... down a hole.

 
Change the world 06/28/2009
 
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Everyone at some point has an ideological impulse to 'change the world,' some lasting longer than others.  This post represents my best and only effort.  If it disappoints, change the way you read it. 

The phrase 'change the world' gets a lot of play.  It's used in a plethora of moral and political propaganda as well as self-help expose.  WTF does it mean? 

Well, the intention behind the cliché seems tied to concepts of control and future-fashioning, something I touched on in the last post, and as noted, such concepts can be misleading. 

So what's wrong with trying to change the world, to 'fashion the future,' as we see fit? 

For one thing, change is a constant; the universe is in a perpetual state of flux, in spite of the actions of men, so ‘changing the world’ is a non sequitur.  My inner nerd had to point that out.

But then there's the notion that intentional, dare I say 'meaningful' change, requires an elaborate choreography of behaviors based on reasoning, dedicated actions and moral superiority, as is often professed by entrepreneurs, 'productivity' gurus, and ‘leaders’ both political and religious. 

The problem with changing the world is that change doesn't occur in a vacuum.  When we change one thing we are often trading one set of problems for another, or 'improving' one situation to the detriment of another.  This is the nature of the universe in which we live, that our situation is simply "in bondage to decay" (Romans 8:21).

There's a great sequence in the movie "Benjamin Button" that does a bang-up job of illustrating the phenomena of fate, where the smallest action begins a chain of events that culminates in a reality that is less than pleasing for those affected.  

It's the butterfly flapping its wings in California that causes the tsunami in Thailand, an impulse toward industrial production that leads to global warming and pollution, that one night of drunken debauchery that ends in a hangover and chlamydia, or the curing of malaria that sees a more devastating virus rise in its place.  Thanks Bill Gates...first Vista, NOW THIS!

I know this paints a bleak picture, that we can't do anything right.  But we can.  It requires changing ourselves, not the things around us. 

It may seem I'm advocating a state of primitivism, but I'm not.  I'm just suggesting an orientation inward as the first impulse toward change.  It's the simple wisdom that Michael Jackson professed in his song  'Man in the Mirror.'      

Before you clothe the naked, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, educate the ignorant and love the wretched, try changing the human nature within yourself that ultimately contributes to these realities.  Easier said than done?  You bet.  That's why I usually just flip-a-bum-a-fiver on my way home from the pub.

One of my favorite quotes by Confucius Say:
"Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

I like to think of it as this:
"Give a man a thought, you'll amuse him for a moment.  Teach a man to think and he'll stop asking stupid fucking questions."

Keep the change.  It's evolution, baby!
                                                                              -JPF

 
Ubermunchies? 06/27/2009
 
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In one of the 'comments' Ben stated,
"if one defines and understands "power" purely in terms of control (when one says x has power over y, one means that x controls y), then is it not the  case that power begins from being able to control one's own self? if one cannot control one's own self, then how can one ever hope to control anything beyond one's self? so it's this "self-control" thing that must precede all else. a king cannot control his empire without first controlling himself."

A further distinction occurred to me.

 Power is no doubt equated with control, but control is often confused with influence.  A king or president may influence change, and may feel powerful doing so, but that does not mean they're in control. 

The same may be said of "self-control."  Influence often results in myriad changes beyond the scope of humanities ability to model or project, an inevitable lack of control. 

Immediate consequences of influence may seem within our grasp, but the ripple effects are usually far beyond it. 

 So when it comes to power, we are again regressing toward subjective definitions and satisfactions. 

As Neitzsche has stated, subjectivity is all we have, things are simply indefinable without the presence of other things, and in the presence of other things, everything is relative.
 
 
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Ten minutes ago Michael Jackson died.  I feel a genuine sadness.  It's the end of an era, and another stark reminder of the impermanence of life. 

What's now upon us is The Dark Age of Entertainment; a wasteland of clones, hacks and shock-mongers ruled by King Remix and Queen Whore-4A-Laugh. 

I have nothing else to say except R.I.P. Mike, and if you see David Carradine, ask him how many Thai lady-boys it takes to hang someone from the ceiling, like a light bulb, then watch out for a karate kick to the face.  I doubt your nose could handle that. 

You're one of the greats, have fun in The Real Neverland.
 
Fake 06/21/2009
 
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We were having cocktails at our apartment one evening, my wife the picture of elegance as usual; a charming black gown accompanied by a tasteful necklace. 

The champagne flowed freely, as did the hard-boiled eggs and caviar; roe, not sturgeon--our present company was incapable of distinguishing, and besides, the market had been punishing of late. Black pearls before swine seemed a needless expense. 

The conversations centered on the superficial.  My wife’s friend, Deborah, has a terrific pair of legs; it was all I could do, to keep from literal salivation. 

Our company’s eyes darted around, fascinating in all things inanimate.  I was the only one reveling in flesh.

The group was young, spawn of middle class intellectuals with skin to shed, inexperienced at pretension, but eager to flex their chops--diplomas and designers--with an HBS here, an MIT there, here a Louboutin, there a Galliano, etc., etc. 

Chide me aristocratic, but flaunting material tastes and hard-won achievements always struck me a tad peasant.  What do I know?   

This chap Richard, a queer--‘Richard The Lionfart’ I called him to my wife-- began talking watches and flipping intermittent glances at my wife’s Rolex.  It was a fake. 

I’d bought it for her as a gag on our first trip to the Orient.  She wore it often, as a matter of sentiment.  Richard had obviously mistaken it for an error in fashionable judgment.  And apparently he’d rather seem comically over-interested than tell us what he really thought. 

I could see Richard was titillated by the thought that not only was someone trying to play off a designer forgery, but also that my wife had mismatched the watch to her attire. 

After dropping Breguet and Girard-Perregaux, Lionfart had worked up some courage and asked to see my wife’s piece. 

His initial reaction was it's own forgery of acceptance and admiration, then a quick shift betrayed impatience, as surprise and concern was his chosen expression in which to tender his query-- imploring my wife’s attention as if he were a doctor with the duty of reporting an unsuspected cancer-- “did you know this was a fake?”

Richard's face was pure syrup made from artificial sweetener, I thought it was going to melt off and onto our 15th century Persian.

“Of course!” My wife happily retorted. 

Richard was stunned for a second, so I moved in for the kill. 

“Richard” I say, “whatever made you think that?”

...“Well,” he coos in the signature effeminate, “the second hand fails to sweep, and it doesn’t say ‘Swiss made’ on the bottom.”

 I bustled up to the edge of my chair with a furrowed brow--"give me that"-- sweepingly and authoritatively extracting the watch from Richard’s hand and exclaiming in self-confident but subdued bravado,

“Of course it does sport! You see?" 
                                                                    -JPF
 
 

In a flash of drunken neural kinetics, I 'invented' a phrase tonight...so I thought.  Like Charles Darwin and Jean Lamarck, parallel evolution of a mental spark, under the impression I'd lit the first fuse, but it's already blown up, through another mans use...Big ups to KRS-One, The MC...

 
 
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'Gene Simmons is my bitch'
Its shoulders hunkered down as it languidly looks for a place to poop, this beast of noble pedigree, elegant in the foible of its servility, its spirit forever at sea, the primeval sins of man providing its only solid ground. 

A symbol of modern human loneliness and illusion is a natural foot wedged sorely into a svelte designer shoe.  It’s NYC. 

Conrad was a German Shepard, equally capable of ripping the throat from a Rottweiler as coaxing a loving cackle from a baby by tender licks to plump cheeks. 

He lived in a studio on the Upper East Side, transplanted from a boundless estate in the south of England. 

Cappuccino poured on the ground, that he may lap up along with street soot, this was Conrad's settlement; his table manners were better than most, but cups, and the shot of dignity they floated, were methodically withheld. 

It wasn’t the lack of utensils that bothered him as much as the atrophy of his muscles. 

He used to be a truly fine specimen.  He had become as meager as the concessions that sustained him. 

The city was a container.  Things were forced to fit, even big dogs.  A chain of conformity chokes even the occasional erection here, the scent from a horny bitch wasted, a side effect of civil obedience. 

One could fight for space; Conrad was never much for throwing elbows, he never had to.  Besides, fighting was for young dogs, and he wasn’t as big as he used to be, now just an old dog in a small apartment.   
 
 
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In a fledgling attempt to shuffle its way into the annals of the English Language, brain-booger has achieved a seemingly insignificant first step on it's way to  credulity.  It's not Oxford, or even Webster, but we suppose it will have to do...
 
A blind society 06/06/2009
 
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...Alright, I'm back, everything's cool, the cops are gone.  Now, where was I? Oh yes, I just rented the movie "Blind" with Julianne Moore.  I enjoyed it.  Then I did some searches and found that the National Federation for The Blind had issue with the film.  I sent them an email.  It was a stinger:

To: Whom It May Concern, or not,

The NFB's response to the movie "Blind" is obviously a naive, emotionally charged and shortsighted (pun unintended) view.  It is a glaring example of the knee-jerk, defensive, reactionary judgments that plague individuals and groups of all types, and, ironically enough, is EXACTLY the kind of flawed human nature the movie is illuminating.

The NFB claims that the movie portrays "the blind" poorly.  Is it not obvious that the movie is not portraying “the blind" at all?  The movie IS portraying a hard-hitting pandemic that decimates human moral en masse, uncovering the vulgarities of human nature when it is tested in the extreme.  If you do not see this, you are sorely missing the point.  The movie is NOT an attempt to characterize an integrated subgroup of society that happens to suffer from a disability.

This is BLATANLTY addressed in the movie itself when the newly blind optometrist is shocked to find out that one of the “immoral” extortionists within the quarantine has been blind since birth.  He professes, "you are supposed to have empathy," to which another "bad guy" shoots back, "the man’s blind, that doesn't make him good or bad, just blind."  In essence, this quote upholds the stance of the NFB exactly.  “The blind” are in fact like everyone else, they may be good OR bad, they simply go about it without sight.

Nevertheless, suggesting a devastating and shockingly immediate pandemic of blindness among the sighted populace--and the widespread panic and moral degradation that may likely follow--is intended as a commentary on "the blind" as a social group is just stupidity.  It is the equivalent of saying that showing the immediate behavior of millions of people whom all at once have their legs eaten off by flesh-eating bacteria is intended as a characterization of "the paraplegic."

It would be prudent for the civil rights activists at the NFB to ensure objections are backed by s, so as not to alienate themselves from other human intellects around the would that may otherwise empathize with aspects of their cause. 

I feel your public reaction is either a deceptive attempt at manipulating naive public sentiment or evidence of mental confusion; condemnation and guilt propaganda are 'traps for fools' and will ultimately fail to result in anything but confusion and irrelevance in the long run.  Honesty and illumination should be the intent of righteousness and concern.  I hope you can at least see that.

Regards,
            J.P.F.
 
RGB 06/05/2009
 
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After a flurry of pop 'culture' posts the last few days, it's time for Brainbooger.com to get back to basics...shit! fuck! piss!...the cops are at my front door!!!... WTF do they want?!?  can my neighbors smell that already??  it's only been a week!... sorry, to be continued...
 
Once upon a time 06/04/2009
 
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In a seedy Bangkok hotel room, strung from the ceiling, used condoms and needles spattering the floor beneath the yellow and un-clipped toenails of two limp, lifeless feet that once kicked some serious ass, there hung the kung fu James Dean, the one and only, David Carradine.  R.I.P.