I don't hate the Oscars. It's too trendy to hate the Oscars. Come
on, Jennifer Lawrence is adorable, what's your problem? More
importantly, it's hard to hate something that radio conservatives also
hate. On the way to work, i listened to a few minutes of Supertalk
99.7, and sure enough, some right-wing goon was screeching about
Hollywood's "toxic fog" and "endless sewer pipe of degradation." Which,
you know, is hilarious. Conservatives just have it in their minds that
Hollywood releases nothing except pornographic movies about drug users
who hate America and hard work...
...and i'm still just confused. Where are those movies? I want to see
them. That's not what i see coming out of the movie industry. I think i
ranted about this like a year ago -- some famous online wingnut
released a video claiming that movies about American heroes "no longer
exist" on the same weekend when Captain America was number one at the box office and selling twice as many tickets as expected. But here we are again. Okay, let's just look at the critically-lauded movies of the year....
Argo: A movie about how awesome Americans save other awesome Americans from the swarthy Iranian hordes.
Lincoln: I haven't seen it, but i imagine it's rather patriotic.
Life of Pi: Supposedly, it's about the greatness of God? It does have brown people in it, so that's a bit suspect to conservatives.
Beasts of the Southern Wild: Also contains a lot of brown people
and is partly about Hurricane Katrina, but is essentially apolitical.
All the conflict in the movie comes from Hushpuppy's disturbed father,
who is a poor black alcoholic who needs to get a job.
Zero Dark Thirty: A movie about how we totally killed Osama bin Laden, America, fuck yeah? No, wait, tht happened under Obama, so the killing of Osama is no longer patriotic; it's just awful.
Django Unchained: Seriously, why are conservatives against this
movie? It's a western. They love westerns. They love movies where
lone bad-asses shoot everybody. John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Charles
Bronson.... Django. What's the problem here? Is it because of slaves?
Silver Linings Playbook: I have no idea what this is about, it must be the one about the naked hippies on drugs who hate America.
And what about our recent blockbusters?
The Dark Knight Rises: Western millionaire defeats scary foreign terrorist and cures a fallen woman of her wanton ways.
The Avengers: A bunch of white superheroes, including Captain
America, defeat a foreign army led by a villain who is, you know, a bit
lavender, really.
The Hunger Games: Scrappy girl from rural coal town battles against the decadent, perverted city people.
Skyfall: The ultimate traditional male races to save his stern boss from an evil latino homosexual terrorist.
The Hobbit: A white middle-class guy goes off to find riches.
Twilight: Breaking Dawn II: Okay, they're vampires, but they waited until they were married to have sex.
...does anyone else see this?
Even though Hollywood is full of gays and swarming with liberals like
Ben Affleck and George Clooney, the products coming from Hollywood are
still fairly conservative in nature. So why the disconnect? Did these
conservatives see Natural Born Killers back in 1994 and haven't
been the same since? Meh. I guess it's just more of that good old
American either/or thinking. Either the movie industry is a bastion of
wholesomeness that dishes out nothing but Christian pablum, or it's the
polar opposite. Gray areas don't exist in the conservative mind.
Honestly, i'm not a fan of conservatives and how they think. Did you know that.
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Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
That's a bit suspect.
A few online conservatives like to use the word "raaaaacist!" in an ironic way, to imply that everyone who points out their racism is wrong, just some nattering nabob seeing racism where clearly none exists. This seems to be one of the questions that haunts the modern wingnut -- why do people keep calling me a racist when i'm clearly not? The only way i could possibly be a racist is if i actively supported laws or regulations that called for racial segregation, or for people to be treated differently in some way based on race -- no American politician today is proposing such, erego, i cannot be a racist, and neither can anyone else. The problem of racism is solved forever as far as i am concerned!
That's one way of looking at it.
But if you think racism is over, ask around. Ask some people who aren't white and conservative. They might point out a few things that you may have missed...
...like when a conservative radio talk show host rants and raves against Tiger Woods, calling him a "scumbag" and a "lowlife" because the man cheated on his wife. He cheated on his wife, so the man is scum, a rotter with no hope of redemption. He shouldn't even be allowed to play a game that involves hitting a ball with a stick, he's clearly disqualified himself through his odious behavior.
...but Newt Gingrich? Well, you know, the Lord teaches us to forgive. We're all only human, guys. That's just Newt's personal business and so who are we to pry? It wouldn't affect his job performance. Heck, when you really think about it, i mean, Newt's a powerful man, and don't we expect out beloved and powerful men to be, well, powerful? In that regard? The fact that Newt's balls put out enough juice to make him want to cheat, gosh, i respect that and you should too. What, do you want your leaders to be eunuchs or something?
That's a bit suspect.
...or when conservatives post pics of Trayvon Martin wearing a grille and saggy pants, flashing gangsta tattoos, and presenting it as some sort of "smoking gun." See! Photographic evidence that this kid was up to no good, he's a gangsta!
Now, if it was a white kid with long hair and a Slipknot t-shirt, that would be different. The kid's just going through a phase, harmless teenage rebellion and all that, nothing to worry about. Being a metal fan is nothing to be scared of, not like being a fan of rap music. Liking noisy metal is a phase, but liking rap is a lifelong choice to embrace criminality!
That's a bit suspect.
...or when conservatives scream, over and over, that any hint of impropriety by organizations such as ACORN is proof positive that Democrats are rigging elections. If some random poll worker tries to turn in phony registrations for Mickey Mouse and Bart Simpson that are tossed in the trash, the simple fact that they tried to defraud the system is all the proof you need to say that Obama "stole" the election.
...but when a high-ranking Republican official admits, candidly, that yes, they were specifically trying to limit the number of black people voting in Florida, because they're afraid that they weren't going to be voting for Mitt Romney... nah, that's meaningless. That's just one bad apple and you can't let him spoil the bunch.
That's a bit suspect.
...or when libertarians of the Rand Paul variety must philosophically that the Civil Rights Act ought to be repealed because it's a stain on the American ideal of pure freedom. Freedom, freedom is what we want in every case regardless of outcome. Sure, we'd think it was awful if a business owner decided that he wanted to ban black people from his restaurant, or make them wait longer than white folk, but that minor hassle is just the price we'd pay for freedom, beautiful sexy freedom.
...but then they'll show some strange hesitation when it comes to pot smokers, women who want abortions, people who want to sleep around, and those who want to marry someone of the same sex. Wait! You're not free to do everything. Then out comes the fire-and-brimstone preacher, and we hear that humans are naturally fallen and sinful, vicious animals given to vice and violence, in need of some central authority to lift them out of the muck and force them upright. And thus we need rules, and standards, and the eyes of the community watching us all, to force us to act in the interests of that community. Freedom? Why, that's just another word for anarchy if you ask me.
So yes, when it comes to racial discrimination, just let the chips fall where they may. We're willing to live with the consequences.
But nah, when it comes to everything else? We can't just let people do whatever they want, the consequences are just too severe to risk.
That's a bit suspect. Just a bit.
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That's one way of looking at it.
But if you think racism is over, ask around. Ask some people who aren't white and conservative. They might point out a few things that you may have missed...
...like when a conservative radio talk show host rants and raves against Tiger Woods, calling him a "scumbag" and a "lowlife" because the man cheated on his wife. He cheated on his wife, so the man is scum, a rotter with no hope of redemption. He shouldn't even be allowed to play a game that involves hitting a ball with a stick, he's clearly disqualified himself through his odious behavior.
...but Newt Gingrich? Well, you know, the Lord teaches us to forgive. We're all only human, guys. That's just Newt's personal business and so who are we to pry? It wouldn't affect his job performance. Heck, when you really think about it, i mean, Newt's a powerful man, and don't we expect out beloved and powerful men to be, well, powerful? In that regard? The fact that Newt's balls put out enough juice to make him want to cheat, gosh, i respect that and you should too. What, do you want your leaders to be eunuchs or something?
That's a bit suspect.
...or when conservatives post pics of Trayvon Martin wearing a grille and saggy pants, flashing gangsta tattoos, and presenting it as some sort of "smoking gun." See! Photographic evidence that this kid was up to no good, he's a gangsta!
Now, if it was a white kid with long hair and a Slipknot t-shirt, that would be different. The kid's just going through a phase, harmless teenage rebellion and all that, nothing to worry about. Being a metal fan is nothing to be scared of, not like being a fan of rap music. Liking noisy metal is a phase, but liking rap is a lifelong choice to embrace criminality!
That's a bit suspect.
...or when conservatives scream, over and over, that any hint of impropriety by organizations such as ACORN is proof positive that Democrats are rigging elections. If some random poll worker tries to turn in phony registrations for Mickey Mouse and Bart Simpson that are tossed in the trash, the simple fact that they tried to defraud the system is all the proof you need to say that Obama "stole" the election.
...but when a high-ranking Republican official admits, candidly, that yes, they were specifically trying to limit the number of black people voting in Florida, because they're afraid that they weren't going to be voting for Mitt Romney... nah, that's meaningless. That's just one bad apple and you can't let him spoil the bunch.
That's a bit suspect.
...or when libertarians of the Rand Paul variety must philosophically that the Civil Rights Act ought to be repealed because it's a stain on the American ideal of pure freedom. Freedom, freedom is what we want in every case regardless of outcome. Sure, we'd think it was awful if a business owner decided that he wanted to ban black people from his restaurant, or make them wait longer than white folk, but that minor hassle is just the price we'd pay for freedom, beautiful sexy freedom.
...but then they'll show some strange hesitation when it comes to pot smokers, women who want abortions, people who want to sleep around, and those who want to marry someone of the same sex. Wait! You're not free to do everything. Then out comes the fire-and-brimstone preacher, and we hear that humans are naturally fallen and sinful, vicious animals given to vice and violence, in need of some central authority to lift them out of the muck and force them upright. And thus we need rules, and standards, and the eyes of the community watching us all, to force us to act in the interests of that community. Freedom? Why, that's just another word for anarchy if you ask me.
So yes, when it comes to racial discrimination, just let the chips fall where they may. We're willing to live with the consequences.
But nah, when it comes to everything else? We can't just let people do whatever they want, the consequences are just too severe to risk.
That's a bit suspect. Just a bit.
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Thursday, February 14, 2013
Radio.
Who the hell are Munford and Sons?
There's a reason i don't know this. Even though the Nashville area is one of the "fastest-growing metropolitan areas in America," there's still a few things we don't have that other places take for granted. We have no Trader Joe's. Starbucks are few and far between. I've never seen a Chipotle. And there isn't a radio station that plays hipster music...
...there are a few big country stations, of course. A few classic rock stations (Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, AC/DC.) There's an easy-listening pop station for office people (Celine Dion, Madonna, Matchbox 20.) There's a really crappy alternative station that plays nothing but sludgy nu-metal (Sevendust, Hinder, Papa Roach.) There's an automatic DJ station that plays fairly decent random stuff (Green Day, Elton John, REM.) There's a station that keeps crooning alive (Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Perry Como.) There's an R&B station (Frank Ocean, John Legend, Rafael Saddiq), and then there's 101.1 Tha Beat Jamz, which plays nothing but the newest, loudest, and worst rap music imaginable (Chris Brown, Nikki Minaj, Rick Ross.)
...but there isn't a white hipster station. So i've never heard Munford and Sons, just like i never heard of Gotye until my brother asked me to download his album. Remember back in 2005 when everyone was complaining they they couldn't go anywhere without hearing Deathcab for Cutie's "Soul Meets Body?" I never heard it until my brother came back from his 3-month stint working in Seattle. The Arcade Fire. The White Stripes. Wilco. Interpol. The Kings of Leon. The Black Keys. Those bands just don't get played around these parts. I read that Jack White has a house right down the road in Franklin where he lives near Nicole Kidman and Billy Ray Cyrus... i can see why he would want to live here, because almost nobody would recognize him.
The station that should be filling this void is 107.5 FM. Those call numbers still sound slightly magical to me. Back in the late '80s, it was pretty much our link to the wider music world -- since almost no one had MTV, it was the only outlet that played new music for people under the age of forty. Genesis. MC Hammer. Vanilla Ice. Whitesnake. Def Leppard. Whitney Houston. All spun by a Hawaiin-shirt-wearing cokehead DJ named "Coyote" McCloud and the Zoo Crew. Sounds pretty retro now, but back then, it was the future. The nightly Top Ten Countdown was required listening for nearly every kid in middle and high school. At 7:00 every night, we'd turn off TV's and Ataris and turn on the radio, because goddamnit, at some point they're going to play "The Humpty Dance" and i'm not going to miss that.
Good memories.
Sadly, 107.5 FM is now "The River" and all they play is Katy Perry. Seriously, all they play is Katy fucking Perry. And that chick that sounds like Katy Perry.
I know, i need to come into the future and get satellite radio or Pandora or whatever. But i haven't yet, because i'm still up to my neck in CD's. The next time i buy a new car, i might have to make that leap.
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There's a reason i don't know this. Even though the Nashville area is one of the "fastest-growing metropolitan areas in America," there's still a few things we don't have that other places take for granted. We have no Trader Joe's. Starbucks are few and far between. I've never seen a Chipotle. And there isn't a radio station that plays hipster music...
...there are a few big country stations, of course. A few classic rock stations (Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, AC/DC.) There's an easy-listening pop station for office people (Celine Dion, Madonna, Matchbox 20.) There's a really crappy alternative station that plays nothing but sludgy nu-metal (Sevendust, Hinder, Papa Roach.) There's an automatic DJ station that plays fairly decent random stuff (Green Day, Elton John, REM.) There's a station that keeps crooning alive (Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Perry Como.) There's an R&B station (Frank Ocean, John Legend, Rafael Saddiq), and then there's 101.1 Tha Beat Jamz, which plays nothing but the newest, loudest, and worst rap music imaginable (Chris Brown, Nikki Minaj, Rick Ross.)
...but there isn't a white hipster station. So i've never heard Munford and Sons, just like i never heard of Gotye until my brother asked me to download his album. Remember back in 2005 when everyone was complaining they they couldn't go anywhere without hearing Deathcab for Cutie's "Soul Meets Body?" I never heard it until my brother came back from his 3-month stint working in Seattle. The Arcade Fire. The White Stripes. Wilco. Interpol. The Kings of Leon. The Black Keys. Those bands just don't get played around these parts. I read that Jack White has a house right down the road in Franklin where he lives near Nicole Kidman and Billy Ray Cyrus... i can see why he would want to live here, because almost nobody would recognize him.
The station that should be filling this void is 107.5 FM. Those call numbers still sound slightly magical to me. Back in the late '80s, it was pretty much our link to the wider music world -- since almost no one had MTV, it was the only outlet that played new music for people under the age of forty. Genesis. MC Hammer. Vanilla Ice. Whitesnake. Def Leppard. Whitney Houston. All spun by a Hawaiin-shirt-wearing cokehead DJ named "Coyote" McCloud and the Zoo Crew. Sounds pretty retro now, but back then, it was the future. The nightly Top Ten Countdown was required listening for nearly every kid in middle and high school. At 7:00 every night, we'd turn off TV's and Ataris and turn on the radio, because goddamnit, at some point they're going to play "The Humpty Dance" and i'm not going to miss that.
Good memories.
Sadly, 107.5 FM is now "The River" and all they play is Katy Perry. Seriously, all they play is Katy fucking Perry. And that chick that sounds like Katy Perry.
I know, i need to come into the future and get satellite radio or Pandora or whatever. But i haven't yet, because i'm still up to my neck in CD's. The next time i buy a new car, i might have to make that leap.
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Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Popes and Mopery
Wow, so there's gonna be a new Pope. Another one?
You know, the whole phenomenon of Catholic priest-pedophilia thing still intrigues and horrifies me. The seeming prevalance of it. It's like if it came to light that Methodists are huge in the meth trade. I mean, what is the reason? I know priests aren't allowed to smash so they have all this pent-up male jelly, but why wasn't it a scandal of priests sleeping with hookers or seducing teenage girls? Why all the little boys? This is disturbing.
See, i always figured that attraction is a mix of genetics and psychological imprinting. If it were only genetics, then we'd all likely be attracted to healthy members of the same race. But that doesn't happen. You might be an American male who really likes slender asian girls. Or a slender asian guy who likes tall, blonde American women. Or a black guy who really likes white chicks and doesn't mess with black chicks. Or a girl who's turned on by old gray Sean Connery-type guys. Or a white girl who likes black guys. Or a gay dude who only likes superfit guys. Or a gay dude who likes fat hairy guys. Or the guy who wants the 500-pound girlfriend, or some real weirdo who only wants to bang handicapped midgets. It's all a game of chance, depending on what you're exposed to early in life, what makes an imprint on your psychosexual self...
...so, what sort of weird imprints to lifelong Catholics get? I keep thinking that as kids, they never saw a Playboy magazine without being beaten or shamed for it. And they spend their formative years... like.... surrounded by old, hideous, screeching nuns with wrinkly faces, and told to worship some naked dude on a Cross, surrounded by rosy-cheeked nude cherub Renaissance angels?
Is that it? Does that rewire their impulses for pedophilia?
I demand an experiment. I demand that an isolated Catholic school remove all their typical imagery, and replace it with material where all angels are depicted as hot, curvaceous young girls, and Jesus wears a robe and looks like Radagast, and all nuns must be of a minimum attractiveness level, and wear habits that are, if not revealing, then certainly more form-fitting and flattering than what they have now.
We must create a new overclass of heterosexual superpriests. The modern age demands it.
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You know, the whole phenomenon of Catholic priest-pedophilia thing still intrigues and horrifies me. The seeming prevalance of it. It's like if it came to light that Methodists are huge in the meth trade. I mean, what is the reason? I know priests aren't allowed to smash so they have all this pent-up male jelly, but why wasn't it a scandal of priests sleeping with hookers or seducing teenage girls? Why all the little boys? This is disturbing.
See, i always figured that attraction is a mix of genetics and psychological imprinting. If it were only genetics, then we'd all likely be attracted to healthy members of the same race. But that doesn't happen. You might be an American male who really likes slender asian girls. Or a slender asian guy who likes tall, blonde American women. Or a black guy who really likes white chicks and doesn't mess with black chicks. Or a girl who's turned on by old gray Sean Connery-type guys. Or a white girl who likes black guys. Or a gay dude who only likes superfit guys. Or a gay dude who likes fat hairy guys. Or the guy who wants the 500-pound girlfriend, or some real weirdo who only wants to bang handicapped midgets. It's all a game of chance, depending on what you're exposed to early in life, what makes an imprint on your psychosexual self...
...so, what sort of weird imprints to lifelong Catholics get? I keep thinking that as kids, they never saw a Playboy magazine without being beaten or shamed for it. And they spend their formative years... like.... surrounded by old, hideous, screeching nuns with wrinkly faces, and told to worship some naked dude on a Cross, surrounded by rosy-cheeked nude cherub Renaissance angels?
Is that it? Does that rewire their impulses for pedophilia?
I demand an experiment. I demand that an isolated Catholic school remove all their typical imagery, and replace it with material where all angels are depicted as hot, curvaceous young girls, and Jesus wears a robe and looks like Radagast, and all nuns must be of a minimum attractiveness level, and wear habits that are, if not revealing, then certainly more form-fitting and flattering than what they have now.
We must create a new overclass of heterosexual superpriests. The modern age demands it.
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Monday, February 11, 2013
Not yours.
Holy crap, the teabaggers. Do they ever realize how full of shit they are? For even a second?
Already, they're making the dubious claim that the LA cop killer is a "leftist," and that the internet pranksters putting up farcical "support Christopher Dorner" Facebook pages are also Obama-loving leftists -- as opposed to the apolitical trolls they likely are. And then they haul out their fainting couches and smelling salts, and shriek "just when i thought the left couldn't sink any deeper, they surprise me again!" and "well, not me, Norma, i'm not surprised at all."
What a bunch of transparently-vile clown-steppers.
I suppose it's just another symptom of their simplistic black-and-white worldview where complexity is not allowed; they tend to lump everything they dislike together, while greedily claiming anything that appeals to them. Like when the Epic Beard Man bus beatdown video hit the net, they immediately labeled him a "conservative hero" and the ornery black guy a "liberal." Like how they try to classify The Dark Knight as a conservative film, because... the Joker's an anarchist? Bane's a socialist?
Like how they cherrypick random statements that John Lennon made in order to turn the Beatles into a bunch of conservatives that they don't mind loving. How they daydream that the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" is a cry against liberalism.
Greedy. Babies.
I've actually seen them try to claim my new literary crush, Robert Anton Wilson, as one of their own because his books are so awesome and full of freedom-loving rogues. Sure, guys. The writer who states over and over again that religion is a primate delusion, the free-sex loving drug user, the guy who portrays a fictional scenario where the idiotic right wingers of America band together in Texas to form a national movement called "God's Lightning," in which every member is a drooling, racist, Christ-loving redneck who goes around preaching succession and beating Jews and gays to death with their wooden-cross weapons.... yeah, this guy totally likes you. I guess that's why one of his final public statements specifically called out the Bush adminstration as being evil. Because he's such a conservative... in your tiny, shriveled, jealous minds.
Sorry, Teabaggers, but Hagbard Celine is not yours. You can't have him.
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Already, they're making the dubious claim that the LA cop killer is a "leftist," and that the internet pranksters putting up farcical "support Christopher Dorner" Facebook pages are also Obama-loving leftists -- as opposed to the apolitical trolls they likely are. And then they haul out their fainting couches and smelling salts, and shriek "just when i thought the left couldn't sink any deeper, they surprise me again!" and "well, not me, Norma, i'm not surprised at all."
What a bunch of transparently-vile clown-steppers.
I suppose it's just another symptom of their simplistic black-and-white worldview where complexity is not allowed; they tend to lump everything they dislike together, while greedily claiming anything that appeals to them. Like when the Epic Beard Man bus beatdown video hit the net, they immediately labeled him a "conservative hero" and the ornery black guy a "liberal." Like how they try to classify The Dark Knight as a conservative film, because... the Joker's an anarchist? Bane's a socialist?
Like how they cherrypick random statements that John Lennon made in order to turn the Beatles into a bunch of conservatives that they don't mind loving. How they daydream that the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" is a cry against liberalism.
Greedy. Babies.
I've actually seen them try to claim my new literary crush, Robert Anton Wilson, as one of their own because his books are so awesome and full of freedom-loving rogues. Sure, guys. The writer who states over and over again that religion is a primate delusion, the free-sex loving drug user, the guy who portrays a fictional scenario where the idiotic right wingers of America band together in Texas to form a national movement called "God's Lightning," in which every member is a drooling, racist, Christ-loving redneck who goes around preaching succession and beating Jews and gays to death with their wooden-cross weapons.... yeah, this guy totally likes you. I guess that's why one of his final public statements specifically called out the Bush adminstration as being evil. Because he's such a conservative... in your tiny, shriveled, jealous minds.
Sorry, Teabaggers, but Hagbard Celine is not yours. You can't have him.
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Behance.
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Facebook.
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Pinterest.
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Enter Videodrome
Superbowl commercials. They suck. People who pay attention to them
suck. For the last 5 years, every Superbowl has been the same for me. I
wake up at 8:00pm, right at the start of the third quarter. I ask my
brother how the halftime show was, and he says it sucked because he's
not impressed by anything. I make a cup of coffee and watch the game
for ten minutes before drifting off to my computer. Then one of the
teams win, and i don't care.
Then i go to work and am thankful that no one is talking about the game or the commercials. Bless my coworkers.
I also can't stand talk of reality TV. I know a few people who watch reality TV ironically, knowing that it is bad and glorying in the badness of it. I can't judge them, really, because i like bad movies. I can be very amused by horrible, old sci-fi and action films (fuck, why is Eliminators not on netflix? I need to see it again before i die!) But that's one type of badness, it's an artful badness, more palatable to me than the badness of reality TV.
Reality TV... it's like.... okay, a huge, rambling metaphor for you.... it's like there's one restaurant in town. You've been going to this restaurant your entire life because it's just tradition, everyone in town eats at this place. But over the years, the food gets worse and worse, the place gets noisier and more annoying. Once, polite middle-aged people dined here with their children. They told long-winded stories and corny jokes. It was kinda square, but decent. But over the years it devolves into a Hooters-type establishment, filled with guffawing frat boys and random skanks, and the menu ceases to feature salads and sandwiches and now only has deep-fried unhealthy garbage. And one day, you enter the restaurant, and a waiter empties a pail of festering pig slop into a table that resembles a trough. He sneers at you and says, "eat that, you goddamned swine! Suuu-iiieeee!" You look around and see that the other customers are shirtless and unkempt and happily lapping up the filthy slop. The waiters chuckle and say to themselves, "look at them, they'll eat anything. Stupid fucking pigs." The customers grunt in agreement.
At that point, i stand up and leave the restaurant. I shall go to the grocery store and cook for myself from now on.
That's how i feel about television these days. I can't stomach it. I never thought i'd be a hipster who claims not to watch TV, but.... well, here we are.
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Then i go to work and am thankful that no one is talking about the game or the commercials. Bless my coworkers.
I also can't stand talk of reality TV. I know a few people who watch reality TV ironically, knowing that it is bad and glorying in the badness of it. I can't judge them, really, because i like bad movies. I can be very amused by horrible, old sci-fi and action films (fuck, why is Eliminators not on netflix? I need to see it again before i die!) But that's one type of badness, it's an artful badness, more palatable to me than the badness of reality TV.
Reality TV... it's like.... okay, a huge, rambling metaphor for you.... it's like there's one restaurant in town. You've been going to this restaurant your entire life because it's just tradition, everyone in town eats at this place. But over the years, the food gets worse and worse, the place gets noisier and more annoying. Once, polite middle-aged people dined here with their children. They told long-winded stories and corny jokes. It was kinda square, but decent. But over the years it devolves into a Hooters-type establishment, filled with guffawing frat boys and random skanks, and the menu ceases to feature salads and sandwiches and now only has deep-fried unhealthy garbage. And one day, you enter the restaurant, and a waiter empties a pail of festering pig slop into a table that resembles a trough. He sneers at you and says, "eat that, you goddamned swine! Suuu-iiieeee!" You look around and see that the other customers are shirtless and unkempt and happily lapping up the filthy slop. The waiters chuckle and say to themselves, "look at them, they'll eat anything. Stupid fucking pigs." The customers grunt in agreement.
At that point, i stand up and leave the restaurant. I shall go to the grocery store and cook for myself from now on.
That's how i feel about television these days. I can't stomach it. I never thought i'd be a hipster who claims not to watch TV, but.... well, here we are.
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Monday, February 04, 2013
The Illuminati ( A secret society do exist.)
Yay, Americaball outcome!
You know, after reading loads of Robert Anton Wilson and thinking about it, i think i finally know exactly who and what the Illuminati really were. Bear with me here, this gets speculative...
"The Illuminati" was a title used by several interrelated groups in Europe that formed within Masonic lodges at various points in European history. It was an intellectual fad that seemed to have two main ideas; the abolition of hereditary monarchy, and the elimination of church authority in favor of a Deist conception of god or no god at all. The Illuminated Ones, as they called themselves, never achieved visible power, but greatly influenced intellectuals and leaders in France and the American Colonies. It was a special club that only certain smart people could join.
When i stop and think about it, hereditary monarchy that was held in place by religious authority must have been the most galling idea imaginable to people with functioning brains for thousands of years. Imagine if we, today, lived in a world where George W. Bush was ruler-for-life, and not through an electoral process -- however shady -- but because his father simply installed him, and he was issuing edicts and starting more pointless wars, all while trying to produce a male heir so that the throne wouldn't go to the husband of Jenna or Barbara. Dude, we'd be angry all day. We'd seek out fellow non-zombies and gather in our homes, or certain isolated taverns, and say over and over again...
"It doesn't make sense, it's a ludicrous system. If a god exists, and i have my doubts, i hardly think he'd want the imbecile heirs of a conqueror to have absolute authority over us for an indefinite time! Crap, there has to be a better way, a more logical way to organize society. Look at all these fools around us, why don't they understand this?
"I totally agree, but should we really be discussing this here? Hey, let's go to the lodge and talk about it with my buddies who feel the same way.... except Gunter, he's a real dumb asshole who thinks King Charles I is awesome. We should kick him out."
"We should kick out anyone who isn't on the level, man."
"Totally, man!"
And that's why they developed code words, and secret handshakes, and an air of mystery. They were afraid of being jailed or having their reputations destroyed by the 85% of people who thought that the king was the king because God wanted it that way, and if you don't agree you're unpatriotic and you WANT France to win. And i guess many of our Founding Fathers, the really brilliant ones like Franklin and Jefferson, were big fans, and considered themselves "illuminated." Hence the eye in the pyramid on our currency. Hence the office of the President. They had stumbled on to a secret that most people didn't accept -- that God wasn't in control here, and that authority was conceived wholly by Man and thus could take any form we wished it to.
(And judging by Franklin's activities, they also discovered another secret -- casual sex was fun and great, and the whole marriage-God thing was just more superstition. Venereal disease is a possibility, yes, but that's purely a medical problem best solved through science. )
And basically, they won. Gradually. Monarchs faded and were replaced by democracies. If there's an equivalent of the Illuminati today, it's in China. Or it exists in the form of every non-persecuted Western intellectual who spends their time writing about how capitalism is an insane way to organize society, and there's gotta be a better way. I bet if you could meet a real Illuminati member from 1750 and spin a wild tale about them "controlling everything" throughout history, he'd stammer and say, "what? No, man, we were the underdogs. We were just some smart people hiding in the shadows and trying to change the world, and in my lifetime, it seemed that almost no progress was made. Did you guys ever get rid of those damned kings, i hate them so much, they control everything!"
I mean, this makes sense, right?
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You know, after reading loads of Robert Anton Wilson and thinking about it, i think i finally know exactly who and what the Illuminati really were. Bear with me here, this gets speculative...
"The Illuminati" was a title used by several interrelated groups in Europe that formed within Masonic lodges at various points in European history. It was an intellectual fad that seemed to have two main ideas; the abolition of hereditary monarchy, and the elimination of church authority in favor of a Deist conception of god or no god at all. The Illuminated Ones, as they called themselves, never achieved visible power, but greatly influenced intellectuals and leaders in France and the American Colonies. It was a special club that only certain smart people could join.
When i stop and think about it, hereditary monarchy that was held in place by religious authority must have been the most galling idea imaginable to people with functioning brains for thousands of years. Imagine if we, today, lived in a world where George W. Bush was ruler-for-life, and not through an electoral process -- however shady -- but because his father simply installed him, and he was issuing edicts and starting more pointless wars, all while trying to produce a male heir so that the throne wouldn't go to the husband of Jenna or Barbara. Dude, we'd be angry all day. We'd seek out fellow non-zombies and gather in our homes, or certain isolated taverns, and say over and over again...
"It doesn't make sense, it's a ludicrous system. If a god exists, and i have my doubts, i hardly think he'd want the imbecile heirs of a conqueror to have absolute authority over us for an indefinite time! Crap, there has to be a better way, a more logical way to organize society. Look at all these fools around us, why don't they understand this?
"I totally agree, but should we really be discussing this here? Hey, let's go to the lodge and talk about it with my buddies who feel the same way.... except Gunter, he's a real dumb asshole who thinks King Charles I is awesome. We should kick him out."
"We should kick out anyone who isn't on the level, man."
"Totally, man!"
And that's why they developed code words, and secret handshakes, and an air of mystery. They were afraid of being jailed or having their reputations destroyed by the 85% of people who thought that the king was the king because God wanted it that way, and if you don't agree you're unpatriotic and you WANT France to win. And i guess many of our Founding Fathers, the really brilliant ones like Franklin and Jefferson, were big fans, and considered themselves "illuminated." Hence the eye in the pyramid on our currency. Hence the office of the President. They had stumbled on to a secret that most people didn't accept -- that God wasn't in control here, and that authority was conceived wholly by Man and thus could take any form we wished it to.
(And judging by Franklin's activities, they also discovered another secret -- casual sex was fun and great, and the whole marriage-God thing was just more superstition. Venereal disease is a possibility, yes, but that's purely a medical problem best solved through science. )
And basically, they won. Gradually. Monarchs faded and were replaced by democracies. If there's an equivalent of the Illuminati today, it's in China. Or it exists in the form of every non-persecuted Western intellectual who spends their time writing about how capitalism is an insane way to organize society, and there's gotta be a better way. I bet if you could meet a real Illuminati member from 1750 and spin a wild tale about them "controlling everything" throughout history, he'd stammer and say, "what? No, man, we were the underdogs. We were just some smart people hiding in the shadows and trying to change the world, and in my lifetime, it seemed that almost no progress was made. Did you guys ever get rid of those damned kings, i hate them so much, they control everything!"
I mean, this makes sense, right?
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Saturday, February 02, 2013
Midgets of Steel
I'm mildly curious about that Man of Steel movie coming out this
year. I mean, i don't really like Superman that much, but i do hope
it's better than the previous Superman film. What i really want to know
is, since it's directed by Zach Snyder, will it have one really
needlessly graphic sex scene? Where Superman just DRILLS Lois Lane
within an inch of her life? I like 300 and i love Watchmen, but
the needless sex scenes in those movies really stand out. They're
just.... funny. INSERT PORN INTERLUDE. I forget if Snyder included a
really needless sex scene in Sucker Punch, because that movie
seems like a blur now. If he did, it was probably a really icky rape.
Anyway, maybe Christopher Nolan will take Snyder aside and say, "man,
this scene? I want you to tone it down. Yes, we all suspect that
Superman is a virile guy, but the five minutes of him just nakedly
banging away at Lois like crazy, it somewhat disrupts the flow of the
film. Sometimes, less is more, Zach. Less is more."
^__^
In other news, i got a truly nasty taste of winter this morning. We got about 1" of snow that didn't seem that bad, but the temperature was at that perfect point where it immediately turned to ice as soon as the tires of cars melted it, turning the roads into skating rinks. It took me nearly 3 hours to get home, and i felt lucky because i wasn't one of the unlucky few who slid into a ditch or against a guardrail.
One of those unlucky ones was a midget, which is interesting because i was remarking to my coworker just a few hours earlier -- i haven't seen a midget in years. If you were to judge by watching television, you'd think that midgets compose 20% of the US population. But i guess they don't, because it's rare to see one just walking around.
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^__^
In other news, i got a truly nasty taste of winter this morning. We got about 1" of snow that didn't seem that bad, but the temperature was at that perfect point where it immediately turned to ice as soon as the tires of cars melted it, turning the roads into skating rinks. It took me nearly 3 hours to get home, and i felt lucky because i wasn't one of the unlucky few who slid into a ditch or against a guardrail.
One of those unlucky ones was a midget, which is interesting because i was remarking to my coworker just a few hours earlier -- i haven't seen a midget in years. If you were to judge by watching television, you'd think that midgets compose 20% of the US population. But i guess they don't, because it's rare to see one just walking around.
Twitter.
Behance Gallery.
LinkedIn.
Facebook.
CGTalk.
Pinterest.
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