Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The Boston Hunger Games (4th and inches)




Find a boat and get low. Really low.


If your watching it, its for you.

I.

No doubt you were far too smart to see yourself as gleefully cheering on the Hunger Games last Friday. Captivated as the brothers were hunted, chased, shot at, run over, blown up, injured and killed. Like the remaining 2 minutes of the 4th quarter in the Super Bowl you were wise enough not to see your own pathetic existence (or the lack of it) as the reason for your rapt attention. The premiere was commercial free. Lucky you.

Did you follow it on cable? Twitter maybe? The savvy among you tuned in the Boston Metro Police scanner feed. If your over 45 you ignored your children’s howling until the networks broke in. The word online was that this event was the death of the Main Stream Media, who were behind the first twittered events by several hours and even when they decided to go live they looked like that drunken uncle who, also missing fingers from the great war, was trying to get his ipad dongle into the proper port. 

Like watching an exploding fertilizer plant, you just couldn’t pull yourself away. Good thing you are not fooled as you would have seen the symptom of your illness. At least this didn’t occur in a city like Los Angeles. The cops there would have leveled the neighborhood and burnt the suburbs down while gang banging your sister Katniss. But you didn’t listen to Dorner so that point is mute.

II.

When did cowering in your houses because an inept 19 year old was on the loose, then emerging from your self inflicted prison with a 10 second video of gunshots in some far off distance, then blessing your captors and going off to get drunk become #Boston Strong? What fucking backwards universe does one exist in for any of that to equate to perseverance, strength and resilience?

Hey, fuckface! We were stuck in our houses all day watching CNN. That takes intestinal fortitude!!

No doubt. Look, I get that your car was blocked in by the SWAT truck and your favorite watering hole was closed due to 18 media trucks backed in against the front door but lets not pretend your heroes ok. Two generations ago they would have grabbed a bat and took to the streets. Today we grab our smartphones and pray there is enough Doritos in the pantry. Oh fuck! There is only 1 Coke Zero left...

III.


The suspect, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, was found hiding in a boat just outside the area where the police had been conducting door-to-door searches all day, the Boston police commissioner, Edward Davis, said at a news conference Friday night.

“A man had gone out of his house after being inside the house all day, abiding by our request to stay inside,” Mr. Davis said, referring to the advice officials gave to residents to remain behind locked doors. “He walked outside and saw blood on a boat in the backyard. He then opened the tarp on the top of the boat, and he looked in and saw a man covered with blood. He retreated and called us.” - NYT

If it takes you hours to drive somewhere, set up and then knock someone down, you probably didn't need to knock him down. Not that Tsarnaev didn't deserve it, but in truth knocking him down was the boat owners right, not the police's. Read that again. The police have a partial monopoly on power because they promise us to use it judiciously, when necessary-- but we often forget that we humans retain a special right for scenarios, like the scenario of a homicidal maniac hiding wounded in a boat. That guy you're allowed to hit, if you can.

The point here is not that the owner should have tackled him.  The point is the more police get to use our right of force, the more we become afraid, or even forget, to use it ourselves. Remember that it was a citizen disobeying the police state that finally found the kid. None of the gadgets and overwhelming presence found him. That show was for you dear spectator. But, the result is that the tenuous balance of power between citizen’s and police’s use of force slowly becomes a monopoly. And an expensive monopoly at that. 

IV.

When Nietzsche said "God is dead" he meant that God is not necessary any more for our morality.  When he says we killed God, he means that our science, skepticism, education, have pushed us past the point where believing in miracles is possible; but (and this is a biggie) as a consequence of this loss we are now lost, we have no goals, no aspirations, no values.  God may have been made up, but believing in him at least  gave us a reason to progress forward.

The resulting nihilism requires us to either despair, return back to medieval religion, or look deeper within us and find a new source of human values.

Yet... none of those things happened.

The post-modern twist is that we didn't kill God after all: we enslaved him. Instead of completely abandoning God or taking a leap of faith back to the "mystery" of God; instead of those opposite choices, God has been kept around as a manservant to our baser drives.  We accept a "morality" exists but secretly retain the right of exception: "Yes, murder is wrong, except in this case I am justified.” There is always a justification when the narcissus strikes.

V.

But no one likes to see the consequences of abstract philosophy played out on the streets of Boston, so I'll just offer you some advice. The full of rage narcissists’ are the most violent not when they are insulted or attacked or hated but when they are abandoned to objective reality, the one that doesn't comply with their mirroring demands. You don’t bomb a marathon because you are stoked about Chechen independence but because no one takes you seriously and your own family thinks your a loser. Most likely because, well, you are. Now, you say, we will show them. Such a person invariably is backed by an enslaved God, which means all things are possible. Nothing is immoral, at least, not in this case...

See how this works? No? Read slowly. “But...in this case...It’s okay because...”

Ah, those words presuppose an even higher law than the one that says, "thou shalt not."  That God-- which isn't a spiritual God at all anymore but a voice in your head-- the one that examines things on a case by case basis, always rules in favor of you the individual, which is why he was kept around in the first place. Thank god. 

“Bombing innocents...Hiding on my sofa....not running a fertilizer plant safely are okay IN THIS PARTICULAR case because...”

And so we spend the time between now and the next commercial free, explosion packed manhunt debating the reasons that come after the word ‘because’ and debating about the idiots who are debating. Its a ratings bonanza. I guess we like to think it matters. We pick sides. Post screeds on Facebook and sleep like the heroes we just know deep down we really are.

N.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Earth, Wind and Fire (And also, lube)


This might be a long shot but I can’t shake that burning feeling that something was there.

You were pouring gasoline on “that bastards” clothes. Your words, not mine. Said he had “done you wrong for the LAST time.” I was moved by your singleness of purpose, sheer determination and also the gas fumes.

You did all of this while smoking. I like me a girl that lives on the edge. You carried more hastily filled garbage bags of clothes out to the curb. This is where I met you as I was parked just a tad to close for my taste to a women dousing things with petrol products.

You asked me if I had a lighter. The way you spoke without removing the cigarette captivated me. I wanted to ask you if you realized what a boner you were giving me right now but you were too impatient to wait for any kind of response.

“WHO THE FUCK HAS A LIGHTER?” You asked the small crowd gathering nearby. “Try the lit cigarette in your mouth.” Came a quiet, deadpan reply from someone undetermined.

You threw the marlboro atop the gas drenched bags and clothes, and it promptly went out. 

“SON. OF. A. BITCH.” You disappeared back into your residence. Faint noises of items crashing, curse words and then a “AHA!”. Your breasts bounced and swayed as you marched back towards your volatile homemade curb side appeal. Clearly you meant business. 

Now, I will say that I knew that the can of WD-40 you held was a lubricant. In fact the WD stands for water displacing. I am also familiar with the 40th formula’s potential as a flamethrower when sprayed and then ignited. What I was not prepared for was the instantaneous combustion of all the gas soaked material at your feet. Neither were you apparently, hence the 2nd degree burns and the ambulance.

Still, I’m pretty sure you are the one. I have watched my share of some sick ass porn but never, ever, have I seen breasts on fire quite like yours were. I would have fondled them while helping put out the flames but I had to back up the Honda to protect it from the inferno. I’m sure you understand. 

But, I can’t look at my rusty barbecue grill out back anymore without thinking about you. Every time I hear an insect zapped by a bug light, my thoughts of you are re-ignited. My heart is ablaze for you. And, I found a jacket by the curb that wasn’t singed and guess what? Not only does it fit (!) A lighter was in the pocket. I think God’s trying to tell me something. 

“Gonna tell a story morning glory all about the serpentine fire”

N.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

System of the down

Advertising always advertises advertising


I.
There is something about yourself that you don't know. Something that you will deny even exists, until it's too late to do anything about it. It's the only reason you get up in the morning. The only reason you suffer the shitty boss, the blood, the sweat and the tears. This is because you want people to know how good, attractive, generous, funny, wild and clever you really are. Fear or revere me, but please, think I'm special. We share an addiction. We're approval junkies. We're all in it for the slap on the back and the gold watch. The hip-hip-hoo-fucking rah. Look at the clever boy with the badge, polishing his trophy. Shine on you crazy diamond, because we're just monkeys wrapped in suits, begging for the approval of others.... - Jake Green
II.
The Matrix is a system. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. -Morpheous 

III.
Marshall McLuhan was right: Narcissus didn’t see himself in the water.  Sure, he saw the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Thats a given. But he mistook his image for something other than his own. He didn’t think it was himself. He just thought it was beautiful. And he dies, lost in this beauty. His epic mistake was not that he was self-absorbed, but rather that he didn’t realize he was self-absorbed in his own image.  
McLuhan’s suggestion seems to be that if Narcissus had realized that it was his own image in the water, that he was lost in his own reflection, he could’ve managed his situation a little better and moved out of the way. If he’d known that he was fascinated with himself he could’ve saved himself from his mythic mistake. One is tempted to say that we are Narcissus and media technology is our reflection in the pond.
 Learn from Narcissus: The content is a distraction. The medium carries a message- because the medium is the message. Like a light bulb that enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. The light bulb is a medium without any content. A light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence.
Likewise, the message of a newscast about a heinous crime may be less about the individual news story itself — the content — and more about what the system wants.

IV.
“Fuck your system N. I’m well aware of the game.”
Sure you are Flavor flav. You can’t fight the power until you know who is the powers that be. Schools in session.
First, start with a single individual, and eliminate value words like “purpose” and “unintended consequences.” If a guy cheats on his girlfriend in a way that likely could get him caught, one might say, “well, he wants to get caught.”
Now add a few more individuals. I want an ipad, but I can’t afford the $10,000 it would cost to have it made in America AND generate to Apple the same supposed profit of $200/ipad, so then the ipad has to be made in China with cheaper labor. So while one can say, “the consumer wants an ipad,” and “Apple wants $200 in profit per ipad” the sum of those wants is... “the system”.
 “The system wants cheap Chinese labor.”  The system doesn’t want it because it’s awesome, it wants it because it added up the wants. This is the aggregate outcome.
To be clear, the fact that you, the savvy global ipad consumer doesn’t “want” cheap Chinese labor is irrelevant. All of their choices (read:actions) want cheap Chinese labor. You can say the same about renewable energies, porn, and better primetime programming, or just something that everyone says they “want,” yet all of their choices sum up to the system’s want: the system wants to protect the oil industry. The CEO of BP isn’t to blame, you are. The system wants Two broke girls to be a smash hit. CBS isn’t to blame, you are. 
 If the system wants cheap female labor, how would we change the system? Only by wanting different things. Simply, if the majority of women wanted to work less, that would be the game. But the majority of women do want to work less, but they also want to buy X, Y, Z aspirational products, and they want X,Y,Z way more then they want to work less. If you sum up those “wants,” and add in the wants of Nordstrom’s, Nine West, Amazon, Whole Foods, Visa and Mastercard, etc, and throw in what the media wants, then it is technically correct to say: the system wants women to become batteries. Cheaper, longer hour batteries.

V.
So Neo, the final twist to this otherwise simple addition is that what you want is often taught to you by that very system.  For example, in running through the above, what you didn’t say was, “maybe I don’t want an ipad.”  That thought cannot occur to you…. because the system wants it.  And while you “argue” about which tablet is the best, which party you will vote for, which craigslist ad is surely all about you:  the system proceeds unmolested because the system wants all the above. No, I’m not saying the illuminati run anything. Unless by illuminati you mean the reflection in the pool of water. Which then means the principalities and powers are legion.
Everything you want is selected, interviewed, packaged, framed, edited, bought, by many people who aren’t you, doing these things for their reasons irrespective of what your intent may be. But the direction of all wants added together is the direction we are going. 
N.
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