1915: Two Obituaries of Sifo (Shifu)

 

Shifu's gravestone. Photos courtesy of the Chinese Anarchist Front.

 

This notice first appeared in the Esperanto language journal La Ondo de Esperanto (The Esperanto Wave) in July 1915 and can be viewed online here. 

Shifu was an influential Chinese pioneer of Anarchism. He changed his name on several occasions and was known as Shifu at the end of his life, though in English he's remembered under the name Liu Shifu. He was also an active Esperantist and used the pen name Sifo for Esperanto writings. I translated a short biography of his life earlier, which may help explain some points.

 Sifo

Shifu (Liu Shifu) the editor of the Esperanto and Chinese language weekly newspaper The Voice of the People, died in Shanghai from tuberculosis. We take some biographical details about Shifu from his publication's 23rd issue. Sifo was born in 1884 in Hongsang* in the province of Canton. He was an extraordinarily talented boy in his youth. At the age of fifteen, he became a "Sin-Can"** the highest student in the local examinations. He participated energetically within the Chinese political movement and provided a lot of assistance to the well known Doctor Sun Yat-Sen. Sifo edited a progressive newspaper in Hong Kong and opened a school for women.

He was gravely wounded by an explosion and had to have his left hand amputated. Furthermore, he was arrested and while in prison he wrote the text On the reform of prison. After reading this text, the city officials were so stunned by the talent demonstrated by the author that they ordered his release. In total Sifo spent three years in prison, while incarcerated he also wrote texts on linguistics, including a book on the Canton Dialect. In 1912 Shifu founded an Esperanto group and became a Vice delegate for the U.E.A (Universal Esperanto Association). In 1913 Shifu published The Voice of the People, an Esperanto and Chinese language newspaper. It wasn't long before the new newspaper was suppressed and Shifu had to flee to Macau (the Portuguese Colony***) but the Portuguese authorities also disrupted the publication of Voice. 

Shifu published Voice, until the money ran out. He was an editor, administrator and printer at the same time. That is why he grew weaker with the publication of each issue, the work finally consumed him totally. When he fell ill, his poverty prevented him from seeing a doctor for treatment. Friends begged him to sell his printing press (Shifu's press was operated by hand, or in his case one-handed) but Shifu refused.

Shifu adored Lev Tolstoy and founded Conscience, a group whose principles were as follows:

1. Against Meat eating,
2. Against alcohol
3. Against smoking
4. Against slavery
5. Against using human vehicles (I.e. Rickshaws and pedicabs)
6. Against marriage
7. Against families
8. Against deputation 
9. Against political parties
   
10. Against state officials
11. Against war
12. Against religion

During his sickness, his friends begged him to eat meat, but he kept his principles until his death. 

We acknowledge the highly civilized principles of Shifu, but express extreme regret over his death. China has lost one of the most fervent and sincere pioneers of the international language. 

*I have not been able to figure out what the modern name of the city is, the English language biographies just refer to him being born in the Canton area.

** I don't know what that means, I believe this is an academic achievement, the second obituary by the British Esperantist goes into a bit more detail about this period of Shifu's life and I found a little more information in some brief biographies written in English.

** Returned to the control of the People's Republic in 1999.

Obituary from the British Esperantist, published in 1915, the original article can be found online here. And continues onto the following page.

Mr Shifu

Here is a biography of a remarkable man, excerpted from The Voice of the People, a weekly Chinese and Esperanto language newspaper. We present it here without changes.

Biography of Mr Shifu

Mr Shifu was born in 1884 in the city of Hongsang in Canton province. He was an extraordinarily talented boy in his youth. At the age of fifteen, he became a "Sin-Can" the highest student in the local examinations. However, he did not want to submit to the institution which demanded he behave like a slave. Instead, he taught himself about many practical sciences and read every kind of book he could find. Although he learnt without a guide, he came to understand many subjects at a profound level. In 1901 an 18-year-old Shifu appalled by the suffering of the people and disgusted with the rot and corruption of the government organised a public speech in his home city to inspire a political revolution, it made a good impression. He later travelled to Japan. While in Japan, he met Sun Yat-sen who was staying in Japan to recruit supporters for his organisation "Tongmenghui" after the failure of his revolt in Huizhou (1900). Shifu assisted Sun Yat-sen for a time. Shortly after, Shifu returned to China and started publishing a progressive newspaper in Hong Kong and founded a school for women. In 1907 the revolutionaries attempted to resume their activities. At that time, the official Lee Tseng ruled over Canton and opposed the revolutionary movement. Shifu believed that the first step had to be the removal of this devil.  Shifu lay in wait one morning with a suitcase for Lee Tseng to pass-by on the road, unfortunately the suitcase exploded before Lee Tseng had appeared. Shifu was wounded in the arms, head and chest. The police sent him unconscious to a hospital, after a month in hospital and a surgical amputation of his left arm he recovered from his wounds. Of course, he was tried in a courthouse. 

Shifu defended himself on several pretexts, but due to suspicion was sentenced to prison. While in prison, a living hell, he wrote the text On the reform of prison. After reading this text, the city officials were so stunned by the talent demonstrated by the author that they ordered his release. In three years of prison, instead of giving in to depression, he worked on the book "Cantonese Dialect", a work so brilliant that even famous linguists admired it. After leaving prison, he met with some sympathisers and founded a group for assassinations. In 1911 a member of this group Lin Kaun-Si threw a bomb at Lee Tseng while Shifu wished to go to Beijing to kill the Qing Prince Regent Zaifeng. Shifu was in Shanghai when the Qing Emperor abdicated, seeing a good opportunity to promote his ideas, he returned to Canton and founded the Fui Min (The Cock crows in Darkness) school.  

As you know, Chinese students of Anarchism in Paris had already begun publishing a Chinese language newspaper, The New Times. In its pages, many translations of different Anarchist ideas appeared, including Bakunin and Kropotkin. However, importing these ideas into China proved very difficult. Fui Min collecting The New Times and published them as small pamphlets that were easy to circulate, effectively becoming the soil seed of Anarchism planted within China. 

In 1912 Shifu founded an Esperanto group and soon became a Vice delegate for the U.E.A. In the summer of 1913 when civil war broke out within China he witnessed with his own eyes the crimes of the warlords and fervently attacked militarism in articles that were published in both Esperanto and Chinese in the newspaper The Voice of the People Issues 1 and 2. As a consequence The Voice was suppressed and Shifu had to escape persecution to Macau which is ruled by the Portuguese. But the Portuguese authorities agreed with their Chinese counterparts to prevent the publication of Shifu's work. That is why The Voice has only reappeared now after two years of great hardship. In July of last year, Shifu founded the "Anarchist-Communist Group" in Shanghai, which is influencing the founding of regional groups to spread Anarchist ideas throughout China.

 Shifu was brave, tolerant, decisive and hard-working. He published The Voice, with no funds and very few assistants. He was also its editor and administrator, but none of this frightened him. It is true that he was also quite sickly, as such he would fall ill after every issue of The Voice appeared and would rest for a short time before working just as hard as before once he started to recover. Understandably, this consumed his young life. When he fell ill, his poverty prevented him from hiring a doctor. We begged him to sell his press (his printing press was operated by hand) but he refused, explaining that the press was the sole source of life for our ideas in the East. It would be futile to save one person by selling it. 

Later with the help of some friends we were able to send Shifu to hospital, but alas! It was too late. The disease is incurable and so, at 10 o'clock in the morning of the 27th of March 1915 Shifu passed away aged 31. 

Shifu adored Lev Tolstoy not just for his wisdom, but also for his morality. Together with some friends, he founded Conscience, a group whose principles were as follows:

1. Against Meat eating,
2. Against alcohol
3. Against smoking
4. Against slavery
5. Against using human vehicles (I.e. Rickshaws and pedicabs)
6. Against marriage
7. Against families
8. Against deputation 
9. Against political parties
   
10. Against state officials
11. Against war
12. Against religion

During his sickness, his Doctor advised him to eat meat to keep his body strong, but he kept his principles until his death.

K. Ch. San

Tear Along the Dotted Line & This World Can't Tear Me Down

 

In 2021, I was scrolling through Netflix and saw a trailer for some animated show about a mopey bloke bickering with an Armadillo. It's called Tear Along the Dotted Line, It scratched my curiosity itch, so I decided to give it a chance. I knew it was a European series, Italian to be more precise, and since Netflix usually has terrible dubbing of European content I made sure to pick subtitles with the Italian audio. And nearly abandoned the show in the first five minutes. I don't speak Italian, but I am familiar with some words and phrases and my reading speed is pretty good. The main character Zero spoke so fast I could not keep up. 

Instead of surrender, I bit the bullet and switched to English audio, and was surprised because the dubbing was great. The protagonist Zero is a Roman working class type associated with lefty politics, the punk scene and the pop-culture of a 1990s childhood. So, whichever company did the dubbing figured out correctly that there is a British version of Zero out in the wild and cast him to do the voice. The monologue is very authentic, the slang used sounds like something a character like Zero would use in real conversation and avoids the trap of trying too hard to sound streetwise. The references that don't translate to an international audience or can't be replaced with a British equivalent are explained clearly and quickly, and each episode has an extremely snappy pace.

The plot of the series revolves around a shock revelation, so I won't spoil that. The premise though is the life of Zero, a real life Italian comic artist, and his struggles with his own emotional hang-ups. The Armadillo is supposed to be an imaginary representation of his conscience, but it seems more interested in manipulating him into negative behaviours. The show is autobiographical and uses a stream of consciousness narrative, Zero not only narrates the events and his emotional state but does all the voices of the other characters. It was surprisingly engaging seeing him struggle with imposter syndrome social anxiety and his slow, constantly halting progress towards a better place. 

In short, I really enjoyed the show it had a lot for me to chew on, the jokes landed for me more often than not and despite guessing what the revelation was going to be I still felt an emotional punch once it was out in the open. It's the sort of thing I wished I had bothered to write about when it was new, I recommended it to some friends, all of whom agreed it sounded interesting and all promptly ignored it. And the series ended pretty conclusively, or so I thought. I was surprised to see that this year they had released a second series, This World Won't Tear Me Down.

Which is why I'm finally getting off my proverbial backside to talk about the show now. Now strictly speaking This World Can't Tear Me Down, is standalone, you do not have to watch Tear Along the Dotted Line to understand what's going on. It re-introduces the characters and how the show works very well and while there are references to what happened in Tear Along, they are not crucial. I would strongly recommend you watch Tear Along first, though. Watching them out of order, you lose the sense of Zero's emotional progression. Zero is still the protagonist and a stream of consciousness is how the narrative progresses, but the voice cast is expanded, Zero only does other people's voices when he's explicitly recounting events, so he has finally learnt to let his friends take part in his world and doesn't treat them like props in his play. And the Armadillo while still a glass half empty grump has stopped trying to manipulate Zero into stagnation and does give advice that's more reasonable and leave it up to Zero to make the decisions without pressuring him.

Zero's narcissism has declined sharply since last time, though he is still struggling with a "the world rests on my shoulders" attitude and is still struggling with imposter syndrome thanks to his further commercial success. This World, also vindicates my choice as there are multiple jokes about how even Italians struggled to keep up with his motor mouth in Tear Along.

Fans of Tear Along, will find plenty to like in This World. I certainly did, ended up watching the all six episodes in one night, though admittedly I was sick at the time so had difficulty sleeping and had nothing to do the next morning. 

The story has expanded beyond Zero's personal life to looking at how his struggles are part of what's going on in Italy and the world. Much of the conflict this time revolves around the growing boldness of Italian Neo-Fascism. In Tear Along, Zero's disgust with the far right is noticeable, but it's part of the background of the world Zero lives in and what makes him tick. It was good to see that emotional issues aren't a barrier to opposing the forces of reaction, politically and socially, Zero seems pretty sound. However, the first series came out in 2021 and a lot has changed since then. Now fascist posters are littering the streets Zero walks down, and the police have been arresting Zero's friends for counterprotests against far right political groups.

I should stress these two series are autobiographical, the events they depict are true, it's just names and identities are changed. Half the new characters are represented by alias and drawn as some kind of Dinosaur to protect them. This creates a bit of a clash with the gritty street level of the events, but you get used to seeing a Triceratops deck a black shirt or a Pterodactyl slag off the local council for capitulating to an obvious strong arm tactic. This World Can't Tear Me Down is an open and overt Anti-fascist animation. And not just because of the baddies' goose-stepping into battle, their ideology and strategies are explored, exposed and condemned. 

The Fascists or Nazis as Zero keeps calling them* are opportunistic thugs exploited the failures of the Italian state to rally the discontented to their banner to pressure a weak and complicit political establishment to make concessions which will strengthen them further to repeat the cycle. They're doing this in two ways, first in a deprived area of Rome the government shipped a number of refugees into a building that was abandoned. The Nazis are targeting this district with posters and other propaganda accusing the government of selling out the local population and "Pure" Italians for these foreigners, with a major source of tension being the proximity to a school. And the second case is how they recruit new members. A childhood friend of Zero's called Cesare has returned to the neighbourhood after a long absence and is having trouble reconnecting with the community. He was in a clinic for drug addiction and in addition to find readjusting to life outside to be a challenge, he resents how he and his family were treated by the authorities. He is not a true believer, but the Nazis are exploiting both his resentment and isolation to get him to join up. They seem sympathetic to him, and they've used the lack of support for him to stoke anger over the refugees. 

In both cases, they're shown to be opportunistic deceivers. The refugees were placed there recently, but the district has been stagnating with a loss of services and employment opportunities for decades. Forcing a few dozen desperate people to move somewhere else will do nothing to fix that, it just makes life harder for people. And as for Cesare, encouraging an addict with a criminal record into further acts of violence isn't in his best interests, it will not help him reconnect with the world outside, it keeps isolated and in conflict with the few friends he had left, and their false comradery breaks down once Cesare fails to transition into a good malleable soldier. They abandon him to his fate after that. There is no happy ending here, the anti-fascists successfully break up this one attempt to divide the community, but the Nazis are still around and Cesare is free of the negative influence of the far right squadisti and probably won't go to prison because the only direct evidence of his actions was recorded by the anti-fascists who delete it rather than turn it over to the police, but he's still adrift and having to struggle with a community that in addition to difficulties understanding addiction now know he's associated with violent extremism.

It's a tough watch, but it's important, this isn't fiction it's real life. I know first hand that society fails many of its members and leaves them isolated and resentful. The scenes with Zero visiting Cesare and his mother at the beginning were a little painful to watch as they reminded me of how I and my family treated several people who were addicts** at first, constantly torn between addressing it or just trying to ignore hoping they'll just tell us the boundaries without havign to be asked. The pitiful amount of resources set up to process refugees in conditions that are just bleak at best and prisons at best isn't sufficient to address that problem, but is more than enough to create footholds for opportunistic peddlers of hate, and the respectable political representatives who are supposed to improve society are completely incapable of addressing these issues and that's assuming they aren't directly complicit which increasingly is the case. 

In a sense This World Can't Tear Me Down, is rather bleak, there is no magic cure all presented in the conclusion of the show. Italy (or the UK or France etc) is fundamentally broken, and no solution will come from it. However, despite that people can work together, reject the lies and resist the manipulation by outside forces and resist the reactionary turn. To drive that message home, there is a sequence where Zero makes conversation with some of the refugees who are grateful for the show of support but weren't worried too much about the Nazis, because instead of being the vulnerable victims Zero and the Anti-fash assumed they were they due to there experiences of violence and depredation were used to fighting and had formed a defence ring around the building and had built up an armoury or improvised weapons. The events unfolded with the Nazis failing to get inside the grounds (lucky for them I guess) so the refugees were relegated to spectators. The implication being that while what Zero and his friends did was important and a good thing, it would have been more beneficial had they communicated with the refugees and worked with them instead of just acting on their behalf.

Also this bit of dialogue from Secco really spoke to me.

"Where did I grow up? I'm an orphan. I was on the streets from the age of 15. I've never had a job, no one to support me nothing. Everything I have, I got for myself and I've never taken anything from those who were worse off than me. I get that you feel guilty but do you think that Zerocalcare is the only enligthened one that knows right from wrong?"

This was in response to Zero's handwringing about not judging Cesare for supporting the Nazis. It doesn't deny that Cesare has struggles but it shootsdown the idea that these are in anyway valid explanations or excuses for supporting far right bandwagons and lashing out at others. There's been a growing divide in anti-fascism for sometime over how to deal with the alienated recruits of the contemporary far right in Europe. Its a difficult issue to address but Secco is 100%, I also felt bad for Cesare but that isn't an excuse for what he's doing and not all addicts join up with the supporters of the new Reich. Throwing bricks through the windows of foreigners won't help Cesare or any of the alienated footsoldiers, and nor would it make what they're doing okay if it did somehow solve their personal problems. It treats Fascism and how to oppose it seriously and with nuance and years of experience, several episodes even explain tactics for street clashes and how to take precautions. 

Its anti-fascist content is enough for me to recommend it as an educational tool, its emotional maturity and clever handling of personal drama and dark humour make it one of my favourite shows.

*This is addressed directly. Fascism has managed to become semi-respectable in Italian society again, whereas Nazism is still a no-go area. So, in response, anti-fascists like Zero have resorted to using the Nazi label to describe the diverse ecosystem of far right grouplets to remind wider society of what the end game of these people are. 

** If you're wondering why I keep referring to individuals who have been clean for sometime as addicts its because that's what the family and friends I know who have gone through view it. Addiciton and rehabilitation are complex issues with many different ways of working with it, I'm not an expert and just going off of what little I know, I apologise if this has caused offense.

The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia

 

This short sequence says more about early 90s Eastern Europe than entire forests of books.

I'm reading a book on the history of censorship in animation. The book covers many well known examples and also documents some lesser known ones. It also covers the filmography of Jan Švankmajer, a Czech director and animator who serves as an example of what it was like to work in the film industry in the Warsaw Pact. To get a film or program funded, scripts had to be approved by the responsible bureaucrats, Jan Švankmajer had some success for a time getting projects off the ground, but it eventually he got a reputation for making films that were pessimistic and individualistic, in short, bad art in the opinion of the Communist Party.

Jan Švankmajer is a committed Surrealist. In the popular parlance, surrealism is just an adjective to describe work that's odd. A painting that doesn't look much like something or a play that plays with the fourth wall or a film that has a sequence that breaks the rules of conventional cinema will be described as surrealist. However, the original Surrealists were a group of political radicals closely associated with Anarchism and libertarian socialism. It's this political Surrealism that Švankmajer was inspired by.

The opposition force Švankmajer to find new work as a puppet maker and painter. Fortunately for Jan Švankmajer he was noticed by the West German film industry who introduced his work to the rest of Western Europe. Several financiers including the UK's Channel Four and the BBC made overtures to fund some of his projects, which meant the Czechoslovak film authorities reluctantly allow him to return, though opposition continued. Jan Švankmajer's film Alice, an adaption of Alice in Wonderland, was made while he was supposed to be working on a different film and was only allowed to be completed after a bitter dispute in which the foreign funders threatened to withdraw if Alice wasn't completed. 

So, with all those headaches, it's not surprising that once the regime collapsed in 1989 that Švankmajer would take the opportunity to comment on its demise. In 1990, with assistance from the BBC, he released a ten-minute animated short titled The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia. I've wanted to see this film for some time after seeing clips of his Alice. And now thanks to a YouTube channel I got my chance. It's simply excellent, the imagery is striking, the claymation animation is not only interesting to watch on its own, but it makes many of the film's points in itself. There's a sequence where clay workers in flat caps and overalls, the men who populated every Soviet poster from 1918-91 created via moulds, going through an assembly line and then hanged, after which their bodies fall into a bucket and turn back into clay which is then moulded back into workers which go back on the line and so on and so on, meanwhile the film juxtaposes imagery from Czechoslovakia's Five-Year plans with the production targets getting higher and higher. 

Practically every sequence is like this, the imagery and transitions and movements work together to make the point crystal clear even if you can't read Czech. I could describe the entire ten-minute run time, the crumpling up of posters of old Czechoslovak/Soviet leaders followed by uncrumpling those posters to reveal their replacements, meet the new boss, mostly the same as the old, as a quick example. But I'll restrain myself and just discuss what for me is the most important sequence, the film has a bookend sequence, it starts with a creaky old Stalin bust having surgery, his skull is cut open to reveal his brain, the surgeon plunges both hands into the gory matter and pulls out a smaller bust of Klement Gottwald, ardent Czech Stalinist and leader of the 1948 coup that established the Communist party dictatorship. After cleaning up the blood and tying off the umbilical cord, the Gottwald bust comes to life, the birth of Stalinism in Bohemia. At the end of the film the chronology has entered the late 80s and the soundtrack is full of jubilant crowds and photographs of mass demonstrations in the streets. While this is going on, the hands that have been controlling everything throughout the film start painting everything with the Czech national flag. A new coat of paint on rusty equipment, including an old and dirty Stalin bust. This Czech national flag Stalin bust undergoes the same surgery and those hands plunge back into the brain matter, but the film ends before we can see what emerges from it. 

The film is open about its existence as a form of Agitprop, agitational propaganda and Švankmajer has stated that he thought the film would age very quickly because it's a direct commentary upon current events  "Despite the fact that this film emerged along the same path of imagination as all my other films, I never pretended that it was anything more than propaganda. Therefore, I think it is a film which will age more quickly than any of the others." To call a film Agitprop or propaganda is to insult in conventional circles. Art is supposed to rise above petty political statements, this film is the best rebuttal to that assumption I've come across so far. Removing the politics from this film is to leave it an empty husk, its politics is its art.

Most political film animated or otherwise are frankly quite blunt and simplistic, there's a bad guy who demonstrates all the qualities the makers criticize, the good people eventually triumph etc. Here the villain is a system, it isn't the death of Stalin in Bohemia, it's the Death of Stalinism in Bohemia with a question mark. Stalin died in 1953 just days before Klement Gottwald died oddly enough. And even Stalin is manipulated by the hands of the unseen operator of the system, who is still around in 1990 and working hard to mutate into a more politically acceptable Czechoslovak national form to continue its work.

The scepticism wasn't some paranoia from an artist who thinks too much, either. The book I'm reading that reminded me to look up Švankmajer's work was published in the middle of the 1990s several years after The Death of Stalinism, was released. It includes comments by Czech filmmakers that things haven't changed completely, many of the old Communist party bureaucrats were still in positions of power in the industry and not all of them had adapted to the changing times. Which is what the Stalin bust with the flag paint was about, the collapse of the old regimes removed some of the most high profile and infamous personalities, but left thousands of lower level authorities in place, and it was an open question just how far these authorities would be willing to change. 

And of course, the reason much of the imagery is obvious despite cultural distance is that much of what is odious about the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe can be found in Western European capitalism. I've worked in factories with grimy walls covered in propaganda posters while sweating and aching to fill ridiculous quotas. The secret police are gone, but the regular police are quite capable of repression, the governing institutions are just as invested in keeping the population passive through a combination of restrictions and distractions.

 I've been to Czechia and Slovakia, so I'm under no illusion that these two things are the same, there are differences, just not as much as the propagandists of both systems would like us to believe.

The Lone Gunmen's Lone Season

 I've been watching the X-Files from start to finish, I had watched a handful of episodes on the BBC and Sky One back in the day, so a mix of its earliest episodes and bits of season 09, and I stayed up watching the first film on a school night. So, I've been enjoying going through it in order, discovering parts of the show for the first time and revisiting old memories. I'm pleased I did not imagine the episode with Brady Bunch obsessed psychic. I have completed season 09 and am up to the second film I Want to Believe, which has a reputation so poor that I decided to put it on hold and watch the spin off The Lone Gunmen.

The Lone Gunmen was a one season 13 episode spin off starring The Lone Gunmen, the trio of paranoid anti-government conspiracy theorists and investigative newsletter journalists. Technically I'm watching the show out of order since I had already watched season 09's Jumped the Shark which was the finale to The Lone Gunmen story line. 

Disney now owns the X-Files franchise and that includes The Lone Gunmen, though curiously the show is absent on its streaming service despite everything else X-Files related being on there. I have an idea as to why that is, but I'll get to that later. Currently, no streaming service is running the show and I don't think it's re-run on television much. It's considered something of a blip, it didn't make much impact in the UK, though I do remember seeing adverts for it, I believe the Sci-Fi channel carried it over here, which would explain its lack of footprint here despite the X-Files fandom being a big hit over here. Sometimes, I think I'm the only one who watched that channel.

 Anyway, the only ways to watch it are to buy the DVD, or find it online, the whole series has been uploaded multiple times to many video hosting sites including YouTube. And with no attempt to hide what it is. That's usually a clear-cut sign that the owners of the property have zero interest in further commercial activity with it. And is often a damning comment on the properties quality. Though there are exceptions, and The Lone Gunmen is an exception.

It's not a classic killed in the cradle, there are problems with individual episodes and throughout the show, but there are some high points and parts that work well. The X-Files is a Sci-Fi drama that revolved around mysteries but would occasionally stretch to comedy, romance and open horror. The Lone Gunmen (TLG) commits fully to comedy with occasional action, dramatic tensions and very brief romance. Humour is subjective, we all find different things funny, I did not find TLG particularly funny, most jokes didn't land for me, and a few have aged poorly, the blind American Football team, the farce about a birthmark on an old ladies buttocks and the Matrix martial arts fight parody stick out.

However, despite this I found myself watching the show in two days and found a lot to like in its plot and character moments, and a few of the smaller jokes had me raising the corners of my mouth. In comparison to the X-Files, which often had some absurd leaps into magical nonsense to justify its plots, TLG stuck a lot closer to the ground. The bad guys here are arms dealers, poachers of endangered animals, corrupt businessmen, there are two episodes that deviate a bit from the formula, one involving a virtual reality behavioural reprogramming technology and the other a secret government program to create super smart Chimpanzees. The focus on more mundane conspiracies and bad guys was surprising to me, since in the show the three Gunmen Byers, Langley and Frohike often believed in things that even the X-Files world treated as nonsense. 

The Gunmen reprise their roles from the X-Files with two additions, Jimmy played by Stephen Snedden is their intern and source of finances. Jimmy is introduced as a passionate moron who fails at even simple tasks like cleaning keyboards or shredding paper, frustrating the three seasoned hackers. Which runs thin pretty quick, fortunately they give the character a sort of intuitive intelligence, so he contributes more than just another body and receiver of exposition for the audience. The other addition is Yves Adele Harlow, played by Zuleikha Robinson. Yves is initially a rival but soon comes over to assist, though is still standoffish and her relations with the Gunmen remain fraught. TLG was released in 2001, so it isn't surprising how Yves is treated by the show. Zuleika Robinson is an attractive woman, and they remind you of that every second she's on-screen. Her hair and make up are always immaculate, the camera focuses on her figure, she speaks in a fake British accent that drips with cool aloofness, and she poses most of the time she isn't moving. Yves is an attempt at having an `empowered` woman via shortcutting. She's shown being cool and action orientated, and is smarter than the Gunmen. The problem is how this is done. When Yves is an ally to the Gunmen, she gives the key piece of the puzzle by conveniently knowing the information they want when she turns up. I'm not exaggerating, several episodes have the Gunmen mulling over a case and repeatedly hitting brick walls, only for Yves to walk in and know all about whatever it is they're dealing with. Though again, as the season progressed they seemed to get more of a handle on what they wanted from the character and were going in a new direction with her. I think both characters would've improved a lot in a second season, unfortunately that never happened.

I found myself liking most of the episode plots, and the core three Gunmen got some interesting character development. Likewise, I like what they did with Langley the most, apart from a long-running gag about his long blond hair getting him confused for a girl. Some of the jokes landed better than most for me, and it made sense that authoritarian jerks and establishment stooges would go for a cheap shot, it's just the constant returning to that well that diminished those returns.  I'm not a big fan of the Gunmen on the X-Files, I enjoyed most of their appearances on the show, I just didn't place those episodes in my favourites list. I guess I prefer their depictions on TLG, on X-Files they seemed like kneejerk the government is behind everything for ridiculous reasons conspiracy theorists. On TLG they're motivated by civil liberties issues, wanting to save lives and even environmental concerns, with reasons for why they hold those commitments. So if you were a big Gunmen fan and this show passed you by, you'll probably find a lot to enjoy here. 

Overall, like most new TV shows, the start was a bit rough with room for improvement and some signs that steps were already being taken to get there. But alas we didn't get a chance to see the improvements, 13 episodes are all we got. So, speaking of those 13 here are some notes I had about several that I found very interesting. I'm going to spoil many of these, FYI.

• The pilot. If this show has had any memorable moments, it is the plot of the pilot. It starts with Byers believing his father who worked for the government was murdered. And while investigating it, the Gunmen uncover a plot by a rogue faction of the US government to kick off a new climate of fear to replace the Cold War and its lucrative military budgets by crashing a commercial airliner into the World Trade Centre and have anti-American terrorists and dictators take the blame. And yes, we do get shots of the plane getting closer and closer to the twin towers before they save the day. When this episode went to credits, I paused it and immediately looked up when it had aired. I knew the show aired in 2001, but I wanted to know when in 2001. And, it released on the 4th of March. I quickly scrolled through the release dates for the rest of the show, and the last episode aired on the 1st of June, pretty close to 9/11.

 

• Bond, Jimmy Bond. This episode introduces Jimmy, It's pretty forgettable apart from that. The reason I mention it is because of a sequence that demonstrates how TV shows were starting to mature in the 2000s. Jimmy is coaching a team of blind American football players, they use technology including footballs that emit sounds. The sequence is just a series of painful jokes about how daft and funny such a thing would be, blind people trying to play football. At the end of the sequence, Jimmy makes a passionate speech about how this isn't funny at all, and blind people deserve the opportunity to play sports if they wish and people who scoff at them aren't very nice. This attitude of having and eating cake was common for TV writing back then. The show's creative teams were aware that cheap digs about appearances and physical differences were nasty and harmful, but they were still expected, so shows would try and bridge the gap by having some jokes and then having a bit that says `actually, these people aren't freaks but people and should be respected` moments. I also bring it up because there's a later episode which I could've sworn they would do something like this, but did not.
• Like Water for Octane. This episode is a race to find a car that runs on water before a corrupt oil company can get their hands on it. It's a bread crumb trail mystery, the physical comedy was tighter for me in this one, but the standout for me was the conclusion of the episode. The Gunmen foil the oil tycoon and secure the car, but decide not to release it to the public. The reason for this is because they are worried that the potential a car that runs on water would lead to an even more expansive productivity boom which would deplete the world's resources much faster and would not in fact lead to an end to oil dependency because oil is a key component in the manufacturing of roads, and plastic components. The evil oil tycoon did not want to destroy the car as was assumed, instead his plan was to capture the car and hold on to it until he could figure out how to control the release of it and profit heavily from it. He wants to pivot to water cars because oil is getting scarcer. 
• Three Men and a Smoking Diaper. This episode involves the Gunmen trying to expose a Senator for murder of a campaign worker before he's re-elected. This one ends with the discovery there was no murder, but the Senator's womanising did cause real harm and provoke the car crash. So, once he's confronted with the truth of the damage his behaviour has done he makes a public confession and acknowledges the son born from the affair. The episode ends implying he'll win re-election and the whole group cheer. This episode didn't leave me much to chew on until the final scene, I think the revelation was interesting and it shows that actions can have tragic consequences even without intentional malice. But the ending made me pause for a few moments. If Byers, Langley and Frohike were real people and not characters I doubt they would be enthusiastic that he got in he's not a friend or person they admired. But its a TV show and the politician did the right thing in the end and in America the system isn't perfect but it works gosh darn it!
• The Lying Game. Yes, that's right, TLG a show that came out in 2001 had an episode that prominently featured a trans person. I was surprised it happened and how they handled it. Carol, a woman whom Byers knew in College asks the group to help investigate her brothers murder. As the episode plays out its revealed that the brother is alive, and isn't on very good terms with his sister. The reason for that becomes clear once he outs her to the Gunmen as Trans. Byers, who is the most ethical of the three and has refered to Carol by her name and used female pronouns apart from one slip up while arguing with her brother, something he immediately regrets eventually explodes at the brother who had outed he previously for his shitty behaviour and declares that everyone deserves privacy. The rest of the Gunmen come around and at the end of the episode Jimmy and Yves declare they don't have a problem with Carol being Trans. I was quite surprised at the episode, compared to the present it isn't perfect, they don't say Trans or transition they say used to be a man, but the intent is clear. I think the episode would stand favourably if it were released today.

 

• The Cap'n Toby Show. The last episode to be released even though it was supposed to air before the episode All About Yves which ends on a to be continued. Scheduling meddling aside this episode is about a Chinese spy ring operating within children's TV show. The epsiode features some misdirection, when the spy ring is discovered the TV shows main presenter and host Cap'n Toby is fingered as a fall guy and his guilt is widely beleived by the public because his wife is Chinese. In addition to proving the real spy was a CIA turncoat the show explicitly condemns racist profile and jumping to conclusion because of ethnic and national identity. 

And now that that is finished I'll wrap up with some thoughts that verge on speculation. The reason given for the shows early cancellation was low ratings, and compared to the X-Files there's a noticeable gap, and there was a drop from the pilot to the final episode. However the ratings didn't trend down constantly, some picked up and on a special feature about the show recorded in 2005 to tie in with the X-Files DVD releases the ratings were on par with early X-Files. This is 2000s Fox, so it is entirely possible they greenlit the production on TLG expecting a X-Files at its peak audience and then immediately canned it once it was clear it wouldn't reach those heights. 

And I'm sure once 9/11 happened even the slimmest possibility of a revival was done. Having a pilot that tied very closely to the attack and effectively preempted several conspiracy theories about it couldn't have gone over well. Although I did find a 2002 TV Guide article marvelling at how little controversy this caused in the aftermath. 

Shockingly, this horrifying bit of foreshadowing was never widely reported until Thursday, when industry newsletter The Myers Report broke the story. How is it that virtually no one remembered this post 9/11? "I know! That's what I've been wondering," marvels Frank Spotnitz, who along with Vince Gilligan and John Shiban wrote the episode. "I thought, 'Nobody noticed!' I guess so few people saw the show. But it's strange too because that was the pilot and the ratings were actually quite good for [that episode], and yet, we didn't hear anything."

 The Sept. 11 Parallel "Nobody Noticed"

But it goes beyond that, the show itself has an atmosphere of distrusting authority, including governent and the military, many episodes involve the Gunmen casually cracking Department of Defence software to look for evidence of crimes and shady projects. The cliff hanger episode All About Yves involves the discovery of another secret government faction that is responsible for multiple acts of terrorism including the Kennedy assassination and the Lockerbie bombing. The Gunmen talk a lot about patriotism and the dream of America, but their sole reason for existing is because the entire system that is supposed to protect and nurture that dream has become corrupt and violent. Even Cap'n Toby a silly episode about how executives who don't get the shows they control and ruin them through chasing trends denounces profiling and assuming someone is a threat becuase they share a nation or ethnicity with bad actors. The post 9/11 years were extremely ugly and not kind to criticism or people who were Middle Eastern or Muslim or beleived to be so.

I cannot imagine a show like TLG would have been recieved positively in 2002. I suppose the proverbial smoking gun would be if I could find a definitive date of cancellation being made before or after 9/11. I couldn't find that, though I did find in the DVD special some of the creators of TLG saying that when they wanted to bring back the Gunmen on the X-Files to atleast tie up some plot threads and give the characters a conclusion they faced resistance from higher up. I can't imagine what the issue would be, they had appeared multiple times on the show so there wasn't a rights issue. Well, regardless, aside from a comic book and a cameo in the finale of X-Files season 09 and something in the later season's which I have not seen that was it for the Lone Gunmen. 

Magic Pills

 

 About a month ago, I paid a visit to the local chemist to pick up my stepdad's prescriptions while he was away on a trip. I got everything except Ozempic, they told me they had run out so if he was running low he should contact his Doctors to source a replacement. That's annoying but nothing new, there've been noticeable supply chain issues for a long time now, exacerbated by a protracted transfer of ownership of the chemists in my area. 

The day after, I was watching the local BBC news station, and it was interviewing a man complaining about his difficulties acquiring Ozempic. I paid close attention to the story. It emerged that the reason for the scarcity of Ozempic over here isn't part of the normal supply chain issues, the COVID lockdowns, surge in fuel and cargo prices, war in Ukraine, ships getting stuck in the Suez Canal etc. No, the main cause for the rarity of the powder blue stabbers is apparently a massive celebrity and influencer (I hate that word) craze over a wonderful weight loss drug called... Ozempic. 

After the report, which included clips from some California award show with Hollywood actors I didn't recognize making jokes about how Ozempic is the reason for that super skinny look that's popular in those parts, I got my phone out, went on several social media sites and searched #Ozempic. I was flooded with comments, tweets, videos, photos, gifs and memes all chiming in about this wonderful, amazing new weight loss drug. So, I can say that the news wasn't exaggerating, there is a real push to get in on the buzz.

I was left quite worried. Worried because my stepdad still hasn't been able to find a replacement that doesn't come with severe and unpleasant side effects, though he did manage to find another months supply, we've been told no one in the region can get more until August 2024. I'm also worried about the people who are buying it up in large quantities, because Ozempic is not a weightloss medication, it is prescribed for diabetic patients, they need to take it in order to live.  I know it can be hard to lose weight, I'm one of those people who seem to be a roundabout, lose some weight one month only to get it back the next and changes in diet and exercise don't seem to make much difference. And yes, Ozempic can assist in weightloss as one of the effects is a suppression of appetite, but it's designed for diabetic patients who again need it to treat a life limiting condition. Diabetes will kill if not monitored and treated. There are many other things out there that can suppress appetite, my ADHD medication does that, and I've noticed some consistent reduction in weight, which is why I won't tell you what it is, it's difficult enough for me to source my medication already without some clout chasing instastreamer shilling it as the wonder drug of the month.

I was furious at the people who are taking it because it's the latest fad, and still am to a degree, their actions are playing a role in scarcity of an important resource. But, with reflection, there's more blame to go around. They are part of the problem and the ones who are pushing this for monetary gain or purely for social media popularity, which appears to be what the majority of them are doing this for, are worthy of contempt, but this is a symptom and not the cause. We're at a moment in history where the question of production is largely solved, there are few products that cannot be produced at scale and one of the supposed benefits of capitalism is the so-called law of supply and demand, which is a guarantee that needs (demand) will be taken care of (supply) with little delay. Well, we all can see that that is a lie and this is just one of the proofs. That's the true horror here, the vast majority of medical research and production is not done for need but for a profit on a market. While the terminology refers to the takers of medication as patients, the reality is that they are a consumer base.

In this particular case, we have two conflicting consumer bases, diabetics who are long term customers, but numbers are limited, and the weight loss customers whose potential numbers outstrip the diabetics so most of the supply is going to the demand of the latter. It's not a new thing, I've spoken to friends and acquaintances that are on long term medications, and they've noticed that sometimes difficulties getting their medication correlate with some surge in popularity for some other effect. It's probably killed a lot of people and made others lives much worse. I wasn't being flippant when I said I will not disclose what medication I take, it took me years to get a prescription, and it's a constant hassle to get it every month, and while it's a controlled substance in the UK it isn't in parts of the United States where it's made, just one minor e-celeb recommending it to fuck me over completely. 

And one other issue with this system we have, I didn't know where to place it, so I'm ending the blog on this point. Part of the reason this horrifies me is that I don't think most of the people buying Ozempic because of the hype campaign know what they're doing. When I was searching through the hashtags and such, I saw multiple posts "revealing" that not only is Ozempic the magic cure to an expanding waistline, but it also apparently has the ability to fix your heart. This alarmed me because it's not a secret that Ozempic has beneficial effects for people with heart conditions, it's on the packaging and is a major factor in why Ozempic is prescribed over other alternative Diabetic treatments. It's the reason my stepdad was put on it, he has diabetes and heart issues and thanks to Ozempic he doesn't have to juggle heart and diabetes medication. It removed a tonne of stress and worry over keeping on top of 20+ pills a week. 

So, if lots of people are taking a diabetic medication that affects the heart without supervision, and they weren't even aware of these effects, then that is a very worrying sign. Medicine doesn't work like it does in video games, it isn't a totally beneficial for everyone who takes it. It helps my stepdad regulate his insulin and sugar levels and his heart, but that doesn't mean it will for you or everyone else. I would not recommend anyone take anything that affects your heart without some form of monitoring and supervision. My ADHD medication is controlled because it does very destructive things to normal people, over a 100mgs can kill you. For me, it gives me focus and aside from some light nausea it's been negative free. I'm the only one in my support group that's on it, everyone else is on other medications because mine didn't work for them, some of them have been on dozens with multiple changes in dosage, times of taking them etc, and some have had very nasty side effects.

 Treating medication as a commodity that can just be bought and used or abused is a very dangerous thing. This system doesn't benefit anyone except for the small few who own it.