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May 7: My So-Called Life
BUNIM-MURRAY PRODUCTIONS: “THE KUDA KRONICLES”
Videotape #157: 8.5.2002
7:30 A.M.: Alarm clock goes off. Sound of morning zoo crew touting upcoming Rolling Stones tour dates. Hand reaches into frame and begins rapidly slapping the top of the clock until contact with SNOOZE button is achieved. Silence.
7:40 - 8:30 A.M.: Roughly the same shot occurs every ten minutes.
8:30 A.M.: Alarm clock goes off. Sound of morning zoo crew touting upcoming Rolling Stones tour dates. Subject’s head rears abruptly into the shot (out of focus). Subject opens one eye. Subject mouths profanity (?? unintelligible). Head disappears out of frame. Sound of bare feet against wooden floor. Footsteps grow distant. Footsteps return. Footsteps grow distant. Footsteps return. Footsteps grow distant. Subject’s voice yells “ow” from another room.
9:00 A.M.: The sound of complicated ablutions begins from the bathroom. Sounds like a combination of toothbrushing and showering and things clattering to the floor, with “Don’t Fear the Reaper” playing in the background. Subject’s voice yells “ow” from the bathroom.
9:30 A.M.: Subject is seen rushing past the camera in bra and panties while hurriedly applying deodorant. Two cats are circling warily. Camera is abruptly covered by thrown towel.
9:40 A.M.: Switch to handheld (Gavin on camera, Katrinka on boom mic). Subject is fully clad with keys in hand as she rushes out the door. Accidentally makes eye contact with the camera, rolls eyes. Down the hallway stairs at a brisk clip, out the door (door slams on Katrinka’s foot, sound of Katrinka yelling “ow.”)
9:42 A.M.: Coffeehouse across the street from subject’s apartment. The cashier has already rung up $1.50 on the register, counterperson has already poured a large iced coffee. Subject throws money in the general direction of the cashier, grabs coffee and bolts out the door again.
9:45 A.M.: Subject boards a Metro train and swiftly moves to the back. Finds a seat. Scowls at a stranger who is looking at her. Noisily opens the newspaper to the Letters to the Editor section and buries her head within.
10:05 A.M.: Subject arrives at workplace. Cheery receptionist says “Good morning!” Subject responds unintelligibly. Out of focus shot as subject darts down hallway.
10:07 A.M. - 5:30 P.M.: Subject sits behind a paper-strewn desk in a stupor, wearing a headset. Subject stares at a computer screen, occasionally typing something. Every so often the phone rings, subject generally responding “Yes? That’s stupid. Don’t do that. Fine. I’ll do it.” Long interlude between 3:45 and 4:57 P.M. of subject apparently debating the meaning of Van Halen’s “Panama” with anonymous caller. If we use any of this footage, we need to be vigilant about bleeping the ambient profanity issuing from a nearby office. At 5:16 P.M. subject looks directly at the camera and states “When are you motherfuckers gonna send me to Africa or something? Jesus.” Please have editing excise ASAP.
7:30 P.M.: Subject is back in her apartment. (Gavin and Katrinka were off the clock at 5:30, no footage of commute home, could run the morning commute footage backwards if necessary for continuity.) Subject is reading a book. Camera tries to get in closer to see the title, subject’s middle finger intrudes into field of vision.
8:30 P.M.-10:30 P.M.: Subject sits in front of a computer, muttering and typing. PIL’s “Seattle” plays in the background. Again subject makes eye contact with the camera and makes a face.
TAPE ENDS.
Recommendations: Scrap and start over? Hahaha. Seriously though, she seemed so lively on her audition tape. Maybe we can get Jack and Kelly Osbourne to move in with her for the remainder of our filming schedule? Send them all to Africa? Make subject eat worms and bungee jump? Our guess is as good as yours.
05/07/02
May 6th: Soul on Ice, That's Nice!
It was a fringe activity eventually co-opted by the mainstream. Isn’t that always the way? First, it was a cadre of scientifically-connected radical feminists operating under the banner “Objectify THIS, Motherfucker!” Brave souls in overalls and comfortable combat boots, they came to the Center with a sense of mission that could not be denied. Selflessly offering themselves in the stead of the laboratory monkeys who would have been the subjects of our initial testing. Luckily for them and us, the first deployment of our new technology went swimmingly, most of the time. We’ll always remember you, Crystal Lotus. You live on in our hearts.
Over time, it became apparent that our procedure was not actually being implemented by our planned target demographic. The elderly and infirm were too attached to their bodies, preferring instead to waste time on analgesics and complicated medical interventions. Some, in fact, were downright outraged by the notion that removal of corporeal form was the key to freeing human kind. “By cracky, I was born in a body and I’ll die in it!” Oh, the letters to the editor our clipping service forwarded. It was almost disheartening.
Instead, the Center overflowed with the self-loathing, the easily-annoyed, the extremely-lazy-hygiene-wise. We would carefully remove the shell that disturbed them so. Freed of their fleshly cage, they would twinkle and glow happily. It took some time for them to master the art of communicating with the skin-sacks, as they came to call us, but as less mental energy was required to operate limbs and smell and taste, they eventually developed telekinetic powers to type and deploy voice-replicator software. Of course, like a lot of self-excluding minorities, some chose not to communicate with the corporeal at all, instead merging psychically with fellow NCBs. They said they found this far more satisfying than normal human intercourse of any variety. That led to a rash of invective by the Radical Right, who saw the borning of a fresh perversion in these strange new beings. “How do I know that some formerly hirsute and swarthy man isn’t secretly merging with my inner being while I sleep?” screamed syndicated columnist Ann Coulter. We at the Center were stymied on how to answer this, as the response would have to be (a) you don’t and (b) really, why, Ann, why?
But once an NCB got some airtime on MSNBC, the procedure took off like wildfire. We also got a lot of business off our mention in Adbusters magazine. After all, it is extremely difficult to merchandise to the non-corporeal. They need so little. In fact, they don’t need at all. They have achieved a technologically-enhanced nirvana, they are literally desireless. This was a huge relief to many among the overprivileged, who were exhausted from wanting. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the entire nation of Tibet was freed from the yoke of Chinese oppression by undergoing this procedure at the generous hands of Medecins Sans Frontieres. “Take the land, we don’t want or need it. We’re happy to float around and read your email over your shoulder,” said the Dalai Lama, or something near to this. Also, the Jainists were thrilled. You cannot harm another living thing if you’re a floating entity composed of light. No more sewing bells to your trousers!
Now, the few souls left in corporeal being are beautiful movie stars and those being groomed by Lou Pearlman for future appearance on MTV. It’s understandable, the cost/benefit analysis for those people really did ring up in favor of keeping the flesh. Oh, and Larry King. The man is very attached to his ability to wear suspenders.
As for me, I guard the tanks where the bodies of those who have departed into the brave new world remain, in case they change their mind. The fees are pretty stringent, and I’m afraid, since it’s difficult to earn a living in a floating, twinkling form outside of Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, that a lot of these skin cases are going to end up in Third World chop shops. Still, considering the immortality and freedom from want, nobody’s going to be in a hurry to be soft and warm and fleshy again. It’s kind of a pity. Hard to hug a ray of light.
05/06/2002
May 1: Big Ole Jet Airliner
Of course I was out gadding about with my gal pals instead of tending the Internet home fires, so this is going to be one of THOSE entries. You know, the ones you tell Mom not to set the VCR for. But “Monsoon Wedding?” Man. The anti-date movie of the century, the chick flick of the Millennium. If you don’t become a better person in all ways and then propose to your girlfriend, you are DOOMED, male readership. Unless you’re an Indian guy, in which case, rock the Casbah, my Subcontinental brother! Also, this may or may not post, depending on the vagaries of my DSL, which is goofed up on urban improvement. God bless you, Department of Public Works, all of whose employees are apparently addicted to the coffee provided at the nearby boite. And by “God bless” I mean, please stop messing with me, I have spooky powers.
Anyhow, I’m about to get on a plane and go for a little trip. My workplace is aghast at the notion. They are so cute, with their “you are NOT a fungible resource” protestations. I guess hiding stuff and pretending it’s all part of a sophisticated system that anyone could understand if they read any of my deadly dull email on the topic will suffice for making me irreplaceable. I look forward to applying this logic to my everyday personal life. “What is it, Fang? In your sock drawer, duh. You’d be lost without me, you big galoot.” See what capitalism has wrought? Dr. Phil is a direct result of the free market. Don’t complain unless you are actively smashing the state. If you can’t live without it, probably it’s tricking you. Oh. And it’s smarter than you. Deal, capitalist swine.
I’m not packing until the last moment, because it upsets my cats. I’m that pet-whipped, yes. I used to travel all the time on business, I lived in a state of constant readiness for deployment. So here it is, one of the valuable factoids I have learned from talkiing with folks on planes because I’d picked an awful flight read:
CERVICAL MUCOUS VISCOSITY
Flight to Cleveland, business-related. Extremely turbulent flight, which disturbed my previously dormant motion-sickness propensity. So instead of vomiting copiously and publicly into a baggie, I gazed past the window-seated passenger out the window, attempting to gain equilibrium. Turned out she was on a book tour promoting her opus “Fertility” A Guide.” With pictures, which she happily showed me. It’s just like oil in your car, it turns out. Are you eating something currently? Stop. Because the pages on “powdery quality” could kill your appetite dead. I’m on a need-to-know basis with my body in all aspects, so I just attempted to turn my grimace into a smile as best I could. But she was nice, and anxiety-alleviating in her wonky, midwifery-esque way.
The Biggest of All Pants at my previous employer was fabled to have met his guru of core-value tweakage on a plane. I both tremble and giggle at the notion that he and I might have switched flights. A “tack” test to detemine the value of fucking over employees might have been a godsend, in hindsight.
In closing, Happy May Day, eliminate the status quo, loot me something nice on your way back, why not?
05/01/02
April 30: FAQ
So, many of you (and I do believe two can be defined as “many,” Merriam-Webster be damned) have demanded that Kudastan-the-web-destination provide some outlet for frequently asked questions, to avoid getting flamed for requesting information that has been asked for too many times before. I would say it was perfectly okay to make inquiries that had passed this way before, but we both know I’m not nice and that would not be true. So, here’s the skinny.
Where is Kudastan located?
The original answer to this was “in the hearts and minds of children the world over.” However, due to a tragic misunderstanding by some literalist fan as to what that means, I am now advised by my cadre of highly-paid lawyers to say “near the Big Rock Candy Mountain, somewhere West of the place it is okay for you to be under the conditions of your restraining order.” The important thing to remember is that every time you click on my site, an angel gets his wings.
Who are you and why are you talking to me?
That, my child, is complicated. Originally I was a sentient being out of the greater Pacific Rim. Nowadays, due to budget cuts and lack of VC funding, I am a series of sophisticated robotic programs created by designers who have since gone on to create versions of Doom that allow you to do things that would gain you an FBI file if the Department of Defense weren’t currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gilbert & Sullivan. Please enjoy my pseudo-visual and audio influence inside your brain. It tickles, but it’s temporary. I’m talking to you because you’re pretty.
Is this a cult? I don’t like cults.
YOU don’t like cults. Don’t get me started. There I was, just minding my own, keeping it real, kickin’ it. I thought, hey, these friends of mine are kind of unmotivated, but they like me a lot. Rather a lacklustre bunch, but they were nice, all crashed out on my sofa, like sweet-faced Dickensian urchins asleep on my various cozy items of furniture. Everybody’s worried about getting gulled into a cult, talk to me about ending up a cult leader when all you are is an opinionated asshole with a sideline in being semi-articulate. Next thing you know, every utterance out of your mouth is doctrine. Some half-baked drunken theory you spout on why the advertising agency that designed the “Got Milk?” campaign deserves to have its staff contract a painful, finger-distorting rash ends up causing a nasty kerfuffle with John Law. The next thing you’ve got Bradley tanks at your doorstep, with John Ashcroft songs being blasted at terrifying volume. Hey, I’ve got a rent-controlled lease. Do your own freaky thing. Or don’t. I’m so not the boss of you.
The Internet is an information tool. What information do you provide?
What do you want to know? Sondheim lyrics? Why Shania Twain is a pawn of a twisted Canadian supremacy plot? The reason behind the cancellation of every intelligent, thought-provoking television show of the last twenty years? I can provide that. But you don’t get to sleep on my sofa at the end of it. Yeah, I thought so. Ingrates.
04/30/02
April 29: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Misanthrope
“Katherine.”
“Hello? Hello? This is Katherine. May I inquire as to whom I am speaking with?”
It’s me. I can’t talk long, this channel is only secure for another few minutes. I’ve got several of my men busy ginning up a new set of scramble codes, but there’s no guarantee this can’t be traced.”
"Christ on a cracker, you old poop. How did you get this number? I told you to stop pestering me years ago.”
“Is that any way to talk to an old, dear friend? Honestly, Katherine, it’s like I don’t even know you any more, the way you prattle on, you curmudgeonly crone.”
“You don’t know me any more. For God’s sake, Howard, you faked your own death to get out of responding to my perfectly lovely postcard from my trip to Hilton Head.”
“Give me a break. I was taking a beating in the tabloid press, “paranoid” this, “deranged crank” that. It wasn’t personally directed at you, I swear. So. How are things?”
“Just peachy, thanks. I garden occasionally, when the old shakies don’t keep me from it. My chums swing by when they’re in the neighborhood, and of course my personal secretary is a treasure. Also, I get a hoot out of reading my latest obituary on the Associated Press feed. Vultures. Still, it’s nice that they use that lovely photo of me from ‘The Philadelphia Story.’ And you, how are you? Where are you?”
“I can’t answer that, I don’t know who might be listening. I just wanted to hear your voice again. Reminisce about old times.”
“Prehistoric times, more like. Spencer and I used to reminisce about the good old days before he passed on, and that was almost forty years ago. Thank God for the Biography channel or I wouldn’t even be able to update my Christmas card list. Well, tell me something about what’s going on. Still having the old control issues? How’s your little germy thing?”
“Eh. I saw that Eugene Landy who helped that filthy hippie Wilson boy out. He wasn’t very good. I had to have him bludgeoned and removed out to the desert. Still, I’ve gotten over the Kleenex box fetish. Oh, and the jars of urine are all gone now. I don’t know what that was about, in hindsight. So I’m feeling a bit more myself. The Mormons have been terrific. That ten percent tithing really gets you your money’s worth.”
“Um hmm.”
“Yes.”
“So.”
“All right.”
“Oh honestly, Howie, why are you calling me if you’re not going to say anything? I don’t have much time left on this earth and I certainly can’t waste it listening to you saying nothing of substance. If you can’t open up to me, your oldest, non-dead friend, what’s the point? You’re almost one hundred years old, when are you going to trust people a little bit?”
“Don’t get me started on people, Katherine. You of anyone should understand my position on that. All “people” know how to do is want things from you. All they do is ask for more. You give and give, and somehow it’s not enough. It just ratchets up their expectations. They feed on you. They were like remora, and I was the biggest shark in the ocean. Nobody needs that. I am much happier shed of the lot of them.”
“Fine. Then why are you calling me?”
“You don’t expect anything from me. You’re not like other people. You are self-contained. You understand why it’s best to be alone.”
“I certainly am people, Howie. Good lord, I haven’t become cybernautic or whatever the kids are calling it in the time since we last gadded about on the Spruce Goose. And I don’t think it’s best to be alone. I’d just rather be alone in good company than surrounded by bad. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy some quality time with quality people.”
“Bah. You’re almost as bad as I am. You are tough as nails, Katherine, and I always enjoyed that about you. That’s why I feel so close to you.”
“Words are your cheapest currency, Howard. No, wait. Currency is your cheapest currency, you loaded cheapskate bastard. But after that, words. You say a lot of things, but I’m not hearing anything substantial. I told you, time’s a-wasting. Why are you calling me?”
“....”
“Howard? Howie?”
“I wanted to talk to someone. I wanted to listen to someone. I wanted someone to listen to me.”
“All right, then. Now we’re getting somewhere. So, how are you?”
“Can I check the scramblers first before I answer?”
“No. Just talk to me.”
04/29/02
April 28: The Handyman's Tale
It happened so gradually few of us were aware it was going on at all. They infiltrated our workplaces, installing new rules and creating policies more favorable to their agenda. We didn’t notice, we were busy. It was the go-go 90’s, we were used to all kinds of nonsense in the workplace, no big whoop. Maybe, in hindsight, passing the ERA would have been a good idea. Unisex restrooms would have given them one less place to plan their nefarious takeover.
Meanwhile, scary stories came over the transom from the AP newswire. Sterile caribou in the North, hermaphrodite frogs in the South. Male potency was dying across the continent. Who cares, who has time to cry for Canadian venison and amphibians when your stock options are vesting at a twenty-to-one ratio? We should have known. Little girls blow bubbles. Big girls blow bubble economies.
Once it all came down, and President Hillary Rodham took office after Undersecretary of Everything Maxine Waters had finished anthraxing her rivals, those of us who still had swimmers were reduced to chattel, to be passed around at the whim of various powerful players in their movement. Women on the brink of fertilization failure, mostly. Dreaming of babies after years of chasing the capitalist dragon, delusional females with notions of co-parenting and non-gender-based childrearing techniques torquing their already addled psyches.
I was renamed Ofandrea. I don’t remember what my real name is anymore. During my rehabilitation and retraining, it was beaten out of me, along with my love of sports radio and non-consensus-building discourse. I made one friend during my time in the camps. Go with God, Ofgloria! I will remember you always. Unless they reattach the electrodes to my nuts, in which case, not so much. Still, we counted ourselves lucky, compared to our less semen-blessed brethren who were sent to the Colonies to work in the calcium mines. Life spans were gravely shorter there, what with the cave-ins due to the unsafe work conditions imposed by our menopausal overlords’ insatiable lust for the osteoporosis-offsetting white gold. We counted ourselves lucky, as we daily pulled on our uniform of tank tops and cargo pants.
Then came the time I had dreaded for so long. The Ceremony of Necessary Evil, known colloquially as “Flea Night” among the elite, who thought it was cute to make our torment analogous to lying down with dogs. My commander never said anything like this aloud, of course. There was some attempt at sensitivity, since they’d said all along that their program was not about emasculation. But rhetoric and practice sometimes painfully collide. I donned the required garb, Bikini Kill tee-shirt and unthreateningly oversized white boxers. I hated myself. But what could I do?
I lay down between John Stoltenberg’s knees, knowing he was hating me too, every second of the coming ordeal. Despite the fact that he had subjugated his identity to the Commander’s, I knew at some level he resented every machination that had led to this moment as much as I. The drone of James Taylor crooned unarousingly out of a speaker system. Somewhere, Jeffrey Masson lay in a darkened chamber much the same as this, with Ofcatherine trembling between his thighs.
Oh, if only we’d paid attention to the warning signs posted, in hindsight, in neon above us all! If only we’d realized that women were massing against us to overthrow our longstanding societal norms of peaceful patriarchy and love of early maternity. But no, we ignored it to our detriment. I can only pray, since our brethren to the North, the phlegmatic Canadians, are sick with this cancerous feminist virus as well, that our machismo-laden hermanos to the South can save us. Because otherwise? We’re all going down, my sperm-producing brothers in arms.
04/27/02
April 26: She Do The Police In Different Voices
“This is a Code Yellow alert. We have received clear and convincing evidence of terrorist plotting in the vicinity of our nation and our nation’s interests within the foreseeable future. We have triangulated the vector of the anticipated trajectory of fallout from a severe magnitude event and thereby are able to predict that there will be sizeable constituent casualties unless the appropriate precautionary activities are implementated. The important message to you, the American citizen, is not to panic, to go about your daily lives and workplace industry without cease. The situation is containable and will be contained. This has been your daily alert.”
“Without daily strip searches and urine tests, there is no doubt that today’s youth are in constant danger of drug abuse and school shootings. We have adopted a zero-tolerance policy for any drugs not dispensed as voluntary, parentally-sanctioned behavioral control by our licensed dispensing practitioners. We have adopted a zero-tolerance policy for dress code violations, including Marilyn Manson tee-shirts, “Fuck” tee-shirts of any variety, sporting team logo tee-shirts that may indicate gang affiliations, red tee-shirts, black tee-shirts, bandanas of any kind, and rainbow suspenders. Teenagers who seem depressed will have their lockers searched. Teenagers who mouth off to teachers will have their lockers searched. Teenagers who score below the accepted state median guidelines on standardized tests will be strip searched, drug tested and have their lockers searched. We feel confident that these measures will ensure a safe environment for the development of America’s youth.”
“The Internet has become a cesspool of pornography and a den of thieves. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act and concomitant, equally urgent legislation will allow us to clean up this sewer and once again allow the majority of decent citizenry to pilot the information super highway without endless pop-under ads promising live teen anal sluts. Workplace efficacy, in a historic nosedive since 1998, will rise to new heights as safe sites offering stock tips and document templates once again prevail, as they did in the early days of this remarkable tool. Poor exploited songwriters will finally get paid as they are due, once copyright-infringing freebooters are foiled in their attempts to illegally download the complete works of Bachman-Turner-Overdrive. This has nothing at all to do with Disney. Sony who? I don’t know anybody named Howard Stringer.”
“There’s a hidden danger inside your home, a savage killer waiting to prey on you and your children where and when you least expect it. It can’t be seen, heard, touched, smelled or sensed in any fashion. And it’s lethal in even small doses. And it may be in your bathroom right now, at this very moment. Coming up next, the truth about the lack of safety for you and your loved ones inside the sanctity of your very own home. Could this happen to you? I’m Stone Phillips. Stay tuned for more after these commercial messages."
“MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH."
04/26/02
April 25: Youth Culture Killed My God
Okay, it's after midnight, I'm cheating a bit on the time stamp, but that's okay, I've resigned once again from the Catholic Church so no shame in my game. Also I'm freestyling this, read around the typos, please and thank you in advance.
I actually tried to find out how one gets off the roster voluntarily from the Holy See, but there's no way, it seems. You have to wait for Coach Pontiff to decide to cut you, I guess. What did Hans Kung do again? Whatever he said goes double for me. Nyah. Don't you think Bernard Law is pacing around his elegant library about now, wondering where Jimmy Swaggart is when you need him? "We had such a good run with backsliding Baptists being the bad Christians, why, oh Lord, did they have to get right with You now?"
I'm reiterating for those just joining me, that I'm not quitting because of the massive cover-up, that makes me scowl and write excoriating emails, but it doesn't make me lose all hope if they come clean now. It's the latest spin that's skeeved me, that somehow the Sexual Revolution combined with Vatican II had something to do with this pedophiliac priest hoohah. Kindly spare me. What happened was a lot of the vestigial mysticism of the Church was stripped away and ever since, American Catholics have been all yammery and reform-minded. Also, we tell naughty secrets now, whether it be about inappropriate camp counselors or Father Murphy touching our private areas. I think there's probably some kids in Opus Dei kindergarten programs who could tell some untoward tales, but the Spanish church knows how to get its faithful knuckled-under. The Irish church has been scandal-plagued for decades, and as far as I know they aren't swinging from the chandeliers naked in Dublin.
Instead of taking a great leap forward and instituting a theological variant of a sunshine ordinance, this Pope (whom I never cared for anyway) has chosen instead to narrow focus, clamp down hard, and make the kinds of changes he wanted to make anyway: to make the Church more hierarchal, less responsive to local communities and reinstitute a kind of rigid, unthinking, unquestioning blind devotion. Once again, Authority has taken advantage of events to implement a preprogrammed agenda that has precious little to do with correcting the disaster at hand. And at what a cost.
After years of not being Catholic, due to fundamental disagreements with almost all of the doctrinal tenets, I decided to try again. It was an experiment in holding two separate ideas at once: one, that mass and communion were profound rituals whose enactment, however perfunctory, could bring me some kind of bond to a spiritual realm and two, that this was not at all how I thought the divine manifests itself,, when I'm in the mood to think the divine manifests at all, but let me not be overreactive, this is something that is part of my heritage and history. Oh yeah, plus it's pretty. There's a lot of theater and majesty there, particularly on the big holidays.
I'm back in my dissident camp. I lose. The old guy in the big hat wins. For now. Heck, even my Mom's switched over to the Methodists. Meanwhile, I'll be over here, reading this Zoroastrianism pamphlet. Ooooh, a fire pit!
04/25/02
April 24: My Lunch With Limbaughs
“Where’s your sense of outrage?”
“My what? Hey, are you gonna eat that radicchio? I love that stuff.”
“Knock yourself out. Kuda, the President of the United States was banging interns in the Oval Office, maybe on top of official correspondence. Getting orally stimulated while taking calls from President Moi of Kenya! Where’s your outrage?”
“Oh, right, that. Yeah, see, I always assumed presidents were getting it on the side, wherever, whatever. I’m not sure a suck job and hitting second base qualifies as “banging” but again, whatever. We all know about Kennedy and Monroe, Angie Dickinson, hell, probably Princess Grace before Judith Exner. Eh. Maybe not Nixon. But look what happened to him.”
“You mean to say you think all of the men who have held the highest elected office in the land, the bearers of our national honor, have been philanderers?”
“I’m thinking. Guys that ambitious are usually in it at least partially for the quality tail at the end of the workday. Pardon my French.”
“Jimmy Carter.”
“No. Man’s a saint. Besides, he has a hot wife, a lot hotter than a near-albino engineer out of Georgia was entitled to, and he knew it. But again, look what happened to him. Got his ass kicked by a guy married to the blow-job queen of Hollywood. So I hear, I ain’t one to gossip.”
“Wow. You are one cynical commuter.”
“Am I? I don’t feel cynical. I mean, I wear black and make weird facial expressions a lot, but that’s because I can’t match colors or react properly in social situations. I’m sorry, please continue.”
“Let’s talk recent events. Unprovoked terrorists hijack four planes and destroy the World Trade Center, decimate the Pentagon and kill innocent civilians in Pennsylvania. Give it to me. Where’s the outrage?”
“I admit, I was mighty shocked and appalled. I watched CNN with my jaw agape, I made phone calls, I was horrified. But outraged? No.”
“Define the difference.”
“Oooookay. Let me think. I guess I thought, and I know you’re gonna go nuts because it’s a Malcolm X quote, “the chickens have come home to roost.’ Even at the outset I had a strong feeling that this had a lot to do with American foreign policy.”
“BULLSHIT. If any day provides a definition for pure evil, it’s September 11th. Pure unadulterated hatred for the sanctity of human life. There is no justification.”
“I’m not looking for a justification, I’m looking for a root cause. Honestly, I’m no hater-hugger. I don’t hate America, that’s where I keep my stuff. But you need to get out more, David and Rush. We’ve done a piss-poor job of promoting a good image of ourselves in a lot of the world. We haven’t cared about anybody lacking a resource we can exploit, or we’ve made deals with the devil in those regions we found of use. We’re busy auto-propagandizing, making sure that everybody here feels good about being American. It’s a damn shame.”
“You astonish me. There are some things that are morally black-and-white. You can draw a bright-line distinction between a military intervention and a callous act of random destruction.”
“I haven’t believed in moral absolutes since I was eight. I’m sorry. Died around the same time as my belief in Santa Claus. I hope that’s okay, that I don’t buy into the whole St. Nick thingamabob, no offense intended.”
“But you’re Catholic, correct?”
“I get that a lot. I have always found Catholicism a good departure point for ethical inquiry. But I have to warn you, Rush, my educators were mostly Jesuit and Maryknoll. Big stinky liberation theologists. What would Jesus do? Motherfuckin’ bomb the embassy, maybe.”
“So you’re not outraged by the current scandal regarding homosexual priests preying on young lads? Have you finally, Kuda, lost all decency?”
“Again, outraged would indicate that this was either a big surprise or an insult of previously unexperienced magnitude. This particular revelation comes as neither. Wait till they get around to the nuns who offered free backrubs. But watch yourself on the homosexual priest front. C’mon David, you know the score. The kid who can’t throw the ball so good in the large Italian or Irish family? He’s the priest. All the priests I hang with are homosexual. Some of them are a bit naughty with grown men, most are not. And none of them are pestering der kinder. Pederasty is a specialty, it’s not a crime of opportunity.”
“My God, you are a deeply depraved and indifferent woman.”
“Am I? Look at me. I’ve got a sweet face and I’m kind to people. I just think that there is a better response to grave injustices and atrocities than blind vengeance. Can I get another soda?”
“Okay, one more Diet Coke, then we’re storming out in disgust at your moral ambivalence.”
“Fair enough.”
04/24/02
April 23: Brush Up Your Hate Speech
Yours truly has got to be getting off the Politically Correct Express. I didn’t even realize until lately I was riding on it, that’s how infested with Chomsky-cooties I am. Damn hippie-ass parents with their Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt-worshipping parents before them! Ridiculous, tolerant Northern California! Even in the rednecky boonies, where a man is judged by the carbon dating of the Skoal ring on the back pocket of his jeans, your cursed live-and-let-live ethos prevailed. We were a little bit scared of the Black Panthers and we liked our shotguns, other than that, peace-love-and-understanding was all jake with us. “Wooohooo, big McGovern love-in at the Campbells’ place, then let’s go protest this racist war. Let’s tell the children this is all normal. Keep ‘em in-state and away from Orange County, don’t let them see that there are other ways to think about things.” Fascists! I denounce and renounce you. I have been reading material freely available on the Internet and on the Fox News site and now I understand:
WHY WE HATE
Homosexuals: FOR THE CHILDREN. We hate for The Children. Who are our future and who will all be gay if we don’t act soon, because the propaganda spewed by the Homosexual Agenda-mongers is so seductive. “Free candy and no bedtime in the Castro!” “Lesbians will braid your hair and read ‘Good Night, Moon’ as many times as you’d like!” How can we compete with that? Being heterosexual is hard work and little fun, we all know that. But it’s worth it because of God and tax credits.
The Blacks: Not so much for The Children, since our children will mercifully not grow up to be Black if not born that way, P. Diddy’s insidious secret code “rap” messages notwithstanding. More because they hated us first. They are full of hate for us and our corporate strategizing and easy-to-manage hair. Why? What did we ever do to them? Okay, that, but that wasn’t US. That was in ancient days of yore, might as well espouse Druid Pride and insist on time off for Stonehenge Day. What a bunch of whiners. Let’s be race-blind already. C’mon, Reverend Sharpton, I’ll buy you a beer next St. Paddy’s Day, it’ll be a blast.
Feminists: Hey, I’m a woman and damn pleased about it, thank you very much. I don’t need to make it my whole identity, unlike some women who maybe are not as secure in their femininity as I am. For these power-hungry gals, nothing will serve except to force me to pee in the company of strange men and putting my children in strange daycare facilities run by homosexuals. Or worse, try and be things they have no business being, like firemen. I don’t need or want Boxcar Bertha hauling me out of a burning building, the very idea makes me uncomfortable. Just because Susan Faludi’s paradise resembles a women-in-prison movie doesn’t make it mine.
Immigrants: Jobs. It’s the jobs. And the hepatitis and tuberculosis, and lord knows what other foreign plagues they bear. And the refusal to speak English. Also they foment un-American ideas by not being born here and endlessly insisting on their own “cultural values.” Also, they take up valuable resources, like college educations, that my future children will need, if they ever get free from the homosexual daycare cabal. My ancestors had the good sense to immigrate before America was full. Sorry your people don’t have the ability to plan ahead, good luck with your new job at the maquiladora, maybe you’ll meet a nice guy.
Oh, I could go on. It’s so illuminating what one finds when one chooses to look. Shades of grey are for fuzzy academics and party-hearty liberals. I’m throwing down with the grown-ups.
04/23/02
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