Thursday, July 22, 2004

eat me.

the latest rammstein video almost made me physically sick this morning.

it's awful in it's imagery, awful in its darkness and aggression, but above all, i made the mistake of listening to the lyrics.

i saw an interview with them this week, in which they explained that their new single "mein teil" was about armin mewes, the rotenburg cannibal.

armin mewes searched and found a man through the net that wanted to be eaten by him. he found someone, a man from berlin called bernd brandes, and they carefully drafted a plan that would incorporate both their desires. that plan involved the cutting off, frying and eating of bernd brandes' penis, while he was still alive. unfortunately, penis apparently doesn't cook as well or taste as good as the two of them had imagined. how sad is it, if you end your live for the fulfillment of a fantasy that doesn't work out as planned in the end?
can we utter a collective "duh!"? wouldn't this make a good verse for a new version of alanis morissettes "ironic"?

the details of what happened in mewes huge estate are mindboogling, and i honestly regret that i ended up reading that 20 page report full of details (straight from mewes mouth) in stern magazine sometime last year. it was a whole lot like reading american psycho, which i regret reading, at least somewhat. i wish i had never read that scene with the rat. hell, i wish i hadn't read about that biting of labia scene either. but i have. however, that was fiction, and what mewes did with brandes was real life.
he videotaped the whole thing and mewes wasn't found out until more than a year later.above all, the whole cases raises many legal and ethical questions; mewes trial (which ended with a guilty conviction, and an eight year sentence) was controversial. was it murder? was it assisted suicide? his "victim" wanted to be eaten, after all. can you actually consent into being eaten or does the legal concept of the inailenable dignitiy our basic law assigns everyone make this impossible?

in their interview with mtv, the charming members of rammstein gave their position on that issue.

after all, they said, brandes offering himself to mewes and being eaten by him was an act of love, of friendship. bernd brandes wanted to be eaten by armin mewes. the average pig, the average cow, they said, doesn't even get asked.

good point, that one.
one for veganism, i'd say.
not a good point for allowing consent into being eaten though.