark times].
The one time I switched song was
to play The Chameleons’s Don’t Fall at the very moment when the NME revealed Nick Cave’s son cause of death... The world is sound would “mantra” Talvin Singh on his immense electro-hypnotic 11’ Traveller’s track. The world is sound, if only Jamie...
if only!
14 November 2015: around 7.30
AM (GMT). [Since your mother cast her spell; Every kiss has left a
bruise...] Deprived, questioning, feeling powerless and lost for
words, I posted a song on FB: Lament by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Thinking
of the victims, but also of those by proxy. Those whose faith is being ripped
off! Those whose religion is soiled by vile appropriation of Allah’s preachers!
[Now your head is used and sore; And the forecast is for more...]
I had just watched the highly graphic
visual and audio
Le Monde’s
video by (now injured) journalist
Daniel
Psenny.
Minutes later, while I was
reading FB threads of people searching people, people being silent on their
walls... you,
Jamie Catto,
ex
Faithless frontman turned
film-documentary director for one of my fav DVD
One Giant Leap turned spiritual catcher... you posted: “
'Deploring violence against the privileged
parts of the world, but remaining silent about the destruction of third-world
countries & ecosystems by your own government, is hypocritical and a
primary reason these things happen... Paris:
what comes around, goes around'” from an article on
We Are Change that you profoundly found
necessary to publish on your FB wall as a wake-up call to all of us stupid
earthlings... hours after the Paris’s carnage!
This is not the first time in the
last year alone you have caused upsetting with your provocative preaching! (We
have been FB friends since 2009 when I created a FB profile account and you
were one of my first friend requests). [Now your world has turned to trash; Broken
windows on the past]
[
Let me refresh
your memory here: I worked well with
Chris Blackwell’s
Palm Pictures
(
PP) as a journalist and when I
produced events in 2005 in
my north London
warehouse, I was given the green light to project your
One Giant Leap’s film; when I left for
Latin America, I had no intention to run anything but visit places following
the 7/7 2005 terrorist attacks in London. However, for circumstances
highlighted in my letter to
OLI’s Derek Birkett, I was “high jacked” to produce an
event on
Bjork and
Matthew Barney. My condition was I
would also present social / musical material. Agreed with
PP, I presented your work on an Audio-Visual free to the public series
called “
Border Media: resistance and
exodus of sounds”.
flyer from Border Media: resistencia y exodus de sonidos (2007)
The cycle included work from
Radio Nova, 25 years of history
as well as
World Traveler Adventures from
Arnaud Frisch’s label
Uncivilised World (RIP): all agreed and
approved with their respective posses! FYI, I got paid $300 for two months work
that included a translation in Spanish for Radio Nova when local minimum rate was
$400 a month! But I’m a white rich European, aren’t I? Having trouble to pay my
return ticket to Europe, a local cultural centre offered to buy my DVDs / CDs,
but I couldn’t fool those press officers who trusted me in Paris and London. I
refused and
sold my ass
instead while ATA got millions of $ over the years from a
funding trust in Holland thanks to my event on Bjork and Barney!]
Taken from Jamie Catto's FB page on 14 Nov 2015
I was the first to react on your
offensive post! 36 hours later, you deleted me, blocked me, gathered 240 likes
out of your 5000 friends and over 2000 followers... and many more upset people!
And yet, you can’t see how upright you are, frozen solid in an arrogant attitude
from a pseudo-master who is all-knowing as if you received some God’s
transfusion!
What am I supposed to do? Sit in
a lotus position on my ass sweating puddle (am plagiarism myself) and recite a Hare Krishna motto “If shit happens, then it’s good shit!”? Even
shamans get angry for fuck sake!
[Take that child, and
teach him senseless; Damage the dream, damage the dream] And this is
you, pretending to be super zen when you get offended because I call you names!
What names? If this was even slightly true, a decent guru wouldn’t even notice
but try to guide! No, you pursue your goal of upsetting – you have to take
credits for being good at upsetting women (I’m talking here specifically about a
woman who was dealing with her traumatic past and you treated her like crass)...
the number of times you have undermined women on your threads is pathetic! But
a man tells you to “fuck off” or “fuck you”, you don’t even lift an e-eyebrow!
Taken from Jamie Catto's FB page on 14 Nov 2015
Why is it that men who feel
challenged by a woman grant themselves the privilege to puke on her that she
has tantrums? Using a vocabulary accredited for children! How is this engaging
into a dialogue! You act on something, you get a reaction! You drop a bomb like
a terrorist and you can’t get the blame! Are you part of a politician game? [In this gloomy, haunted place; All the feelings are of shame]
Taken from Jamie Catto's FB page on 14 Nov 2015
Instead of soothing the tension,
you pretend to be calm and play a mind twisting game. You give no explanation
and cowardly repeat to anyone upset “Look
for yourself – Do you own research”... Jeez! Just get out of your groomed ocean
of ass sweating, you drowning!
Could it be that you know a
certain Géraldine, Metz born Bristol based, ex WOMAD
cock sucker? (Not sure on that one but it sounds good). Ok, I know she’s been
on your friends list before you accepted mine.
[Let me explain here:
the girl was a business student in France and was desperate to work for Peter Gabriel (I never discerned
whether she was in love or regarded him as a father figure) and she needed some
work experience. An empty CV is not doing the job, so I indulged! I took an
empty CD box, fed it with a colour per page à la Real World, and wrote anything related to her. Two days later, she
was called for a RDV. I took two all days to help dress her: she had no sense
of dressing and she was huge (I’m not, so I found it difficult to project). Upon
getting the job, she promised to get me to all WOMAD UK festivals for as long
as she worked for them. As a music journalist, I didn’t need it but quite
frankly, it was easier as I didn’t need to justify on which magazine and when I
would publish. On the second year, I arrived in Reading with my back pack, told
my name at guest-press office and was not registered. They called her and she
was very pale and sheepish (the usual her really). The press list was full and
I certainly couldn’t afford to buy a daily ticket for three days. One of Real
World peep, who had slept at mine on a few occasions was on his way and gave me
an access all areas pass. I was not angry with her at that stage because she
said the press-guest list office was useless. Yet, in my gut, I sensed a distorted
story. Festival finishes, her brother comes back to London at mine as she had
asked me. Sometime later, I managed to get hold of her communication with the
press-guest list office and it turned out she asked for her brother and I to be
her guests but was told that as a volunteer, she could invite one person. I
swear I have never sent a more ferocious email to anyone... and I’m good at it!
Trouble was the whole of WOMAD team read it (I didn’t send it to them) but she
claimed she warned me I had to ask myself for a press ticket since I was a
journalist. Not only I was passing for a very confused person, but she managed
to befriend all people I worked with directly or indirectly from Charlie Gillett (hello Suzy) to MAB @ FMB to Andy Morgan and so on].
“Leaky tantrum” Jamie when you
could have been comprehensive on the sensitive topic makes you a very
insensitive cocky cunt! It’s a bit like when
Second Run DVD
decides to ignore my emails after a four week battle and numerous emails and
then I was reminded how women get hysterical. Would a guy receive such email? I
don’t think so! And yet, perhaps only another woman writes regularly on the DVD’s
boutique! Silence is no answer and cutting people’s voice on ground they have a
child’s fit is not any better! [
All the windows have been broken by
the children; So the wind screams up the stairs; Slams the doors, and rattles
chairs]
Being hysterical according to Second Run DVD
As for your “fat ego” Majesty
Jamie, you are constantly holding court on how people should behave and act as
if you were blessed with some sort of intravenous cosmic knowledge. If you take
a mirror, you would perhaps realise how manipulative and undermining you are. People
stroking you in your hair’s waves get a pat on their head!
You actually hijacked a
terrorist act in order to pull the cover on you: diverting the course of
thoughts like a prayer (don’t people get told to pray to prevent themselves
from thinking?) to provoke a light on yourself and jerk off to a lecture you
have to give an hour after posting your crass. Class! You got your moment of
attention and basically told anyone to get on with it and fucked off to your
own pretentious life. [I wish we weren't conceived in
violence; Damage the dream, damage the dream]
Taken from Jamie Catto's FB page on 14 Nov 2015
[I feel nothing, I feel
nothing at all; I feel nothing at all] Saturday morning, I didn’t
want to pray. I don’t pray anyway. I couldn’t think. I observed. Time for
grieving before digesting the news and start thinking! I don’t feel that way
for any country that get bombed, but I do feel close to some places in the
world where people suffer a natural catastrophe or repression. It doesn’t mean
I don’t care about other countries but hopefully I don’t go and offend people
who are grieving or mourning! I mean mourning not being relieved from a close
person who is expected to die.
Your lack of respect, vulgarity
and indecency Jamie Catto speaks louder than my rants (my mission on earth btw,
I should be a millionaire for it). You make me think of the “evolution” of
Fabian’s character in
Lav Diaz’ Norte, The End Of History! A totally inept and
inapt chap who thinks he’s in the right path but ends up as a beast. [
The magic is broken; The house is in ruins; Your memory's one-sided; The
side that you're choosing feels nothing; Feels nothing at all; We feel nothing
at all]
Your wake-up call made me realise
how insignificant and false you are. I’m glad you deleted and blocked me. It just
shows how little you can take and how you are part of the problem and far from
the solution. It was not the right time to post such a thing which you eventually edited!
Taken from Jamie Catto's FB page on 14 Nov 2015
I want to fear around the right
people but I’m not afraid of those attacking with guns or with their preaching!
Yesterday, thanks to
Natasha Atlas for posting after Sybille & co vs Jamie, Lebanon born Paris based trumpet player
Ibrahim Maalouf
posted this on his FB wall: “
Hier
Beyrouth, aujourd'hui Paris. J'ai peur pour ma France. Effaré, je relis pour la
centième fois ce passage des "Identités Meurtrières" de Amin Maalouf, qui sonne si juste, en
espérant que la France ne s'enlise pas, à l'image d'une certaine partie du
pays, dans ses récentes et nauséabondes certitudes sur un idéal identitaire
qu'il lui arrive parfois de prêcher, je l'espère par erreur...
Grandes pensées pour les
victimes de ce soir, pour la France, et pour tous ceux qui pleurent hier,
aujourd'hui et pour longtemps encore, Ibé”
Posted on Ibrahim Maalouf wall on 14/11/15.
Extract from Identités Meurtrières de Amin Maalouf
[You've been raiding
too much meaning from existence... Memories falling, like falling rain; Falling
rain... Every view they hold on you is; A piano, out of tune; You're an angel; You're
a demon; You're just human] – song by James, Lullaby
As Luc Le Vaillant writes in Libération just now, we will dance and sing again when time comes... and it just feels good that
someone had the balls to say it!
