Fugate's 382nd Law

Free is the most expensive.

Fugate's 113th Law

A service economy is an economy of servants.

Ænima

Listening to Tool's AEnima. Getting heavy rotation. Catchy tune. Hey, any band that references Bill Hicks can't be all bad. But an amazing, bitter rejection of humanity, at least humanity in SoCal. Essentially, a catalog of show biz types and a prayer for their death by the impact of a rogue comet.

Maynard Keenan's the lyricist. I think.

So what's his problem exactly? He hates show biz? He, he's in a band. That's show biz, last time I checked. What happened? Some key grip cut him off at the call-in window at the In-and-Out Burger?

I keep thinking of that line in Greg Bear's Psychlone about a rune scrawled in blood in the ruins of a town of people that went nuts and ripped each other apart. An ancient Egyptian symbol. An eye. One tear. The tears of a soul in hell. A soul buried in shit.

A symbol of pain. Too much pain for this life. Pain from beyond this life.

AEnima hits the same vibe.

The lead singer's been possessed by a wrathful Egyptian deity who hates actors. It's the only logical explanation.

I mean, Jesus. It's just fucking show biz.

Lyrics below jump ...


AEnima

Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this

Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks

Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.

Fret for your figure and
Fret for your latte and
Fret for your lawsuit and
Fret for your hairpiece and
Fret for your prozac and
Fret for your pilot and
Fret for your contract and
Fret for your car.

It's a
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks

Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any fucking Time. Any fucking day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.

Some say a comet will fall from the sky.
Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves.
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still.
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits.

Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will cuz
I sure could use a vacation from this

STUPID shit, silly shit, stupid shit...


One great big festering neon distraction,
I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied.

Learn to swim.

Mum's gonna fix it all soon.
Mum's comin' round to put it back the way it ought to
be.

Learn to swim.

Fuck L Ron Hubbard and
Fuck all his clones.
Fuck all these gun-toting
Hip gangster wannabes.

Learn to swim.

Fuck retro anything.
Fuck your tattoos.
Fuck all you junkies and
Fuck your short memory.

Learn to swim.

Fuck smiley glad-hands,
With hidden agendas.
Fuck these dysfunctional,
Insecure actresses.

Learn to swim.

Cuz I'm praying for rain
And I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
I wanna watch it all go down.
Mum please flush it all away.
I wanna see it go right in and down.
I wanna watch it go right in.
Watch you flush it all away.

Time to bring it down again.
Don't just call me pessimist.
Try and read between the lines.

I can't imagine why you wouldn't
Welcome any change, my friend.

I wanna see it come down.
Come down.
Suck it down.
Flush it down.

Will the real Messiah please come back to life

Theological inconsistency is endemic to all religions. Christianity, for example. You would think a religion founded by a dude executed for religious heresy would make torturing and killing religious heretics a big no-no. The Church did not hold to that opinion. The problem, evidently, was that the Romans had the wrong guy.

Naked Capitalism: the Dream Team

Mothers avert your eyes -- for this is an essay on Naked Capitalism!

OK, OK. Laissez faire. Libertarian. Whatever you want to call it. A society with next to no business regulation, worker rights, minimum wage, FDA or EPA standards or government safety inspection, etc, etc. Ayn Rand's wet dream, basically.

So why is this a good idea?

The Right Wing’s rationale for laissez faire Capitalism is usually presented in utilitarian terms. Capitalism is a lousy economic system, but it’s the best one we’ve got. Despite all its inequalities, it makes people work smarter and better, thanks to Darwinian competition. Communism (which is supposed to make people equal) leads to a desperately poor society with a few party elite at the top. Capitalism (which doesn’t believe in equality) generates the most wealth possible for everybody. Thanks to Capitalism, the slices of the pie aren't equal -- but it's an insanely huge pie and there's more slices for everybody! “The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” is just the price we pay for all that pie. And if Capitalism is good -- Naked Capitalism is even better.

This may be. But it’s a window dressing argument. If you dig deep, the elite has a different logic -- the logic of a lion with his teeth in an antelope’s haunch. I think a lot of the people at the top think they deserve to be there, and see life in terms of winners and losers. They’re the winners, of course. They don’t want a fair society. They want it all. They’re not utilitarians. The greatest good for the greatest number? Fuck that shit. A broad middle class? Fuck that, too. They could live with a nation of beaten-down lackeys with no rights, voice or power.

They don’t believe in Naked Capitalism because it’s the best system for everybody. They believe in Naked Capitalism because it’s their right. The lion’s share is their right. Because they work harder; they’re smarter; they made better decisions in life; they’re more religious and ethical and have higher values and standards than the great unwashed. The poor deserve to be poor. The rich deserve to be rich. They’re the Dream Team.

Speaking of which, in my miserable experience as a Jr. High football coach, the badass players were constantly begging me to let them get together and form a “Dream Team” so they could stomp all the runts. I told them this was a bad idea because, well, they’d stomp all the runts. Number one, that’s bad sportsmanship. Number two, the runts would lose motivation and not want to participate in sports. Come on, coach! No. I wanted the teams to be fair. I always divided them up by ability and the better players hated it – and hated me. Please coach, please. We wanna have a dream team. I sketched out my idea for a Dream Team. Just once. Please coach, please. They hammered me day after day and – in one disgusting moment of weakness in my character, I let them have their Dream Team. They stomped the runts. It was ugly.

Communism is a lousy idea. Socialism is a lousy idea. But so is Naked Capitalism. Basically, the rich form a Dream Team and stomp all the rest of us into the dirt.

Call me a radical, but I think FDR had the right idea.

A beautiful day in the Magic Kingdom

I remember a trip to Disney World with my two boys back in the summer of '87. I was in my early 30s and poor as bloody hell -- various family members had scraped the bucks together to send us all there. So there we were. I noticed a Brazilian family. I could tell, by the prominent Brazilian logo on their t-shirts. Smiling man and wife, my age, pushing a baby stroller loaded up with balloons. They were rich. Every they had told me that. Shoes, clothes, sunglasses, various Sharper Image-type gear – it was all new and shiny. Their baby stroller probably cost more than my car.

It occurred to me, shit, over in Brazil, these are the people at the top of the pyramid. And here they are in Disney World having the time of their lives. They don’t give a shit about all the peasants combing through garbage dumps in the shack cities around Rio.

Then it occurred to me, shit, I’m no better. America keeps its cheap labor overseas, out of sight, out of mind. Our Triangle Shirtwaist Factories are in China someplace. That doesn’t let America off the hook.

Then it occurred to me, if the American economy ever collapsed – if there was a big fucking shake-up and we wound up like Brazil, the people at the top would go on smiling through their lives – just like this young, pretty wealthy Brazilian family smiling its way through the Magic Kingdom. Let’s say America has another Great Depression and the fatcats yank the New Deal/Great Society rug right from under our feet and we all fall on our collective ass. Let’s say America winds up with big mass of poor people, a desperate sliver of a middle class hanging on for dear life and a few fats at the top of the pyramid. Americas rich could live with favelas and not lose a minute of fucking sleep. They’d keep on smiling. Enjoying the good life and feeling entitled. Shit, they’re walling themselves up in fated communities right now.

If that ever happened, I wondered which one of my rich friends would let me sleep in the garage. Assuming I had any rich friends left.

Since you asked

No.