192

markets, of new forms. In capital's actualization of pop art
there are no square pegs, even the squarest are more or less
rounded, being fitted into, with a squeeze, the sea of holes in
that juncture making something of a product for something to gouge
at. Bogus subjectivities, call it Puff Daddy, struggle to establish an
outsider position by rehearsing scenes of conflict and
transgression, mingling them with approximations of regret and
thereby holding onto maximum airtime; hip-hop recreates fate,
'dat's just the way it is,' and it's all Achilles and Hector condemned
to a primal scene of rudimentary struggle but really there is no
stripping away of the veils, this is not life, this not how it is. What
rap has to say is just lad's tales, soldiertalk; the base is not
uncovered in pseudo-accounts of pump-action nature. Society's
truth, employment, is no more to be found In the Ghetto than it is in
the suburbs.

Capitalism is obscured as much by rebellion as it is in affirmation,
the antagonism created out of class interest, that is, the real terms
of our social existence, is to be found not more clearly in punk rock
than it is at Disneyland. Even rebellious cultural forms work within
existing terms, there is no way of assuring that some 'message'
might survive commercialization - not that the revolution is
dependent on messages or that we haven't got it already; Roger
Daltry can sing "meet the new boss same as the old boss," but our
repetition of that formula only confirms that impossibility of
autonomous consciousness, the very fact that we have heard of
Roger Daltry proves we cannot develop revolutionary
consciousness, there is no unfenced ground from which it can be
generated.

Expressivity, the urge to be traveler and not tourist, pioneers the trail
and Dylan mocks, "now, you see this one-eyed midget shouting
the word 'now,' and you say, 'for what reason?' And he says 'how,'
and you say, 'what does this mean?' and he screams back, 'you're
a cow, give me some milk or else go home." There is no more to
the avant garde than this. We've got a secret, you don't know
what it is, we turn our backs on you, and you want to see what cute
kitty is getting the tickle, and if you pay out enough money then
you will find out. 'I liked them before they got famous' is the
straggler's refrain because what did he ever possess really? Wilen
a new games console comes out, enthusiasts queue up from
midnight, to be of the elite, to beone of the first in the country to