I Hate Phonies

What pleasure do people get from dance? Watching dance is just an enormous group of people staring at a smaller group of people moving around strangely. Imagine super-advanced Aliens come to Earth and ask to see our creative accomplishments, and what we show them is a bunch of people dressed in leotards and wearing an inch-thick layer of makeup jumping around to what would otherwise be great music. Would they accept us into their greater galactic society? I don't think so. Art today isn't what it once was. Artists today can make absolutely ridiculous amounts of money for doing virtually nothing.
"Hey, Jim. Doesn't your exhibit at the Met start today?"
"Oh, geez! I completely forgot!"
"Oh, well no worries. You can just eat a bunch of oranges and throw the peels and seeds all over the room."
"Oh my god! It's a statement on modern society!"
How can someone accept something like this as art, yet ignore ultra-important media such as video games? Video games are not only a completely valid form of art but also a superior one. They offer a degree of interactivity the likes of which have never been seen. And why is this? Because pretentious people go around deciding what is and isn't art and the mindless sheep of the public have no choice but to follow them. In the words of Holden Caulfield
"I hate phonies."
Misinformed overcultural anti-philistines are everything wrong with the country and the world as a whole. Deep inside, all humans have mankind's essential , there is always some sort of hostility towards some other culture or man that you hold, but these 'phonies' that litter the modern art houses of coastal American cities and the various coffeehouses of Western Europe are spreading their lies that we live in a global commons, that all men should cooperate and coexist despite fundamental differences in ideas, and these lies are tearing the world apart. These phonies convert more and more decent people into phonyism and indoctrinating them with their hippie ideals and self-contradicting lies. These phonies live in their million dollar houses bought by their investments in the stock market or their creation of an internet company and sit back in their imported Swedish-designed, Indonesian-made ultra-comfort chairs and watch their Wes Anderson movies while preaching communism and socialism and anarchy. But, just like in the 60's, after a time of relative peace and happiness, people have to seek out problems. Unfortunately, these people are surprisingly charismatic. So again, phonies are in style. Here's to hoping it'll all blow over.

Lucas

Star Wars films only get worse and worse as they go along. Everyone knows this. Ever since the second film in the 1980's, everything went downhill. Why do the fans, who acknowledge how terrible the newer movies actually are, keep on watching them over and over and buying all the ultra-expensive collector's edition box sets? It's some strange, twisted kind of loyalty. The fans are so influenced by propaganda and promises that the films would get better that they believe every word Lucasfilms says. Most would simply consider this 'nerds being nerds', but I see something much more sinister and complex. Actions such as these are so bizarre and irrational that they must be closer analyzed. Hardcore fans go around spewing quotes from the films and novels that have been implanted in their head by countless hours of viewing and reading time. The reciting of said quotes normally have a strangely accurate hypnopaedic level of efficiency. The innocent fans of Star Wars have been roped into something far bigger than just a franchise of science fiction entertainment products. They are mindlessly following every product of a franchise which is always becoming more and more lacking in quality. The fans see what's happening, but are helpless. They are for some reason compelled to watch and purchase terrible films. They are unwillingly part of a revolution. They have become part of a society with a sadistic totalitarian leader who refuses to give them any emotions excluding pain. With every fan George Lucas forces to purchase a useless, shoddy product, his net worth goes up slightly, and with no end in sight, George Lucas could well become one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. Whilst using the Skywalker Ranch, his residence, as a concentration camp for converting and reprogramming the non-believers, he slowly grows and grows in wealth until he is able to buy out the US government and become leader of the free world. Once gaining control of America, he commands his mindless hordes of 'fans' to invade the world's most powerful countries and gain control of them. Once becoming supreme ruler of Earth, he puts more and more money into space programs so that he may reach other planets, planets which he may convert, much in the same way he converted Earth, to his semi-religious mindless horde of armies. With his vice-chief, Stephen Spielberg by his side, his grip will eventually tighten, until the universe is all his.
He is all-powerful.
He has a plan.
He is unstoppable.
He is George Lucas.

Story Time Again, Though This Time, It's Not As Good.

Ever since he was a young boy he could remember everything. The flowers, the trees, way the pure icy blue water would flow effortlessly through the stream, the way the fish would dart and swim about, dancing with each other, being hurtled at breakneck speeds along the flowing wall of freezing liquid that served as the barrier around his home. It wasn’t as if he had to remember anything. The nine acre space he inhabited was so familiar to him it was almost an enormous extension of his own body. His existence was that of a stupid animal, one that walked slumped, scraped and bruised head touching scraped and bruised knee. Memory was useless in a world like his, so why was he plagued with these thoughts, these memories of the dreadful past? He remembered when he cut his arm on a sharp rock when trying to slice a fruit, he remembered when the tree fell and destroyed his hut in the times of rain, he remembered all the times he failed to catch those damned fish. He was cursed when all he wanted was to live in the now, the present. This was a curse he could not lift. His existence was meaningless, an existence of survival. He would fish, pluck fruit, eat and sleep day after day after day. To him irregularities were an ugly thing. Monotony is beautiful and structured, stable and organized. But all the time, those blasted irregularities would always pop up all around him and ruin his strict routine. He longed for the days of early childhood when nothing would bother him, when he didn’t know the beauties of structure, where nothing could disturb his peace. The days where he would fiddle about aimlessly, grabbing fish and rodents in his mouth, crushing them with his bare teeth, consuming them without a care in the world, catching horrible sickness and doing it again. Before the gods began cursing him. He hated them for it, the gods. He hated them for the curse that was struck upon him. He hated them for every time they caused an irregularity. He understood not the cruel humors of the beings in the sky. He did not understand when or why they would drop a strange object from the sky sometimes and knock the fish out of his hands. He understood not why they would always visit at night and ruin his shelter, he understood not why they always laughed, why they always mocked him with their booming voices. Even their supposed greatest gift to him was nothing but dread. He hated his teacher. He hated the cold metal exterior, he hated the strange, robotic inhuman voice it spoke with, he hated its patronizing tone and the way it acted better than him. Above all, he hated the learning. He hated having to know how to speak like the gods, he hated speaking English, he hated studying Mathematics and he despised Physics and Chemistry. This life was not suited for him. He wanted to hunt. He wanted to fish. He wanted to eat, to live and enjoy life, not stand and be subjected to the blathering of an unfriendly machine. His life was a curse, and he cursed the gods for it. He hated the gods. Until the day that one came personally to greet him.

“Dmitri.”
“Yes?”
“Dmitri.”
“Yes?”
“My god, Dmitri! I demand your presence!”
“Of course, comrade. I apologize for having you wait.”
“Ah, this you must see. Do you recall the event beginning Experiment 123K9?”
“Was it the event in which a stuffed bear was inserted into the human’s cage, sir?”
“Look at what he did, comrade.”
Some five hundred feet below them, a man about the age of thirty stepped out of his crude straw and wood shelter cradling a small brown woolen object. The man walked leisurely to a second shelter near the river surrounding his encampment where the roof broke the line of sight.
“Sir…”
“Of course.”
The superior of the officers struck a few levers and twisted a few dials, when suddenly, the window in the front of them quickly switched to a view of the hut’s interior. The man’s waist long light brown unkempt hair swung and tossed about animatedly as his body twisted and turned in strange ways, forming a sort of rhythm with his body. Above him on a shoddily made pedestal sat the stuffed bear. Dmitri’s eyes filled with awe and wonder, his mouth opened. His commander merely sat back and smiled calmly. Dmitri was amazed.
“Sir, do you realize the significance of this? He is the first to display non aggressive behavior when presented with the animal!”
“Yes. The implications are astounding. He is the first human subject to be sentient without contact, save the teacher of course.”
Dmitri’s expression of glee faded.
“He is sentient, sir? He is self-aware?”
“Yes, Dmitri. I am glad the meaning is not lost on you.”
Dmitri’s expression hardened and his smile turned to a frown.
“Sir, should we be containing him? Should we be subjecting him to these experiments? Should we be testing him like a rat? Is he not the very same as us?”
The officer stepped calmly out of his chair and reached into his pocket.
“Sir, what is it you are doing?”
The officer pulled out a long whip from his coat pocket.
“Sir, I will behave, I will behave.”
Dmitri dropped to the floor and started sobbing and reciting the pledge.
“I will serve the Ulterior under any and all circumstances presented to me, and will lay my life down for him no matter what strifes or toils face us-“
The superior officer struck the whip across Dmitri’s face and dragged his unconscious body to his bed.

That night Dmitri did not sleep. The prisons they contained the natives in helped control overpopulation and war by prohibiting reproduction and containing each person in their own personal all-natural jail cell. What they did was good, they were a benefit to the human race, they were rebuilding their once great empire. But what the Soviets were doing had a cost. The cost was their own humanity. The Soviet Empire was savage and evil, they had forgotten what freedom was and were perpetrators of genocide and mass torture. Dmitri could no longer be one of them. Dmitri would leave and explore the once-great world, seeking out a new home for himself. It was decided. Dmitri was to be a deserter.

The Ulterior seized Dmitri’s unconscious body by the collar, shaking it in the face of Dmitri’s superior officer.
“What is this? You could allow such scum to grow in your company?”
The superior officer stumbled over his words,
“Ulterior, I apologize for my inferior’s defiance, for his spit thrown in your face.”
“Yes, well consequences will be harsh. I will make sure he will see. He will see what is received when the Ulterior is angered.”

The sentient native stared at his reflection in the river, marveling at the quiet wonders of his world. Tranquility was always good to him, never hurt him like his cursed memories. Peacefully, the silence enveloped him. It was at that moment he felt his greatest, the best he ever felt, he felt at one with the world. With his own private world. He and his home were finally at peace. He instinctively shifted his head away from the water when he heard the raucous noises of machinery. With great horror, he realized what exactly was happening. His shelter was being destroyed by an enormous metallic god. His eyes widened. In a frantic haze, his body was set into motion. He was sprinting, pushing his body to limits never reached before, galloping across the nine acres of woodlands until finally, he reached his destination. He stopped, stunned. Where his secondary shelter once lay, there was only wreckage, splintered pieces of salvaged wood and rocks lacking cohesive shape. One thing and one thing only lay before him, standing tall above all the rubble. It was his personal god upon its pedestal. Running toward the god, he heard the ominous mechanical sounds of the god that destroyed his home. He refused to look back, only ran. Finally, the metal god spoke.
“Please evacuate your shelter, your cell is being taken by a new subject.”
But he kept running, hoping against all hope that he and his personal god would be together once more. His hoping was to no avail. With a crash, the claw sent the pedestal and the god into the rapidly flowing river. Only shocked for a moment, the native’s gaze hardened, his brow forced into a position of distinct anger. Enough bad memories plagued him, this one was not going to do the same. Without a running start, he dramatically dove into the freezing waters of the river, eyes set on his god, unaware he was being tossed into a brand new world, one which he was not accustomed to.

In the native’s cell, an extremely loud noise was heard as metal was thrown to the ground. A large room had fallen from the ceiling, the smooth shelter being pushed several meters into the Earth below. With a loud pop, the kind you get when opening a bottle of champagne, the room’s lid flew off and was absorbed by the ceiling to be recycled for scrap metals. Smoke and haze poured out of the small room, building up to a blast of fire shot from the shelter’s bottom, throwing the room’s inhabitant into the native’s former home. The man stumbled across the ground, blindfolded until he eventually ran out of energy. There he lay for a considerable amount of time until he mustered up the strength to stand. The man was young, strong and tall, cropped hair dark and dirty. Slowly, he untied the rope connecting his hands and removed his blindfold, grunting primitively. This man was Dmitri.

Beauty

I just saw American Beauty, a film renowned for its messages that people who are beautiful on the outside are inferior and worth less than those who possess an inner beauty, messages with which I do not agree. As many people have already said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and nothing can change that. There's the minority, who prefer inner beauty, and the majority, those who prefer their beauty on the outside. Movies like American Beauty give off the impression that the former of these beliefs is the one that shows moral superiority, that inner beauty is much deeper and beautiful than outer beauty, when in fact, no one can make a statement like this and be so sure of themselves. Preference of beauty is something implanted in the mind, not a choice one consciously makes. Humans themselves can't deny their urges and the majority cannot fully and truly love someone they are not attracted to. It is primal nature of man to love what is beautiful and it isn't fair to call it 'deep' or 'shallow' or insult him because of it. To quote Rachel Carson "Man is a part of nature, and his war on nature is inevitably a war on himself." To defy and deny what man is is sacrilege and injustice. People cannot preach messages like the one in American Beauty simply to 'stand up for the little guy'. They have to mean it. You can't just say stuff to sound intellectual and politically correct. You have to know what you're talking about.

Stimulation

The mind of the average citizen of the world is a jumble of ragged half-thoughts and memories of the immediate past. There's some ridiculous statistic that I lack the conviction to coerce out of the depths of my mind at this moment that somehow conveys the message that we are shown countless images per day. While most of the pretentious false preacher hipsters that control the media of America try to force down our throats the idea that this very overstimulation will be the death of us all, I come to you with a separate perspective. The industrial revolutions brought about not only staggering leaps and bounds in the technology of the western world, but also the constant exposure to media we are subjected to today. Who is to say that these two occurences are not related? I draw comparisons the Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World'. The inhabitants of this idealistic society have their every thought controlled indirectly by the government through a form of subliminal messaging called hypnopedia. Though this society can be thought of by many as 'dystopic', one must admit that the society does have many idealistic aspects. In my opinion, our constant exposure to the media is a less controlled form of hypnopedia. It gives truly strong-willed people the opportunity to think for themselves and the weak-minded a place in conformist culture. This process weeds out the weak and has the strongest of people in the strongest, most powerful positions. Our so called 'overexposure' to media may seem at first an attempt by the 'higher-ups' to brainwash us and make us think what they do, when actually what they are doing is weeding out the sheep and letting the independent thinkers have their talent shine. Criticisms of this system are everywhere, but honestly, everyone's happy with it like this. The current ruler of the free world is a very popular man and was chosen by a mix of conformists and independent thinkers enjoying a semi-symbiotic relationship called democracy. Everything has turned out all right using our system, so criticisms are kind of invalid. Mankind is evolving, and the people against exposure are detrimental to evolution itself. This may be America, and we may all have the right to freedom of expression, but everyone should have a TV and a Computer. These are marvels of man, created by man, and testiments to our evolution and genious. Anyone that preaches against technology is holding our evolution back and honestly,
should just shut up.

...Story Time

Atsu was never one for drugs. Oh, yes, he had been pushed, like a young girl into the mud, but he resisted. It’s not like his parent’s words had any significant impact on him, he was never one for parents, either. Alcohol was simply what he wanted. It was and always had been. Was it simple rebellion? No. Atsu liked to think it was more than that. Atsu was very in touch with his inner chi. Like a middle aged housewife, he constantly attempted to make up for his past sins by attuning himself with nature. He liked to think that he and alcohol shared a bond. Atsu was sentimental, and very frequently recalled his meeting with alcohol with affection, as if it was some sort of lost love or strange guardian. One day, Atsu was lying in bed, curled up in fetal position, green eyes darting impatiently from his window to his clock, as if he was itching for the day to end. It was one of those mornings where the fog blanketed the ground like the surface of the earth itself, one of those days where you were afraid that if you left the house, the white would swallow you up, you would become part of it and it part of you, that it would polymerize you into nature itself, that it would swallow you and spit you out as a sick, fragile ghost. Atsu’s peace was disturbed by the loud creaking of his door, old, dead and rotten, his mother sauntered in. She was a woman of high esteem, a social climber, who, though very cheap and lacking in social skills, thought much of herself. Needless to say, she was less than charismatic.

‘Atsu,’ She mumbled, as if she was very busy and had no time on her hands ‘I believe you have a friend here to see you.’

And in walked a man dressed in rags, wearing what was quite obviously a toupee. He had a certain way about him that made you think he was much wealthier than he was. A certain way he carried himself that made you want to congratulate him, regardless of if he deserved it. He sat by Atsu on his bed. Atsu paid no mind. He was quite shaken, but he couldn’t let down his tough exterior. The man in rags gazed softly at Atsu for what seemed like hours before lightly placing a paper bag on the table by his bed. He paused, looking like he was about to speak, but stopped short before speaking.

He simply spoke,

‘This is for you. Do what’s right.’

The man in rags patted Atsu on the shoulder, attempting to show affection, but failing miserably. He mumbled something softly and stepped silently out of the house.

It was a good while before Atsu had made his choice. He pushed and pulled until he unraveled himself from the labyrinth that were his covers and outstretched his dominant arm (left, of course) and seized the bag like he should have been the day. Atsu opened the bag, slightly ripping the sides. Inside he found a large bottle wearing a label bearing a cartoon of a well dressed plump man ambling along the road, bearing a cane and a top hat. Atsu smiled at the picture and opened the bottle. His bottle.

 

That night, Atsu had a dream.