Strolling Through Watts In A Red Black & Green Liberation Jumpsuit

From the archives. Wrote this one just as the bombs started dropping on Baghdad, with fear in my guts and a too-wide smile on my face. What's amusing to me is how dated many of the references seem already, nine months on. Part of that was by design—obviously "All Your Base" was a year past its sell-by date at the time of writing, but it seems positively Mesozoic now; roll on, the inevitable acceleration of media obsolescence...

So I've been listening a lot to Gil Scott-Heron's fabulous "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," and it strikes me that it's very much... of its era, let's say. A time capsule of a certain time and a certain place.

Thought it'd be fun to do a piss-take / pastiche / update / homage, keeping the same funny / apocalyptic tone and cadence and shoehorning in as many ridiculous in-jokes and flash-in-the-pan internet culture references as possible...

The Revolution Will Not Be Webcast

You will not be able to do it from your keyboard, sister.

You will not be jerking off over green-tinted nightsight military porn footage on your monitor, brother. Because the Revolution will not be webcast.

The Revolution will not be webcast. The Revolution will not be Slashdotted: the Revolution will not be Need To Know. You will not read about the Revolution in the Onion: you will not read about the Revolution on CNN, MSNBC, BBC dot co UK or Reuters, because the Revolution will not be webcast.

You will not see pictures of Tom Coates splitting a pig's head with his iPod: You will not see pictures of Mighty Joe Flyboy sodomizing Paul Wolfowitz with a flagpole at high noon on the Capitol steps: You will not see pictures of theory bitches in full-on drag lashing John Howard with Woomera razor-wire, because the Revolution will not be webcast.

You will not hear the Super-Friends screaming "Wazzuuuup!" as they dance around a bonfire of US currency: You will not see Mahir strutting through the smoking ruins of a Turkish mosque, wearing nothing but his tiny red Speedo and playing his accordion: You will not see Salam Pax as kneeling in the rubble, alternately laughing and weeping as he pulls off a Scooby-Doo style rubber mask, revealing the face of Tariq Aziz: All the Revolution's base will not be belong to you, because the Revolution will not be webcast.

The Revolution will not let you make thousands of dollars a week working from home: the Revolution will not show you farm girls gone wild: The Revolution will not give you the lowest prices on Viagra: The Revolution will not increase your penis size by up to three inches, because the Revolution will not be webcast.

Andrew Sullivan will not have six column inches to rebut the Revolution: Warren Ellis will not be blogging lo-rez Handspring Visor JPEGs of burned-out armored personnel carriers on the streets of Southend: Jason Kottke will not unveil a stunning redesign of the Revolution, because the Revolution will not be webcast.