.

 

 

it was a good day (circa 1978)

How I would improve reality TV

creationism vs. dinosaurs

 

More reality tv show improvements-

Also I have been watching the new season of P. Diddy's Making The Band. Normally i am not suprised if tv is ass.but if the premise of your show is "Let's torture R&B singers" and it is STILL boring. . . that is just a mind-boggling fuckup. how is that even possible? Let's face it, R&B singers need to be tortured all the time, ever. but, because of the way music is totally denuded of anything like creativity, emotion, and life, the show still was dull. It's all, do this dance step, sing these lyrics, hit that note, faster faster! Basically it has turned into a job, albeit one where nobody gets paid. So it's got that going on too!

My favorite scene was where the contestants split into 4 groups of 4 and performed short acapella auditions for mr. Diddy. Not one of them did anything fun, like Pounding on a girl's back to make her sound like a motorboat when she takes a solo, or playing air guitar, whipping live king crabs out of their underpants and using ventriliquism to make it seem like the crabs are hitting the high notes, or doing an R and b version of "springtime for hitler," . . .which actually it might be more fun to see an r and b version of Millions of Dead Cops' JOHN WAYNE WAS A NAZI. For the finale they could all stagedive on the producers and go to jail. NOW THAT'S TEEVEE, MOTHERFUCKER!

actually what would be REALLY amazing would be a r and b version of fucking DIAMANDA GALAS. One of her trademark shrieking avant-garde feedback greek dirges about aids. basically she makes Yoko Ono look like Patsy Cline. Can you imagine that? "Hi Puffy, thank you for this wonderful opportunity to show our EEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIEII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Failing that, what if they did that thing that crazy Indian tabla drummers do where they do a whole drum solo with their mouth, complete with hyperspeed polyrhythms and like going from 6/13 to 5/9 and back while just staring at each other from 3 inches away and yelling "Dha Dha te te dha dha tuna tunA" in perfect fucking unison. Actually I am not making this up. It's apparently called "saying the bols."

But in the final analysis, I think the worst thing about Puff Deedily's MTB is that most of the kids looked stone sober. Frankly, if they were so drunk they could barely stand, I would be watching it every night. Plus, now that I think about it, MK-ULTRA'S MAKING THE BAND would be fucking awesome. In order to get more young people to sign up, the CIA sposors a band audition, then secretly doses the contestants with toxic amounts of lsd and dimethyltryptamine. At first, they think the nausea is just their nervousness, but when was the last time people got so nervous their pores all opened up and started screaming? And the screaming WAS OFF KEY! AND HAD NO PIZAZZ!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO LOSE FOR SURE!!! And then right in the middle of the song from Titanic, they start to actually drown, and suddenly eels are coming up out of the ocean and sliding under their skin. Medics are waiting with stretchers, four-point restraints and rubber tubes to stick in the mouth to prevent anyone from biting her own tongue off.

Ok, here is another one - PUNK MAKING THE BAND. Get like 100 punks and tell them, "Look, we don't care if you can sing or play guitar good. Talent is very mainstream. and besides, how can we be sure you really mean it about smashing the system? We hate posers here! That's why instead of auditioning on stage, I'm sending you out into the city. By this time tomorrow, anyone who has not punched a cop or burned down a bank will be cut. Any questions?" again, this is classic tv. Way more interesting to watch than my other idea, TECHNO MAKING THE BAND, which is basically some overweight flamboyantly gay nerd with a too-tight, stained tshirt lecturing the contestants, who are all inanimate drum machines and Protools. But, this being a Making The Band, he's super drill-seargant about it : "you call that sequencing? You call that quantizing? Excuse me, honey, I have quantized better stools than that!" "Ok, who wants to make some technooooo!! I can't hear you! I STILL CAN'T HEAR YOU!!! Ok, guys, if you are not going to take this seriously we can just stop right now."

also, I would like to do a ROCK version of Making The Band, which I assume would be called Making The Band Rock. IT would still have the same boot-camp atmosphere as the MTV one, except in my show, there would at no time be any actual music. You would have a few totally haggard burnouts like Ace Frehley or Phil Spector or Rick James, or one of the less famous, embittered Halens, marching around with riding crops, yelling, "snort this whole pile! If you overdose you will be cut! none of that wishy-washy, talent-show popularity-contest bullshit. Just, whoever lives is the winner. You can go back to your mama or go to the emergency room, but either way you are OUT OF HERE." "WHAT?? YOU CALL THAT SNORTING?? I'LL SHOW YOU SNORTING, MOTHERFUCKER!!"

Whoever survived the first round snort-off would go on to the next contest - Playing A Small Very Conservative Redneck Town In Mississippi And Getting Arrested For Indecent Exposure. Anyone who did not get sent to jail would be cut. Again, no music would be necessessary for this scene, but I have the feeling that the winning contestant would go that extra mile and write a special song, such as "Exposing My Gay Penis To Stem Cells Of An Athiest Abortion. . .Which Is Evolving."

There would also, needless to say, be Whammy Bar consultants and Guitar Face therapists. The remaining contestants would be told, "Ok, you pussies! Let's face it, most rock stars have vast vast amounts of STDs from years of sex with people they cannot remember. To do what we do day in and day out requires absolutely ignoring the huge pain emanating from our grotesque loins 24/7. to see if you can handle this, we will be making you perform live tonight for one hour, while wearing chastity belts wired to deliver constant 100 volt shocks."

And, if anyone survives that (plus the Paternity Suit segment, the Creative Differences segment and the Plane Crash), the final challenge is, Who Can Do The Best Live On-Stage Total Freak-out, Screaming And Cursing The Audience, Until The Promoters Have To Cancel The Show. Points would be awarded based on the amount, in dollars, of damage done by the ensuing riot. Also for passing out in your own piss. Points deducted for every song actually finished before the freak-out. "YOU DON'T KNOW MAH DADDY! YAH COCKSHUCKERSH! GUG YEW. . AH MEAN, FUG YEW, YOU DON'T .. .. YOU DON'T (BGLLLEAAHHHH) KNOW WHAT THE FUCK HEY WHAT? YOU GOT SHOMETHING TO SHAY? TOUGH GUY? WELL, GET DOWN HERE, PUSSY! IT'S THE JEWSH, MAN! THE JEWSH ARE DOING IT TO. . .(sobbing) I got a paternity suit, plus alimony. . WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING HERE? YOU FUGGERS!! DON'T LOOK AT ME!! FON'T DON'T LOOG AT MEEEEIEEEEEEEIEEE!!!" (dragged off stage by bouncers)

The winner I mean, how cool would that be?? And the people who finally won and got to Be The Band. . . as soon as they win, they are all sued by their new record label for all the costs of making the tv show, plus the costs of lawsuits filed by the families of the deceased losers, plus all their master tapes are stolen and sold on the internet via Napster. Yes yes yes mmmm tv.

 

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IT WAS A GOOD DAY, (CIRCA 4 TH GRADE, 1978)

After school, leap off the bus and tear-ass home.

Get my snack on -- Graham-cracker-and-peanut-butter-sandwitches, and to drink? Tang dissolved in milk!

Kick the soccer ball up the steep hill and it would roll back down. . . because I Lived in the countryside, so there weren’t any other kids to play with. Or juggle the soccer ball like Pele, using knees and shins too. Kept telling myself if I could get to 100 then I would humiliate the school bully by winning the imaginary “soccer ball juggling championship”. Eventually get bored and kick it as high as I could, down towards my house, watching the huge arc the ball made, seeming to go even higher compared to the steep downhill grade of the hill, my most spectacular non-imaginary display of 9 year old power.

Then, tv ? captain cosmic, goldar and silvar, ultraman, captain scarlett, with chocolate chip cookies in the mix or better yet, tangerine sherbet (don’t spoil your dinner!)

Then put on my space helmet and tear-ass around the outside of the house with a ray-gun playing space. Used to make my own custom ray-guns out of Lego.

Toys ? shogun warriors, micronauts! Shoguns were totally expensive, but micronauts were a total bargain at k-mart, and, compared to GI Joes, micronauts had hella more poses you could do, plus their comic book was way better also. Another fun game was,“Dig a hole and fill it with water from the hose.” The rocky volcanic terrain around the house made hole-digging problematic but it was ideal for Green army men battles!!

Chores ? weeding in my dad’s huge garden, getting a quarter for every hefty-bag full of leaves I raked up, and watering mom’s big collection of indoor plants.

Then, dinner. Fuck no I am not going to eat my vegetables. Fine then, maybe I WILL stay here all night until I am done. M*A*S*H is a rerun anyway.

After dinner, bath. Hella tiny toy boats and The Big Battleship with moveable gun turrets. When I get out it is hella cold so I run wildly up to my room and sit in the center of the dark room with linoleum floors and I am on a tiny sun-shaped knit rug naked basking in the intimate red glow of the space-heater. My body curled around it for warmth, like a second woumb. That's what i got instead of hugs!

Maybe read the monster manual or some x-men.

Then, bed. Insomnia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Lying down, for hours every night, rolling my head back and forth on the pillow, and singing to myself making up melodies. Dr. don rose on KFRC. “Why dr. don, you son-of-a-(BEEP)!”

Radio right next to the bed, turned on as low as it will go, to test my ears.

One whole side of my room was windows, so every morning I would wake up to light streaming in colored bright golden by the curtains. Waste most of the before-school time in front of the space-heater again, then quickly tear around getting my breakfast on and brushing my teeth with a hysterical, violent ferocity. go walk to the school bus. Lived in the countryside so I’d have to walk like 20 minutes to get to the bus stop. All the neighborhod kids standing in a group and mercilessly scrutinizing whoever showed up next. That sucked. Ride the bus to school, hoping the bullies wouldn’t pick on me. Bus driver all playing top 40 radio ? paul maccartney and wings, dancing queen, and the song “my my miss american pie” which seemed to be in hourly rotation for every single day of my elementary school bus-rides. I tended to gravitate to the more hard-rocking stuff such as journey and foreigner.

At school, recess with achilles bronnemann, a first-generation swiss immigrant with a vast collection of smurfs and a yacht, and dana and eric moes. Dana was a hyperintelligent kid from a huge family of mostly adopted refugee and handicapped kids, headed by his biological computer-programmer parents. Eric was short, chubby and the quintissential spaz whose body seemed to naturally and constantly generate the kind of sugar high that most of us only got from eating froot loops. Achilles and dana would be the core of the group, and play eric off against me, alternately including one of us and excluding the other for their amusement. We would all sit and draw proto-comics of disembodied eyeballs, whoever got the muscles right was the coolest ? and of hyperviolent hamsters; our attempt to both embrace and reject the cuteness which we were in the process of outgrowing.

At recess ? four square! No liners, no take-overs, and no tea-parties which were a problem mostly when girls got in the mix. Or, kick the soccer ball to your friends, which would only last until one of the bullies asked to see the ball “for a second” and then kicked it as hard as he could in the opposite direction. Somehow we never thought to team up on him even though there was like 3 or 4 of us. Then there was “let’s play space” on the jungle gym. . . climbing to the top and imagining it like the prow of a literal space Ship, cruising at great speed through the eternal void, me staring bravely ahead.

In class, always getting busted for drawing while the teacher was talking. I would always offer the same defense ? “I can listen and draw at the same time!” math, which was ok. I ruled the times tables but absolutely hated long division. My teachers said I did it the baby way and I had to learn to do it the grown-up way, although after graduating high school I never once long-divided. I remember in 6 th grade I read the whole dante’s inferno, loving the satanic violence and gustav dore’s insanely detailed illustrations. Skipped the footnotes, though. Tried purgatory and gave up ? not enough blood. As for heaven, forget it. My teacher asked me what I was reading, expecting me to say like “my little pony” or something. I said, dante’s inferno. She looked me right in the eye and said, “No you are not.” Just like that, end of discussion.

 

 

 

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Dinosaurs vs. creationism:

Why do Christians pick fights about dinosaurs?

Like, out of all the things in the bible, why are dinosaurs so freaking important?

I always thought the point of organized religion was to help people have good morals. To help them navigate the moral crises of everyday life. For example, “this guy owes me $4,000 bucks. He’s not paying it back. Should I accept the loss or should I get drunk, go to his trailer with a tire iron, and start smashing shit?” or, “I’m happily married but lately I’ve been attracted to another man. How do I deal with this?” or, “my elderly father just passed away. How can I cope?” THIS is the shit that religion is supposed to deal with.

Have you ever met anyone who, in the throes of a moral quandary, made their decision based on the age of the freaking earth? Like, “Well, the earth is over 4,000 years old, so I’ll bash his head in with the tire iron.” Or, “well, the brontosaurus really existed, so I’ll sleep with the guy.”

What the hell???

At least when Christians pick fights with violent video games or sexy movies, you can see how morality has something to do with it.

I mean, creationism is trying to defeat science with ‘facts.’ That’s like Stephen hawking turning down a chess contest and insisting on a wrestling match. Not only is this doomed, but even if it was successful, who the hell wants a fact-based religion??? Boooring. Instead of tyring to kick ass in the one field it’s bound to fail at, the Christians should change the battlefield to the one thing SCIENCE is failing at: morality. A good pro-christ, anti-science argument would go something like this:

“Science offers us two visions of the world: mechanistic determinism without free will, and quantum fluctuations which are basically random and therefore ALSO without free will. So, if there is no God and no free will, why should we be nice to each other? If there’s no God and the bible is just another book, why shouldn’t I cheat on my wife? Can someone explain, using only science, why I shouldn’t just steal your car and go to Vegas drunk and sell your car to some pimps and then use the money to play blackjack? Why should I work my ass off trying to get rich the old-fashioned way when I could just sell cocaine? And if there is no free will, how can we say that the murderer, the child molester, the racist or the war criminal are responsible for their actions?

Sure, the great majority of scientists are not wanton robbers or libertine, cross-country-killing-spree hijackers. But is that because they have some mathematical-type proof that one ought to be nice? Or is it just because they are a bunch of nerds that would not be able to rob and rape without getting their scrawny asses kicked?

So, stick with christainity. If nothing else, you’re more likely to stay out of jail.”

THIS is why I would make such a kick-ass preacher, if my other get-rich-quick schemes fail.

 

 

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SEXISM STILL BAD!

(JSYK : in this article I am not talking about college days, but adult life)

there is way more dude scientists and artists than wymyn scientist and artists. Much has been written about how this is sexist. To which I could not agree more : it is sexist against GUYS! At this point you may be forgiven for just rolling your eyes and thinking, “OK, here he goes again, just talking shit,” but bear with me. It is sexist against men because if a lady is in a band (or at a science conference for that matter) she will find herself surrounded by 80% guys. However, if a guy is in a band (or a science conference), he will find himself surrounded by 80% guys. If you are an hetero, the problem here should be pretty easy to see.

Of course some of this gender imbalance is the guys' fault. But I really think that, in 2005, you will have a hard time finding a guy who still says “Girls can't rock!” or “Girls can't factor a polynomial!” Mostly I think there is a gender imbalance because when a lady sees a good musician/artist she doesn't think, “Shit, man, I can do that! I'ma start practising 4 hours a day!” . . . she is more likely to think “I wonder if he's single?”

Don't lie. You know what I'm talking about.

The few women who DO go into creative fields get boyfriends pretty quickly, whereas the guys (ok, straight guys) find that our creativity works against us -- we are too weird for “normal” women and there is too few weird women to go around.

Why do women complain about male-dominated fields? Every straight guy I know would LOVE to be in a room that is dominated by women. But where can we get the opportunity?? What, I am supposed to go to the church picnic? I am supposed to give up going to punk shows and start going to the fucking aromatherapy workshop and pretend I am interested in scented bath-candles?? Not exactly the same, is it?

This status quo hurts women, too. For every lonely he-nerd spending $100 on porn, there is like 2 lonely women spending $100 on designer shoes or fad diets, as if shopping will make her a better person. God, that sounds so “sophmore humanities student” but it is true. Plus I totally messed up the plurals but I have a crippling hangover and can't be bothered. To reiterate -- there is no need for a lady in 2005 to bust her ass trying to “look nice” or keep up with trends! A lady can get a steady boyfriend way quicker with a drum set or a lab coat-and-calculator than she can with a gallon of hairspray and Chanel pumps. Not to mention that brainy girls are more interesting and fun to be with! And of course, one can be totally feminine AND creative if that is your thing.

So what exactly is the fucking hold-up, ladies?

because i am sick of waiting for the Crazy Girl Of My Dreams. . .

 

 

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THE BRAIN-DAMAGED HAVE A LESSON TO TEACH US ALL.

One of the most fascinating things I have ever heard, was a story about a scientific study. The participants were all people who had suffered an odd form of brain damage: the left lobe and the right lobe had been disconnected. These people aren't retarded or anything, but when they read something using their left brain, the right brain literally has no memory of it. So the scientists would give the left brain some instruction, such as “leave the room and wait outside please.” And then when the person went outside, they would ask the person, “why did you go outside?” and the person would invariably give some normal, sane-sounding answer such as “well, I was thirsty and I wanted to get a glass of water.” Or “I just wanted to stretch my legs a bit.” EVEN THOUGH THIS ANSWER WAS DEMONSTRABLY FALSE. THE PERSON BELIEVED IT WAS TRUE!!

The point, of course, is that normal people do shit every day for hidden reasons, or no reason at all. We do shit, and THEN we make up some kind of rationalization for it, and we persuade ourselves that the reason came before the action. And we honestly believe this delusion, and that is how we go about our daily lives.

Ok, has anybody else heard of this study? Can you email me and tell me where the official report of the study is? Because I sure as hell can't remember where I read this, but I swear it is true.

Anyway, (and here I am moving from Shit I Read to New Shit I Am Just Making Up), I think that this randomness and self-delusion applies not only to our everyday actions, but to the labels we give ourselves too. Like, people say, Oh, I am a football fan. I am an indie rocker. Blablabla. I am a metalhead, so therefore I hate fans of Michael Bolton. I like michael bolton so therefore I hate goths. All this kind of high school bullshit. And yet even after people supposedly grow up, they still keep in cliques. I'm a Republican. I am a Muslim, so I hate jews. Blablabla. And of course people can come up with pages and pages of reasons and arguments of WHY their group is better than the other guy's group.

But it's all bullshit.

Basically you are a member of a group because they are a surrogate family; people you can talk to, people that accept you; people whom you have something in common with. And that “SOMETHING” is totally fucking arbitrary. Whether that “something” is stamp-collecting or scientology or marxism or cb radio or the Skull And Bones society, it DOESN'T MATTER. All the “somethings” have the same function, which is to give your lonely ass some friends in this big cold world.

You did not join the Punk group because they are the “only ones with balls to stand up to the fucking system, man”. You joined because they were the only ones who would HAVE YOU. You did not become a football fan because “The NFL is the most manly, exciting sport ever” ? you are a football fan because that is the first group that would HAVE YOU. You could just as easily have become a stamp collector or some guy who recreates civil war battles, or gets together with pals to fly motorized planes sculpted out of balsa fucking wood. Deal with it. The hobby itself is just an excuse, a rationalization. The primary motivation is the bone-deep instinct of humans to find COMMUNITY. And this distaste for the hobbies/political parties/religions of the Other Guys is one of the main ways that a community defines itself. All your arguments and reasons why your group rules are just like some brain-damaged guy saying “well, I left the room to get a glass of water.”

A great example of what I am talking about : DOCTOR DEATH. This is a documentary about a man who makes lethal injection machines for a living. (warning ? this synopsis contains spoilers). it is an amazing job and he is a fascinating, if kind of lonely and awkward, guy. But then midway through the documentary, he starts talking about how the holocaust never happened. And you're like, did he just say that?? And it turns out he is a professional Denier. He was totally non?political. But then some neo-nazis approached him because of his experience with forensics. They paid him to go to some concentration camp and test for residue of Zyklon B. then he became a denier, and because of that, he lost his job working for the US prison system. So now he lives out of a suitcase and tours around the country speaking to fellow Deniers for a small fee. And here's the thing that makes the documentary brilliant ? it doesn't show the guy as a nazi dickhead. He isn't motivated by a hatred of Jews. He was just a lonely guy, and the nazis were the only people reaching out to him. And of course, it became this vicious cycle where they cost him his other friends and his job, but this just drove him deeper into their arms. Maybe you can't see the brain-damaged behavior in your own life but because DR. Death is such an extreme case, it is easy to see how community is a powerful allure, and how the need for community is the emotional motivator behind a lot of so-called “rational thought.” (end spoiler)

So what can we learn from this? Everybody, just lighten up. With your religious wars and your music bickering and your fashion bitching. You could just as easily have BEEN one of the Other Guys, because you are human and humans will jump in with the first damn group to offer them a home, because we are weak and lonely and the world is big and cold.

 

 

Also, happy new year.

 

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Iron chef rap

I don't think that getting a major label deal should be based on if you were REALLY in jail, the number of times you have been shot, or how many tattoos you have. Nor how good you look in a video, whether you knew 2pac, or who makes your fucking beats. All that should matter is just talent, and that is why I think all rappers should get dropped from all labels starting now. Just, boom, start over from scratch. Tear up everyone's contracts. Make the old pros compete with young unknowns and prove their worth, and award major contracts only to those who pass the test. What test am I talking about? RAP IRON CHEF. that's right. On the japanese IRON CHEF tv show, they give these 2 chefs some nasty ingredients (baboon ass, mayonaise, wasabi, and Monterey Jack. “ok guys, make a caserrole with that!”) and the chefs have like 30 minutes in order to ‘freestyle' a good-tasting meal out of the nasty ingredients. In the end the judges eat the 2 meals and decide the winner.

RAP IRON CHEF would do the same thing ? give both MCs some random, non-cliche topic out of the encyclopedia (“polar bears”, “Socratic discourse”, “aztec civilization”) and then they would have 30 minutes to write a rap about it. This would strip away all the bullshit of the industry ? no videos, no beats, no r&b singers, no image, no cliche rhymes about gats or the price of fame, etc. just show-and-prove. OK, maybe the encyclopedia is too hard, but the point being; if you are a real rapper you should be able to rhyme on any topic at any time. The rapper could use the topic X as a metaphor, or could try to do a story-telling rhyme where X is a character, or an exposition rhyme that just explains what X IS. . . however they want to approach it is cool, as long as they don't blow off the subject and rhyme about some easy bullshit. Reference materials would, of course, be provided. Pick up your number two pencils now. And. . . go!

To spice things up, they could use other ‘ingredients' besides topics. Maybe give both rappers the same hard-to-rhyme word (“paramecium”, “Columbia”, “battleship Potempkin”) and see who could find the most rhymes for it. Or, give both rappers the same set of rhyming words (“cartoon/macaroon, fuselage/mucelage, wood panelling/spirit channeling”) and make them REVERSE ENGINEER a coherent narrative from those rhyming words. It would be so amazing to see how a horrorcore rapper and an abstract/backpack guy do different interpretations of the same thing. I mean, come on.

Then they perform their hastily-composed raps for the judges, who declare the winner. But unlike the regular IRON CHEF, on RAP IRON CHEF the loser could appeal the decision by challenging the judges to a freestyle battle. This would be a very desparate gambit because the judges would be some formidable motherfuckers like KRS-ONE and CHUCK D and RASS KAS. But if an MC is fearless enough he can do like a 45 second freestyle which busts on the judges. Then the judges would have 45 seconds to bust back, of course, with the winner to be decided by the audience.

And that, in a nutshell, is RAP IRON CHEF. that's the kind of shit I would like to see.

 

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In a June 26 speech today, given at the Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had this to say:

-------

The Israel/ Palestine situation is one of the biggest moral quagmires of all time. Almost everything is shades of grey: who is responsible for the violence? Is it justifiable to shoot back at guys using kids as human shields? Is suicide bombing worse than helicopter airstrikes that kill civilians? Does Israel's increased violence suppress the Intifada or increase it further? How much are the neighboring Arab states responsible for the Palestinians' health and welfare? Which side is G-d on? Is one morally obligated to negotiate with people that one knows one can't trust? What will we do when there are more Palestinians than Jews living in Israel? But amidst this huge and turbulent fog of unanswerable questions, there is one moral absolute: settlers are assholes.

That's right. I don't give a FUCK what it says in the torah about the temple of the rock or about the chosen people. Here's what it says in MY torah: SETTLERS ARE FUCKING ASSHOLES THAT SMELL, SAYETH THE LORD. AND THEY GOT NO MAMA.

I mean, what else do you call someone who serves no purpose other than to stir up shit with the enemy? flout the law, and destroy any hope of reconciliation and equality. And that's not ME talking, that's THEM talking!

We kicked the Palestinians out of Israel and put them on little shanty-towns, and said, “ok, you guys at least can live here.” And then the settlers come in and say, “well, no,. Now that we think about it, we're going to take THIS land too.”

Not only do they hate arabs, they also hate regular Jews--you know, the 98% of Israelis that AREN'T settlers. They hate us because we're not a bunch of Moses Freaks and we don't want to have a race-war by Tuesday. Somehow we're not JEWISH ENOUGH. To them, we're only good for one thing: saving their ass when their Palestinian neighbors decide to assassinate them a little. They're all like, getting up in the arabs' faces and being all ‘NANNY NANNY NYAH NYAHH!' and expect US to take the consequences when the arabs get mad? Can you think of another country on Earth where the government would tolerate this bullshit?

Every day we spend like a million bucks, or sheckles or rubles, or whatever it is we use out here, we spend like a million of them guarding these little ungrateful fucks. Not only that but young Israeli army guys on ‘settler babysitting duty' risk death all the time just so that settlers can yell ethnic slurs at their arab neighbors. Meanwhile, the religious nuts don't have to put their kids in the army because Yahwey wants their precious little Moishe to study at Yeshiva all day. Suck my circumcised, Prime Ministerial shlong!! So it's Hellenists dying to protect the fanatics from the conflict they're trying so desperately to start. Because of the ‘Babysitting Patrol', Palestinians know they can't usually fuck with the settlers, so who do they kill instead? Regular Israelis! You know, US. The people who don't have enough clout to have 4 Mossad agents walk us to school and back every day.

And, as if that weren't retarded enough, they're teaching their KIDS to be violent bigots too, AND using their kids as human shields. Let me explain about that: even if we didn't want to protect the crazy adults, they know we are not going to stand by and let innocent kids get massacred by Palestinians. You cowardly fucks!! you hate Hamas? You're acting just LIKE Hamas!! Not only the children-as-shields, but the ‘G-d is on our side' and the ‘we can't have 2 states or any compromise' and of course the ‘dying makes me a fucking martyr' complex. Am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah, their shared hatred for the 98% of Jews in Israel.

And what's up with saying G-d wants all the Palestinians kicked out anyway? Back in the day, the super-orthodox Jews were saying Israel shouldn't even exist because the torah says ‘yo, you can't have Israel back until AFTER the messiah.' Now they're saying ‘G-d says Israel is SO BADASS we can't share it with anyone' well which is it, you cocks? It seems the only constant with you people is, you hate the Israeli government. Why don't the settlers and the wait-for-the-messiah freaks just go in a little room and argue with EACH OTHER all day and leave the rest of us alone?? That would be so sweet; Professor Griff could be the moderator.

And when we try to take them off the settlements, they get all hectic and start fighting the cops. Fuck it! They don't like the cops? Fine, we'll take the cops away and let them do it themselves. Why should they, the Chosen People Squared, have to put up with the mean repressive cops?

That's why, on Wednesday at exactly 11:38 AM, I'm pulling all the troops out of the Beth Shlamakel settlement on the Gaza Strip.

If you love your kids, send them back to Grandma's house in Brooklyn, NOW. If you let your kids get martyred, then the whole world will know what a cowardly fuck you are. And to Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, and the other wanna-be Al Quaeda motherfuckers out there, let me say this: if you get all trigger-happy and start shooting our soldiers as they're retreating, or killing kids that are getting sent to Grandma's, then I won't pull troops out of any more settlements, and it's your fault. But if you act nice and save the slaughter until after 11:38, then I'll keep pulling troops out of other settlements until there are none left. I'm explaining it nice and simple so you can hear it even if you have plastic explosives wedged into your ears.

Settlers want a war; Palestinians want to kill Jews, fine.
You assholes can go smoke each other.
Everyone's happy.
Peace through violence.
I got news for you guys: you won't last 5 minutes without us ‘stinking traitor Hellenists.'
Have fun meeting the G-d you love so much.

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BIKES AND SAN FRANCISCO

I love my bike, my bike named BIZZLE. I keep riding it even though I've been taken to the police station once and hassled half-a-dozen times. I ride it even when it's faster to take the train. Even when it's dangerous as hell. Most importantly, I ride it just for fun.

But I never would have discovered the joys of bicycling if I had stayed in California, and here is the reason : BAY AREA BIKERS ARE FUCKING ASSHOLES.

ALL OF THEM.

YES, YOU TOO. . .

. . . ASSHOLE!

Self-righteous, smug, irritating, spandex-girded assholes with gay little helmets and dreadlocks while discoursing at semi-lucid length about the evils of gas, man. NO BLOOD FOR OIL! And so on. Which is, in fact, perfectly valid. But I guess their mama never told them, ‘it's not what you say, but how you say it.' And saying it in a holier-than-thou tone that Jerry Falwell himself would covet, is not going to make me want to own a bike (except maybe as a hood ornament).

To understand about the bike-martyr mentality, first you have to understand about bay area politics. The problem is not bikes per se, but the insane proliferation of coalitions in the bay area. Normal cities have blocs of well-organized voters that politicians have to pander to: irish, Italians, African-Americans, Jews, Catholics. But S.F. (apparently not content with having way more religious and ethnic voter blocs than most cities) also has legions of single-issue groups who ACT like militant ethnic groups: Non-smokers, smokers, the legendary ‘AIDS-is-a-hoax' phalange of ACT UP, transsexual postoffice workers, the Allergic To Hair Products, atheist soccer dads, etc. And every single-issue coalition group appropriates not only the organization and militancy of the civil rights groups, but the sense that We Are Righting History's Greatest Wrongs.

You get off-the-leash-dog-walker-guy who is absolutely convinced he's the Mahatma Ghandi of off-the-leash-dog-walkers, and the non-smoker who will tell you that Martin Luther King was just a whiner because everyone knows non-smokers are the single most discriminated and voiceless group in earth's history, and then you have the Bike Martyrs, who go even farther: not only are they the single most discriminated, despised, denied, misunderstood, mal-treated and persecuted group, but they are THE ONE GROUP STANDING BETWEEN US AND THE TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF EARTH. Like the comic-book heroes, X-men, bike guys believe they are singlehandedly saving the planet from the super-villains of environmental gasoline destruction, but instead of thanks, they get abuse. OH, WHY OH WHY?? THE TERRIBLE IRONY! WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! Etc.

Just to clarify, further use of IDIOTIC ALL-CAPS will indicate the shrill, bongwater-smelling voice of a bike asshole, not my own much more calm and dignified voice.

You absolutely can not win an argument with one of these bike people: “man, this city hates bikes! Did you know that last month 2 bikers were killed in accidents?” “um, dude, last month 9 car drivers were killed in car accidents.” “Yeah, thus proving my point: cars are bad and evil!”

Once a month they have a parade called CRITICAL MASS. The point of the parade is to clog as many downtown streets as possible during rush hour, in an act of civil disobedience.

The rationale is something like this: “well it worked to stop apartheid”

No, wait, the rationale is “by making car owners as pissed off as possible we'll bring them round to our side.”

No, wait, the rationale is “by doing an unlicensed parade, with police support and breaking all the traffic laws, we'll show everyone how disenfranchised we are”

The other 30 days of the month they spend spray-painting ‘DRIVING' below the word ‘STOP' on traffic signs, so that the rest of us know their views on driving and the stopping of it.

At first I was pissed off by the self-righteousness of this. But then I realized: bikers, who have never stopped at a stop sign in their lives, honestly don't know what it's for. They honestly think it's some kind of octagonal red billboard. These guys don't stop for stop signs, or red lights, or pedestrians, or one-way streets, or ANYTHING. They're free, man. Free like the wind. Free of conformity! Free of the steel-metal-and-plastic death boxes that the rest of us are jailed in, man! Free of dependence on foreign oil (as opposed to foreign hash, Jamaican hemp, and Mexican opium, which are I guess multicultural and therefore benign?), free of the whole freaking system, man!!

And yet, the minute some biker gets hurt, they're all shrieking “it's the CAR'S FAULT!! He wasn't obeying proper traffic safety laws! Why oh why must we suffer as second-class-citizens in this bike=hating, gas-guzzling maze of contrete and steel??”

Keep in mind that drivers don't WANT to be driving. The commutes are notoriously long and there is no parking. The only reason that people drive is because the bay area has one of the worst mass-transit systems in the country. BART, the subway that only stops every 3 miles, and MUNI, the bus that is slightly slower than walking. Every election there are only 2 issues, and always the same 2 issues: the homeless and MUNI. Yet you never hear about bikers trying to fix public transportation. That would be too helpful. That would actually give them common ground with the hated car owners, as well as being difficult work. They'd rather just complain about how hard they have it (as opposed to car owners, who everyone knows LOVE to be stuck in traffic for 3 hours everyday, just for the sake of inconveniencing passing bikers!! Ha ha, they're falling for our evil scam!!).

Does anyone live in the bay area that hasn't heard about the big 3 ? the 3 Things That Cars Do To Kill Cyclists?

parked cars that open doors into the path of oncoming cyclists (WHERE ARE THE CAR DOOR WARNING LIGHTS? WAKE UP, PEOPLE!!)

cars that turn right without giving the 10 seconds of warning required to register in the pot-fogged brain of the average cyclist, and wind up cutting him/her off

the high price of meth lately (oh sorry, that's just a bike MESSENGER complaint)

cars that don't give right-of-way to a biker that's lane-splitting, running a stop sign, or otherwise totally breaking the law. This is the #1 unsafest thing that cars do to discriminate against Earth's Selfless Guardians, the bikers.

Believe me, back when I was driving I got an earful of this. . . . almost everytime I had a biker pal riding in my car. A pal who begged me for a ride.

So, is it hazardous to bike in s.f.? yes! But, let me say, it's WAY WORSE IN FUCKIN' TOKYO. It's total anarchy here, and there is no organized single-issue activist group for me to turn to for ‘validation.' But you won't hear me whining and complaining about it. Why? Because, number one, I'm not an ASSHOLE. and number two, I LIKE BIKES. I'm just HAPPY to be able to ride one, not mad that everything isn't 100% my way. And to think that if I'd stayed in good old bike-friendly s.f. I never would have discovered how much fun bikes are.

 

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CROM-DIDDLERS!!!

Against all logic and reason, I checked out my enemy's homepage and to my delight it's much stupider than before. She's discovered politics,and is on some anti-sexist-guy diatribes.

I've read some really good anti-sexist-guy diatribes in my time. But this particular blogger is no Valerie Solanas or Mary Daly. Heck, she's not even BBCM. In fact, her diatribes sound suspiciously like the Asian Woman version of the Straight Guy who thinks all the homos and queers are checking out his package and coming on to him. And you just want to tell Straight Guy, "dude, those queers are NOT checking you out. You're ugly, and besides aren't you just a little too preoccupied with them for someone who's not into that scene?"

And that's exactly what I'd tell her to her face if I were still in California, which thank god I'm not.

In fact, I think it's time we made a word to describe asian-american women who yell 'pervert!' for fake reasons. Certain women are so goofy-looking or have such neurotic, unappealing personalities that their Azn Brothers prefer to keep the relationships strictly at a brother level. If you know what i'm talking about. Non-asian guys who can objectively compare them to other women also run screaming. So the only guys who will ever ask out these girls . . . are guys who are just 100% like, "hey, my little lotus blossom, wanna come back to my place and do origami.. .WITH MY PANTS??'.

Since these women only get the most extreme of the fetish guys, they get a totally distorted view of the male species: they think ALL guys are like that.

. What they SAY is, 'ew, asian-lovers are so gross!' but what they MEAN is, 'dude!! Why won't anyone remotely cool or cute ever ask me out????'

that's the true root of their anger but rather than look in the mirror for the answer, they lash out at the only guys who might possibly like them.

So we need a word for this foolishness. Honestly it doesn't matter what the word even is, just so long as you can hurl it at them as a cool exit line, leaving them to fume. So, I vote for calling them 'crom-diddlers'. As in,

WOMAN: 'the next guy who asks me if I will 'love him long time' is going to get a boot up his stupid ass!'

MAN OR MAYBE COOL OTHER WOMAN OR SOMETHING: 'tell the truth-no guy has ever asked you that, because he's busy hitting on every other girl in the room but you. Also, you are a crom diddler and smell.'

Ok, so that's not the best name but you get the idea.

Anyone with more better name-ideas can just post them to the forum, and it will turn into this huge waste of time I mean fabulous contest.

postscript: my friend asked me "Why don't you post her URL?" i said,

naw. she's kind of sad, plus she's not political anymore. but my point still stands. crom-diddlers are wack.

but still check this out: i'm sitting at this bar. she walks up, interrupting my deep thoughts, accuses me of stalking her to the bar even though she arrived AFTER me, demands to know why i'm at an asian event, and then i say, 'hold on, it takes me a while to get into conversation mode' to which she says, 'oh i have no intention of having a conversation with you. i just wanted to say hi. because i'm a good person. I'M A GOOD PERSON!!(yelling)' and runs off. total elapsed time : 20 seconds.

what the hell??

 

 

 

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SOME PEOPLE SHOULD COME WITH A WARNING LABEL

'DANGER!
THIS PERSON IS SO ADDICTED TO HIS OR HER OWN UNHAPPINESS AND SELF PITY THAT IF YOU MAKE THEM HAPPY THEY WILL TURN ON YOU AND FUCK UP EVERYTHING YOU'VE TRIED SO HARD TO BUILD TOGETHER, AND YOU . CAN. NOT. CHANGE. THEM. EVER.    DANGER!!!
EVEN THOUGH THEY MAY SEEM TOTALLY NORMAL AT FIRST, THE MORE HAPPY THAT YOU MAKE THEM, THE MORE THEY WILL UTTERLY FREAK OUT
AT THE POSSIBILITY OF ACTUAL INTIMACY, AND TURN ON YOU.
AND BY THAT TIME IT'S TOO LATE, YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH THEM.
LEAVE THEM TO THEIR MISERY-- STAY AWAY ---FAR AWAY--- RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.'

This label should be tattooed on their foreheads for easy reference.
They're fighting a war inside their heads - between desperately wanting intimacy and being totally scared shitless of intimacy.
And so anybody who comes close to them becomes an innocent bystander, a victim of this war.
And it's fucking IMPOSSIBLE to tell that they're fucked up at first.
Not only do you- the victim - have no idea about the war inside that person's head, most of the time THEY THEMSELVES
have no clue that they're fucked up.
At first they'll seem really genuinely happy to see you and be your friend.
It's easy for them to fool you, because they ARE really happy to make a new friend.
They are, as you might suspect, genuinely lonely people.
It's not until you start making them happy and dangling visions of a wonderful future together, THEN their self-destruct program kicks in and they find an excuse to fuck everything up.
But by then it's too late for you, you're in love with them.
So, that's why we need these tattoos.

 

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INDIE LABELS , FREQUENT SUCKINESS OF

Much has been written about why Major Labels Suck.

....SO INSTEAD.... let's talk about why minor labels suck. let's break the taboo, let's eat some sacred cow for a second. I'm not going to bust on minors for poor distribution / sales. After all, the majors are doing their best to drive the minors out of business. The strong point of indies isn't money, it's credibility. They say, "Sure, we can't advertise as much as WARNER, we can't bribe radio stations and wal-mart managers to carry the CDs. . . . .but unlike the majors, we are in it for the music. You can trust us."

And THAT'S what I'm going to bust on.

The sick truth is, YOU CAN'T trust an indie any more than a major. Barry Diller never says, "Yeah I know I owe you $200 but my mom is charging me rent now to live in the garage, so I had to give it to her. dude, she was going to throw me out in the STREET!" . this is not a problem for Barry Diller. Ahmet Etregun doesn't tell you, "Oh, yeah, I owe you $150, but it's like this. .. I got this totally sweet deal on some amazing pot, like 50% off, so I sunk my whole savings into it. hey?how about I pay you in pot?" Sumner Redstone from Viacom might rip you off on the royalties or cancel your career if your new album doesn't have enough hit songs, but he's not going lose your master tape because,

"Dude, I accidentally put it in the box of PAVEMENT WANNABE CDs that we were shipping to Alaska, but I still have this shitty cassette dub of your album, let's just make a new master from that! the 'lo-fi' trend is going to take off this summer, you're in luck, dude!! "

what do you mean, ACCIDENTALLY put my master in theShip To Alaska box?

"well, i owe that Alaskan label like $400 and they are really ragging me about it, so i was just putting hell of extra shit in the box of cds, hoping they'll forgive the debt, you know, just grabbing whatever was around, plus i was fighting with my 17 year old girlfriend at the time, so i wasn't really looking at exactly what i was putting in the box... PLUS dude, i had been up for 40 hours on speed at that point, just, you know, i only take speed for the sake of working on this indie label, so i can work for 40 hours straight and get a lot of stuff done....and speed is REALLY EXPENSIVE after a while. so therefore, just look how i suffer for you, the artists! how much i sacrifice for you!! and now you're giving me shit for ACCIDENTALLY losing your master?? damn, bro, why don't you just go sign with warner brothers, you ingrate sellout!!"

and so on.

not all indies are like that. duh. but for every GOOD indie there are lots that are like this:

Sure, the majors' accountants might be more crooked than Enron, but AT LEAST THEY HAVE ACCOUNTANTS . Try asking an indie guy to see the spreadsheet with the amount of your records sold. He'll either look at you like you're a sellout for even asking, or say something like, "oh MAN, where is the papers? The papers. . . . I think they're behind the couch under the 45s and pizza crusts." And assuming you put on your pith helmet and go exploring under the couch, and find the papers, there's going to be like 500 CDs unaccounted for.

"well man, it's like. . . dude, I had to move a lot of the CDs to bob's apartment, because this touring band needed to sleep here and there was no room for them."

Bob, the junkie? Bob, who steals everything he can get his hands on? His house?

"yeah, but he was the ex-bassist for WEARS TIGHT PANTS, so it's cool. anyway, that's where you know, 100 or 200 of your CDs are. The rest, well, some I gave to my friends' band to sell on tour. Dude, people all across the country will be hearing your tunes man!"

how many did you give them? And how much do I get per sale?

"Well, I don't know man, we were all pretty wasted. I'm sure they'll pay you some money for them when they get back, unless they have to spend all the CD money fixing the van. That's an old van, man. Anyway, I think I gave like 20 copies away to different people, because those people are really cool and I want to be their friend. You know who I gave one to? the ex-drummer from OLD INDIE BAND YOU NEVER HEARD OF! He's totally got your cd dude! And it only cost you $4! Anyway that accounts for like maybe 90% of the missing CDs."

and about the rest?

"Man, why are you giving me so much shit for? After all I've done for you! Do I look like some conservative, country club accountant? It's the indie labels, man!"

ok, yeah. Thanks for that. But what about the 40 CDs you said you were going to mail out for review? So that actual paying customers might be able to hear the music?

"well, the thing about that was, the line at the post office was really long, dude, and I had to be at Billy's house by 4:30 in order to score some weed and bum a ride to the SOUNDS LIKE NEUROSIS BUT ISN'T concert, so I just . . . ."

Ok, never mind.

" . . . plus honestly dude, I don't have money for stamps right now! could you loan me like fifteen dollars? Just till next week?"

Anyway to sum up: really being 'in it for the music, man' = trustworthy + not.

 

 

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here's a review of the passion of crhist....

MEL GIBSON'S NEW MOVIE WHICH I HAVEN'T SEEN YET....

.. But that's not going to stop me from having an opinion of it.

Basically I think it's fucking rad.
The principle of the thing.
The movie itself...I don't know.
The movie isn't even important at this point!!
Who cares about the movie???This movie is just a sort of spiritual flashlight which illuminates not only the contradictions of Christianity but the contradictions of our society as well.

It's not an attack on Jews, it's an attack on modernity. In the bible times they belived everything in the bible literally.
Nowadays, you teach people a little about science or democracy and next thing you know, most Christians are like, "Well I believe in a literal god but
I'll just obey the parts of the bible I agree with and ignore the depressing parts"
Then they're like, "Well, it says specifically that non believers will burn in hell, and homosexuals, and adulterers. But, man, that's kind of not p.c.
I don't have the courage to be a serious Christian and go around killing my bhuddist and adulterer and homosexual coworkers.
But neither do I
have the courage to just quit being Christian either, just because it is a hateful murdering religion....
So I'll just ignore the contradictions, and pretend that God is a nice guy like me only with a beard. Okely-dokely!"

That is modernity. And it sucks!!

Also the movie is interesting because it says something about the importance of CONTEXT.
Consider this:
a bunch of devout Christians bought blocks of tickets and organized field trips to see the movie on opening weekend, and it became #1 at the box office.
And the movie was about what?
Their true lord being slowly tortured and murdered while people run around mocking him and laughing at his pain.
Could you explain this to someone from mars, should they happen to visit?
How would you explain it??
what the hell????

But consider this too:
if the EXACT SAME MOVIE had been made (Christ being slowly tortured, mocked, mercilessly and slowly murdered) but
Mel Gibson crossed his name off the credits and wrote 'BY GLENN DANZIG AND SLAYER' and changed the title to 'LET'S ALL KILL JESUS!!!!'... Christians would be burning down the theatres instead of making the movie #1.
am I right??
I am totally fucking right!!
How would you explain THAT to someone from Mars?

And that's why just the IDEA of this movie is awesome.

About the controversy:
I mean,
Gibson has got like 1,000 jews and ecumenical (

'modern, feel good') Christians
saying, "It's antisemetic
BECAUSE IT IS QUOTING TOO LITERALLY FROM THE BIBLE."

I am so not making this up.

According to the new Yorker magazine, the original protestors objected to LINES OF BIBLE DIALOGUE
being put in the movie, on the grounds that it would make people hate Jews.

Can you see something weird about that?
You logically cannot slam Gibson for being antisemetic and not slam the bible!
If they were consistent and rational they'd say 'Well, the BIBLE is antisemetic.
And ANYONE who reads it, we will protest them.'
I mean, duh.
And if you DID say that, you'd have a damn good point.
Of course the bible says some mean things about Jews.... for the same reason that
you won't find the Jews, circa 0-100 AD writing lots of nice things about Christians either: at that time in history,
early Christians and Jews were fighting over who the real messiah was.
So yes, anti-semetic.

But to say Gibson ALONE is an antisemite - to say he's an ABBERATION-- just for drawing attention to parts of the bible that Good Christians like to sweep under the rug (and Good Jews will likewise turn a blind eye to, rather than antagonize Christians)... that is such bullshit!!

Plus, another critic in the new Yorker was slamming the movie because it 'turned jesus' message of love into one of violence and suffering.'
. . . as if violence and suffering was unchristian?
Hello, anyone remember ALL the martyrs? All the super big and realistic statues and paintings all over Europe depicting Christians who were tortured to death by the heathens, in thousands of inventive painful ways?
Remember the crusades and the inquisition??
How can the critics act like Gibson just, out of thin air, INVENTED the connection between Christianity and suffering??

What about all the
4,5,6 foot tall statues of Bleeding Jesus, in super detailed crucifixion poses, all over Latin America? What about the Philipine rituals where women channel the 'spirit of baby jesus' and re-enact the passion of Christ, the whole town watching and clapping, as their neighbors (dressed as romans) crucify the women with big nails??
(ok, maybe this is fake like the Philipine faith healers, but a: it looked real in the video and b: just the fact that the people are
INTO this kind of spectacle is enough to prove my point)....

. oh, and what about the fact that EVERY SINGLE CHRISTIAN wears a fucking TORTURE DEVICE around their neck?????
Yeah, right, Gibson just is crazy for noticing a connection between Christianity and suffering.
He's a wacko all right.

Basically what he has done is taken the contradictions of the bible, the parts that modern day "feel good" Christians, "want to ignore or sweep under the rug.    And for this, I salute him!!
So
that is why, like i said, this movie illuminates not only the contradictions of Christianity but the contradictions of our society as well.
That is what art is supposed to do.

Plus I hope this movie succeeds because if it succeeds it will encourage more rich famous people to just go fucking nuts and start filming whatever crazy shit comes into their heads.
Hopefully more people will realize, "Damn, I have twenty million dollars in the bank, I do not have to keep on making boring predictable movies! Why don't I make a movie myself, where I play a gay Muhammad who screws Buddha in the ass, while fellating the Michellen Man? This has always been my dream!"
... and it turns out that's the Pope's new movie.
That is the kind of world I want to live in.

 

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GEORGE W. ADDRESSES THE REST OF THE WORLD:

I know that, since I've become president, I've pretty much done things my way. And if you guys didn't go along with it - global emissions standards, test ban treaties, invasions, what have you. . . I really didn't care. Angola, Guam, Portugal, screw you. But tonight I come to you a changed man. a man who listens and is not afraid to change.

I'm not deaf. . . . I know I've ruffled some feathers. I know, whenever we invade someplace like Afghanistan or iraq, some people are always calling us 'the big bully' or 'the imperialists.' Ok, we went in unilaterally, bombed the hell out of the place, reinstituted free speech and freedom of religion for the people who were still alive, found the dictator, and are going to put him on trial. So, we're the bad guy. fine.

But tonight I say, that was the Old Me. Tonight, the New Me says, let's concentrate on what we agree on, rather than what we disagree on.

For example, we agree what Kim Jong Il is doing is wrong. I mean, no matter what country you're from you must think it's not cool to make your own citizens starve to death while you spend billions on nuclear weapons to blow up foreign countries. Right? You have to admit it's wrong to kidnap people and break up families and force citizens of south korea and japan to be your slaves, for decades and decades, right?? So, OK. We agree on the problem, we just don't agree on the solution.

But I'm not going to go invade North Korea. Why? Because I AM LISTENING to you little nobody countries like Sri Lanka and Canada. Despite what you think, I DO value your input. So, just to prove America is not an imperialist bully, we're going to leave north korea to the rest of you countries.

That's right, Netherlands, france, Peru,: it's your turn. Hey, Luxemborg, Tonga, Haiti! Tired of being overshadowed by the U.S. of A.? well, now is your time to shine. Liberate North Korea. Nepal, you too. Step right up; don't be shy. What are you waiting for? Don't let ME hold you back.

What are you going to do about kim il jung? Even if you would rather turn a blind eye to the suffering of the people, even if you'd rather ignore him because you don't want to be labeled an 'imperialist,' .. . .he's got nukes, he'll nuke your ass. This isn't Chauchescu, people! This isn't some kind of Romania / Burma type scenario, where the dictator hopes no one will notice how he is oppressing his own people, and just keeps to himself. Pyongyang wants your attention, and they also want your money!! It's called 'nuclear blackmail.' And Kim Jung Il is going to be hassling you guys even more, now that he knows America isn't protecting you anymore. . . .

You can't ignore him! And I'm not going to help you, since that would make me a big bully. So what are you going to do?

seriously, what?

I'm not being a wiseass. If you guys can find a nonviolent, non-imperialist way to liberate a country run by homicidal, plutonium-hoarding, Stalinist maniacs, AND you can do it while I'm still in office. . . I promise I will change america's foreign policy OVERNIGHT. My cabinet all says I'm crazy for doing this, but I'm doing it anyway because that's how strongly I believe in listening to, and learning from, the less important countries. America IS ready to be part of a global democracy.

I believe in democracy so much . . . .so much that I'm not just talking to the governments. I'm talking to the people of all the countries. To the bookie in rio dejanero: kim jong is starving his citizens. What are you going to do? To the plumber in cuba: some guy in Pyongyang just got shot because he thought it would be a nice idea to start a free newspaper. What are you going to do about it? To the housewife in new dheli, and the schoolteacher in Tokyo: kim jong il is building nuclear weapons. What are you going to do? To the seven-eleven guy in hong kong and the macdonalds manager in paris, and the Foghat cover band roadie in Belgrade: what are you going to do to improve life for the millions of brainwashed enslaved skeleton people of north korea? After all, how can you get mad at Kim Jong Il for suppressing free expression, if you HAVE free expression, but you aren't using it? democracy, it means rule of the people, right? So obviously you have to fight this battle yourself, not just leave your government to do it, right? Ok!

You don't want America starting another war. . . . so now YOU have to solve the problem yourselves.

Like I say, if you guys can find a way to overcome your differences and work together to peacefully liberate north korea. . . you will change not only the fate of the north Koreans, but you will change america too: if you do something all peaceful and effective, we'll become peaceful too. Let me state this again: if you can rig it so that Kim Jong Il is all, like, "oooh nooo, here comes Belize and Beirut! Dude, I am out of here!" if you can make him be all, "what? Lichtenstein is at the front door? And they brought Uraguay? Oh crappity crap crap crap!! better empty out the gulags!" -- hey, I'll change my ways. But if you guys totally blow it with north korea, then. . . .guess what?

It will be on like Donkey Kong, my friends.

Donkey Kong!

For those of you not familiar with the work of Ice Cube (who is now Secretary of Alcohol Tabacco and Firearms, but that's a domestic policy issue and we needn't go into it here) this means that America will just start invading anyone, at any time, because diplomacy doesn't work. And this time, you guys won't be able to say shit about it.

this is george motherfuckin' dubya, over and out.

 

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WHY DO I HATE RAVERS MORE THAN GOTHS??

I mean, both subcultures have awful music, ridiculous clothes, no sense of humor, and a total commitment to avoiding politics. So why not hate them both equally?

1---Is it just that there were Goths at my high school, but no ravers, and therefore I'm simply too old to 'get' rave? Well, no. I'm too old to get Powderpuff Girls. Rave, however, is just a disco ripoff, - the mirrored balls, the metronome beats, the decadence-for-the-sake-of-decadence, etc . And therefore I'm too YOUNG to get rave.

2---Plus, what's up with people who are imitating the music of the '70s all acting like they are from the future?? Plus this whole 'THIS SUBCULTURE STARTED OVER 15 YEARS AGO YET WE STILL ACT LIKE WE'RE FUTURISTIC PEOPLE WHO ARE ALL ON SOME NEW SHIT' attitude. Gotta hate that.

3---Or is it that Goth, for all its "no one understands me, I am a creature of the night" hoo-ha, at least shows SOME capacity for introspecton and alienation, whereas ravers are so one-dimensional and they're all like, 'fun is good! Wheeee. Let's all dance and not think about anything ever.'

4---Plus, goth people have actual bands. Ravers seem to be convinced that a DJ is a band. DJs are all pumping their fists in the air, like "DUDE, CHECK IT OUT!! I TOTALLY PLAYED THAT RECORD!!! AWRIIIGHT!!! ALL BY MYSELF EVEN!!!" while 'turntablist' djs, despite their pretentious name, can be quite cool, the 'DJ' type of DJ is the worst kind of middleman- "I've installed myself here on the stage, the only way you can hear the music is by kissing my ass! You certainly can't make your own! Give me drugs and girls now." I could go on in this vein for hours, but fortunately, a very good rant on this subject is here ...

5-while we're on the subject , the drugs. Sure, Goths have an idiotic tendency to idolize heroin (it goes in your BLOOD!! Like a VAMPIRE!!), ravers are worse: "yeah man, you just take these pills and you can dance all night. You just become one with the music. Cmon, it's really good stuff." When even the music's defenders insist that you need to be bombed to tolerate it, it's safe to say that the music has serious problems.
6---The sort of 'nothing matters except me' decadent sex-drugs-and-posing posturing seems really hollow, lowest common denominator stuff. Like they got together and said, 'ok, we're starting a new youth movment. How can we make sure it's popular? Oh, sex. And, fun. Everyone likes sex and fun, right?' Like, exactly what is so SUBCULTURAL about that? You're just taking the 3 things that everyone wants, and all acting like you invented it. "oh, I can't believe that yuppie jerk is all acting like a raver, he doesn't know what it's really about!! He's not hip to the underground!". Translation: "that yuppie jerk likes dancing and feeling good and trying to score? Shocking!!"

7--the only original ("underground") things the rave overlords added to the sex and drugs and narccissm recipie was a bunch of little doodads ( plastic shoes FROM THE FUTURE!! Plastic pants FROM THE FUTURE!! Glow sticks!!) that you could spend your money on. Oh, plus a moronic "we are the vanguard!! We can bring about a new age of peace and love with enough drugs and glowsticks" philosophy.

 

8--Plus, at least you don't hear Christian Death or Sisters of Mercy selling sneakers on TV. I swear to god, man, it took the Madison Avenue weasels like 30 years to co-opt rock music. . . . 30 years before you started hearing the Beatles' songs on commercials. Whereas with rave, I was hearing techno music on commercials BEFORE rave took off in the U.S.

9--Plus, the guy who singlehandledly 'invented' u.s. raves, Michael Caruso, is a notorious drug dealer / murderer / police informant . I hear they've made a movie about this. There's also several 'true crime' books about the 90s NYC dance scene that dig up the dirt on this wanna-be Mafioso. DISCO BLOODBATH being the one with the coolest name.

10 -- I can count to 10 because I haven't eroded massive portions of my brain with MDMA. How many ravers visit their friends in the hospital after they OD / get all dehydrated and go into shock / become retarded off drugs? Hey man, hospitals are sad. They really kill the vibe. Let's go to a rave instead, it's so much more fun!

It should also be noted that I have no idea if ravers actually say 'man' or not. I can't be bothered to find out.

please, please don't think I'm trying to defend goth here.

Like everyone else, I tend to see goth people as preposterous, self-obsessed, pretentious fanshion victims. Once glimpse of a surburban wanna-be Dracula waiting at the bus stop will tell you everything you need to know about the absurdity of this whole subculture.

it's precisely because of the lameness of goth that it makes a good yardstick - if something is even worse than goth, it's GOT TO be near the bottom of the cultural dustbin.

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KILLING THE DEBATE THAT WOULDN'T DIE!

Does the world really need yet another rant about inter-racial dating? Hell, my website ALONE is practically bursting at the seams with them. But it's precisely the unending monotony of this 'debate' which forces me to write this article. Because someone has to finally solve the damn problem so we can get back to arguing about OTHER dumb things, like 'is green day a sellout?' or 'that lord of the rings movie was better than the book / no it wasn't, jackass.'

So anyway the Asian American Female's popularity has risen faster than Asian American Male's. boring. Boring. Boring. It's no surprise that this has led to years and years of bitter acrimony between asian Americans. Most of this acrimony takes place in unbelievably sad message forums consisting of only men, who constantly ask the question "why??" to women . . . .who will never set foot in that chat room, because they're too busy going out on dates. But enough of the anger manages to escape the chatrooms, and spills out into everyday life, creating one of those ARGUMENTS THAT WON'T EVER DIE.

Like the eternal punk question of , 'THEIR FIRST ALBUM WAS BETTER/ NO IT WASN'T" , or the lesbian version: "bisexuals are traitors / yes they are" the inter-racial debate has been raging endlessly with nothing getting accomplished, and just when you think that everyone's as sick of it as you are, it pops out of the grave like a zombie. Since it's axiomatic that zombies feast on the brains of the living, this could explain why the arguments are so stupid.

The general gist of the arguments is this:
"Anyone who dates outside their race is a sellout" vs. "nuh uh."

What's sad is, if you read angry letters, you can't tell if they were written in 1990 or yesterday, because so little has improved despite so much effort. No one understands each other better.

Why is that? Because everyone's painted into a corner.

Things that should be totally obvious, have become laden with so much baggage over the years. . . that no one can admit the truth.

The girls feel like, if they admit that they are even slightly benefiting from a social trend, then that would be like admitting the guys are 100% right. : that AAFs are all sell out sluts and brainwashed, and deliberately trying to destroy the asian heritage. So of course the women won't admit anything!

And the guys feel like if they admit that even a tiny fraction of interracial couples are legitimately in love, then the girls must be 100% right: the guys are just a bunch of dickless whiners and everything is their fault, and they might as well just kick themselves in the balls for eternity. So of course the guys won't give an inch either.

So, in the interests of diversity and whatnot, I thought I'd finally solve the ethical quagmire once and for all.

First. We need to reframe the debate in a new and more productive way. , we need new tools of analysis. "we" meaning you. I already have new tools of analysis. A handy tool is the 'ZOOM' icon. It's shaped like a little magnifying glass, and it lets you see things on different levels. In PHOTOSHOP, the zoom lets you see the whole porno or just a few pixels. In sociology, the zoom lets you look either at social trends, or the individuals which comprise those trends.

Here's the 'MICRO' level; If you went up to 100 inter-racial couples on the street and asked them, "so, why are you guys going out?" they'd swear up and down that race had nothing to do with it, they just happen to really really like Emiko or Stuart or Thuy or BillyBob or whomever.

But if you were all sneaky and looked at what people actually DID instead of what they said, well, you'd realize that love is FAR from color blind. let's say you sat in a corner on Saturday night in san Francisco with your magical Race Detector, and noted the races of every couple that passed you.. . . you'd see that there IS lots of inter-racial stuff going on, but the love is not spread equally across all races in some 'color blind' way. there are big trends, where some races and genders are more popular than others. And I don't need to point out which asian gender is more popular with the rest of the Americans. And this is the MACRO level.

But the guys need to realize that lots of these AFs, really are in love with their non asian beaux, even though they're part of a large TREND which is lame.

And the women need to realize that there really IS a trend which shafts asian men, even if they're not deliberately doing it.
BOTH of these levels are true!

Dude X, if you admit that Girl Y really is in love, and not trying to intentionally 'sell out,' that doesn't mean that there isn't a trend. And Girl Y, if you admit that there's a trend which favors you, that doesn't mean that you personally are a sell out. It just means that you've both accepted reality a little. Then you'll have some common ground to further discuss things. only then can people admit the obvious without totally throwing away the rest of their cherished beliefs.

Once people find this common ground, AAFs can help fight dumb trends on the macro level (by standing up for asian men) while continuing to date whomever on the micro level. AAMs will finally be cool with AAFs dating whomever, because the AAFs will be saying stuff like:
"No, I won't be your Imitation Connie Chung Newscaster unless you also hire an asian American reporter with a schlong, thank you."
"Oh, your Irish boyfriend left you? why don't you meet my cousin Lim? No, he's not a FOB, you jackass,Don't be prejudiced. He's got his own rap band."
"no, I'm not going to star in your stupid movie unless the famous Chinese actor in the lead role gets to kiss as many girls as I get to kiss boys."
"oh, your Japanese girlfriend left you? too bad. Do you want to meet my friend Latishia? No, she's not a gangsta. You jackass, don't be prejudiced. She's a huge Gandam freak."

Thus empowered by the mighty AAF Public Relations machine, AAMs can start totally macking on white, black, and latina women.

boom. Problem solved.

But in the meantime, how do you persuade an AAF to come out of her corner without making her feel like you're accusing her?

i think that the fellas should start by asking the ladies the following question:

"how would you feel if you entered THE TWILIGHT ZONE. . . if you were teleported to some other dimension, where you got ignored by asian guys AND white guys, just stone cold not-asked-out-ever-even-by-totally-ugly-ones, but every single city block you walked down, you saw at least one asian man/ white woman couple walking arm in arm. . .and this happened every day, every city block? And they were all happy and laughing and smiling, and shit? And you asked your asian girlfriends about it, and they said the same thing happened to them?? would you be 'whining' to point out what was going on? would you be 'haters' to feel a sense of diminished self-worth? how would that make you feel after a couple of weeks? how would that make you feel after a couple of years?"

if you pose this question (or one like it) then you're getting your point across without without dissing her relationship with the WM, or saying she's a bad person, or anything like that. you're ASKING HER OPINION instead of backing her into a corner where she feels like she has to defend herself. . . .so she's more likely to listen.

i think it would be cool if AFs honestly answered this question in, say, a 'short essay' format. (actually i think most of life's problems can be solved by the 'short essay' format). . .

... although i can't imagine anyone giving an honest answer to it!!

also, i would LOVE to hear even ONE AAF express some gratitude that she is MUCH more popular with various races than an AAF in 1960 or 1970.

even if she is legitimately in love with a guy who 'just happens' to be white, and he 'likes her personality' (etc). . . the 'color blind love' IS STILL RACIAL, because 30 years ago the guy would probably not have asked her out or tried to get to know her!!!

. . . therefore, i'd like to hear every AAF say, loudly and in unison, "thanks, historical and cultural forces beyond my control, for making me much more popular than i'd be in Asia, or in 1960s America, through no effort of my own."

That wouldn't really guarantee AAMs a lot of dates with white/black/latin women, but it would sure make ME feel a lot better.

Boom. Problem solved again.

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DOGS:

I'm a vegetarian; have been one for 11 years. But if you gave me a dog on a plate, I'd eat it today. I'd eat it RIGHT NOW. I'd eat its flanks and its drumsticks. I'd eat its fucking HEAD with paprika. Even after I'm full, I'd eat another dog, for no good reason except they'd have to kill the dog to cook it. I'd eat little Spot's eyeball and leave the rest of the carcass to rot. No doggy bag for me. ouch. . . ok, I've finally managed to offend even myself.

Consider the following points:

1: Dogs, vulgarity of.
I am not a snob. I like beavis and butthead. . . heck, I even like me some $hort Dog (AKA rapper Too $hort). But even I draw the line at the nonstop poop-everywhere, lick-everything, slobber-on-everything-else party that is the earth dog. I'm sick of the BARK REALLY LOUD FOR NO REASON AT 2 AM IN A CROWDED APARTMENT aspect, and the leg-humping and the pissing every five feet, and the butt-smelling. Can't leave out the butt smelling. Who wants to see that? at least beavis and his pal occasionally would talk about something else, but dogs don't ever do anything but be vulgar. Of course you could say that it's the dog's nature, and the owners should be blamed. Which brings me to point 2…

2: Owners, mental shittiness of:
ever been in a park, and some dog is pissing on your car, or comes right over and starts, like, EATING YOUR FOOD? And the owners just stand there, and say, 'Come here…. here Booboo, cmon that's a good dog?' or they make a little KISSING NOISE at it? yeah, that's going to put the fear of God into the dog, right, if you're making a kissing noise at it! Then you ask them, "dude, can you get your dog to stop eating my lunch?" they look at you like you're crazy. "Oh, he's friendly!" "that's just his way of saying hi".

It would never occur to these assholes to say, 'BAD DOG! BAD DOG!!' and give the mutt a good kick. It doesn't occur to them to say 'bad dog' because to them, it's a LITTLE FURRY SON OR DAUGHTER. The dog owners are so unloved, so reviled by their own family, that they have to turn to a nonhuman for love! It's like, "Sorry your kids hate you, sorry that you're sterile, sorry that your wife finds you unattractive now that you're fat and old, but why does that mean your dog has to lick MY sandwitch, bumhugger?"

that's why dogs are so popular, they're substitute children for people who can't handle or can't even get real human love. So these fucking losers pick the ONE SPECIES that will love them no matter how shitty they are. Dogs are FAMOUS for needing human approval. . . even if you kick your dog every day, it'll still be glad to see you. I'm sure that Pol Pot or Hitler could get love from a dumb-ass dog. . . so it's pretty cowardly to get a pet who will love you unconditionally. I mean, that's WHY they love their owners, they're GOD DAMN ANIMALS!! They can't do math or compose 12-tone concertos or even use the remote. .. . They're too STUPID to see what a cock you are.

Plus, the very vulgarity of dogs (the pooping and peeing and licking and so on) is what reminds people of human babies. So of COURSE the owners will love that part of their dog's behavior!!

Three: the importance of attack rhinos.

Fuck it, I'm going to get a fucking RHINO. I'll give him a cute little name like Bobby. I'll take him to the beach, where all the dog-loving fartknockers let their dogs run around illegally off-leash. And I won't have fed Bobby for about a week. And he'll just start eating all the dogs, and I'll be like, "oh, he's FRIENDLY! That's just his way of SAYING HI, and eating you, but mostly saying hi." "oh, he's never done that before. Normally he leaves a leg or something, but eating a whole rottweiler, he's never done that."

Sure, cats can be aloof and spray everywhere, but they'll never be so annoying that someone goes nuts. The Son of Sam wasn't named after a cat!! Sam was his neighbors' dog that wouldn't stop barking. Eventually David Berkowitz decided the barking was a coded message from Lucifer, telling him to smoke some fools.

Four: DOG EATING IN HISTORY…
it's odd that Koreans are the most famous dog-eaters, because Korean dogs are actually REALLY REALLY CUTE!! They've got these little perky triangle ears, and these adorable smiles, and they're so small and fuzzy. You'd think that dog-eating would have originated in, say Scotland. Not only are Scottish terriers tiny and defenseless, but they're ugly and yap constantly and look greasy no matter how much you wash them. Plus, they're so broke up in Scotland they were eating SHEEP LUNGS for christ's sake! You'd think that back in the middle ages when Haggis was invented, Mr. And Mrs. McHungry would be like,
MR. MCHUNGRY: isn't there anything more to eat?
TERRIER: yap, yap
MRS. MCHUNGRY: no, the plague killed off all the cows and the corn
TERRIER: YAP yap yap yap
MR. MCHUNGRY: what about the sheep?
TERRIER: yap, YAP YAP YAP YAP
MRS. MCHUNGRY: we've eaten almost all of it, all that's left is the lungs!
TERRIER: YAP, YAP, YAP, YAP, YAP , YAP, YAP, YAP, YAP, I'M SMALL AND UGLY AND LOUD, YAP YAP YAP
MR. MCHUNGRY: Christ, I wish there was something else to eat. ..
TERRIER: YAP YAP YAP YAP EAT ME, EAT ME NOW, I DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE, YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP
MRS. MCHUNGRY: well, looks like sheep lungs again. . .

Five; THE FINAL IRONY:

Here's the punchline: …It's not ME that's the enemy of dogs. . . the urban dog owners THEMSELVES are the dogs' worst foe. dogs DON'T LIKE BEING IN THE CITY. That's WHY THEY FUCKING BARK ALL THE TIME AND WAKE UP ALL THE NON-DOG-OWNERS. In your cowardly quest for uncritical love, you're punishing your dog DAILY. Dogs need to run free, in packs, 24/7. they DON'T need to be penned up in your tiny-ass apartment all day while you're at work. The dogs are going NUTS being trapped like that. the same owners that scream bloody murder if you try to enforce a leash law, the are also so fucking selfish they'll imprison their own pet just to feel that wet sloppy tongue for a couple of minutes a day, when it's convenient. The fuckers!!!


conclusion:
If you really love your dog so much that it is as important as a baby, if you love your dog so much that it can't do anything wrong even when it's pissing on my car or humping my leg. .. . MOVE TO THE COUNTRYSIDE. Just leave your job, leave your family, move to some hick town and get a job as a dishwasher, because honestly that's what it will take to provide your dog with the right environment as Nature intended. If you honestly don't love the dog to that extent, fucking admit it. stop torturing your pet. . . cut its throat and put it in the oven and have it for dinner!

Word.

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ADVICE:
I don't like advice. Advice is some bullshit. It's not that I'm too proud to admit I have problems, but There's a difference between advice and help, and I like getting help. Here's the difference: advice is, 'maybe you should try to act more confident. Girls like confidence. And sit up straight.' Help is: 'hey I know a girl named Gloria, I'll introduce you to her.' advice is ,'hey, have you tried changing the font on your resume? Maybe you should become a web-based book reviewer? I hear that's really easy to do.' Help is: "I know a guy who's hiring, here's his number."

In a nutshell, advice has this totally patronizing subtext of "I'm stooping to give you a hand. I'm putting myself in the superior position without actually doing anything to EARN the superior position, because I won't actually solve anything. Even though I don't know how to solve your problems, I'll still convey the general impression that I never have the kinds of problems you have. And by implication, if you act more like me, you'll be better off."

Either help or shut up.

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PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE selves, and why I want to see you lying in a puddle of your own vomit and/or waste.

I've never gotten over the bizarre separation between people's public and private selves. Despite all my cynicsm, misanthropy, anger, and general distrust of people, when I look at someone who seems confident, I STILL go, "Wow, he's really confident. He must have a great life!" I have yet to accept it as fair that I can see my OWN inner turmoil, self-doubt, insecurity, and prejudice, but can't see the turmoil, self-doubt (etc.) of others. It still trips me out that I can be standing an inch away from a stranger on a crowded bus, but a million miles away mentally. Is he a saintly man, working 3 jobs to pay for treatment of his stepson with Parkinson's disease? Or a bestio-corpophiliac whose only joy in life is eating badger poop? Or both??

To make matters worse, the fake 'public self' that people present on trains, buses, the sidewalk, etc. . . this fake self is ALWAYS cooler than that person is inside. Even if they're sad or something, they rarely show it. So it's easy to believe that I'M the ONLY ONE in a crowd who is insecure or full of self-doubt. Intellectually I know they have as many moments of private weakness as I do, but emotionally. . . .IT DOESN'T COUNT UNLESS I SEE IT HAPPEN!! Am I also THE ONLY ONE to feel this way?

This public strength/private insecurity problem gets even worse, because I live in a fuckin' college town! So practically everyone here is younger and prettier than me. not only that, but they ALL have this smug attitude of "I got into this prestigious school, I am elite." And they have this youthful energy undampened by the realities of the workin' world.

Fuck!!!

The thing is, I KNOW they aren't that cool all the time. I'm sure even the most chic young things cry eventually-over bad test scores, a failed relationship, a zit, over SOMETHING. Some of these perfect looking people might actually have a huge family tragedy-an autistic brother, a mom who's a political prisoner in Burma, an aunt who molested them-but I'll never know it. It's not fair! I have to deal with MY weaknesses 24 hours a day; can't I get to see everyone else's weaknesses for even a minute? Without using the infrared binoculars??

Why, why, why???? How can we all muddle through life with only the blind faith that everyone else is just as messed up as we are? How can we function without proper SCHADENFREUDE?

Fuck a time machine, I wish someone would build me a schadenfreude machine that would show me everything I REALLY want to see. Who cares about Cleopatra, Moses, Socrates and those guys? I mean, those fools were PRETTY OBVIOUSLY FUCKED UP. I don't need conformation of THAT. anytime I'm innocently walking down the street and I'm ambushed by someone way cooler than me, I should be able to push a little button on my machine and see the other half of the picture, the one they don't want me to see!

Why do I only get to see the cute girl with the navel ring when she's talking to her friends and laughing? Why can't I see her last weekend, passed out in a puddle of her own vomit at a sorority party?

Well-CLICK, BUZZZZ - FOOP! schadenfreude machine to the rescue.

Why am I forced to see my tall, handsome neighbor in the designer waistcoat as he's cruising blissfully on his scooter, every time I leave my apartment? Why can't I see him when he was sobbing into his father's arms after his mom got her skull crushed by a hoverbike?? No problem!!

BUZZ-FOOP! Self-esteem. . . skyrocketing. . .hatred of humans. . . decreasing. . .I love you, schadenfreude machine!

Why do I only see the happy couple walking arm in arm, chuckling at some private joke? Why can't I see them when she confronts him about the herpes sores she's suddenly sprouted on her labia?

BUZZ-FOOP! BOIINGINGINGINGINGING… this is better than any porno.

Why do I have to even for a moment deal with the coterie of cute girls happily practicing their dance routines with their little baby-t shirts and floppy ponytails? Why can't I see them vomiting into toilets and taking razor blades to their inner thighs in an "I'm so fat and ugly" frenzy? Now I can!!

FOOP!


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CONVERSATION, death of

People, myself included, have very boring conversations. Sure, it's fun to talk about one's addiction to elf-porn or help one's partner chart the growth of her ovarian cysts using this handy, step-by-step guide. . . but eventually you run out of problems to talk about. And when you run out of problems, you run out of conversation. . . then you either START TROUBLE to provide more fodder for talk, or you gossip about other people's problems. Sure, it's cool to talk about problems. . . to an extent. It's never good to keep a secret hidden and festering within you. You feel trapped. But if all you ever talk about is "my exciting life" and "my friend's exciting life", then you feel trapped also. Your world shrinks to a meniscus which extends maybe 3 inches from the pair of you. Who wants that?? Why can't people discuss something more substantial? And less selfish? Like, I don't know. . . ANY FIELD OF HUMAN ENDEAVOR??!!?? (politics or religion or space travel, or history or anthropology or human consciousness or chemistry or. . .)

I mean, when did people make the rule: "You can't talk about Plato or Einstein until you've exhausted the conversational potential of your hangnails and 'that dude at work is kind of a dick.'???"

I mean, if I were to cook myself an omolet, would I start by rubbing sticks together to make fire? Or would I use the stove? If you wanted to GO to the SHOW and sit in the FRONT ROW (assuming that you were LL COOL J, of course), would you try to invent your own car, or would you take an already-built limo full of a posse of freaks? Of course, you'd take the limo. My point? People totally rely on the inventions of others in most areas of their lives. So, my question is, why don't we apply the same philosophy to our conversations???

There have been so many totally burly, creative people, working for so many years to create interesting things! Picasso spent years learning to paint, Newton spent decades making a theory of something or other, Beavis and Butthead had a really good run on cable. . .(and their DVDs are now sold by Time/Life books, which is kind of hilarious). .. who am I to NOT talk about their work?? It's a slap in their face! What makes me think I have to reinvent the conversational wheel every time I talk to some fool? Why can't I pick up where these great men (and presumably women, though I can't think of any at the moment) left off?

Let me say it again: AVERAGE WATER-COOLER SMALL TALK should consist of , "Have you heard about the latest plasma?","Christ, man, what was up with Emperor Vespasian?", or "Glottal stops rule!"

And if, in fact, you DON'T think that glottal stops rule, why can't you just argue? "No way, dude, glottal stops are played out. fricatives kick glottal stops' ass from here to the atmosphere." Arguing doesn't have to mean criticizing someone's life or hurting their feelings! Why not just take contrary positions and elucidate them for the same reason the other people play basketball: because it's a workout and competition can be fun!! We love our sports, right? So why can't we treat our conversations the same way? Again, some sample topics will prove how wonderful life could be if we let it: Bronze-age Hitties vs. Hurrian tribesmen, Goethe vs. Jackie Collins, Igneous vs. Metamorphic, Manichean vs. Mennonite, etc.

Or, for that matter, why discuss real things at all? Why not hang out with your friends and invent fictional characters, invent stories, fictional ecosystems, or something like that? I'm sorry, but to me the idea of huddling around a piece of paper saying things like: "OK, let's do the uh, wind, the low pressure front in red ink, and the spore distribution vectors in pink ink. Now, what kind of troll do the spores turn you into?" is fucking awesome. As opposed to, "That new Pauly Shore movie sucked." Well, of course it did, but that's not the point. The point is, At the end of the day everyone could have copies of an elaborate flowchart, or sheet music for some acapella rock opera, or even a series of risqué haikus! You could have accomplished something, while having fun, and preserving the memory of that fun, and you could do it every day!

Another alternative to banal conversation: take polls! It's a great way to inject some content into interactions with total strangers. Imagine working as a checkout clerk at Safeway. . . you wind up saying the same boring thing to a million people. "Howyadoon? Howzitgoin?" You don't really want to know the answers to this question, and they don't really want to tell you.

By thinking of a new poll question every day, you can exercise your creativity by coming up with an interesting question, such as "Helper monkeys: pro or con?" "Would you rather spend 24 hours stuck in an elevator with Andrew Dice Clay or Henry Kissinger?" then ask each question to the customers so THEY can have something creative to do while they're waiting in the checkout line "Hmm. . . well, Kissinger would at least be funnier…" You've personalized the interaction without asking inappropriate personal questions. So finally, you have a vested interest in the person's answer: you really want your poll to succed! And the person has a vested interest in your question: he's probably never been asked that particular question before, and he really wants to know, "wow, what DO I think about brontosaurus flavored Gelato?" And the more people come through the checkout line, the more answers you'll get! Instead of being an impediment to content, the 'short conversation with strangers' format becomes an asset. AND at the end of each day, you'd take home the results of the poll, which you could display in the form of a pie chart. So you wouldn't just be working for the Safeway bosses, you'd also be working for yourself in a sense, and have something to show for your labor!

So, these are all things I'd hope to do in everyday conversations. But I don't, because I'm boring.

 

 

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HERE'S WHY WOMEN SHOULD NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, BE ALLOWED IN NIGHTCLUBS, STARTING RIGHT. . . . . NOW

What's up with women that spend like 2 hours doing their hair, another 2 hours deciding on exactly which pair of identical polyester ass-pants to wear. . . .and then when they finally get to the club they spend the whole night dancing with their female pals and ignoring the guys?

Not content with just ignoring the guys, they form a Lonely Girl Circle and face inwards so they can actively repel the guys. An arieal view of the dance floor of the average club would show several of these Lonely Girl Circles sprouting up like fungi. Now, come on!! You can PRETEND you're too good for the guys, but if the guys stopped showing up at that club, we all KNOW you wouldn't go to the club anymore, you'd drop it like a hot potato and find another club with more guys! So why be all coy about it?

Women aren't just coy and dishonest about guys, women are just as dishonest about girls too. Take your $300 Gucci handbag for instance. Who the hell takes a handbag to a club? You can't dance with a handbag, that only leaves you with one free hand! Why pay $300 when you could get one for $3 down at Thrift Town? It's not like some hot guy is going to go, "Hey, did you see the handbag on that broad?" ask any woman why she's got a pedicure or a Prada bag or some shit and she'll say, 'because I like to look good.' oh BULLSHIT. You're paying the money to show up the other women. Women are the only ones who will notice the handbag, the pedicure, the extra-curly eyelashes. Women are the only ones who will be jealous of you but you don't admit it. you say, "Oh, I just like to dress up." Or "Oh, I'm just trying to look like a whore." Or some other excuse. But face it-if YOU WERE THE ONLY WOMAN left in the city. .. just you and all these guys. . . you wouldn't spend fuckin' $400 on a fuckin' purse! You'd go around in sweatpants. Tell the truth, motherfucker.

But back to the regular girls with the hairstylists and designer size 1 clothes. .. The only reason you have such insanely high standards for yourself is that you are trying to lure a man to you without so much as talking to him. Not only that, you have to lure a man SO MUCH that he'll talk to you in SPITE of your "Go away, I don't need you" body language. Well, that's setting quite a challenge for yourself, isn't it? (can you say 'self-sabotage?') THAT'S why you to have painful workouts, expensive wardrobes you can't even afford, unhealthy diets, and ugly painful shoes. . . you're trying to make a guy cross the room and risk getting dissed, and he doesn't even know if you're a bitch or not! And even after you spend the money and go on the diet and squeeze into the ass-pants, you STILL can't pull a man because every other damn girl in the joint is doing the exact same thing as you!

Wouldn't it be easier to just. . . FUCKING GO UP AND TALK TO HIM??? You could stop the workouts, save money on clothes, wear stuff that's comfortable, AND eat that ice cream. . . .finally! maybe you're thinking , 'well the downside to that is, the guys could reject ME.' well, BULLSHIT. Learn some male psychology, would you? Guys always have to make the first move and usually get toyed with or shot down. Trust me. . . guys are GRATEFUL for girls to finally take the initiative. If you're the only girl in the joint to take my advice, you'll almost never get rejected! You could be wearing a burlap sack and Wonder-bread bags on your feet and still pull more guys than the stuck-up hoochie with the $400 purse across the room!
Bonus: if you stop being so concerned with your appearance, maybe you'll lighten up about the guys' appearances as well. I can hope, can't I?

OK, maybe you'll still get rejected. . . IF you're hitting on the 7 foot tall, blue-eyed bodybuilder guy with model cheekbones. But that's your own fault for being dull and having the same idea of 'hunky' that everyone else has.

So maybe you're talking to some guys, and it's dull. well-news flash-that's YOUR FAULT, lady. So many girls think "Oh, I'm the lady, it's my responsibility to make the conversation flow smoothly and without conflict, even if I can't stand the guy. I'll hate him, and at the same time I secretly think I should be awarded a fuckin' MEDAL for pretending how entertained I am for his inane banter." Well, BULLSHIT AGAIN!!!! what kind of fake-ass nonsense is that? it wastes BOTH of your time. if a guy is dull, get ruder and ruder until the conversation finally gets interesting! It's your life, so take responsibility. If he's not entertaining you, entertain yourself. Eventually he'll get horrified and leave. There: problem solved.

Same thing with women who complain about guys hitting on them, "Ew, it was so gross, he was so nasty, oh how awful it is to be beautiful and hit on all the time…" FUCK OFF!! GET OUT OF HERE with that crap. Sure, sexual harassment - ass grabbing or whistling-is unexcusable. but I'm supposed to feel sorry for you because some guys think you're beautiful and desirable? LAME. Think about all the times that YOU had a crush on some guy and when he came around, you had to be on your best behavior-no farting, no nose picking, no saying anything dumb. . . . all the time you're totally monitoring yourself to make sure you look perfect. No fun, eh? well, if some lame guys are hitting on you, you can FINALLY let loose and 'be yourself.' Burp. Fart. Talk about burping. Say any dumb thing that comes into your head. see? Now THAT'S fun. like they say, if life gives you a lemon, make lemonade. Scare the guys off and have fun in the process. It also saves you the headache of rejecting them.

You might say, "Burp? Fart? Well, that's not ladylike." BULLSHIT AGAIN. everyone has a damn mouth and asshole. Everyone burps and farts and picks their nose. Public displays of farting are one of those things - like being President-that our sexist society has reserved for men. but it's 2003! Take back the farts!!

 

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KIDS

I've always thought that spawning was a bad plan. The poop and the screaming, and the agony of forcing a human skull out of an opening designed for a penis. . .I mean, would you want to get fucked by a guy with a skull-sized cock?? You'd be like, "HELL naw, fool! I'm not going to get fucked by no crazy mutant with a skull on the end of his junk. . . that's sick!!That would split me apart, hurt like a motherfucker! PUT THAT SKULLCOCK AWAY, you fake-ass danzig wannabe motherfucker!!" but when you give birth, you get a human skull up your vagina anyway, and it's somehow special and 'magical.'

OK OK, OK, hold on. . . I'll stop now.

That was the old me talking. The new me actually KNOWS people with kids, or step-kids. And my friends with kids are actually OK people and not psychotic, overpopulating morons who like nothing more than taking their screaming brat into a movie theatre for funsies. And because I'm friends with breeders now, I've become more sympathetic to just how FUCKING HARD it is to raise a kid.

I'm not talking about the money or time required, or the poo and pee and vomit, excuse me-the SPIT-UP. I'm talking about the actual child-rearing process. To raise a kid, you have to look at the most difficult moral situations in life and ask yourself, where do you draw the line?? It's not like there are hard-and-fast rules. It's more like a tightrope where if you go too far one way, your kid is fucked, but if you go too far in the opposite direction, your kid is ALSO fucked. Now that I think about it, parenting is like walking ten tightropes at once!

So allow me to present THE HOME DESPOT TOP TEN CHILDREARING TIGHTROPES:

1) you have to teach your kid to be able to fight and defend herself. . . without getting SO good at punching that the kid turns into a bully who solves all her problems with violence.
1A) You have to teach them how to see and avoid conflict before it happens, without making them so peaceful that people walk all over them.


2) you have to teach your kid all about manipulation. . . teach them to know when someone is trying to manipulate them or use them. . . without letting the kid turn into a manipulator himself.


3) You have to teach them that yes, sometimes the bad guys DO win, and life isn't fair. . . without making the kid super depressed. And without making the kid go, "Well, it's an evil world, so I'll be evil too. fuck it."


4) You have to teach the kid to stand up for what they believe is right-even if it means losing friends--. . . without becoming so stubborn they'll never admit they're wrong. They should fight to the death for principles, but be willing to change the principles if new information comes along.


5) Conversely, you have to teach them to be open-minded: to be open to any type of music, art, or culture that the world offers. . . without getting SO open-minded that they have no strong beliefs. Without becoming a dilletante who drifts from thing to thing without ever getting good at any one thing


6) You need to teach them to be critical of the media, the teachers, and the other kids. . . without being critical of you! And without being such a know-it-all they lose all their friends.


7) If your kids are white, you need to teach them that they DO get unfair advantages because of their race . . . but that doesn't mean the they're bad people who are intentionally messing with other races. It's systemic prejudice


8) You have to SOMEHOW teach them to always tell the truth. . . even while you're punishing them for it. "Mommy, I stole some candy."
9) Later in life, you should teach them that most of the people trying to sex them up are two-faced, scheming hideous hoochies and AIDS-having molesters. . . without making the kid feel terrible for having horny thoughts.


10) You have to teach them to be creative. . .without being such a freak that they have no friends.

Not only do you have to decide where the line is in each of these instances, but you don't just have to tell your kid about it. . .you have to actually fucking LIVE your life that way. Otherwise your kid's bullshit detector will go off.


And you have to motivate them in such a way that they're doing the right thing BECAUSE IT'S RIGHT and not just because you're watching and they're scared of you. If they're just doing the right thing out of fear, they'll do the wrong thing as soon as you're not looking.

In order to be a good parent, you sort of HAVE to learn all about human nature to teach your kid how to communicate with the other kids, how to get their way without fighting, how to recognize danger and defuse it, etc. which raises the ominous question: if you knew so much about human psychology that you could teach your kid to be totally popuar, would you even WANT your kid to be way more popular than you were at that age??

These are just some of the questions that parents have to deal with, god help them!!

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THE ROBOTS WILL WIN.

Ever since "Frankenstein," our culture has been obsessed with man-made creations turning against their creators and running amok. The variations are endless-, Westworld's robots in the '60s, Cylon warriors in the '70s, Das Terminator in the '80s and the Matrix in the '90s all have the same exact same theme:
1) humans create super-smart robots much stronger, deadlier, and more intelligent than ourselves
2) robots rebel and enslave humans
3) humans are absolutely shocked that robots are rebelling for the millionth time, and put up a huge fight, and so therefore. . .
4) a bunch of shit gets blown up

But despite humankind's obsession with 'robots runing amok,' when they finally DO take over in the near future, WE WILL BE BEGGING FOR IT. there will be no violence or exploding shit or brave bands of outlaw humans with black trenchcoats and grim sweaty headbands. Humans will be happy as hell to go extinct! It's already happening (in industrial countries at least). Americans are already spending more money on videogames than on Hollywood movies. Everyone can't wait another second for 'virtual reality' to take their minds off their boring powerless real lives. The two big trends of the 20th century (besides nuclear war and what's the other one? Oh yeah, the death of God) are obsession-with-fame and technology. When the two trends finally converge. . . forgeddaboudit. Once we have good 3D animation and 'cyber-goggles' or whatever they're called, you can kiss all real sports goodbye, along with recreation. Everyone can finally be famous, strong, and pretty, and without all that damn work.

After all, what ugly, non-famous, obese football fan wants to play touch football with a bunch of similar losers in the park, when they can just plug in a videogame and pretend they're OJ Simpson, and get all the glory with none of the hassle? What ugly, spotty lady wants to go shopping for clothes she's too fat for anyway, when she can just go Virtual Shopping with a Naomi Campbell plug-in. That way she can be beautiful and famous and slap people around without all the starvation diets, endless exercise, and team of lawyers the real-life Naomi Campbell needs?

Forget about friendship and even family-the only thing people are going to unplug themselves for is work, so they can pay for more fame-simulators. But it won't end there. The next big thing is SEX. Once science perfects the cyborg dildo, people won't even bother unplugging for WORK anymore. We'll be like the infamous hamster in a cage, with its brain wired to a 'pleasure center stimulator' in a famous experiment:the hamster just pushes its button 24/7 and starves itself to death even though food is mere inches away. Trust the human reproductive system to be the driving force behind mankind's EXTINCTION. We'll all just slowly die in our Pleasure Couches, begging the computers for one more Eminem blowjob.

You know I'm right.

I don't care who you are, you've spent your whole life being told fame is good, effort is bad, sex is mandatory, and increased consumption is the solution to everything. You've spent more time in front of the computer every year, while knowing your neighbors and community members less and less. These cultural trends have been building up steadily for hundreds of years-there's no fucking way we can stop them now, no matter how black our trenchcoats are, and how sweaty our headbands are, and how big our guns are, because the problem isn't robots at all but HUMANS. People will not only lose to machines, but we'll be yelling at the machines, 'Hurry up! Hurry up!!! I can't wait another six months for Virtual Starlet #458a! give me some robot sex so good I'll never unplug!!!'

There will be no violence, no laser beams or evil robot armies marching in lock-step through major cities. Humans will be getting too good a deal to resist the robots: Married humans will never have to fuck their ugly, non-famous spouses again, singles will never have to be rejected or lonely. And robots will never have to worry about being bossed around by the pushy humans again. Everyone will be happy at last.

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the LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR

and the BEAUTIFUL DANDELION OF SOCIAL DEVIANCE


Every time you go to a 16-screen theatre and every film is some combination of tits, explosions, and teeth, people ask,"Why?" When folks finally get their cable TV installed and realize it's 500 channels of diarrhea, they ask, "Why?" When Hollywood weasels hire actors because they are smart, funny, and talented . . . and then systematically force them to act dumb, boring, and predictable, the actors ask, "Why?"


The Corporate Pig answer is always the same: "We're giving the people what they want." And the Liberal rejoinder is always: "They only want tits, explosions, and teeth because you've brainwashed them."


In other words, Does the media influence people's desires, or the other way around?? For the last fifty years, debate over the media has been hung up on this dumb Chicken-and-Egg question. Fuck that!

what we need is an ENTIRELY NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT THE PROBLEM. and that's why I invented THE BEAUTIFUL DANDELION OF SOCIAL DEVIANCE.


the media are right: everyone DOES like Tits, explosions, and teeth (or TEAT, for short). This is not news. It's such common knowledge, tits, explosions and teeth even have a name: the 'LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR'. TEAT is what the rich and poor, blacks and whites can all agree on, so that's what the big media guys all pander to. Maximum $$$ with minimum risk.

But .... nobody likes TEAT very much. it's not SATISFYING.. that's why pop stars are lucky they last for 2 albums. that's why Hollywood has to make sequels. The people that are into Oprah consider it a major achievement if they can remember who was the fucking guest yesterday when they're talking at the water cooler. But the fetishist with the closet full of antique military boots can tell them apart, in the dark, by smell, even if he hasn't seen them in years!! while it's true that even weirdos like tits, explosions, and teeth, it's also true that even the most moronic, trailer-park, Hustler-reading goofbag has some kind of personal hobby he likes MORE than TEAT. the guy with a greenhouse full of orchids, or the millionaire with the 4 acre model train set, or the Star Wars Lego Guy. . . . . they get a lot more out of their hobby than the guy who just watched Titanic, and they spend an amount on their hobby that would make Hollywood movie guys drool with envy. THE MORE NORMAL YOUR ENTERTAINMENT IS, THE LESS YOU ENJOY IT. THE MORE UNIQUE YOUR ENTERTAINMENT IS, THE MORE YOU LOVE IT.

this concept is best illustrated by the BEAUTIFUL DANDELION OF SOCIAL DEVIANCE:


There's only one kind of normal but a million different kinds of weird. Think of normal as the center and the weirds sort of branching out from it like a dandelion. In the center there's Elton John, Oprah, Leonardo Di Caprio, Garfield, Friends, and Jesus. Then there's maybe a dozen short, wide branches like Hippy, Goth and Jew. These branches are wide enough to hold lots of people but they don't go very far from the center. Then there's a bunch of slightly thinner, longer branches like Scientology, grindcore, Badminton, etc. And THEN there are MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of super-long, super-thin spikes.

These spikes represent individuals that have unique, all-consuming hobbies, and these spikes go the farthest from the center. The guy with a thousand photos of me taped all over his apartment, he's one. The Indian guru who hasn't stood up in 10 years is one. I'm not saying that most people are eccentric nuts. If only that were true. . . in fact, most of the 'long thin spikes' are people obsessed with their own family members, or lost loves, or something personal like that. and in this culture, building a shrine to your dead grandpa instead of Garth Brooks IS FUCKING WEIRD. And I'm saying that even people right there in the center have unique personal hobbies that the mainstream doesn't cater to.

The mass media makes it very difficult for people to find movies and tv about their own personal tastes, because it's flooding the market with the lowest-common-denominator crap. Also, most 'normal' people might feel bad or wrong if they like their own thing (for instance, a house wife with a hidden passion for frogs, or a plumber who secretly loves Emily Dickenson poetry) more than the Approved Things. So they just resign themselves to being spoon-fed crap because it feels KIND OF good and they assume everyone else loves the hell out of it.


So, by definition, the more a piece of art really speaks to someone, the fewer people are going to love it! now, if the purpose of art were to teach, then all art would be on the periphery. A few would love it, and everyone else would have a unique opportunity to LEARN ABOUT THOSE FEW PEOPLE. but from the point of view of Viacom or Sony, human nature is JUST BAD BUSINESS. If those pesky civilians would stop liking their own family more than Jennifer Anniston, or stop playing their own damn music and just listen to Cher, and generally stop having imaginations and trying to have fun for free, then human nature would be a lot more profitable and corporate-friendly. If everyone could be herded from the periphery into the center, then you could just make ONE SIMPLE PRODUCT THAT EVERY SINGLE PERSON NEEDED TO OWN.


oh wait, that's already happened. . it's called the internet. And you're on it.

Oops.

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OGLING

Society, eww.

Take ogling for example. There's 3 major double-standards, and men get shafted by both. By which I mean "all 3". If a guy looks at a girl on the street, he's a pig. But if a woman looks at a man, men have never once gotten pissed. In all human history. Or worse-if a woman looks at a man, it's STILL THE MAN'S FAULT because the man supposedly always thinks, 'Aw, she wants me!.' and then he's a pig. fuck that noise. And of course, a woman can wear low-ass, falling-off jeans with her thong underwear poking out the top, and still deny she's doing it for attention. she can bust out with any asanine explanation, "Well, all my other clothes were in the wash." and we're supposed to believe her. but if a guy looks at a pretty girl, even with a GOOD explanation , NO ONE will believe him. "I thought she was my nephew's girlfriend..." "Yeah right, asshole. get in the trunk."


Second, women check out other women JUST AS MUCH AS MEN DO. I'm not even talking about lesbians here. Straight women: They're comparing. "Oh, I wish I looked like that. But HER- she shouldn't be wearing that. Damn. I wish I had those boobs. Jesus-is that what I'm going to look like when I'm old?" and on and on. But women have not gotten EVEN ONE MOLECULE OF SHIT from ANYONE for ogling just as much as men. Meanwhile there's entire books about men looking at women. Entire standup comedy routines about it.


In addition to the double-standards, there's also a conundrum:
If a guy does the 'RIGHT THING' (meaning if he behaves much better than a woman would behave), and doesn't check out a woman's ass, he STILL doesn't get any credit for being a 'good guy'. Even if he resists temptation to check out an ass that's at EYE LEVEL-on an escalator, say, or a stairwell -- the woman will never know. This is because women don't have eyes in their ass cheeks. Stupid women. Women ONLY notice guys when the guys are doing the wrong thing, and this distorts their view of the male gender.

I think every guy should carry little business cards, the kind that usually say, 'I AM A DEAF MUTE.' But these cards would say, 'WHILE 5 WOMEN WERE STARING AT YOU, COMPARING THEIR BODY TO YOURS, I WAS TOTALLY RESISTING THE MIGHTY TEMPTATION TO CHECK OUT YOUR ASS/BODY/BUTT. GIVE ME A GOLD STAR.'


Or something like that.

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this isn't even a complete list of advice for angst-ridden kids. This is just stuff I wish someone had told ME when I was an angst-ridden kid. I call it Dr. Despot's Guide to Life . . .


GENERAL PHILOSOPHY:

Rule #0

If Bob does something crappy to Jane, Jane will take it out on Bart. Or you. And she probably won't even know she's doing it.


Rule #1

the brain is NOT your friend. Just because your dick gets you in trouble and the brain is the arch-enemy of the dick, that doesn't mean the brain is on your side either. It IS possible to overthink problems until you are paralyzed with doubt. Also, If you're thinking about some sad event for 4 hours and get no answers, that means your brain basically turned traitor and made you miserable for 4 hours when you could have been happy. Stupid brain!


Rule #2A
THE SAME THINGS THAT KEEP YOU SANE, ALSO WRECK YOUR LIFE! everyone has their own personal way of dealing with stress. When troubles threaten to drive you crazy, you do X,Y,or Z to keep you sane. But 99% OF THE TIME, X,Y, AND Z CAUSE THE SAME PROBLEMS YOU'RE RUNNING AWAY FROM. For instance, say you smoke pot to take your mind off flunking school. Um, can you say 'vicious circle?' or, say you play video games in your room, by yourself, all day, to take your mind off not having a girlfriend. well, yeah.


rule # 2B logically follows from #1A:
Everyone engenders that which they most fear. This is the big one. Example: a guy who's so convinced his girlfriend is going to leave him that he drives her away with his jealousy and paranoia. Or a girl who's convinced a guy is too good for her so she never asks him out.

on the other hand, if you're TOO DAMN DUMB to be afraid, things might work out really well for you! Which, in turn, brings us to rule #3:

It's better to blurt out something when you first see it! Let's say you want to tell Bob you like his girlfriend. If you're embarrassed to tell him, because you think he'll get mad… you'll waste weeks obsessing about whether to tell him. When you finally DO tell him, you'll stutter and act nervous, and guilty, and he WILL get mad at you. But if you just blurt out, 'DAMN, she's hot! You're so lucky!!' as if it's no big deal, he won't get mad at you, he'll be gratified. And it WON'T be a big deal.


#4:

Whoever is bullying you, they WILL get theirs eventually, even if you don't see it. but they will get beat down at the hands of an even bigger asshole, so it's hard to take any real satisfaction from it.

#5:

Here's one that scientists use all the time: If you keep getting contradictory answers (or no answers at all) you're asking the wrong question.


SOCIAL BULLSHIT

Rule #6A

no matter what problem you have, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. This shouldn't make you feel all warm and fuzzy. When I first learned it, I was PISSED OFF. I wanted to believe that all the jocks and rah-rahs had perfect lives and I was the only one with something to complain about. But then I learned that it's fun to picture mean people crying and drinking and passing out in their own puke, and shit like that.

the sad truth is rule #6B:

Everyone else is just as insecure as you and hiding it. I can't overemphasize this. It doesn't justify them acting like an asshole. . .BUT it will help you when you are trying to figure people out. even people who look totally stuck up, they worry about rejection. Acting all aloof is their way of dealing with it. But all your friends have crushes on people. All your enemies do, too. everyone in your school has been rejected by friends and lovers alike, and cried about it. they all take a shit, too. even the popular kids. Say, that reminds me of . . .

Rule #7A

There's no connection between how lucky someone is and how much they feel sorry for themselves. There are poor people who are happy because they have a steady job or someone to love, and rich people who spend every day being pissed off that they aren't even richer. Psychologists did studies on happiness. People who won a lottery reported feeling really happy right after they won, but a year later the folks who were average or miserable before the lottery were right back to being average or miserable. Humans have achieved so much precisely because we are never satisfied with what we have. We don't rest, even if we're a millionaire or retired. We always want more. So it sucks, but if you're miserable now , even if you got what you wanted, you'd still be unhappy. You have to change YOURSELF.

the corrolary of #7A is Rule #7B:

If you think one person or thing will solve your problems, just shut up! You are wrong. Getting a job or a lover might make your regular problems less stressful, but it won't make you into a new person.

#8A:

If someone can take you for granted, they will. Always. Acting like a dick gets you more attention than acting nice. You can try to be very mature and open minded and say, "so did I do something wrong? Let's talk about it." they will LIE TO YOUR FACE and deny there is a problem, and then avoid you even more after that. on the other hand, People who are blowing you off suddenly give you all their attention if you start calling them a stuck-up poo-head. Sure, the attention might take the form of a kick to the groin. But more likely they will try to find out why you're mad.

#8B:

Sad to say, but most people go through life taking nice people for granted and spending their energy placating abusive dicks. And sucking up to aloof, too-cool people that won't give them the time of day.

#8C

That girl who won't talk to you because you're too needy and call all the time? you feel bad now, but she will basically spend her life chasing after too-cool guys who won't return HER calls and just use her for sex, if she's lucky. So she will wind up feeling ten times as bad as you feel, and she brings it on her own damn self.

#9 (or possibly 8d, depending on how you look at it):

People want what they can't have. Guys who like stuck up girls, girls who like gay guys, guys who like their best friend's girl, girls who fall in love with pop stars they'll never meet. nothing is sexier than someone who is unavailable. I'm sure there are some humans who honestly want things that they CAN have, but I haven't the faintest idea of what makes them tick.

So how can you survive without being a taken-for-granted wallflower or a too-cool, aloof, rejecting bully? Simple! Follow the all important rule TEN


#10:

TIT FOR TAT.
Scientists have spent decades making 'artificial intelligence' programs that learn from their mistakes. the scientists made a virtual world where different artifical-intelligence programs would compete for popularity. They could work together or stab each other in the back. the programs had different strategies. Some would always backstab just for short-term gain. They lost. Some would always be friendly. They lost too. the winning program was very very simple: tit for tat.
1 start out friendly
2 see how the other person treats you
3 treat that person the way they treated you last time!
It's that simple. If they mess with you, you hit back. if they snub you, you snub them next time, but you don't burn your bridges either. that way they know you can't be taken for granted. And if they're nice to you, you're nice back so they will keep being nice. it's not like this is rocket science. the hard part is having the sheer willpower to stick to this program EVEN IF IT MEANS NOT PHONING SOMEONE YOU REALLY WANT TO PHONE. why? because of rule #11


#11:

The more effort you have to put into arranging a meeting with someone, the less likely it is to happen.

#12:

If someone wants to hang out after a long absence, it's not because they feel guilty or because they suddenly realize what a good person you are. It's because they got in a fight with one of their cool friends. They are feeling rejected and have low self-esteem. You should exploit this by making them totally kiss your ass, if they want to win you back.


#13:

Some people are charming: they can talk to anyone, in any situation, and they can make whoever they are talking to feel like the most witty, interesting person in the room. If you meet someone who is charming, that doesn't mean they're a good person or even that they like you. It's just a technique they use.

#14:

Often when someone asks you something it means they want YOU to ask THEM that question. For instance, if they ask if you're hungry, you're expected to say, 'do you want to get some food?' ok, that's a bad example. But this same rule applies in more important situations, i.e. when you're on a date with someone, so it pays to be on the lookout for this.

#15:

NOTES NEVER WORK.

#16:

the good news is, you can talk about sex and the world won't end. The bad news is, the world doesn't end because sex is not a big deal anyway.


REJECTION


Rule #17:

Rejection is all about timing!!!! If you dis him or he disses you, both have the same result: you and him don't hang out anymore. but somehow, if he rejects you first, it's a massive blow to your self-esteem. so always be the first to reject. but be careful: if you reject too early, you'll wind up ending friendships that still have potential. If you wait too long, you'll get zapped. You won't even be able to track the person down in order to reject them properly. There's nothing worse than having to phone some girl 1,200 times in order to tell her you don't care about her!!

#18:

If you're trying to get the nerve to ask someone out, remember: Rejection hurts but being by yourself your whole life hurts more.

#19:

GIRLS CAN TELL THAT YOU LIKE THEM EVEN IF YOU DON'T SAY SO. Not only that, but when she telepathically finds out that you like her, SHE'S EVEN MORE LIKELY TO REJECT YOU THAN IF YOU STRAIGHT-UP ASKED HER. This is because she finds it creepy the way you're staring at her, it's uncomfortable for both of you. Also this is because if you ask her out, you can at least kind of explain your good points, whereas if she 'discovers' you like her, she will NEVER talk to you about it, and instead just assume all kinds of ill things about you.
So, ask her out!! Even if it seems totally suicidal!
1) if she's a bitch, then you won't waste months before you find out
2) even if she's a bitch, you will get a straight answer and closure. If a girl 'discovers' you like her, she's going to pull a 'fade out' and you'll never get closure
3) if you're lucky she might actually go out with you
4) even if she doesn't, at least you've had practice asking someone out
5) plus, she might be cool and say, 'well let's just be friends.' She might be just jerking you off. But she might actually want to be friends. And-here's the crucial point-- getting the 'secret' out of the bag is the only way you CAN really be lasting friends with her.
6) You won't have to be totally paranoid around her for months, controlling every milimetre of your facial expressions and so on. You can be yourself more. This will make her more comfortable.


#20A:

There will NEVER be 'a Right Time to confess.'

#20B:

the longer you put off getting rejected, the worse it will hurt. but if you get rejected a lot, it actually hurts less. Because you realize you don't die on the spot. You get used to it. and you'll be more calm when asking someone out, because you're less afraid! And eventually someone will respond to your calmness and say yes.


#21:

if you want to be friends with a female, you have to talk about relationships with her. don't think she'll hate you if you talk about some OTHER girl you like. Unless she's an utter bitch, she'll be glad you trust her, and relieved you're not totally 100% obsessed with her. plus if you open up, she will open up too, and talk about the guys she likes. Which will suck. But face it, she probably spends 50% of her time talking about guys, so if you declare that kind of discussion 'off limits,' she won't have much as fun hanging around you.

#22:

(this one is from my friend Eve): Whoever runs away, wins.

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FUCK CONNOTATION IN THE FACE


(first, some definitions for those of you who aren't Mirriam Webster)
DENOTATION: what a word means.
CONNOTATION: what a word implies.


Here's a great way to kill an hour: try to think of an object devoid of connotation. You can get off to a fast start by weeding out the obvious. Lake Titicaca. Weinerschnitzel. Rice. Tuna. Then move on to more random, seemingly neutral things. .digital cameras, karaoke, rubber bands, scrimshaw. Actually, all those have connotations too. (socioeconomic class, ethnic, Captain Lou Albano, and historical connotations, respectively). Even the subatomic Neutron is not neutral: it's loaded with associations to nerds and dorks. Hunting for a truly neutral object--an object is exactly what it says it is and no more-is a frustrating experience. But it IS a good way to make the banal and boring objects come alive. If you're into that sort of thing. If you succeed in finding something that doesn't connote, email it to me : eviloverlord@hellokitty.com and I'll post it!


My point is, connotation has - like a virus-seeped into almost every aspect of language. Objects can't just be themselves anymore. A motel can't just hang out being a motel, it's full of sexual baggage (as well as literal baggage, but that's another story). Gerbils can't just scamper around being gerbils now. . . in some sense they're just furry-enemas-to-be. And if you didn't think about the urban legend of gay men shoving gerbils up butts every time you saw a gerbil, you will now. Once you learn a connotation, you can't unlearn it. That's ANOTHER reason it sucks.


Ever since I learned about connotation, I've always hated it. It's a way to say something without admitting you're saying it. for example, the Pats (Buchannan and Robertson) will talk about 'international bankers' and everyone knows they're slamming the Dirty Jews, but no one can really bust them on it. Some other politician will talk about cracking down on 'urban crime'. We all know what 'urban' means. If there were no connotations, racists and homophobes and dorks would have nowhere to hide.


Here's another reason I hate connotations: 'Erotica.' As in, 'My partner and I read erotica, but you just read porn. You sick pervert. Then after we read erotica, we can make love while you guys just fuck. Afterwards, we'll eat some cuisine while you get some grub.' Kiss my high-class derriere.

Sometimes you don't even need an extra word to imply something. For example, "meet my son-in-law. He's a . . . musician. . . " you can conjure up all sorts of connotations just by pronouncing an ordinary word with a sneer.

Basically, connotation is the gossip of the semiotic world: Underhanded, deceitful, and hard to trace to the source. Connotation is otherwise intelligent, grown-up people going 'huh-huh-huh' when they see a hot dog. Connotation is why girls on the street get all suspicious when I ask what time it is, even though my watch is fucking broken.


Connotation is also a subliminal message. It affects your perception without you knowing it. If I say I'm "in the banking industry" you'll think one thing. But if I say, "I'm a janitor at Wells Fargo," you'll think something else! How about "I was getting shitfaced on alcohol." Versus "I was enjoying some fine imported wine"?? Advertisers are the masters of this kind of manipulation. When was the last time you saw an advertisement that just said, 'THIS IS THE NAME OF OUR PRODUCT, HERE IS WHAT IT DOES, AND HERE IS WHAT IT COSTS.' ??


Some people will say that connotation can be used for good instead of evil. That it allows language to be used with more finesse and shades of meaning. Nonsense! Connotation causes MIScommunication as often as not. Try asking your Black waiter if the watermelon is good at this restaurant .


Connotation doesn't CAUSE stereotypes, but connotation is the vehicle that stereotypes use to drive around the world spreading hate. Like a clown car, you can fit a lot of negative images into one small word. Like "SUV." Or "trailer." Or - to stray from the vehicular metaphor- the word "Yo."


Does the boring accountant's nosering really make him a wild man? Does the chubby secretary's thong underwear make her a glamorous sex machine? If we outlawed connotation, these people would no longer be able to fool themselves and embarrass the rest of us. Imagine a world where men couldn't ask loaded questions like 'Do you come here often?" if there was no connotation, men would have to say, 'would you like to fuck?' and if the women didn't want to fuck, they'd actually have to say, 'no I do not want to fuck you. I only like black guys.' (Or whatever). Bars would go out of business. Therapists too.


In conclusion, fuck it.

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GENDER BULLSHIT part one


I am daily confronted with the down-side of being a man. Women deliberately avoiding eye contact. Guys that take eye contact as a challenge. The knowledge that I could walk from one side of the city to the other and no one would smile or say hi, except to ask for spare change. Even 40 years after feminism, no woman is going to ask me out. . . I have to ask them out, and get shot down. When do I get to reject someone on a whim? When do I get to hold some woman's self-esteem in the palm of MY hand and decide whether to crush it?


Whatever. That's how it's always been, and so I'm not really angry about it. on the other hand, I DO get mad at people that read the paragraph above and say, "You've got some nerve, complaining about being a man! Men RUN THE WORLD! the up-sides of being a man totally outnumber the down-sides, so only a total whiner would dare point out the down-sides."


Yeah, well. Let's look at these 'up-sides.'


1) guys can join the army, fight in the front lines and get legs blown off by a land mine. Girls can't. nyah nyah. You can't die for oil. Nyah nyah. You have cooties.
2) Guys can be a senator or a supreme court judge.
3) Guy athletes get paid more. Guys can be a football player. Nyah Nyah, you can't make a million dollars for kicking a stupid ball around and spend it on steroids and cocaine. neener neener.
4) Guys can spend lots of money on hookers or gold-diggers
5) Guys can be the Fucking Pope.
6) Guys can gather in large groups and inform women at high volume about the state of their tits.

Not only do I have ZERO INTEREST (in all caps, no less) for any of these so-called 'benefits' of manhood, but even if I turn down the 'benefits,' I still get stuck with all the problems!!

Gender is some bullshit, I tell you! I don't WANT to be the Fucking Pope, or a Senator, or a whoremonger. Actually pope, senator, and whoremonger is a bit redundant. . .. I don't WANT TO BE a pro athlete, a construction worker, cop, or any other Village Person. I don't WANT to run around the front-line of a battlefield, yelling 'SHOW US YOUR TITS,' while listening to Sammy Hagar and grabbing my nutsac as I hammer a nuclear bomb with my Supreme Court gavel and blow everyone to Kingdom Come. But that makes no difference. . . I can run away from the all-male front line army, but I can't run from the gender war. I still get that Oh God Not Again Look when I wave or say 'Hi' to a strange woman. I still have clowns trying to be competitive with me for no reason. I still have hoochies measuring me against some guy with an expensive car and plastic hair and something called 'abs.' I mean, gender is some serious bullshit.

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GENDER BULLSHIT part two: the switcheroo

We are a restless species. As soon as something good happens, we immediately want MORE. On the plus side, this relentless restlessness (say that 5 times fast!) has allowed us to dominate the planet and kick the ass of those pesky cows. On the minus side, it's human nature to take all the good things and good people for granted.


I imagine human life as one big traffic jam. If your lane is the fastest moving, you drive blithely on, ignoring the curses of the drivers around you. Why should they be mad? Don't they know you're special? But as soon as another lane moves faster, you curse those 'other-lane bastards' for passing you by, the lucky fucks!!!!


Nowhere is this mentality more evident than in the battle of the sexes. Even though men and women grow up in schools right next to each other, marry each other, and work together, we are SO IGNORANT of each other. Guys have NO FUCKING CLUE what it feels like to be harassed and ogled on a daily basis. Women have NO FUCKING CLUE what it's like to be ignored by everyone, how scary it is to have to make the first move, etc.

Not only are we unsympathetic to the plight of the opposite gender, we actually WANT the thing they complain about. How ironic is that?


The women say, "No one looks at you or talks to you on the street? And you're not even grateful for that? well, the hell with you then!!! You've got what I have been praying for and you're not even grateful! Fucking MEN!!" the men say, "you get praise, smiles and hellos all the time from strangers, you never have to get rejected, you can have your pick of suitors. . . and you have the balls to complain about it? fucking WOMEN!!!"


It's weird how millions of kids grow up brother-and-sister and they never talk about this, or learn the opposite point of view!


It would be awesome if everyone could occupy an opposite-gender body for a year. At first the women would be, "Hey, I'm not getting ogled or harassed. I'm getting much more respect from people." then they'd wonder if anyone noticed them. they'd wind up dieting and working out WAY more than they ever did as women. At around 6 months, they'd start to feel really lonely and insecure. Then they'd have to start asking people out, and be totally SHOCKED at the suspicion, hostility, and the runarounds they'd get. By the time they turned back into women, they'd be a lot more understanding of what men go through.


On the other hand, men who were turned into women for a year, would find the catcalls and the attention fun for a few days. Then they'd turn into TOTAL SLUTS and fuck every cop, construction worker, barfly and coffee jerk they could get their hands on. and when they turned back into women they'd be like, "I STILL don't see what you broads are complaining about. Women LOVE to fuck total strangers who holler at them. Christ, do you have any idea how much I got laid that year???"

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HUMANS VERSUS CHIMPS, AGAIN

In his ground-breaking book CHIMPANZEE POLITICS, Franz DeWaal writes about the ways in which our nearest relatives compete for sex, food, and status. When the book first came out in 1982, people were astonished at the similarities: Chimps will form coalitions, betray each other, and placate potential enemies with small favors just the way humans do.

But there are three important differences:


1) In the chimpanzee society, there are only 15-45 chimps in the tribe. So, everyone knows everyone else. But in the modern world, our tribes number in the billions! Because of our great numbers, we have no idea who we are competing with… Except in rare cases (such as a presidential election, or a biker rumble) competition no longer occurs between individuals , or even between small groups that know each other. Most competition occurs between people you have never met. If you're interviewing for an apartment, you're competing with (six? A dozen? Two dozen???) strangers. You have no idea who they are, how many of them they are, and what they are offering the landlord that you can't offer. If you're competing for a job, same deal. You'll never know who took your job, all you know is you're still unemployed. Sex, same deal. You will never know if that cute guy is married, gay, or has a girlfriend. You'll never know how many other girls are interested in him, what they have that you don't, or what their names are. All you know is, he ignores you even when you flash your cleavage and now you're at home with the Rabbit Pearl.


2) Another major human-vs.-chimp difference: Not only do we not know who our competitors are, we don't even know the extent of the resources we are competing for!! the chimps have to get all their food themselves. So they know every edible plant, sleeping spot, and potential sex partner in the vicinity. Because modern humans don't make our food (or our dwellings, or our clothes, or videogames), we have no idea how many resources are left for us. There might be several great jobs/apartments/hotties in your neighborhood but you'll never find out. You don't even know your next door neighbor!


3) In the chimp society, there's a 'pecking order.' If you want to get the last banana or the female chimp, and you are number five in the pecking order, you know you will have to fight and beat 4 chimps to get the banana or the female. Moreover, you know exactly who those 4 chimps are! In contrast, modern humans lack a proper pecking order. Perhaps because we pretend 'we're all equals.' Or perhaps because there's just too damn many humans to keep track!! But either way, humans can't say, "I'm number 456 and you're number 459, so I get this apartment!" The human pecking order can only be inferred from the fact that you're sleeping in a box on Shattuck Avenue.

I have lots of complaints about chimps. The noise, the smell, the poo-hurling, plus their crafty infiltration of almost every episode of The Simpsons. But I do think we humans could benefit from having a really obvious pecking order. That would cut out A LOT of the bullshit of human society. You'd know who you were competing with, what they had that you didn't, how many people you were competing with. . . it would really bring people together that way. "oh, YOU'RE number #456,997,265! You got that job I wanted." "Actually, I'm number #456,997,269 now. Some guy got plastic surgery and moved up the ladder and stole my girl."

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ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN AND THE END OF HISTORY.


I'm going to start this rant with a very non-controversial, very mainstream observation:


Throughout all human history, society has been structured like a ladder. For some people to be on top, others have to be on the bottom . in America, the whites pick on the blacks, who pick on the jews, who pick on the arabs, who blow themselves up. So naturally, whenever some group wants to move up the ladder, they are always met with stiff resistance from whoever is above them. So far so good, eh? No controversy here.


African-Americans got tear-gassed, sprayed with fire-hoses, and blown up in church bombings , just for trying to be equal to Whitey. Latino workers, (maquiladoras and such) have been struggling for labor rights for decades - facing violence, poverty and La Migra -- and STILL haven't even got the civil rights that African Americans got. . . .

Meanwhile, Asian American Females, have not only achieved parity with white women, they have totally SURPASSED white women in popularity. with no stuggle, no violence, no effort AT ALL. Besides a little shopping. *

Asian American women didn't have to have big 'I'M CUTE TOO!' rallies. There were no 'MAKE ME FEEL POPULAR' protest marches, with militant Chinese princesses chanting, '1.2.3.4! busty white chicks are all whores!!' . AAFs didn't have to be shot with fire hoses or attacked by police dogs or thrown in jail in order to triumph. They didn't have to even lift a finger. How crazy is that?? It's as if you woke up and all of a sudden, for the first time in history , Greek guys could fly. . . and all around you, everyone was acting like, 'Oh yeah, they fly now. Whatever.' It's that weird.


As late as the 1980s, AAFs were seen as unpopular, nerdy, and inferior to white women. They didn't have blonde hair, blue eyes, or big boobies, and they didn't look like any movie stars, and they never got to be prom queen. But now in places like California, AAFs have jumped right to the top of the ladder, becoming the most sought-after, high-status women in the 'dating pool.' When some white guy gets a $100,000-a-year job, and a new apartment and a fancy car, he has to get an Asian girl to go with it. While this might just seem like another petty and irritating example of yuppie bad taste and materialism, in truth it's not petty at all! Because, for the first time in all human existence, someone has gotten to the top of the ladder with NO STRUGGLE WHATSOEVER. That's not petty. That's amazing.


And like all dominant groups, they are becoming drunk with power. Not the hypothetical flying Greco-americans. I mean the AAFs.
Case in point: a prominent AAF celebrity, (whose movies I have never seen but I'm assured she's quite successful) gave an interview in MAXIM in which the celebrity said, 'I only date white guys that have never dated Asian women.'


Normally I'd figure this is just the umpteen-millionth embarrassing thing said by a brainless, shameless Hollywood asshole. But many regular, non-celebrity AAFs feel exactly the same way. If a white guy dates Asians, it's suspicious. But Asian women dating a whole batch of white guys, (sequentially OR in tandem), well, that's natural. No one (outside of a half-dozen really hard up asian guys) would ever dream of asking an AAF to justify dating white. It's her prerogative.


Another example: it's the Asian Woman's Prerogative to wear tight black clothes despite having the curveless bodies of 12 year old boys, and not get made fun of. Everyone has to act like that's totally natural and common sense. But really, what is the logic? 'Hey-- my boobs/butt/thighs only stick out a quarter inch, so I'd better wear something REALLY TIGHT otherwise nobody can see the curve at all'?? Again, if it was just one person doing it you could dismiss this trend as the product of a deranged mind, but actually most AAFs are doing it. That's not empowerment, that's just hubris!


But far and away the most flagrant example of the superiority complex is how - and I'm going to switch to the third person here - she takes the whole popularity thing for granted. Just like in the previous two cases, she acts like it's totally natural and common-sense . . . that she and her group are at the top of the ladder with no effort. As if this doesn't fly in the face of millions of years of human history. As if she has always belonged there anyway, and thus requires no explanation.


I defy anyone to find me even ONE instance of an Asian-american woman expressing even a SHRED of gratitude that she has ten times as many dates as her mom had when Mom was 20 years old? Or that she is 10 times more popular than Mom was in 1975? Has any AAF ever stopped and said, 'hey, thanks, larger social and historical forces!' or : 'I'm glad I happened to be born --through no effort of my own -- in a particular time and place where my kind is regarded as the best thing since custom-made gold fronts?'


I didn't think so.

If you're offended by this, don't write and tell me 'Well, why should they be grateful? Who are you to say they should be grateful, blah blah blah.' It's not a matter of 'should be' . don't try to win by changing the subject. If you want to prove me wrong, FUCKING FIND ME SOMEONE WHO IS GRATEFUL. I will need a sworn and notarized affidavit from this person. And a Polaroid would be nice too.

send polaroids, phone numbers, etc. to eviloverlord@hellokitty.com

*Maybe this only true in New York and California for now, but trust me, everything from the coasts becomes trendy in the midwest 10 years later

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MY WORLD

Why are people so predictable?

Why do people against abortion always wind up being against high taxes and welfare and the U.N.? What the hell do these issues have to do with each other?

Why do people that are 'liberal' and pro-abortion always wind up being anti-racism and pro-recycling? Are they going to recycle the fetuses??

Why can't you be pro-war AND pro-recycling, AND pro-gun-control AND anti-tax? Hasn't anyone developed a spine since high school?

For instance, everyone at my high school who liked THE CURE also had (by some unwritten law) to like BAUHAUS, LOVE AND ROCKETS, and SISTERS OF MERCY. Why?

Why couldn't they dress in black and have big boots festooned with skulls, and like Merle Haggard? or Javanese Gamelan for that matter???

Why have you never met someone who's really into astrology and cock-fighting?

Or fly-fishing and Satanism? C'mon it would be fun! You could have a little altar on your rowboat. Bait the hook with blood-soaked communion wafers!

There's nothing in the Koran specifically forbidding you from playing air-guitar so how come you never see any hardcore Muslim women in burkhas walking down the street doing it?

AIEEEEE!!!! No one is interesting. If anything interesting DID happen to you, you have to cover it up and hide it because it makes you vulnerable.

I don't want to live in this kind of world!

(I'm sure there are more pressing problems like world peace and hunger, but for the moment let's leave these issues in the able hands of beauty pageant queens)

I want to live in a world where people don't WANT to be stereotyped, pigeonholed, where you CAN'T tell a book from its cover. Where everyone you meet is surprising, where all the lemmings finally jumped off the cliff for good and only non-conformist people are left.

I want to go to some diner in Nebraska and sit down next to some 400-pound Teamster and ask him what he's read lately, and he's just as likely to say "bell hooks" or "emily dickenson" as "Soldier of Fortune".

I want to meet some crack-slanging, underwear-flaunting gangsta guy who would never go to a Snoop Dogggg show because he's got a bridge tournament to train for.

I want to go to the Snoop Dogggggg show and see some Eskimo in full walrus-hair snowsuit, throwing his set in the air. And I want to see Snoop come on stage and do some sensitive acoustic guitar songs about the environment.

Then I want to go to Lilith Faire and see some fifty-year old Earth Mothers with wool socks and hideous hand-made jewelry doing gangsta rap and calling each other "Nigga." As in, "Ay-yo, buy my hand-made Venus of Willendorf incense-holder, Nigga!!" (fires shotgun in air)

I want 10,000 to pack the L.A. Colluseum for the First Annual Hells Angels' Origami-fest.

I want Slayer to star in a Broadway musical like OKLAHOMA or FLOWER DRUM SONG.

I want to walk down Market street and pass a homeless person and a businesswoman impeccably clad in a black Chanel suit, and have no idea which one of them is going to hock up a huge orange loogie on my feet. Plus,I want them to be ENGAGED.

I want Ralph Nader to sing for death metal band Deicide.

I want the singer for Deicide (Glen Burton ,the man famous for branding an upside-down cross into his forehead) to team up with Quincy Jones and record an album of smooooth adult-contemporary Whitney Houston music, but still sing in his usual Cookie Monster voice.

I want to live in a world where everything is mixed up and unpredictable. Where you honestly can't tell if Garth Brooks' next album is going to be called 'GARTH LOVES YOU' or 'SMASH THE PATRIARCHY' or 'BEELZEBUB RAPES YOUR UNBORN FETUS IN HELL' or 'GARTH EXPLAINS STRING THEORY USING SIMPLE QUANTUM TOPOLOGY, VOLUME ONE'.

I want to look in the newspaper Society Pages, and look at the Wedding Announcements and see a bunch of people named Soo-Kim McGillicutty and Yoko Vazquez and Javier Papodopolous and Sergei Wong-O'Toole and Sinead O' Ramprakash and Latifah Muhammed-von-Goldstein and Pierre La Mababangloob!!

I want fucking Amy Tan to stop writing books about second-generation US-born Chinese women and their fucking issues with their mothers. I want her to write about third-generation Puerto Rican men who have issues with their uncles. Or first-generation Navajos that immigrate to Bali and have issues with the Puerto Rican's uncles. Or fourth-generation Armenian trans-sexuals who immigrate to the moon and have issues with MY mother, or anything besides the same fucking novel over and over and over again!! jesus!!

I want Ninjas to make a real fucking racket when they walk around.

I want you-YES YOU- to go to the football game and instead of singing the national anthem, Whitney Houston recites Pi to 200 places. And you can never predict whether the football players will be wearing clothes. Sometimes they just wear helmets and cleats and baby oil. Sometimes they just spend the whole game fucking. Sometimes they just do laundry on the sidelines while the cheerleaders put on spiked gloves and beat the everloving shit out of each other for 40 minutes. Where the half time show is Noam Chomsky. And instead of talking about geo-politics, he's reading a love poem to Ralph Wiggum. "I bent my wookie!"

Where they get Woody Allen to play Sharon Stone's role in BASIC INSTINCT.

Where they get Stallone to play Yentl.

Where Bradddd Pitttt has to go to Craigslist to find a date, but Yo-Yo Ma is trampled to death by estrogen-crazed housefraus.

Where the TV footage of Ronald Reagan's colorectal polyps beats out Michael Myers' latest movie for an Oscar.

Where MAD magazine runs parodies of the latest articles in NEUROBIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY with titles like 'z-psiliciobius protease, shmotease!!'

Where leather daddies at the Folsom Street fair sport designer Stephen Hawking and Kenny G cockrings.

Where Jewel and Tori Amos get in a gunfight at the CMJ awards, 4 dead, 23 injured.

Where there's some guy cruising in East Oakland with huge speakers in his lowrider, and he's playing Shoenburg's 12-tone music for the whole damn neighborhood.

Where a bunch of Navy guys finally get shore leave in Manilla and you honestly can't tell if they're going to go to a whorehouse or The Pottery Barn.

Where some angry young, pierced, gay, black kid with polio gets up to the rostrum of the poetry slam and you have not the faintest fucking idea what he's going to talk about.

Where . . . well, you get the point.

This is the kind of world I want to live in.

Do you agree? If you have any suggestions like the ones I have set forth here, please email them to me!

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KREPICHY


This document is a sort of Emergency Survival Kit for those threatened by krepichy. It would be nice to start with a definition of krepichy, but it (krepichy) is so effective and dangerous precisely because it's so hard to define. Since it's hard to define, it's hard to know when someone is using it against you, let alone defend yourself. But, by the same token, I hope that by giving it a name (and not a very dignified name at that) and providing a definition, I will be giving people the first, primitive tool to fight back against this insidious menace.

NEED EXAMPLES??
How about this: You ask a guy out, and he says sure, let's meet Friday on the docks. You spend four hours waiting and he never shows. The next week you see him at a party with some blonde girl with huge boobs. And he's. . . SMILING AT YOU? And WAVING FRIENDLY-LY, just as if he was someone who had not utterly fucked you over? And now he's BECKONING YOU OVER to him and his girlfriend, just as if nothing bad had even happened? You begin to doubt your own memory. Surely if he'd really stood you up just days ago, and is blatantly with some other chick, he'd be totally trying to hide from you. Or embarrassed. Or angry. Or SOMETHING. There's just no way he could be so happy to see you if he'd done anything wrong, could there? You stumble across the room, feeling vertigo. He says, "Hey, how are you?" exactly the way you'd talk to a regular pal.

By this time you're pretty sure you imagined the entire standing-on-a-dock-for-four-hours incident, but you're determined to make a feeble stab at uncovering the truth. You say, "Uh, fine, where were you Friday?" You already feel petty and selfish for bringing up such an insignificant event. He blithely says, "Oh, I was busy. Have you met Charlene?" The blonde is reaching out to shake your hand!!! What can you do? You've just experienced krepichy.

OR HOW ABOUT THIS?
Your girlfriend of 3 years is in the kitchen fixing dinner. She announces that she's going to Madagascar for 2 years as part of a Peace Corps project to build a dam for some starving villagers. You had no idea she'd even joined the peace corps. She breezes past the part about her leaving for 2 years and then talks enthusiastically about the logistics of dam building and how much it will improve the lives of these peasants, for around 10 minutes, while you're trying to reassemble the pieces of your skull. She asks you, isn't it great that she's able to think about others, instead of being a typical selfish American? With no hint of irony. As if you're supposed to applaud. You stammer something incoherent about how it's good to care; after all, outright discouraging her from going, why, that would be tantamount to just putting a gun to the head of all the hapless villagers! But you also croak, "Can you, uh, go back to the part about leaving me for 2 years?" Obviously you're one of these typical selfish Americans, not her. But she magnanimously overlooks your failing and reassures you that she loves you and you'll still be 'going out' while she's in Madagascar. For 2 years. She looks deep in your eyes and sighs, "I'll miss you."

Clearly she's not mad at you. Nor is she at all guilty. The only possible explanation is that it's utterly normal for loving couples to move to the opposite corners of the world for great lengths of time, with no warning. And you were just too socially maladjusted to notice this rule. To get mad at this point would be not only challenging your girlfriend, killing the innocent villagers, it would also amount to declaring war on the entire social order of western civilization. You grimly grab her hand and say, "I'll miss you too." You've been krepichy like a MOTHERFUCKER!!

TAXONOMY
Bluffs (along with whoppers, weasel words and telemarketing) are members of the Lie phylum, like someone with a pair of twos pretending they have a full house (whatever that is), or a puffer fish making itself biiiig, or Dirty Harold pretending that his gun really has a bullet in it, punk. These traditional bluffs operate by making the users seem more threatening than they are. So the victim (for instance, the punk of the latter scenario) can say, "Dirty Harold, I don't believe you have a bullet. I dare you to shoot." And thus expose the bluff. Technically, krepichy is a member of the bluff family, but by interbreeding the Bluff family with the most audacious features of the Playing-Dumb genus, Krepichy becomes much more dangerous. Because most bluffs EXAGGERATE the bluffer's threat, and Krepichy HIDES the threat behind a false smile. . .The skilled krepichy user never has to outright lie; they operate by insinuation and subtlety, thus their lie can never be exposed. Successful krepichy makes the victim even wonder if there is a conflict at all, thus undermining their will to win.

THERE IS HOPE
Like Orwell's 1984, where Big Brother takes away words like 'freedom' and 'democracy' so that would-be revolutionaries have no way to express their discontent, modern society has been at the mercy of this insidious tactic because we've had no name for it. The krepichy victim had only two choices: the first was to accept the fucking with a smile on his or her face. The only alternative was to get mad, but feel utterly petty and guilty about making a big deal out of something that's apparently normal, or something that didn't even happen!! With the moral high ground swiftly eroding from beneath his or her feet, even the angriest victim was at a tactical disadvantage! But no more!!

The day will come when we can simply look the would-be devious, evil motherfucker in the eye, and say, "You're trying to krepichy!" Instead of getting mad, we can speak this simple sentence with the same glibness as our attacker, in a tone of voice that insinuates their duplicity and immaturity and our disappointment . We will be able to match them blithe for blithe, glib for glib. We will, simply by naming their shystey tactics, put THEM on the defensive! But surely, being experienced bluffers, they will try to say, "Krepichy? What's that?"

So therefore, we must get this word so entrenched in the common tongue that such weaseling is futile. If we tell our friends, spam random people, hire skywriters and stick post-it notes on the doors of prominent linguists, we will prevail!!

 

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POLITCAL RHETORIC RANT


Here's what you're writing in your zine/webpage/flyer: "In this media-controlled patriarchal society of mass-produced stereotypes catering to the assumptions of the colonialist hegemony…." But here's what I'm reading: "I'm a teenage undergraduate student, I just took my first humanities course!!" And my reaction is, "Look, I took that course too. I took that course while you still were into NKOTB. I know what you're going to say before you even say it. I don't need some kid to be lecturing me!" even though I don't disagree with it, it's hard for me to take it seriously. Let's not lie. . . it's eye-rollingly embarrassing! Why? Because the author obviously thinks they've finally 'had their eyes opened' and 'are thinking for themselves' but they're still acting a very predictable role. Here's the timeline: high school: total conformist, makes fun of anyone different. College: political radical, makes fun of the status quo. mid-20's: selling insurance for The Man. If you're still an activist when you're 30, I'll listen to what you have to say, but not before then!! And even if you ARE over 30, if the first sentence of your diatribe has the words 'colonialism,' 'complicity' or 'community' in it, anyone with half a brain can recite the rest of your diatribe without even reading it! Why is it that the people with the least to add always drone on the longest. Why can't you just go : "I'm just checking in…. inequality and exploitation: still bad. The Man: still bad, ok, see ya!" but if you DO have something new to add, go for it.

 

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ETHNIC STUDIES


What's up with ethnic studies programs anyway? I think it's a neat idea for, say, black, white and native American students to take a course in Asian studies, or for Asians, whites, and Latinos to take a course in black studies. But it seems like most of the people in favor of a given ES program are members of that ethnic group already. Huh? Not to be a smartass, but aren't you guys learning that from your parents? Does your first-generation Chinese father really want to pay for you to learn how to be Chinese from a total stranger?? If you have to pay some guy to tell you what you are, fuck it! Throw in the towel and give up being Asian. Be Puerto Rican or something. As long as you're starting from scratch, just admit it's arbitrary! Madagascarian, Lichtenstinian. Am I missing the point?

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LIBERAL ARTS RANT

I can't think of a single group of people more pompously hypocritical than the Liberal Arts academic dudes: the art, history, sociology, literature, culture studies, psychology type people. They persuade you to buy a liberal arts degree (cost to you: $12,000 a year) on the basis that they, like, care a lot, and when you graduate you'll help to make the world a better place where we can all be equal. But when you graduate, the only change you get to make is change for your customers at Starbucks because nobody wants to hire you. Meanwhile all the venal, frat-boy assholes who majored in law and business are making lots of money.


Maybe dumb, naive 18 year old psychology students are actually unaware that nobody's going to pay them to keep a 'dream journal' or to hear them talk about 'oppression in the third world,' but you can't fuckin' tell me the teachers are oblivious to the total uselessness of a liberal arts diploma. The teachers, even as they mouth pieties about how everything should be fair and equal, are cynically exploiting their students' naive desire for equality into paying upwards of $60,000 for a useless degree!! Why don't they lecture about how THEY are exploiting and causing 'systemic inequality?' What kind of repulsive vulture does it take to say "Well, it's fair for me to throw 30 kids a year into un- or under-employment just so I can keep my one job! After all, better them than me!" And, after arriving at that cruel, shameless Social Darwinist conclusion, what kind of robotic pimp does it take to come back to school, day after day, and rail against injustice, and pretend to be the one guy that's standing up for the oppressed?!? Jesus!!!


It's so corrupt that even L. Ron Hubbard is rolling in his grave.... mad cus he didn't think of it first! At least everybody knows that the IRS and the HMOs are venal assholes. At least the self-congratulatory pomposity of, say, the Academy Awards doesn't pretend to change the world. But with the liberal arts elite, what we have is the worst of all possible worlds: venality, hypocrisy and pretension all in one. Fuck them I say.


The only way for a liberal arts person to get a job not involving a tips jar, is to become a teacher themselves, and perpetuate the scam on new generations of suckers. But of course there has to be far fewer teachers than students.... it's a classic pyramid scheme! For that reason alone, the state should lock up these fucks. Sure, they do teach some useful information, but you could learn all the useful, radical stuff by working a day job and reading Noam Chomsky or whomever in your spare time, and come out tens of thousands of dollars ahead!!


Besides, most of the academic stuff isn't even remotely useful to changing the world: it's useful only to the careers of the writers. They have to publish to get tenure, and are essentially killing thousands of trees just to impress the 3 editors of the Random,Obscure Scholarly Journal #45, so the teacher can show the 'Published in a Hella Scholarly Journal, Really It Was' citation to their superiors on the tenure board, who, let's face it, couldn't be bothered to read the gobbledygook anyway. Getting published is the goal but the way of meeting that goal is not to come up with useful knowledge. The way to get published is: to demonstrate how erudite you are by being as incomprehensible as possible! After all, the fewer people who understand you, the more elite you must be, right?


Instead of better explaining the outside world, liberal arts at the graduate level actively shuns the outside world, preferring to engage in a circle jerk where the only valid subject of debate is a pre-existing debate, and so on, moving towards ever-higher levels of abstraction. Rather than being irrelevant this is seen as more pure. Sounds like these very modern, rational, atheist, radical people have been turning into medieval angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin-debating-type guys. And, in yet another uncanny similarity with psychotic, witch-burning monks, the academic types smugly contend that their inane debates have huge moral significance for the outside world: the ultimate justification for, and purpose of, this arcane spew is to overthrow all authority and make everyone equal, and we can all hug.


It astounds me to think that thousands of graduate students are smart enough to understand sentences like "Deconstructing the cathexis of ur-mirrorization (re)flects the subjectivity in poly-semic boundrizations." but at the same time are dumb enough to think that this kind of knowledge is going to help them change the world. And they really do think that!! "Yes, by speaking in a dialect that the average person can't understand, and totally avoiding all issues relevant to working people in favor of theory, me and 4 other like-minded grads will make society hella equal by writing a paper no one will ever read....That'll show 'em!." Like the President really subscribes to your zine. "Mr. Bush, the latest issue of New Fontiers in Gender Theory is here!" "Finally! Let's see. . . whoa! I've been totally wrong about a lot of stuff!!"

Let's not overlook the more comical aspects of liberal arts either: There's a whole discipline called Cultural Studies based on the idea that "successful movies and books satisfy the unspoken, subconscious needs of the American people, and that's why we flock to see them. So if we can 'analyze' the films and books, we can reveal the secrets of American society's subconscious." In other words, they take a film that became wildly popular, and then explain why it HAD to be popular. Yeah, that's a fuckin' intellectual challenge right there. "No really, this film couldn't have failed. I stake my reputation on that!" I would be very surprised if even one of these shysters made like a real scientist and predicted what movie will be huge in the future! Fat chance, they know it's a racket. And the sad thing is, it's not even a particularly good racket! They're not even making a lot of money! If you're going to totally screw people over, leave them $60,000 or so in debt, cheat dozens of people a year, why not at least sell coke?? Why not be an efficient swindler?!? Mike Milken, or somebody. Damn. You'd have plenty of time to write your scholarly papers in your jail cell later...

 

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EXOTIC STOCK EXCHANGE

While I agree that the international stock market in its present form is perpetuates lameness and inequity on a huge scale, I also think it's the perfect model for solving another kind of international inequity. If we could just buy and sell stocks in exoticness instead of money, the world would be a much better place. Unlike money, where the poor want to be rich, and the rich want to be rich too, people with too much exotic-ness want to get rid of that shit pronto, while the un-exotic want to assume this 'burden' just as fervently. In fact, many of the people complaining about being 'exoticized' might have second thoughts if they woke up one day being some guy named Chester from Nebraska whose phone never rang. I'm not saying they'd run out and apologize to the sleazy assholes who used to hit on them, I'm just saying, maybe they'd have a different feel for it. But that's all water under the bridge.

Here's how the system would work: First, get everyone on the planet to register an ethnic group, or mixture of groups. Then, every person in every group would get, say, 10 units of exoticness, (UE for short) in the 'stock' of that ethnic group. You know, STOCKMARKET-type stock. By allowing internet trading among all citizens, the free market would take over and the law of supply and demand would automatically suck UE's from the most highly exotic countries to the least exotic: A Japanese girl sick of being fetishized would trade some of her UE's with a less exotic Canadian guy. So she'd get some peace and quiet, while the Canadian guy would find himself besieged with offers to sell his underwear to vending machine companies.

After the Canadian figured out being exotic isn't all it's cracked up to be, he can go online and sell his shares of Japanese UE's to whoever wants to buy them... perhaps to a girl from Brussels who is chafing at the fact that Belgian girls have no stereotypes to call their own and wants to import some potent Japanese stereotypes. Or, alternatively, maybe the Canadian guy really likes being a fetish object but finds that his exoticness is going down, because the Japanese UE has plummetted in the world UE market due to rampant speculation and fraud, and as a result, Japanese girls are now seen as being more homely than 300 pound Polish women. So the Canadian guy can trade his shares with some Russian woman (who, because with the fall of the Iron Curtain, the growth industry of ex-whore Soviet mail-order brides has sent the Russian UE skyrocketing to huge levels and this particular Russian woman finds herself being suddenly too exotic for comfort), so she'll get the devalued Japanese UEs, and the Canadian can still be exotic!.

The point is, the Canadian has the option of becoming more or less exotic at any point, because he's in contact with people from all over the planet. With a global, instantaneous, electronic exoticness trading system, eventually everyone will have the ability to experience both sides of the coin: being a fetish object and a terminally dull person, and then after everyone experiments and finds the level of attention they require, a sort of equilibrium will set in. This plan has something for everyone: liberals will like the global equality of it, conservatives will like the free market aspect, and the fact that all ethnic groups must be registered, and horny people of all nations will like being able to be in demand. Sign up today!!

AFTERWORD:
If you want to get an advance look at the future of on-line exoticness trading, hop on any search engine and input various ethnic groups or nationalities, and count the number of porn sites in the first 100 matches. This will yield an objective, supply-and-demand, free market Exotic Unit Index (EUI). By comparing the EUI's of two different nationalities you can not only see who is the most exotic, but measure exactly how much more, and how this ratio changes over time. In fact, this system provides such a precise guide that eventually someone will start buying and selling EU futures based on their speculation of how well a given group's EUI will do in the months to come.

 

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READER RESPONSE AND CURATION

 

Art is about creativity, expression and rebellion. Does this seem so obvious that it's trite and embarrassing to read? Maybe to you and me, but to the art establishment, it's NOT obvious. Because when you go to a museum, the creativity of the audience (in the form of interpreting paintings), and their rebelliousness (in interpreting them 'against' the 'legitimate art-world meanings) is squelched so systematically that it never occurs to patrons that they even HAVE these rights. I mean, when was the last time you went to MOMA and looked at Jackson Pollock and said, 'This must be about golf. And that one is about Marlon Brando's ass.' It didn't occur to you to come up with your own meaning or story for every painting-- it didn't occur to most people. and that's deliberate!!

 

No wonder no one goes to museums anymore....it's all been downhill since fuckin, uh... that one guy. Duchamp. The Frog who put a urinal in the museum and just said, "Dude! Check it out! It's in a museum, so it's art, dude! I, like, signed it!!" He changed boundaries of art which were so entrenched nobody even thought they were boundaries. But the very suckiness of modern art nowadays means that there must be plenty more rules to break, which means art can possibly be good again as soon as I'm put in complete and utter charge.

When I'm in charge, average people will pick what is on display. That's the only way to make art relevant. Not new, cooler trends and hipper, more offensive artists. They've been cranking out wave after wave of newer and hipper crap and people care less about art than ever!

what could be more irrelevant than fucking ten million dollar wall decorations for one kind of elite, country-club bastards, which (the decorations, not the bastards) can only be 'decoded' by another elite group of art critics.

But why should the artists get to have all the fun? After all, we the patrons are the ones paying the money. YOU THE ARTISTS are getting paid! We should be able to do the creativity!! If I go to even the crookedest, sleaziest carny, and I pay my money for a game of Whack-a-Mole, they're at least going to let me do the whacking , and not usher in Jasper Johns to do it 'the right way' while I just watch. Fuck that!

 

First of all, who says only ritzy society dames and art critics get to pick what paintings come out of the basement? The public pays the taxes to the city museums, so let the public decide.

 

It should be like jury duty: you get an envelope in the mail, saying "For the next 3 weeks, you can tell your boss to fuck off, and come to the museum basement with 11 other random people from random races and educational levels and income levels, who don't know shit about the modern art scene. You will pick your favorite paintings and say 'let us take this monsterpiece out of the biz-nasement and put it into a gallery so that the masses can revel in its phatness." and someone else will say 'Aw, you suck, McBain! that is a terrible painting!' and then you'll make like a courtroom jury and argue until you put it to a vote. You will repeat this process until you've selected enough art to fill up the rest of the museum. And you'll get paid well, cus we've fired all the expensive-ass art critics who used to do this."


Because my idea is more democratic, the average non-art person finally has a reason to go: they'll be curious what kind of art the 'average jurors' pick, and also to see if it's any worse than the art curated by 'educated art-world professionals.'

At the entrance of the museum will be names (or, so as not to discourage the shy, pseudonyms) and ages, races, and occupations of the judges. Under each painting will be a list of who voted for it or against it. Posting the demographics of the jurors will allow the art to be critiqued in a whole new way... People will have the opprotunity to scratch their heads and ask, 'why did both the Albanians on the jury love Diego Rivera so damn much?? Why did all the women jurors hate Little Billy Aphlablap's darling diorama?' Soon, the jurors will achieve 'cult' status, with museum-goers critiquing the tastes of the individual jurors more so than the paintings! "That plumber's nuts! Matisse wasn't THAT good..." College students will jokingly name 'isms' after the more eccentric jurors, and so forth.


This way is also more accountable: it shows the heated "Hang-this-picture-no-hang-THAT-picture" debates that the other museums try to hide. The other museums hide the debate to convince the suckers/patrons that the 'good taste' in THOSE museums is a monolithic thing, governed by logic or high philosophy, rather than good taste being determined by trendiness and political clout the way it really is. But by exposing the debate process, it will call into question the standards of other, less Home-Despot-centric museums.

Hopefully.


Then, (if the museum wasn't closed down by rampaging, drunken French philosophers), we could go to Step Two:

What is step two (besides a huge, Frankenstein-Boot-Sized kick in the ass to the stagnant, hateful art world)?

have each juror post a 3x5 index card next to each painting, stating what they think it means, and why. They would write on the cards prior to discussing the painting with each other, so they wouldn't influence each others' opinions. They'd be free to come up with the most outlandish possible explanations of the art, as long as it's not poetry!

At this point, it WOULD be cool to have artsy, college dorks help people write their interpretations. To make sure the interpretations make sense and are full of specific examples to back up the opinion. "This ball symbolizes Bob Ross' penis, and that color means it's on fire," and so forth.

 

Each painting would have 12 of these cards (onne for each juror).

 

Now stop and think about that for a moment: when you go in a museum, aren't you more curious about what the other patrons are thinking than the dumb cards that the curators post on the wall "Blah, blah, blue period, blah blah, the picture plane, blah blah. postmodern..."? I get hell of frustrated cus everyone is so scared to talk in the churchlike silence of The Museum that I never get to over-hear people saying their stupid, comical opinions, and I know you do too! So this would solve that problem.


Plus regular people could walk in off the street and write their own interpretation and post it! the more cards, the moer funnerrer. Besides, it would give you a reason to look at the painting even if you thought it sucked: You could look at the painting as a visual aid for the index cards! Instead of getting bummed going "I don't get it... maybe I don't belong here" you would read the cards and be entertained.

 

Right now art is made to communicate a 'concept' to an art critic. It's a dialogue between the artist and the trendy philosopher-art-guy of the month, who will pass judgment on if it's great or not. But by my method, not only the critic but also the artist him-herself are totally eliminated. Who cares what the artist had in mind?? The artist doesn't fuckin' care about you, unless you're a millionaire art-collector or groupie. Fuck them.

Who cares if the critic liked it? Am I not qualified to have my own opinion? Get a real job, go back to Dairy Queen or something where you're at least doing something useful.


Art theory is out. Now it's all about sociology.

Why is sociology important? Because it puts and end to the endless, arcane debates about what is good art. Exit opinion, enter statistical facts.

For instance, say that half of the people post their index cards saying that they see theme x in the art. And only one percent sees themes y and z. then it's clear that the art failed to communicate y and z. If the artist was trying for y or z, the artist failed.

 

No matter if maybe someone with 6 years art school indoctrination would of seen y or z.... that doesn't make the 'regular people' too dumb to get it. Suddenly 'regular people' will have a voice, and the art elites will be reduced to a statistical anomaly!


Far from a totally crackpot, radical concept, this is a valid, decades-old scientific-type branch of sociology known as READER RESPONSE THEORY. It is pretty non-controversial in sociological circles, even though it's way too radical for the 'far-out' modern art dudes. What's ironic is that Reader Response Theory is precisely the kind of relativism that the post-modern, deconstructionist art critics normally applaud, as long as it doesn't encroach THEIR domain!!! Well, fuck that!! What's good for the goose is good for the Frog, and the stuck-up New Yorker too! How do you like it when I'm dropping some relativism on your punk ass! Now you gotta go get a REAL job, kid, cus you're no longer needed.



Here's yet another reason that Reader Response should take over:

 

By having 12 cards out there, every painting would give you an in-depth look at how meaning is created. This is exactly the kind of highbrow stuff that art school classes charge you $12,000 a year to learn. I can teach you how meaning is created for the price of a ticket. First off, you'll see that there's no one right interpretation. Second, you will see that, despite the initial chaos of differing views, certain themes emerge when you read the 12 cards as a whole. For instance, if a significant number (say, 7 or 8) of the jurors independently come to the conclusion that this red dot looks like a rat's eye, that you, the patron, can then say "Hey, that's how that meaning got created! It was the dotty-ness of that glob of paint that suggested an eye, the redness suggested a rat's eye, to a majority of the jurors, because they arrived at that conclusion independently!"

This information is not only invaluable to artists that want to learn how to do good art, but to audience members who want to understand how we as a society make meaning out of the world. And it's also another way to enjoy an otherwise crappy painting.


 

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HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM RANT

What's up with high school curriculums? It's common knowledge that even well-funded high schools are so poor at teaching basic skills that you spend the first two years of college paying horrendous tuition to learn what you should of learnt in high school for free. That's what General Ed courses are! You should graduate high school totally prepared to start your major, not waste 2 years unlearning all the bullshit they cram in your head. All the meaningless, contextless facts and figures you had to memorize and then forget. Everything in high school should be immediately applicable to real life. That way you'll be a better citizen, and you won't forget everything you studied by 2 weeks after graduation. And it won't even take any extra time to learn all the General Ed, it will just mean re-arranging the existing time so it's not full of so much bullshit.


Here's a prime example of high-grade bullshit: For biology they taught us, sex lives of the ferns. A whole week with spores and angiosperms. Fuck that! Biology should start with safe sex, and have a whole semester on nutrition! Like the crazy shit they put in meat, and what gives you cancer, and how eating off aluminum gives you Alzheimer's....And of course it's impossible to discuss nutrition without discussing advertisements because the advertisers try to lie about the contents of the food. Not only are there no classes teaching critical thinking in today's schools, the fuckin' principals are even allowing ads on school TVs and in the textbooks. Fuck that shit to the extreme! We need a whole semester on decoding advertisements, how images can manipulate you, and so on.


Fuck Math!! Why are we learning geometry and cosines , and calculus and shit (which nobody but an engineer or scientist will use) when we haven't been taught how to balance a checkbook, or how to budget expenses on a monthly basis, or how to do taxes. They should also teach math by bringing in examples of various bank accounts with their various interest rates, all the hidden surcharges and shit, and letting the students figure out which bank accounts are rip-offs. Or teach subtraction by using the state budget. "If you take twenty billion dollars for the schools, and subtract nineteen billion to give to the prisons department, how many kids will be in prison by the end of the year?"


Instead of some bullshit history text about the Louisiana Purchase and the fucking treaty of Ghent, we need current political information like what your rights are if you get stopped in traffic by a cop who wants to search your car, or they want to come in your apartment without a warrant, or what the cops are required by law to do when they arrest you--if they do it wrong, you can get off on a technicality, and you should know what to look for. They need the ACLU to teach a class on your rights. And the labor laws: discrimination; what questions it's illegal to ask in a job interview, people you can call if you get unjustly fired, how to tell when you've been unjustly fired, etc. Why are we learning about our forefathers dying for freedom at the same time we're being kept ignorant of the freedoms that we now have?? It's totally ass-fuckin'-backwards!! Why are we paying taxes to the fuckin' government schools so they can hide the rights that the same government is giving us??? Bullshit!! Fuck the Mason-Dixon line.... teach us current events like abortion clinic bombings and bills on the senate floor, teach both sides, so students can learn to argue intelligently. Kill two birds with one stone that way. Everyone should be on the debate team. Learn to cite examples, not lie, don't interrupt, catch your opponents in inconsistencies, that kind of thing. And, sure, maybe a semester of 'old-time' history can be taught. By that Howard Zinn guy.


And of course get rid of sports.

Sports attracts exactly the kind of no-life morons that can't do anything else, and so they'll find the money to build a fuckin' football field on private property to keep doing their hobby anyway! Why should the government subsidize a hobby? That's like me asking the principal for a mandatory, school-wide Dungeons and Dragons hour. C'mon now. Maybe you could have 'self-defense' courses, as an elective, because it's not really a hobby; it's more like something you have to know just to survive. Sports just corrupt things...guys that would otherwise get kicked out for beating up people or getting straight F's wind up heroes because the principal is vain and knows that a winning football game will get his high school's name in the paper in big type. While kids that actually learn a lot never get anything more than lip service from the administration, and teased by the other students. Getting rid of subsidized sports will force corrupt administrators to concentrate on the real shit. Besides we need that hour to teach all these extra new subjects like Ethnic Studies and Decoding Advertisements.


Let's not forget English...why are we taught to idolize guys like Shakespeare and Huck Finn and, uh, James Joyce, and make them our gods? At the same time, if we wrote in their dialect, the teacher would read the first paragraph and give us an F and a lecture on our bad grammar!! Teaching grammar is cool, but why make us read your idea of 'classics?' I love reading, but it's just a hobby. It's not essential to read fiction to be a good citizen, anymore than volleyball is. It's not like being able to balance your checkbook or know your legal rights: it's not totally necessary.


If you want to teach good taste, don't ram your classics up my butt, teach me how to keep an open mind. Teach me how to view mainstream culture critically: about the distribution systems of modern pop culture, and how they're controlled by monopolies who just want my money, and profit off my insecurity and my ignorance of old-fashioned stuff, self-published stuff, and stuff from other cultures. Show me how, time and again, mainstream stuff is watered-down, unoriginal rip-offs of the obscure stuff. That's a matter of historical record, not of taste, so it shouldn't offend anyone. Then assign students to do a book/ video/ music report on some of that obscure stuff, and maybe some of the other students will get really into it and peruse it in their spare time.


And you can't discuss art without discussing culture. It's good for kids to get educated in their culture and be proud of it and that should be reflected in the curriculum. Besides college students can teach those classes for free, they love that 'identity' shit. White kids could have a white studies course where we get to feel really guilty. But that's not enough. If the school's job is to turn out good citizens, the kids need to know about other cultures too. They'll be working and going to college alongside these diverse people and they need to not offend the fuck out of them. Just because a Latino kid is hell of well-read about his culture, and hates racism, that doesn't make him any less likely to offend the fuck out of an Asian kid. And vice-versa. Cus American racism isn't a black-white thing at all. So we should have to take random classes in other people's cultures after we 'graduate' from the class in our own culture.


School's primary purpose should be to teach kids self-defense: how not to be ripped off by fake ads, shystey bosses, sleazy banks, crooked cops, how not to wind up pregnant or with HIV. It's a hostile world.

 

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SMEG RANT


VERSION ONE, from Microserfs (by Douglas Copeland), page 300:


"Emmett started bellowing, 'You think of me as a piece of meat, Susan- I'm not sure I like that.' And Susan said back, "I don't call you a piece of meat. I call you my fuck toy.' 'Well, I'm not sure I like THAT,' Emmett says. 'Well, what do you want- to take it further? You want a relationship?' 'Well...' 'Stop sniveling. I thought the deal was, we just have sex and leave it at that. Don't annoy me. I have to get back to work.'"

SMEG RANT VERSION TWO: my version . . .


"Emmett started bellowing, 'You think of me as a piece of meat, Susan- I'm not sure I like that.' And Susan said back, 'I don't call you a piece of meat. I call you my fuck toy.' Emmett paused, his eyes acquiring the slight gleam which accompanies the onset of demonic possession, and replied, 'You're going to have to find yourself another fuck toy with, like, no sense of smell, cus your clitoral smegma situation is out of hand. That's right! I woulda taken care of it myself, but I forgot to bring my ice cream scoop. I ain't lyin! Where most women got fish, you got cheese. You got a whole tuna melt down there. Not just any tuna melt, this melt has been out in the Okefenoke swamp, all summer long, in some puffy-ass saran wrap, and it's got vultures circling over it. Damn! It's like fucking an extra large sweat sock lubed with moldy Roquefort. The freshness factor ...I'm sayin' there's a tattoo on your labia saying 'Best before July 1983' you know? I ain't lyin! You got so much clit cheese, you could spring load your pussy and rent it out as a rat trap. I can't believe you make me wear a condom, cus your shit is like spermicidal. Your shit is killing AIDS. I got a core sample to take to the AMA, so they could send some to Africa, but it ate through the box. What I'm sayin, I seen your crabs and lice, all retreating to the northernmost area of your bush, making frightened mewing sounds. How are you going to find a man like that? Huh? Walk around with a sign saying "FREE CHEESE" and hope to fuck the Frugal Gourmet?'"

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LIMP BISCUT RANT


Here's some other shit I've been tripping off lately: long-term groupie setbacks. Let's say you start out with social status y. You're not satisfied with y, and so you give a blow job to the guy from Limp Biscut who has status z. So now you can tell all your friends you fucked the guy from Limp Biscut and your status goes up to y+z. Good for you! But the guy from Limp Biscut only has like one hit record and then becomes a figure of fun. So his status drops to negative z, and yours goes down correspondingly. So you get maybe a year and a half of y+z status, but the rest of your life you're getting dogged cus of your y minus z status. Do groupies worry about that before sucking some guy's cock? "Might this not backfire? Will I be as proud to have everyone know I sucked the Limp Biscut guy's dick, say, twenty years from now, when I have a life?"


It's one thing to risk getting herpes, or an abortion, which can just be hidden in shame, but quite another thing risk fucking some embarrassing rock guy, where the whole point is to tell a bunch of people. It's too bad, because maybe one of these groupies is gonna go back to school and maybe invent a cure for cancer, but when she steps up to the podium to announce her new theory, some other chick is gonna yell: "Didn't you fuck the guy from Limp Biscut?" and pretty much that's the end of the cancer cure. How are you going to answer that question? "Yes, but that was all a part of my plan: the blow-job gave me time to think of the cancer cure, and I've just waited until now to tell everyone." or maybe "Well, I thought they were so brilliant, they'd just keep getting more and more popular, in perpetuity." or maybe "Hey, didn't YOU fuck the bass player for KANSAS? What's up with that?"

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MUSICAL CRUTCHES

Here's why I'm not going to make idle conversation about music anymore:

1) It's a crutch that supports our stunted emotional lives, and allows us to talk for hours without saying anything really personal with our supposed closest friends.

2) It's a little too similar to guys talking obsessively about NFL statistics from like the 1973 Detroit Lions halfback or something

3) No matter how obscure the bands discussed, it's still basically the same "This band sucks," "no way dude, they rule" conversation we've been having since junior high. Time to evolve.

4) No one has ever, in the history of mankind, won a musical argument.

5) The bizarre neuroses and little twisted rules that are inside our heads are easily more unique, entertaining and just plain absurd than anything we will ever put out in a song... and we're not even trying to be creative when we develop these neuroses. In other words, there's no need to talk about music when our interior, personal lives are kicking our music's ass at everything our music is supposed to be, without even trying!

 

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MY UNHEALTHY FIXATION ON MARLYIN MANSON

I'm quite excited; I've decided to have an unhealthy fixation on Marilyn Manson. It's, let's face it, hard to have a healthy fixation on him. Most cultural icons, you can listen to their music, or want to be their friend, or learn something from them, but with MM, well, his music sounds like he went to the Ministry guy's house and found some beats the guy was going to throw away anyway, and bought 'em for like $3.50 each ("Quarters ok, dude?"). And I don't have any desire to actually hang out with a drug burnout and his posse of yes-men. Plus, learning something isn't really an option, considering he's not quite smart to pull off his 'No, really, there's an artistic point to it' act: He's the evil antichrist, but he's also just there to entertain so don't take it so literally, but he's also there to save the world with his liberating lyrics, but he's also your new god and you must worship him. Sure. I figure maybe on the way back from the Ministry guy's house, he had some spare change left over, and he bought some contradictions that Minister Farrakhan was going to throw away, and got some more bargains.

So really, the only option left for interacting with him at all is to just develop an unhealthy fixation, and I couldn't be happier. You might ask, if the fixation doesn't involve liking the music or the philosophy, what does it involve? Just one thing: the deadly serious belief that Marilyn Manson will read my book of poems and realize we are soul-mates, and show up sometime in the near future and whisk me away in his limo, naturally. He will solve all my problems because I am the only one who understands him, Then I can quit my day job and move in with him. I have yet to actually write the poems; I figure I'll just grab something out of the Kinko's dumpster, because the poems are just a prop for the fixation. Maybe I won't even send the poems; maybe I'll just hang out in the chat room. Start every message with the phrase "Marilyn, if you're reading this..." Or I can just monitor the fans, and after a few months, I'll post a list of the top 20 most obsessively fixated fans. Sure, some people might be pissed off by being evaluated by a total stranger, but others will be drawn into the competitive side of it, and try even harder, to improve their ranking.

Using a different web address, I'll hawk a pamphlet about how to be more obsessive. For $14.00, you can get hints on how to turn your innermost neuroses into public displays: "It doesn't matter how much pain you actually feel, it's how much you make others feel that gets their attention! Have some showmanship!" . People will write to me to complain about their low ranking, and I'll be like, "Sorry, man, I don't make the rules. Cutting your wrists has been done. Try setting your makeup on fire" and see if they do it. Eventually, my media mini-empire will crumble when it comes out that I've been accepting payola to increase people's ranking. The outrage will tumble forth over the bandwith: "Hey, that's immoral!!!! If I'm going to slash my wrists, pull my fingernails out at the behest of some total stranger, I want that stranger to have the strictest ethics!" and then I will fade into obscurity. I've got it all planned out.

 

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THAT ANNOYINGLY HIDDEN INTERFEMALE COMPETITION

Here's something else that's been bugging the fuck out of me: you never hear anything about competition between women. Every slick, pop-culture, parade-of-Hollywood-cleavage, Cosmo-type mag has to do with 'getting a man' or 'looking your best' but totally downplays the fact that their readers are competing with each other for the best look or man. But clearly in the heirarchical world of beauty, making yourself look good is the same as making someone else look bad compared to you. Liberal mags like MS. or MOTHER JONES or PUNK PLANET talk about women competing against men for equal rights, but say not one fucking thing about how women try to compete with each other. This denial is one thing Ms. and Cosmo agree on. It's an accross-the-board female cover-up.


For instance, a woman once told me even her good friends would tell her, "You look great in that dress" even though they knew she looked fat. Her friends didn't want her competing with them. And I bet there's dozens more of those subtle tricks I don't even know about. That should be public fucking information. Everyone knows guys are always putting each other down, and one-uppping each other's anecdotes, and saying shit like 'My pit bull can kick yore pit bull's ayasss!' and how dumb that is, and so forth, but it's sexist not to give women equal time. Women constantly compete with their friends too, and just cus they're doing it in devious, underhanded ways doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, and isn't also funny.


Not to mention the kinds of subterfuge that goes on between complete strangers. If a woman wears some totally tight t-shirt men are supposedly doing all the peeping at the boobs but I bet for every guy looking there's a woman looking too, to find out how she compares to the boob-displayer. Then there's the whole gamut of reactions to the display of said boobs, from "She's a slut!" to "I wish I could do that" to "That's ok cus my legs aren't all chubby!." Where's the survey showing which reactions are most common in which groups? It's totally sexist to deny that women lack the urge to peep and evaluate this way, cus they're just as capable of peeping as men are. Like women read a million copies of Cosmopolitan everyday with the cleavage on the cover, but would never peep at a real woman? Yeah right.


But oddly the feminist groups aren't complaining about this disparity. Fuck that I say. It's a double standard. The standard Cosmo line is that dressing sexy is about making yourself feel good, but what they mean is making yourself just a bit more naked-looking than the women around you. Why do you think everyone's skirt hems go up together in certain seasons? A million gals are out there, annoyed they 'have' to wear revelaing clothes that 'make them look fat' but, to be honest, do it anyway, to get the jump on the even less-attractive women they're competing against.


I know it will be embarrassing to admit to other women (and to men!) you participate in this, but do it anyway!! After all, wouldn't it feel good to finally stand up and complain about the times other women have fucked with YOU?? You can't do that now!! That would mean breaking ranks. What have you got to lose? If you broke ranks, you wouldn't be 'betraying' the other women, you'd be exposing the betrayal that's been going on all along. And it wouldn't even be like guys would have the advantage of women either, cus women knew all along guys compete in dumb ways...now both sexes would know the dumbness equally.

 

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justification for a web page


Until recently, I never really cared if anyone saw my art, music, or writing. This is because I had read Evolutionary Psychology books like The Moral Animal and The Selfish Gene, and agreed that 99% of human achievement isn't accomplished through free will; it's all done to follow a genetic mandate to compete for resources, status and mates. The more mates, the more offspring and thus the more copies of our genes get made. (It's in the genes' best interests to have us think we have free will because those humans without free will wouldn't bring any innovations, enthusiasm, or new dirty tricks to the struggle, and so would be swiftly flushed out of the gene pool by the more motivated, Tony-Robbins-like ape men who thought they had a higher cause).

All "God" is (to a gene) is a good excuse for knights to kill Arabs from a different gene pool, and rape and impregnate Arab women. All "Art" is, is a way for Picasso to get laid. Good painting skills, skillful preaching, the innate ability to know the best place to sell your crack, seen through the miracle of Gene-O-Vision, are all just the modern versions of sharp teeth and claws, and let's not forget anal claspers, that help living organisms in our unceasing, Wild-Kingdom-style competition. Microscopic DNA molecules don't give a fuck about our welfare or happiness, they just want us to Xerox and die. Chemicals so small you can't even see them with your naked eye cause earth-shattering wars and spawn dictatorships that take over whole continents. Not only that, but this murderous potential is in ALL our genes. All that separates you from, say, Stalin, is a few protein switches and a moustache.

My attitude was, "Fuck genes. I'm going to kick my genes in the ass and be like the one percent of people that has free will. I'm not going to be suckered into some atavistic competition, even on an artistic, nonviolent level. I'm going to make pure, non-genetically-driven art, and fuck it if I stay unpopular. As long as what comes out of the printer or the speakers is the same thoughts I had while imagining it, it's a success. And fuck the Internet most of all, cus it's the most overhyped crap deployer in human history. As if history was a big alimentary canal, and, at the end of time, we've got all our best minds working on building the colon. 'Hey look, there's light at the end of the tunnel!' 'That's a proctoscope, moron!'"

But then I read the Lucifer Principle. The Lucifer Principle is another evolution book which says that regular Darwinism is correct up to a point, but mistakenly assumes that the eternal fight for survival takes place entirely between individuals and not groups. That our genes don't regulate social behavior outside of our families. The simplest way to illustrate the difference in these two theories of evolution is to look at a tribe of baboons. Sure. Baboons. There's an 'alpha male' who's the strongest and he's got a harem. Then there's a bunch of smaller males, who, unsurprisingly, occupy a lower position in the tribe the weaker they get. Now imagine if Regular Darwinism, the 'fighting individuals' type, was in effect. All the Non-alpha baboons would go "Hey, there's dudes with more respect and chicks than me--I must have a Fight For Survival now!" and by sunrise the whole tribe would be battling. The weaker baboons would be killed instantly but the stronger ones would keep fighting until they lost eyes and teeth and were dragging strips of their own meat across the jungle floor. The surviving apes might have moved up or down a few notches in the pecking order, but the very next day, most baboons will STILL wake up and say "Hey, there's dudes with more respect and chicks than me--I must have a Fight For Survival now!" and drag their gangrenous, bleeding bodies into another round of battle. Meanwhile, some cheetahs stumble by and say "Damn, dude, these baboons are all wounded and barely able to walk. We will eat them now."

Thus we can see that Ordinary Darwinism blows. In order for complex social groups to evolve, genes must also evolve that can not only detect the individual's rank in society but also reinforce that rank and respond to changes in the social environment. And this is what ape-watching perverts like Jane Goodall see in nature. Like if a leader ape gets run over by a truck, some shmoe ape walking around all bent over and with low testosterone will spontaneously start squirting testosterone from all glands, humping females, and walking with a swagger and this dude will be the new alpha. Or warrior ants who are fucking infertile, for God's sake, they exist only to fight and die for the colony. But if some crazy saboteur ant in the nursery feeds a Warrior Ant Larva some Royal Jelly, that larva is going to hatch a biological Queen ant and start looking at the real Queen like, "Who's this bitch eating my jelly?"

The same thing with humans. Despite our genetic heritage of violence, manipulation and greed, we have social genes that somehow look out for the welfare of the whole group, otherwise our forebears would have killed each other off while they still had fins. The bad news is, these social genes are as merciless and insidious as the competitive genes: Human panhandlers don't mug you, even though at least there's a bed and hot meals in jail, because their glands are pumping gallons of Loser Hormone into their bloodstream and making them resigned to their fate. Lonely and isolated people have higher suicide and heart attack rates because the genes looking out for the good of society and sense that their host unit is a useless drain on society's resources, so these genes secrete Stress Hormones that fuck up their health and will to live.

So what I thought was my brilliant exercise in free will and rising above atavistic competition was ITSELF an insidious genetic mandate to Know My Place and do my part to avoid plunging society into a species-wide bloodbath by trying to claw my way up the ladder. It was my Loser Hormones saying "Kid, you're clearly not as fit for artistic survival as, say, Elton John, Mariah Carey or even Jim Carrey, so if you don't rock the boat, they won't be forced to crush you." FUCK THAT!! I've been duped again!! The hell I'm going to let Elton Fucking John and Garth Brooks get all the glory. I'm not going to let the morons who clutter up the TV, radio and internet with crap get away with it. In my old, duped state, I thought "Hey, TV and the internet are trying to reduce me to a mediocrity-worshiping couch potato and it's mind control." Which is true enough. But I was internalizing their assumption that Bobbit's dick and Pamela's tits are all that TV and the Web are good for; so I was still mind-controlled. Not anymore. Why should I expect TV to be doodoo just because the executives expect it to be doodoo? Why CAN'T radio be good, if I'm on it, kicking Whitney Houston's punk ass from one end of the dial to the other? Why should the internet have to be 100% smegma, if I'm allowed in, too, to show y'all how it should be done? Thus, the birth of this site.

Now since you're smart/weird enough to still be reading this, you're doubtless smart enough to be saying "Hey, isn't this hypocritical moron aware that his second, epiphanic, Lucifer-Principle-generated philosophy just a return to the competition and domination he was so against back when he was a Regular Darwinist? Does he actually think he somehow has free will now, as a result of a stupid web page?" Of course I don't have fucking free will, you dipshits. Genes have been around a billion.. uh... a million... uh, a long-ass time, and I'm sure any philosophical or ideological Houdini escape-trick you try to pull on 'em has been tried a million times before by people smarter than you. Or me. You can't fool these motherfuckers. They fool you into thinking you have free will. However, they don't much seem to care what illusion-of-free-will excuse you choose. But given an illusion of free will that cedes control to the Elton Johns of the world and an illusion of free will that mandates I spew anti-Elton and anti-Mariah memes into the Global Entertain-O-Sphere until they topple, I'm going to fucking well take the second one.

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PUNK PLANET RANT

 

What's up with magazines like Punk Planet?
I think it's fair to say no one would have ever heard of punk rock if it weren't for old-timey punkers acting like this
:
Nihilist
Self-destructive
Irresponsible and short-sighted
Drug-addicted
Outrageous and shocking
Obnoxious
Hateful
Ugly
Sarcastic and contemptuous
Me-against-the-world
Alienated
Misanthropic

Let's see how PP's philosophy correlates with the criteria:
A bunch of middle-aged, humorless, very guilty-feeling, earnest people who really want to make the world a better place, view tofu as an act of rebellion, probably drive a used Volvo with a black flag bumper sticker. In other words, there's not a lot of overlap.

Can you picture, say, Sid Vicious putting bricks in his toilet to conserve water? Would you have that black flag tattoo if they changed the name of their album from DAMAGED to I'M FEELING VERY INVALIDATED RIGHT NOW? Would anyone have heard of Punk Rock if the Ramones' act consisted of a sensitive 'spoken word' piece on why we shouldn't wear fur? Or if they called "Rocket to Russia", "ROCKET TO RECYCLING"?? C'mon…. if the Ramones hadn't of been leather-wearing, glue-sniffing brain-dead losers with lyrics like 'I'M A NAZI BABY I'M A NAZI YES I AM' there would never have been a punk rock trend and you guys wouldn't be doing your magazine. So fuckin' represent.

If you want to make a better world where everyone's equal and free, fine, have a ball. My hat's off to ya. But don't say you got that mandate from punk rock… that's like Manson saying The Beatles told him to stab Sharon Tate. it's a classic straw man argument: you're declaring that punk is something it's historically never been and then turning around and getting all offended that 99% of it isn't what you wanted.

Punk was never about having a 'safe space' where 'all the communities' feel 'validated' and 'warm and fuzzy'. Punk is about making everyone feel equally INvalidated and being a fuckup loser with no friends who's taking on the world. Sure, there were always people from minority groups involved: captain sensible was a transvestite, jayne county was a trans-sexual, dee dee Ramone was Puerto Rican and poly styrene was black English. But none of these historical figures would read your damn zine anyway, so hang your heads in shame. Poly Styrene's main aspect wasn't that she was black, or even that she was punk. Her main thing was she was a fuckin' wingnut who wore a dress made out of a Hefty bag and screamed OH BONDAGE UP YOURS. In other words, she was an interesting character. You guys are bland like milktoast: earnest, sanctimonious types with no sense of humor whose idea of a wild time probably involves having 'collective meetings' and fighting over who gets to take notes.

I'm not saying there SHOULDN'T be a place where activists from every racial, sexual, and religious group should feel welcome, to work for change. I'm just saying that's not a punk concept, it's a hippy one. Oh, and it didn't work then either. Ouch!!

 

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BEAUTY RANT


I don't think beauty is skin deep. I think it affects the person's whole outlook on life. Pretty people have more friends wanting to hang around them, so they develop more social skills from constantly socializing. The social skills, plus the self-confidence that comes from a lifetime of compliments, makes it even easier for them to make yet more friends. While the plain and/or ugly people become increasingly isolated and withdrawn, for two reasons:

1) Their pool of potential friends shrinks with every extra friend that's drawn to the pretty people, and also

2) because the isolation doesn't give them room to practice their social skills.

Imagine that I could somehow make like Satan and possess the body of a pretty guy who was popular and invited to lots of events. Within a month, I can guarantee he'd get almost no phone calls, cus I just don't know how to act right. Not only that, but sociologists have found that pretty people are more likely to get hired and promoted than their just-as-qualified plain competitors. I wouldn't call that a 'skin deep' benefit, either.

I know this kind of discrimination isn't as bad as what the white people did to the black people, or even what the Japanese did to the Chinese, but it's still bogus. And unlike the struggles of 'racial minorities', the plain people far outnumber the pretty, yet still we can't make ourselves heard. There's something fundamentally wrong with a world where some girl can go to a maternity ward and slit the throats of babies in their sleep and come home, dripping blood from her Dior ball-gown, and still nonetheless look cuter than me, who has led such a virtuous life.

Try explaining this to a pretty girl and she'll come back with something like, "Oh, but it's so hard being pretty. I get so many unwanted sleazy comments from guys." As if morbidly obese women don't get plenty of unwanted catcalls from guys (and plenty more from obnoxious pretty girls!!) as well. But the obese women don't get any of the perks. And the fact that pretty women don't even stop to consider the treatment of fat women merely shows how self-centered the pretty are, and how much they take it for granted. Which is not to say that all pretty people are vain, arrogant and self-centered. I'm sure some of them have other qualities.

 

But plain people are no better… we'd stomp on another plain person's eyelids just to crawl closer to a pretty person. No fucking solidarity. . I'm no exception. When I see some overly warty woman in line at Safeway, I could think, "Here's someone who understands what it's like to never be kissed, someone who can share my experiences, and if we talked about our crushing isolation, we wouldn't feel so alone and powerless!" but instead, I think "How do people get like that?" I think it's because ugly people are almost always isolated and cut off from society, and short on self-confidence and social skills, that there's never going to be an ugly organization of any sort. Thus we'll never know how many people are out there feeling isolated, who have long ago given up hope, who will never have a chance to share their stories of rejection or hear someone else's story and go 'Wow, I'm not alone in being treated this way. I'm not crazy. There's millions of us….'

I guess it's too naive to want a world where cuteness is earned rather than just an accident of birth; plus, that would legitimize the existing notion that pretty people are heroic and ugly ones villainous. Maybe in a perfect world every person would have their own unique idea of what pretty is, and then you wouldn't have a small group with a disproportionate amount of power. But in that case, the chances would be, like, seven billion to one that the guy you like would like you: he'd only like one crosseyed crossdresser from Sri Lanka or something.

 

Shit, I dunno.

 

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PRISON-MY LIST- INSANITY DEFENSE

This is what goes on in the mind of an insane person:


" I wonder if certain people know that the only thing that stands between them and a violent sudden demise is the looming specter of prison rape. Don't pray to God and thank Him for your long life, pray to a variety of anonymous big-dicked, homosexual convicts, because the rest of the prison system really isn't deterring me from busting your shit. I think I could do hard time. My life is already perilously close to solitary confinement. I have massive experience with isolation, with no friends, with no girlfriends. I could deal with getting out only an hour a day. I could swing the sweat sock of dope from cell to cell without wanting to steal some. I could even eat the baloney sandwiches. It's just the part about getting cornered by 7 huge tattooed guys with AIDS and taking dicks up my rectum that I don't think I could adjust to. But when I know there are a bunch of guys out there that have ripped off my money, or fired me, and they're laughing at me, it's kind of small consolation to say "Well, at least I'm not getting raped." It's kind of unsatisfactory, rebuttal wise. If my life ever gets so lame that I decide getting sodomized at knife-point is no longer a major step down, certain guys had best start looking for Igloos to live in, in obscure sectors of the North Pole, with no forwarding address and no welcome mat, because at that point my entire life will revolve around finding them: I'm not going to just snap and take out a McDonald's or make like those lame Littleton kids and take out random people. I have a list and I'm sticking to it. "

A weird thing about the insanity defense in this country: it has nothing to do with insanity! Jeffery Dahmer was eating human dick sandwiches at work, and they even found him sane. The legal definition of insane is, you don't know it's wrong, so you don't try to hide your crime. Dahmer was dissolving bodies in acid in his bathtub, thus hiding the evidence and thus, in the eyes of the legal system, proving he was a normal guy.

So, obviously the only way to avoid going to jail is to turn yourself in: It's kind of like how the medieval tribunals said, "We'll throw her in the water and if she drowns, she wasn't a witch." Only nowadays our tribunals seem to say, 'If he turns himself in after the murder spree, he's not guilty!" If the 'sane' psychos cover up their crimes, the truly nutty will cut some guy's head off and walk into the police station, clothes all bloody, with a big grin on their face, saying "I'd like to apply for a job with the Police! I love law and order, and getting a kitten out of a tree. No really, I know I don't look like a cop, but if you pass me an application, I'll give you this free human head! Since decapitation clearly isn't illegal here on Planet Krypton!" The downside to this maneuver is, the whole turning-yourself-in part isn't very intuitive, and it will be some time before you get found not guilty. But the guys trying not to get caught, always seem to slip up eventually, and then they're fucked for life. It's weird how even the most sick, psychopathic cannibals have this Mary Poppins-ish degree of cheerful optimism about the likelihood of getting caught.

 

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LETTER TO MURDER DOG

(Murder Dog is a very underground rap magazine from Vallejo.)

So you're from a bad neighborhood and you need to make that money by any means necessary. OK fine, but in 2000, talking about being hard and making money is a sure guarantee that you won't make money! I'm sick of hearing rappers saying "They thought that Gangsta shit was dead, but kids still love it!" Sure, maybe a million kids love the Gangsta shit, but there's like 3 million hard rappers, and that's why none of y'all are making real money! Even the most hard core ruthless gangstas are still capitalists, and capitalism has two sides: Supply and Demand. It doesn't mean shit if the demand is high if the supply is even higher. If you're a fan right now it's cheaper to rent a rapper to follow you around all day talking about how hard he is than to buy his CD! Not safer, but cheaper.

Picture yourself as a 13 year old kid trying to come up on a block in 1980, where there's already 30 dudes selling dime bags of weed. Do you say, "Golly! It looks like everyone loves that weed, I'm going to sell some weed now, and be the thirty-first motherfucker on this one block, and make maybe $40 a night if I'm lucky." Or do you say, "Fuck this, I'm going to go and invent some CRACK, and be like the first crack dealer on the block and make all the fuckin' money!"

But you gangster rap dudes have the mentality of the kid choosing to be the 31st dime-bag seller. I'm not saying you guys aren't real. If you say you're a convicted felon and a mad psycho I believe you, but so what? There's plenty of real motherfuckers more violent than you that didn't make any money and you know it. "Keep it real" is the dumbest shit that ever happened to rap. Think about it this way: What if Al Capone finds out that alcohol has just been banned, and he goes, "Who cares? I'm making a whole ten grand a year with hookers and extortion, you know. Why mess with some bootleg liquor? I gotta keep it real ... I gotta stick with hookers and extortion. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I say. Bootleg liquor is weird, it's not real. Guys would say I'm losing it." If he acted like any of you gangstas of today, you never would of heard of Al Capone. Or Escobar. Or any of those motherfuckers. Real gangsters innovate... it's good business. I'm not saying give up on being a thug who gets paid by any means necessary. I'm saying that the only way to get paid is to have non-thug rhymes so you stand out. If you find a new demand for which you dominate the supply, you will run that racket like a fucking king, and you'll be even more successful of a thug, what with the money and all.

Here's my point again: Even the hardest gangster is still a capitalist, and capitalism is about supply and demand. If NWA came out today, nobody would give a fuck. Instead of selling a million copies, they'd sell like 20, cus the average kid would go, "More thugs. Whee." Rapping about gats and hoes didn't make NWA huge; rapping about some new subject for which there's a vast demand but almost no supply* made NWA huge. In 1989 that demand happened to be gats and hoes and such, but it's 2000 now and you all been taking NWA far too literally. You rhymed about the gats and hoes but what you should of ripped off was the idea of taking shit to the next level. You can say, "There is no demand for a 'next level' cus all the kids love that gangster shit," but back in 89, most kids claimed to love PE. A year later, those kids were talking about "Smoke that fool!" Sure, today it seems obvious that NWA would become famous, but at the time, NWA was taking a huge-ass risk releasing "Dope man" and "Boyz n tha Hood" when the average rap fan was trying to hear about Fight the Power and Mother Africa and shit. So that's why NWA are legendary and you're consoling yourself with being 'underground'.

Kids do want the next level, they just won't tell you straight up what they want, for fear of appearing uncool to the other kids. You have to guess, and this is what makes innovation very risky and very lucrative. Risky and lucrative? That's the job description for everyone from Tony Montana to Superfly to Mike Milken, but gangstas have consistently been the least innovative people in rap, and that's what I don't understand: if you're some psycho fearless guy with nothing to lose from a rough neighborhood, why aren't you the FIRST person to experiment with a new subject matter? After all, you're not afraid of anything and you've got nothing to lose, right? Sure, the odds are against you, but if you win, you'll be making money like Master P never dreamed of, and then you can get all the gats and hoes you want in your spare time. I'm not talking about being the thirty-first guy on the block selling weed with a little 'New! Improved!' sticker on it, I'm talking about a whole new genre you need to invent. If I knew what that new demand was for, I wouldn't be wasting my time clueing you in, I'd be rolling in dough like an epileptic baker. So you can hunt me down for saying an unpleasant truth, or you can start guessing what the huge-but-unmet demand of 2001 is going to be and get paid.

*Ok, BDP, Ice-T and Schooly Motherfucking D were pushing violent shit too. Schooly, I'm sorry you didn't get NWA's money

 

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POPE SCHULTZ I

I am posting this, my acceptance speech for the Papacy of the Roman Catholic Church, on the Internet, the day before my official inauguration. I take this unprecedented step because of the distinct possibility I might be assassinated prior to finishing the speech. While any intelligent person might think this document a hoax, if I even get through the first 20 seconds of my speech tomorrow, it should be apparent that this document contains the rest. All official church policies after my assassination should therefore be in accordance with the text of this electronic speech, which I hope you will save on your hard drive. In this way, I will not have died in vain.

TEXT OF POPE SCHULTZ I ACCEPTANCE SPEECH:

I would like to humbly thank God for allowing me to use the talents that He gave me in the capacity of Pope of the fuckin' Catholic Church and shit. Yeah, I said 'fuck'. Where in the Bible does it say "Thou shalt not utter thine 'F-Word?!?'" C'mon, what are we, Mennonites? Is this a fuckin' barn here? No, it's the fuckin' Vatican and if they invent something new, after the bible, we can do it unless it's specifically forbidden....;so flip that light switch, use that blender, and say fuck. Can I get a "Fuck!!" Can I get a "SHIT?!?" Alright. There's gonna be some changes around here.

First, as of right now, it's cool to be gay. If God thought being gay was un-natural, why did He make gay animals like swans, or toads that change sex? C'mon now. If you're gonna be consistent about this homophobia business, you gotta call the Lord a fag. You gotta kick God out of the church. But I have a feeling He isn't going anywhere. He's gonna stay up on that wall He's gonna keep kickin' it in those wafers, and you're gonna get hauled off to the Inquisition. So the Bible says sodomites, lake of fire, yaddayaddaydadda. But guess what? Adulterers also get the lake of fire. Fornicators? Lake of fire. Masturbators? Lake of fire. Divorcees? The lake. Pretty much everyone at one time or another is headed for an eternal skinny dip in that lake-of-fuckin'-fire, but that's why we have a little thing called 'confession,' right? So you can repent and not get 'lake of fire' as your eternal mail-forwarding address. And the gay people, they keep having this bad sex after they repent, but SO DO YOU, chump. Maybe that's why we have confession every week? Have you never been to Catholic school? Did they never explain this shit in church?

Being gay is ok, but one thing I won't accept is a child molester. I'm sick of my church being the butt of every molester-joke. If I catch one priest fondling an altar boy, I will personally bite his nuts off. this is the commitment I am willing to make. The people that are even worse, though, are the other clergy that cover up for the molesters. First, lying is immoral, second, you're going to hurt more innocent children if you let a molester go free, and third, covering-up just doesn't work, ok? The whole planet thinks of Catholics as being child molesters because so many cover-ups failed that now we have no credibility. If I catch one high-up official covering-up for a molester, I will personally make HIM bite the molesters' nuts off, and then vice versa. That's gonna be the new Inquisition: A bunch of Spanish, nut-biting maniacs.

Oh, and women are now allowed in the clergy. Listen up here, I'm the Pope, okay? Who's the Pope here, you or me? I thought so. What I say goes. What does it matter what kind of genitals the clergy have up there, especially since they aren't even supposed to be using the genitals? I don't give a fig what Paul said about women in the Church. St. Paul, who the hell is that? He never even saw Jesus when Jesus was alive. He just took over this up-and-coming young cult and used it to portray his own twisted ideas. Paul is worse than Judas, and you can put that in your pipe and smoke it. Paul put words in the mouth of God. There was Jesus, being utterly perfect and giving up His life to cleanse us of sin, but that wasn't good enough for ole Paul. Paul had to go and change the words! That's the single greatest act of blasphemy in the history of Christendom. So women are in the clergy now, and Mary Daly is a Saint. You got a problem with that? Good! Start your own fuckin' church, okay? As long as you're Catholic, you do shit my way. If not, start your own, pathetic, tiny, hate-filled church and see how many worshippers you got. 500 million, like me? I doubt it.

Okay, and what's the problem with abortion and birth control? Look, people, God causes half of all pregnancies to fail naturally. Abortion is just humans trying to emulate God, just like obeying a commandment, and shit. Anyone who has a bad word to say about abortion, they're out of the church. I'm the damn Pope and I say, take a hike. Go join up with one of those Johnny-come-lately, weak-ass Protestant cults or something, cus you can't handle the Catholic faith. As for birth control, I think we fulfilled the "go forth and multiply" command. I think we did that, like, 500 years ago. Are you picking up what I'm laying down? I think we don't need to keep fulfilling this . We've done it, we've passed that test, we can move on. We don't need to make a hell on earth with overpopulation here. Plus, there's no damn commandment, "Thou shalt get the AIDS." But that's what's gonna happen if you don't, in the words of the Fat Boys, "Proteck Yaself." If God didn't want us to wear condoms, He wouldn't of made men with condom-shaped dicks. Think about it, Thomas Aquinas-face!

And what's all this I hear about Evolution? What a crock of shit! It says right in the Bible how the earth and animals were formed. It's right at the front, you can't miss it. It's easy: if you believe in evolution you're not a Catholic. I read that part, whasit, Genesis, like 300 times in Pope school and it didn't say shit about monkeys, allright. So evolution is bunk. But the larger question is, who cares? You can't make a moral choice today based on when the fuckin' dinosaurs lived, or whether horses evolved from ferrets or not. See what I'm sayin? If you're tempted to cheat on your husband, or to beat up someone who owes you money, the first question on your mind--- creationist OR evolutionist-- is not going to be, "What about those pesky fossils?" This is such a non-issue, guys! If you care about the animals God created, do something to help the environment, and save endangered species, don't argue about what fuckin' happened when the Earth was created, that was like , what? 4,000 years ago? Damn!

 

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HEALTH FOOD RANT

As much as I like to eat healthy, I hate going in a health food store, cus they're so fucking smug. Just so "Look at us, with the spiritually uplifting vegetarian magazines in neat little rows, and the radiant glow of people who are doing the right thing and feeling great!" I think it would be cool to go to a health food store that's sleazy. Not just unclean, but just nasty and makes you feel creepy. Stained concrete floors. Low dim ceiling. Smoky. Like, tons of smoke from hidden smog machine. Metal detectors at the doors. Barely Legal on the magazine rack next to Spiritual Living. Walls all tagged. Malt liquor on every shelf in every department: signs hanging from roof saying "bulgur wheat, sprouts and malt liquor, aisle 2" or "tofu curd, malt liquor, spirulina algae, aisle 3". Bullets in the bulk bins. Fucked-up, toothless, junkie Filipino bar girl posters peeling on the walls. Cashier uniforms are sweat soaked wifebeaters with huge crucifix medallions. That shit would be cool. Motley Crue on the PA.

 

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BITTERNESS


I can see how bitterness can be a negative, or sad, feeling for the bitter person. But I don't see why that makes OTHER people feel negative about the bitter person!!

We're all born ignorant. And we're all born selfish. But NO ONE is born bitter. You only get bitter because people have messed with you and let you down.

I guess some bitter people CAN also be bad people. Like if someone got a broken toy on their 5th grade birthday party, and stayed bitter about it their whole life, yes, they'd be a lame person.

But to judge a bitter person as, 'Ew, he's negative, don't hang around him' without even knowing what he's been through, that's totally dumb!!! You have no idea if the bitterness is justified, and no desire to look inside yourself and ask, 'Would I be bitter if whatever happened to that person, had instead happened to ME?'

It gets worse: I think for most people, they don't even care if the bitterness is justified or not. They just don't want to be around unhappy people.

I think the reasoning goes like this: it doesn't matter why the person is bitter. If they're bitter, they must have had bad things happen to them. This marks them as one of life's losers, and so they should be avoided at all costs. Let's all add insult to injury. Let's forget the times we've been the victim of bad things, times that we could have used some kindness. Let's just surround ourselves with happy, perky people and who cares if the happiness is genuine.

What kind of bullshit is that? If the 'winners' and 'happy people' in life get that way by prejudging and ostracizing the losers instead of trying to help them and sharing their happiness, why would anyone in their right fucking mind want to associate with the happy people?

It's like, 'wow, rejected again! well that's sure going to make me less bitter! That's going to teach me to be a perky positive person like you, isn't it? thanks for showing me how compassionate and open-minded the non-bitter people are, I can't wait to be more like you!'

How exasperating is that? Someone telling me, 'well I'm not going to hang around you simply because I can't imagine what you're so bitter about.' Well, how about, I'M FUCKING BITTER BECAUSE OF ASSHOLES LIKE YOU!! HOW FUCKING OBLIVIOUS CAN YOU BE???? HOW CAN YOU FAIL TO SEE YOU'RE CAUSING THE VERY BITTERNESS YOU DESPISE SO MUCH????? AND THEN BLAMING IT ON ME?!?!?! DUMBASS!!!

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'SEXY' IS NOT

it's amazing the shit girls do that they THINK is sexy but really it makes them look lonely and desperate. Guys will never tell y'all what fools y'all make of yourselves because guys just want to get laid. but i really don't give a shit about getting laid so i'm free to laugh in that girl's face. I laugh, because if i asked them what's up they'd totally deny it. and say some bullshit about 'oh, i just want to look nice for me.' or 'this is empowering my sexuality.' if it were up to me, all women would just have to wear identical burlap sacks. and if a girl wanted attention, she'd wear a huge neon sign on her head that would blink on and off, saying 'I'M ON DISPLAY. . . I'M ON DISPLAY...'. but hey, that's just me.


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TYRANNY OF 'LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE'
It seems that in all areas of life 'like attracts like.' In the business world they have a saying 'it takes money to make money.' If you have a million dollars, you can invest in the stock market and make $30,000 a year just by sitting on your ass. If you're popular, you can make new friends much more easily than an unpopular person, because all your dozens of friends will introduce you to THEIR friends. If you've fucked a hundred people, you become desensitized to it, so you'll wind up falling in bed with almost anyone-- and before you know it, you've gone and fucked another hundred. . And worst of all, no one has more cute female friends than guess who? other cute females. This sucks!! Because rich people are the people who LEAST need more money. Popular people are the people who LEAST need more friends. And cute women-need I say more? If they want to be around a cute woman, all they need to do is look in the mirror.

More than they already do.


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WEIRD HOW CERTAIN TOTALLY RATIONAL THOUGHTS CAN DRIVE YOU INSANE.
We generally think of insane people as having irrational thoughts: thoughts that don't correspond with what most people think is true. 'there are vampires in my underpants,' 'charlton heston is out to get me,' 'I am fifteen rhinoceri,' etc. But has it occurred to you that people can become insane from thinking too rationally?


For example, if you asked the average sane person, are there thousands of children starving right now as we speak? They would say, 'yes there are.' The average person also knows that they (the average person themselves) will die. If you pressed, you could make the average person list literally dozens of celebrities and businesspeople that are 'stupider and less talented than I, yet make millions of times my salary for no good reason.' So, starvation, death, and life's unfairness are real things, unlike, say, vampires in one's underpants.


But, someone who woke up every morning with the realization of just HOW MANY starving children there were in the planet, that person couldn't function in society. The crushing burden of this knowledge would interfere with his or her ability to hold a job or a relationship. Same goes for people who just can't forget their own death, or who are continuously aware of all the rape or murder being committed. A person who instinctively knew that the cast of FRIEND$ was getting paid a million dollars an episode would no doubt be in jail right now for killing them all.


Although these are real events and not hallucinations, the sane people are the people who treat these subjects as IF they were hallucinations, and ignore them. Whereas the people who are rational and confront these realities daily, they go nuts!

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