The View Post-Mortem: Don't Ever Forget Your Cigarette Case Again!

Frequent readers of this piece of the internet know that I smoke. I'm not a chain smoker by any means, but nicotine is in my system.

Around 1999, my mother gave me a cigarette case as a present. I cherish it to this very day. Even though on average (meaning non-writing periods) I only have 4 cigarettes a day, I carry that cigarette case with me whenever I leave the house. Call it a lucky charm or superstition or what have you, I just feel weird leaving the apartment without it even though I rarely ever use it.

Well, I forgot it this time.

It didn't really matter to me that I didn't have the case on my person until The View screened Grace Jones's "Slave to The Rhythm."

Let me explain.

I love that song, but given the fact that I wasn't even a tween by the time it came about, I never saw the video. I've always loved the song, but never saw the video until recently. Good god, that video disturbed me something chronic.

You see, this is what I used to think of "Slave to the rhythm."



However, the actual video itself, frankly disturbed me.



I guess I wasn't prepared for seeing all the variations of Topsy combined with Grace shooting herself at the end*. (To make matters even worse, The View was playing an extended remix version.)

* I might be a bit hypocritical here, since I've used a fair amount of violence in my work.

It's funny, I completely get the original uncensored version of "American Life..."



...because while it is extremely gory, I do also realise that W and his war mongering is only a brief, albeit dark, moment to deal with. (I also agree with the lyrics as well.)

The video for "Slave to the rhythm," however, reminds me of how long the images of the time when black people meant nothing are still lingering. Honestly, it's solely related to the images, because you cannot divine the images based on the lyrics, except in the most vague, abstract sense.

And no, I don't blame Grace Jones nor even the video's director. Their whole point was to be shocking.

It's just that the fact that it is still shocking to me, lo these many years later, that gets to me. So you'll hopefully understand why I was cursing the fact that I couldn't take my discomfort and frustration out on some tobacco.