FNR 29 – In Support of Unpopular Causes
Jun 28 '03
The Bottom Line The Hung-Over Saturday Morning and Afternoon Ramble.
the quick and dirty:
Welcome to my bleary-eyed attempt to make sense of my drunken scrawling from last night…
There's a cup of coffee big enough to swim in sitting in front of me. It's intended to counteract the Mojitos that rendered me incapable of composing a coherent sentence, among other things. I think there were four or five of them, or maybe one of those numbers that comes after five. As you can see, the coffee is working. Slowly.
the long and rambling:
Alcohol:
Coffee. That reminds me. Thanks to the gracious and lovely javajnkie for handing me the ramble, and to the incomparable badkittyM for handing me the Mojitos. Thanks also to the venerable sage who created the ramble in the mists of time long past, lemon_lime.
But coffee was not the fuel of this here staggering, ill-paced collection of barely connected verbiage. That would be alcohol. I'm returning to tradition, I suppose, though others, like Mari, have eschewed that tradition, yet still produced fine examples of delightfully rambling prose.
But I come to praise alcohol, not to bury it, though a little earlier I was cursing it elaborately to the rhythm of the gargantuan bass drum in my head. Now I'm feeling much better; actually thinking about having a beer. So I'll offer a toast to the magic of fermented plant matter.
It's an ancient tradition indeed. Although the Sumerians first invented their writing for accounting purposes (of course), one of the earliest known examples of that writing is a recipe for the brewing of beer.
Alcohol serves more purposes than just the facilitation of conversation and fornication. Some might say it is the lubrication of civilization. Actually, some have proposed, not absolutely, thoroughly, entirely without credibility, that alcohol may have been the instigation for civilization.
The argument proceeds thusly: Hunter-gatherer populations had neither the need nor the inclination to engage in large-scale agriculture for food purposes. But the desire for a large, readily available supply of surplus grain for brewing beer motivated them to approach the problem with the innovation and perseverance of a high-school kid trying to wheedle adults in the liquor store parking lot. Hence, irrigation, overproduction, ballooning population…voila! Civilization.
It's probably nonsense, but who cares? Raise your glass to booze, liquor, vino, hooch, brew. Raise your glass to the Demon Rum. 'Twere his sharp hooves enthusiastically tap-dancing on my skull earlier, rum being the active ingredient in the aforementioned Mojitos.
Some tips about the proper preparation of this insidiously innocent-tasting, consciousness-crunching concoction: Use seltzer or sparkling water, and crush, chop, and cook the mint leaves with sugar and water to make a syrup. Do not use Sprite and drop in cut mint leaf halves like they do at most bars.
Better still, get Marcy to make 'em for you.
But watch out; she makes them by the gallon, and they will kick your ass.
Profanity
Which brings me to my next illegible scribble. Profanity is a weird thing, isn't it? There must be some reason for its pervasiveness; it exists in every human language, even Epinionese. No shit.
Let's just focus on that word right there. Excreta, feces, the stuff of scatology. In a word, shit. Real people in real life use profanity. Who among us is so verbally constipated that a "shit" has never emerged from their mouths? There may be some such, but they are few, and must be frazzled to the brink of spontaneous combustion.
Certain situations call for expletives; and faux-profane euphemisms like "sugar" just don't cut it. To use one admittedly extreme example, a review of flight recorders from crashed aircraft tallied the frequency of various final utterances in the cockpit. The phrase which overwhelmingly dominated in this situation was, "Oh, shit." Whatever was second on the list was so distant it couldn't be shown on the same chart. I sincerely doubt there were any instances of the last words heard being "Oh, Sugar."
The word actually transcends human language; it seems to represent some deep commonality among all the larger primates, at least. Koko, the gorilla trained to communicate in American Sign Language, allegedly uses "shit-man" to describe some of her least favorite people. And of course, chimpanzees around the world are known to express their disapproval with a non-verbal reference to the same concept, by flinging handfuls of shit at pesky humans.
Profanity is part of our language, and an essential part at that. There are situations, even outside fireballs of fuel and fuselage plunging to the earth, in which "shit" is simply le mot juste.
I know there are some – nay – many, who believe that profanity is somehow inherently evil; a corruptor of youth and maidenhood, a tool of the Devil. These are the sort of people who feel that profanity instantly and thoroughly degrades any piece of writing in which it appears. These are the sort of people who'd like to ban Shakespeare.
As you might guess, I think that's a big, fat, steaming load of horseshit.
Internet Integrity
There's an awful lot of horseshit on the web. In Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, the internet of the future is called "The Web of a Million Lies." But we're already way past that.
The most common lie must be the false web persona. I've heard it said that every man on the web claims to be a martial arts black belt and performing musician with a ten inch dick. Not strictly true; I don't claim that, for example (although two out of three isn't bad), but I do see the truth captured in the saying.
To those who feel so unsatisfied with your real-life selves that you must hide behind an invented and utterly fictional web persona, here's a suggestion. Go get yourself a real life that you're not embarrassed to be seen with.
If you don't like your mind, educate it; broaden it. If you don't like your appearance, change it, or learn to deal with it. If you don't have a personality, or don't like the one you've got, improve it. But, please, stop lying, and stop pretending.
We have a lot of strange goings-on right here in our harmonious Epinionious community lately. Battles that rage across the fertile fields of comment sections, wreaking their (often highly entertaining) havoc even out to the satellite discussion boards that orbit the muthasite like so many varyingly bright moons.
Amidst the unstable-seeming ground, the shifting alliances, the back-stabbing and sniping and bitching and bashing, how does one tell the Good Guys (and Girls) from the Bad?
Let me break it down, because it's a simple trick. Outside of the most obvious shitheads, like racists and hate-mongers, you can tell by people's behavior more than the issue-related content (if any) of their writing.
The Good Guys, those who are worthy of respect even when you might disagree with them, vociferously and perhaps occasionally bitterly, are easy to recognize. They are those who do not delete their own words to facilitate their later attempts at revisionist history, or just to hide their own stupidity after belatedly getting a vague glimmer of recognition thereof.
The Good Guys, if challenged about some seemingly outrageous statement or argument or attack, will make a bona fide attempt to support their words, rather than continually pretending the question was never asked. They might even occasionally admit forthrightly that they made a mistake, or said something just plain stupid.
They will generally refrain from chasing people they are intent upon annoying into other people's comment sections to leave a trail of hysterical bile. They are not known to be stalkers, and will not usually spam their targets and others with unwanted email full of generally tediously written whining and passive-aggressive babble.
They do not engage in blatantly unethical Epinions behaviors such as trust-slutting, or down-rating attacks based solely on personal malice and utterly unrelated to the review allegedly being rated.
They do not seethe and burn to use their microscopically meaningful virtual 'power' to arbitrarily and irrationally enforce their will on others.
There are other indicators, but that should help any soul in confusion.
This is about to turn into a Saturday Night Ramble. So I'm gonna sign off and get myself a drink.
But before I do, I'm going to do one thing to ensure this shit is Very Helpful. I'm going to hand off the baton to someone lots of you have been wishing would give you a ramble.
Yup. She's bad, she's beautiful, she's brilliant, and she mixes a mighty mean Mojito. She's armed and very dangerous with her giant cartoon mallet. Ladies and gentleman, I give you your next Friday Night Rambler, badkittyM.
Cheers!
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Epinions.com ID:
chaospump
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Member: Aaron
Location: LA, CA
Reviews written: 52
Trusted by: 68 members
About Me:
Next live webcast coming soon...
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