The Perils of Sportscasting

So not only does some German sportscaster get hit in the head with a soccer ball, which everyone apparently loves (like a horrific car crash!) because the video of it is instantly all over the internet, but they turn it into a NEWS STORY and "report" on it as if it had ACTUAL MERIT! So for two and a half minutes of air time (a long time by tv standards), some guy asks this woman inane questions about getting hit in the head by a soccer ball (which has happened to her THREE TIMES, apparently!). Oh, and they show the "instant replay" of the incident like fifty times during the interview. Ridiculous!

Who doesn't love a horrific crash?

Comrades -- read the following link and come back:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/08/29/2010-08-29_horrific_crash_in_staten_island_kills_two.html

Okay, now, the thing I want you to notice here is the "thumbs up" icon above the story. Apparently, at the moment of writing, 138 people LIKE the fact that two people died in a horrific crash in Staten Island. Now this of course begs the following questions:

1. Do those people know what they're doing when they push the "I like this" button?
2. What does the "I like this" button even mean? Are they thumbs-upping the story or the fact of the crash? If the crash, they're sick bastards, if the story, what does THAT mean? They like reading about people dying in car crashes?
3. Why doesn't the NY Daily News site allow for anything EXCEPT an "I like it" option? Why won't they allow for an "I don't like this" option? Or a "Quit reporting sensationalist 'If it bleeds, it leads'" bullshit option? Same as the insidious corporate entity known as Facebook -- which is where you go to vote on this, I think (it's not clear how one gives the thumbs-up to a horrific crash, if you are so inclined to express your enjoyment of such occurrences) -- you can't dislike something and you can't delete your profile, EVER.
4. Why are we voting on news stories anyway? To alert the news outlets as to what sells, and to make them more aware of what types of stories to post on their websites?
5. To further erode the ENTIRE IDEA of unbiased journalism for the rather more pervasive idea of capitalist money-making "Journalism"? Fuck you, Rupert Murdoch!

Good god, my Comrades, how much more of this Internet thought-constraining insane bullshit must we put up with? The internet is a trap! A capitalist panacea that makes you think the world has suddenly gone completely democratic when in fact it has done quite the opposite -- IT HAS BECOME COMPLETELY CAPITALISTIC, and it is THIS, above all else, that we should fight!

The only question that remains is: how?

What Happened When Punk Clashed With the 80s

Johnny Rotten meets MTV. So sad.

Comrade X's Online Profile

Even a Revolutionary needs love! Yes, my Comrades, your ever faithful Comrade X is so busy fighting against bourgeois oppression that he does not have time to search for this ever-elusive phenomenon, and so he does what all busy Revolutionaries have done from time immemorial: he looks for it online. So, in case you run across it, Comrade X here gives you his online profile (so you'll know it's him when you yourself are out searching the ether for a love connection, and so, if you see this, you can avoid responding to it):

About Me

Me, well, I (choose one):

a.) love
b.) detest
c.) am highly ambivalent about
d.) sort of like
e.) vomit at the thought of

the following (choose two):

a.) skydiving
b.) long pointless fights about nothing
c.) romantic dinners by candlelight -- at Denny's
d.) long involved discussions about the minutiae of extremely technical topics
e.) talking about your ex-boyfriend

and for a first date I like to (choose three):

a.) run a credit check.
b.) gaze longingly into the eyes of the woman sitting at the table behind you.
c.) show up an hour late, immediately go to the bathroom, and escape through the back door.
d.) check out your friends.
e.) all of the above

My hobbies include (choose five):

a.) lining capitalists up against the wall and shooting them in the face
b.) ranting
c.) raving
d.) throwing beer bottles at homeless people
e.) stamp collecting

and I would really (choose two):

a.) like it if
b.) hate it if
c.) all of the above

you were to (choose one):

a.) show me the appreciation I deserve.
b.) listen to me complain about my ex-wives/girlfriends/lovers/etc.
c.) clean my house.
d.) lend me DVDs that I will never return.
e.) fucking die.


About You.

You are (choose three):

a.) bipolar
b.) a pathological liar
c.) getting divorced
d.) lousy in bed
e.) out for revenge

and (choose one):

a.) like to
b.) never
c.) are willing to do once a month, if the price is right
d.) never considered
e.) compulsively

(choose two)

a.) fuck.
b.) don't fuck.
c.) cry for 24 hours straight about nothing.
d.) talk in circles for the sheer pleasure of making my life hell.
e.) masturbate angrily.

In the long term, you want (choose five):

a.) to cause as much pain and suffering as is humanly possible.
b.) money.
c.) to piss on my grave.
d.) to sue me for libel when I write a book about us.
e.) all of the above.

What I'm Looking For (choose one):

a.) nothing
b.) something
c.) anything
d.) everything
e.) my car keys

Well, there you have it, Comrades! And if you see me online, be kind -- don't write me!

More Movies That Make No Sense: Sucker Punch

Okay, from what I can tell, this movie has everything:

1. Hot chicks in Sailor Moon outfits.
2. Hot chicks with guns.
3. Hot chicks sitting around looking hot.
4. Dragons.
5. Dragons that breathe fire.
6. Hot chicks leaping 50 feet in the air and kicking dragons that breathe fire.
7. Hot chicks with samurai swords.
8. Hot chicks with samurai swords fighting samurai robots or zombies or something.
9. Dirigibles.
10. Dirigibles with Iron Crosses on them.
11. Dirigibles with Iron Crosses on them that explode.
12. Did I mention hot chicks?
13. Robots.
14. Nazis or maybe neo-Nazis.
15. Nazi (or maybe neo-Nazi) robots.
16. Lots and lots of blatant and obvious and cliched male orgasm imagery.
17. Strippers, apparently.
18. An insane asylum.
19. An insane asylum full of hot chicks who are strippers, apparently, who somehow and for some reason get weapons and break out of the insane asylum and fight Nazi robots and dragons that breathe fire and samurai zombies or something and assorted monsters with huge Gattling guns. And gangsters, I think.
20. Even MORE hot chicks. And a disco ball.

What's not to love?

Props to Our Comrades Fallen in the Fight

Yes, my Comrades, it is time, time to express our appreciation for those fallen in the fight, even if they were, as it turns out, not part of the fight, even if we knew it, even if we didn't care. Sometimes it doesn't matter -- fight or no fight, our friends fall, they fall, and when they do, they do not rise, and it is up to us to honor their memory in whatever way we can, by continuing the fight or by dropping the facade and honestly grieving.

My Comrades, I do not wish to denigrate the seriousness of what we do here, but then again, I do not wish to denigrate the seriousness of our affections for those who follow us through all of our foolhardiness, all of our mistakes, all of our ridiculous life decisions and fucked-up on-the-spot declarations which seem (but only seem) to encompass an entire world view, when in fact they only serve to playfully reject the world views of those closest to us, in order to keep from becoming encapsulated in a perception which it would be folly to support, and wise, oh so wise, my Comrades, to deflate.

But we deflate out of love, not conflict. We do what we do because we don't know how to do it differently.

Good bye, Warren, I will miss you.

"Get Hammered and Sickled!"

"A Taste Worth Standing in Line For!" Yes, we now have (thanks to Comrade Le F) the official soft drink of the Revolution (Comrade X is still in charge of finding all the official alcoholic Revolutionary beverages, of course), for those Revolutionaries who wish to keep a clear head and a sugar high while planning the overthrow of world capitalism. However, Comrade X's enthusiasm is mitigated somewhat by this cryptic slogan on the side of the bottle:

"Beware the repressed Communist Party animal who is really a proletarian in denial masquerading as a bourgeois cold war monger!"

What? Who exactly would this person be? As far as Comrade X can tell, through verbal reverse engineering, what this says is that we must beware the bourgeois Cold War monger, whom we ALREADY are wary of (and despise!), the bourgeois capitalist who for some reason (in the demented logic of this slogan) wants the Cold War (which, incidentally, has been over for almost thirty years) to continue rather than opening up closed markets for world capitalist domination, and that this person -- whom we already despise, as I said -- is actually ALSO disguised as a repressed Communist Party animal, a creature who, apparently from the description, loves to get wasted (which begs the question of why this would be on the side of a SODA bottle -- who parties with soda?) while at the same time retaining his commitment to the Party, BUT is ALSO at the same time repressed in some fashion, which seems at odds with his being a party (or Party) animal, who wouldn't actually be repressed (quite the opposite!), which is confusing enough, but ON TOP OF ALL THIS we find that underneath these two conflicting and confusing disguises lies the REAL identity of this person, who is a member of the PROLETARIAT, whom we fight for, yet he's in denial, which means he won't admit he's one of the proletariat, which means he's, what, pretending to be a capitalist? Well, apparently, he's pretending to be a Party member (who, technically, WOULD be proletarian, yes?) pretending to be his own mortal enemy, one of the bourgeoisie.

What? How fucked up IS this person? NO amount of therapy will help THIS situation!

So, if you plan to drink this particular beverage, exercise EXTREME caution -- capitalist whoremongers might have infused it with schizophrenia-inducing drugs to weaken the Revolutionary spirit of us Revolutionaries who have, I hope, a firm grasp on the reality of the revolutionary situation and only ONE personality we're having to deal with.

But you never know.

Comrade X Suffers for Your Sins

Yes, my Comrades, Comrade X has been slapped on the wrist -- most resoundingly! -- by Capitalism! Yes, Capitalism has finally recognized its most infamous, its most potent enemy -- Irritable Blog Syndrome! And in its fear -- yea, in its PANIC, O my Comrades! -- it has attacked, ATTACKED, I say, Comrade X, trying to teach him a lesson! A massive slap on the wrist to keep him from exposing Capitalism's most terrifying, most horrifying, most destructive secrets! To keep him from exposing its language, its detritus, its dirty, seedy underside to you, its VICTIM in this War of Oppressive Ideology!

Yes, my Comrades, Comrade X suffers for your sins! Comrade Y, well, I don't know what she's doing, but apparently SHE hasn't taken one on the chin for the Revolution. Good one, Y! Why is it always ME with the bruises, huh? HUH?!

Warning! Naked pervert stalks streets!

The above police artist's conception is based on Comrade A's recent experience with a naked pervert here in our corner of America. Yes, Comrades, it is true that in this town (perhaps in all of the Pacific Northwest), it is not a crime to be naked in public, and there are some who take advantage of this law to pursue their own lascivious perverted desires on the midnight streets of Our Fair City. The story runs thus:

Comrade A, on her way to her car, which was parked a mere two blocks from her building next to the local Catholic Church and its adjoining grade school, turned a corner perhaps a tad hastily and saw from the corner of her eye a movement in the shadows next to the church. She thought to herself, "I better watch what that person a block and a half away is doing there in the shadows, just to be aware." Then, when she turned her head to see what else was going on in the vicinity, she lost sight of the person moving in the shadows, and when she turned back, it was gone. So she kept walking, and when she turned the corner to get into her car, suddenly from out of the shadowy bushes next to the church a person appeared. Well, sprung, really, right into Comrade A's path, arms akimbo and standing proudly before her. He was wearing glasses, looked a bit hipsterish, young, and smiling. She smiled back, and they had "a moment," as Comrade A puts it, before she suddenly saw his "flapping dick" and realized that the person standing in front of her was, indeed, a naked, hairy, skinny white hipster with nothing on but his glasses (Comrade X insists that he was wearing the standard-issue hipster pork-pie hat, and that Comrade A doesn't remember this due to the shock of the tiny flaccid penis waving gently but insistently in the mild breeze that pervert nudie hipsters love because it cools off their nutsack while they stand immobile, awaiting recognition and, perhaps, love), and Comrade A, rather than scream or call the police or attack him with a broken beer bottle, ran to a nearby car in which there were other, clothed hipsters no doubt preparing for a night of naked shadowy frolicking.

Of course this was all quite shocking to Comrade A, whose reason for not calling the police was that "It's not illegal to be naked here," to which Comrade X replied, "Yeah, but it IS illegal to spring menacingly from the bushes in the middle of the night with nothing on but your hat and glasses and stand with your dick hanging out in front of a fully-clothed woman," to which Comrade A said, "Yeah, well, it's not like he was DOING anything," in reply to which Comrade X screamed, "OH MY GOD! What does he NEED to do? Start slapping you in the face with his johnson? He's NAKED in the DARK with a HAT!" and Comrade A said, "Yeah, but he's not ... " and Comrade X screamed, "HE'S FUCKING NAKED -- NO, FUCK THE 'LAW' -- he's NAKED and he's SMILING and he's JUST STANDING THERE, which is WEIRD if not actually ILLEGAL!" and so on and on until finally they both agreed that a police sketch (see above) and a posted warning would suffice to hopefully keep others from experiencing this most heinous of blatant capitalist treachery.

Yes, naked capitalism -- a church, some shadows, thick glasses, and a commodified dick. What more need be said?

Oh, one more thing -- Comrade A also insists that the entire incident is actually Comrade X's fault for not walking over to her shitty neighborhood full of bums, junkies, loudmouth tranny hookers, nudist perverts, and rapists, and picking her up. Comrade X leaves it to his readers to decide who is REALLY to blame here. (Comrade A, reading over Comrade X's shoulder, just added, "Jerk! Thanks for exploiting me!" Ha! The irony ... )

Beware panty bombs.

You go out and get some cute drawers. They are expensive but you think,

"I deserve cute underwear, don't I ?"

You wear them once and they explode!

You do research on a certain fucked up company called VICTORIA'S SECRET that you hate anyway. You don't know why you bought them there. What were you thinking ? What were you doing there in that horrible mall anyway? Huh ? HUH?! You were drunk, right?

No?

Oh.

Okay, so you were doing research.

And you know what you found out?

DO YOU KNOW WHAT VICTORIA'S "SECRET" IS?

Her Lingerie is made by men in jail! For 12 cents an hour!

How uncomfortable is that?

So your underpants turning into a ball of string theory and fucking up your whole laundry situation is actually a gentle and effective stab from the thousands of African American men incarcerated for petty drug crimes. A tiny desperate uprising against capitalism.

Go boys, go!

Turn every woman's laundry into dark matter !!!!

My Interview with God--Post Holy Land

An "IBS Advice column III" follow up (See July 26)

And the Lord doth ask: My child, how was it?

Y: Frekin' Amazing!

Lord: Did you, you know, feel anything? Did you sob in that holiest of places?

Y: No, I was too exited by the five star hotels to think about you. Sorry!

Lord: And so what was all that unease about the political climate and the suffering behind checkpoints?

Y: I have no idea. It all went out the window. I was bobbing in luxury and all I could think about was the endless cheese platters, and how I deserved all that.

Lord: ON A TOUR BUS! IN A WAR TORN COUNTRY!?

Y: Yes, but dear G_D you should have seen the desserts!

Lord: You didn’t actually hang out with those 25 women, did you?

Y: Oh yeah. I bonded with them in that jeep ride with the crazy soldier on crack with the gunshots just over the hill. We shared the Uruistat. We shared the love. We shared a flak jacket.

Lord: And Lo, Didst thou ever feel me in thine breast?

Y: Yes, when I was floating in a raft down the Jordan River and a hot Romanian pirate kidnapped me. Then I felt you, finally.

Lord: Didst thou lust after man?

Y: You’re kidding, right? Who doesn’t like a man in a uniform--with an Uzi!?

Lord: Didst thou convene and lie down upon sheets or sand?

Y: Well no, but this guy offered me two donkeys and a camel to be his bride.

Lord: What the hell are those Druze doing?

Y: OMFG I don’t know! They are so fucking weird. They only pray on Thursdays and Sundays and it’s the law that the girls remain virgins and have blond highlights.

Lord: And so, didst thou see and behold truths and wisdoms for the next wanderers in the desert?

Y: Never, EVER shave anything before swimming in the Dead Sea. YOUCH!

(Oh, and may all people find equality and peace. Put away the weapons and fucking SHARE! Are we still in preschool ?)

Lord: And lo, it is said, go backeth to your smalleth apartment and weep and pine for the end of five star accommodations.

Shalom

-Y

Jesus didn't tap!

Needless to say, Comrade X is more than disturbed by the latest trend among fundamentalist churches which, in order to bring young men back into the fold (after having lapsed, no doubt due to the boring and inapplicable nature of Christianity to their lives), have incorporated mixed martial arts cage matches into their weekly religious festivities (or whatever you call them). Now we begin to see such things as the above-pictured "Jesus didn't tap" t-shirt, in which the quintessential icon of universal peace and love and non-violence is turned into the harbinger of battle and blood and broken limbs. Jesus has been retooled for the 21st century -- no longer the peace-loving hippie beatnik, Jesus is now the Ultimate Fighter, the Cage Fighter Who Does Not Tap Out, the Biggest Bad-Ass of Them All. The iconography of the above shirt is somewhat confusing -- Jesus on the cross casting a shadow of two guys wrestling, with one guy putting an arm bar on another guy, and Comrade X is more than slightly confused as to what this is supposed to mean, so he went to the King James Version of the Bible (not the heavily-edited and misrepresentative NIV version) to see what was going on. And here is what he found:

In St. Matthew (27:46), it says, "And about he ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Okay, here it sounds like Jesus is definitely tapping out to God. And if we look at St. Mark (15:34), we find, "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Okay, a little inconsistency in the quotation, but the sense is the same, and these two writers were pretty coeval. But:

We now move to a writer who wrote rather later than the above two, St. Luke, and here the sense of this scene (and passage) changes significantly (23:46): "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost." Okay, here Jesus is beginning to look like the uncompromising, uncomplaining, undoubting bad-ass the fundamentalists want to paint him as. No more lamentation, just resignation, and, if you will, only tapping out when there is no other option (i.e., he dies). And then, even later:

St. John (19:30): "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." And so you see, Jesus has now morphed into the Ultimate Fighter, who receives the biblical equivalent of a WWF chair-smash from behind after refusing to give in to various stab wounds and assorted beatings-- given vinegar to drink, he says, "Okay, that's it, but not by choice, motherfuckers," and dies. Thus we arrive at the latest trend, all based, it turns out, on what could conceivably be construed as (however thin) biblical evidence. Jesus is the toughest there is, and never gives in, even when the odds are overwhelmingly against him.

So there you go. Jesus didn't tap. Amen for revisionist history.

This is how we park in P-town, bitch!

Perhaps the more observant among you have noticed a theme in Comrade X's writings: the idiocy of people here in the Great Pacific Northwest, or, as the Separatists, those Eternally Ridiculous Optimists call it, Cascadia. Well, you see, Comrade X's motto is, if you can't beat 'em, ridicule 'em (well, that's ONE motto). The problem, of course, is that sometimes it's just not that much of a challenge. Take this photo, for instance: this car was double-parked at a stop sign, no hazard lights on, no one in the piece of shit vehicle, and the car parked right next to the stopping line (the stop sign is just to your left, adjacent to the blue car) which of course meant that anyone wanting to make a turn, left or right, from that street onto the one perpendicular to it -- a VERY busy street, dangerously so -- would have to drive into the other lane where, of course, anyone turning ONTO that street would smash straight into the car attempting to turn for, in their infinite wisdom, the city planners here decided to make EVERY SINGLE CORNER completely blind, allowing for ZERO visibility. So, some fucking idiot just decides that, since they are obviously the only person in the world, or, if not, at the very least the MOST IMPORTANT due merely to the fact that they breathe and shit and drive in this city, they will just park their car, oh, I don't know, say, in THE MOST DANGEROUS SPOT AVAILABLE, fuck the fact that it's in the actual road and completely illegal, they obviously have IMPORTANT BUSINESS TO ATTEND TO, so fuck it, they're parking it RIGHT THERE. Now, Comrade X can see that if it were an emergency, a momentary bending of basic traffic and safety laws (not to mention common sense) might be in order, but this picture was taken when Comrade X was RETURNING to his home ONE AND A HALF HOURS AFTER seeing it initially!

WHAT THE FUCK?

Yes, THAT'S the kind of city Comrade X lives in. We breed a special kind of moron here. One who should be exterminated as quickly as possible.

Fucking hell (yet again).

Oh, and the best part -- about half-way down the street behind this fuckwit was ANOTHER car parked the same way, at the same time, and still there when I took the picture.

Blessed are the buffed, for they will inherit the gym.

Comrade A, upon seeing this sign, said, "They have gym memberships at the Salvo? Huh. Whut the fuck?" Trenchant. Comrade X, when he saw this sign, was hardly less eloquent -- he almost crashed his car into the building. Gym classes at the Salvation Army? Jesus is suddenly interested in your fitness? And He cares -- cares about what? Flabbiness? Now we're going to see a lot of bums walking around with blasted quads and shredded pecs -- like they're not scary enough, now they're going to be buffed. Of course, this will allow them to participate at a higher level of performance at the Bum Olympics, so perhaps there is a socially redeeming quality to this after all, and it's not just completely ridiculous.

Yeah, right.

And "Exercise 4 Life"? As opposed to what, "Exercise 4 Death"? Or perhaps they mean eternal life -- you can't get into heaven if your body fat is over 15% and your body mass index doesn't fall into God-approved parameters. I guess they're not kidding when they say that donuts are the Devil's food.

Ah, well. See ya in hell!

"What are you thinking about to not carry ColonCare?"

While Comrade Y is on her pilgrimage to The Country With Hateful Racist Policies, Comrade X is posting this in her honor. While on a recent fact-finding mission to the Pacific Northwest, Comrade Y appropriated this item from a local grocery outlet's suggestion board. Thrilled with her discovery, she was unfortunately unable to detail the heinous aspects of it before embarking on her all-expenses-paid forced tour of a war zone (it was a work thing). So Comrade X is going to take over and describe his own astonishment at the complete lack of grammatical and critical thinking skills (as well as a complete blindness to the irony of the wording) displayed in this document.

First, in case you can't read it, here's the text. The complainant writes, "What are you thinking about to not carry ColonCare? Please get it regularly." The response, by some functionary of the hippie co-operative grocery outlet (the only kind of place that would actually have a bulletin board like this, in which each complaint is published publicly in order to show, perhaps, the communal nature of the caring for the problem as well as the efficiency with which the problem is solved for its members), is this: "We have it Again! Sorry for any inconvience this may have caused you! We [heart symbol] our customers!"

Okay, here we go. First, the complainant:

1. What the fuck is this supposed to mean: "What are you thinking about to not carry ColonCare?" Syntactically speaking, this question is a nightmare. How does one think about to not do something? What? Did a third-grader write this? Or a Northwesterner, where a high-school education is apparently the equivalent of a third-grade education in most other parts of the country? Really, this speaks ill of public education, to say the least. Is this person wondering what "they" were not thinking about while not carrying this particular product, which makes no sense, as they weren't carrying it for a while and I'm sure more than one thought passed -- or rather, did nor pass -- through "their" heads during this time. They probably weren't thinking about a lot of things. Or is the "customer" (we'll get to this problematic use of the term in the next section) asking if they were thinking about ways in which they could not carry this product (the answer to which seems simple: don't order it)? Comrade X is more than confused here, he is downright flabbergasted at the idiocy displayed in the writing.

2. ColonCare. You know, if I needed a product called ColonCare, I wouldn't write about it and publicize it on a complaint card posted on a publicly-displayed bulletin board and then SIGN MY NAME to it. I'd just go to Rite Aid and get it there. Fucking hippies! No one gives a shit (sorry, no pun intended) about your bowel movements! Is there no shame left in the world?

3. "Please get it regularly." Okay, how can you write about a product created as a constipation cure and NOT see the irony? I mean, really.


Now, the response:

1. "We have it Again!" Okay, I don't get why "Again" is capitalized. Is the word so important that it has to be treated as a proper noun? And again: irony. First there's no ColonCare, now there's ColonCare, and so rejoice! Things are moving again. They're getting it regularly, and now so can you!

2. "Sorry for any inconvience this may have caused you!" Okay, not to be too repetitive, but: IRONY? Obviously there was some "inconvience" in that the poor "customer" was all backed up and obviously quite angry about it. And what the fuck is "inconvience," anyway? Is that some kind of proctological term I'm unfamiliar with? Is it a synonym for "constipation"?

3. "Customers." Members of co-ops are called "members," not "customers." You'd think an employee (who is ALSO a member) would know that. Obviously not. What was this person thinking about to not know that? Oh, and don't use a heart symbol to stand in for the word "love." The response was also written by a third-grader, apparently. Is this a child's co-op, and I just didn't realize it?

Fucking hell. At the risk of being repetitive yet again, I'll say it: we're doomed.

Comrade X belabors a point (with the help of a German philosopher with a crazy name -- even for a German).

Everyone knows that Nietzsche went insane. What most people DON'T know is that he wrote some pretty interesting things before he did so. Case in point:

"Not to remain stuck to a person -- not even the most loved -- every person is a prison, also a nook."

What does he mean? Who knows. But right now Comrade X is taking this to mean that every relationship can drag you down and destroy you. We should remain detached, removed, free to move, to breathe, not to be held down and waterboarded by our "significant others." Your real friends will grant you this freedom; your "love" relationships will drown you, slowly and with extreme prejudice, which is counter-productive in your fight against capitalism as they will take up all your time and leave you bloated and, well, dead in the end.

People are too in love with their problems. Their pull is like a black hole -- you get stretched out thin as a rye cracker and then crushed as you get closer to them. And when do you see these problems in their fullness? When you fall in luuuuuuuuuuuv. Ha!

Fight the real fight. Fuck all that other shit.

Every relationship is, to some extent, an exercise in futility.

Comrade X has turned his attention away from the horrid oppressive world of capitalist oppression and commodification and alienation to another world of oppression, commodification, and alienation -- the world of human relationships. Specifically, the world of romantic relationships. There are five salient points we must always observe when beginning to embark on such relationships, or even in the midst of the blinding whirlwind of confusion and deflection such relationships consist of:

1. Everyone, absolutely EVERYONE, brings their rotting, stinking garbage to a relationship. No matter how hard you try, there is no waste disposal service willing to touch the toxic debris sitting in those precious cans we keep under our sink, we unwilling to let them go, unwilling to unburden ourselves from them (and isn't it strange that we keep garbage in our very homes, under the sink in which we wash our food? The metaphor is not lost on me. We live with our garbage all the time, emptying it occasionally only to fill our receptacles with even more garbage, some similar, some the same, some dissimilar, but all, all still garbage).

2. Everyone lies. To themselves, to their "loved ones," to the IRS, to EVERYONE. The world is based on lies. If it were based on truth, we'd all be dead in seconds.

3. "Happiness" is merely a reprieve from the depression that relationships cause (and are). No one is happy all the time. No one is happy most of the time. All are unhappy all the time, and when they're not, it's only because their partner isn't fucking pulling some insane childish hamfisted headgame on them, and so they can fool themselves for a bit into thinking that the world, their relationship, is a happy place. You know this is true, though you don't want to believe it.

4. People are, generally speaking, craven and weak. Relationships, then, based as they are on people (by definition), are craven and weak, too.

5. Sex is not a palliative for emotional abuse, despite what you think.

Yes, these five points are salient, and in this world of pain and misery and alienation, Comrade X pities us all, for he knows that there is nothing, nothing we can do to change this. The only possible hope for something in the least bit positive between two people, and only on that infinitisimally small scale, is the impossible strength needed to leap into honesty, strength that must be held by each partner, not borrowed or shared from one to another, but held by each. Otherwise, you're doomed.

That's why god created masturbation.

Crazy Idiot Smooth-Ass Dance Party

What IS this shit? I'm pretty sure that you can't take lotus extract, whatever THAT is (lotus flowers smashed on big rocks by penny-a-day Hindu laborers holding smaller rocks?), rub it on your thighs, and "visibly reduce the appearance of cellulite," unless it's some kind of skin-colored cream that fills in the potholes and makes everything SEEM smooth, because it doesn't say it gets RID of cellulite, no, it merely claims to reduce its appearance, which, to this Comrade, sounds like bullshit snake-oil make-up (despite its being the "advanced formula," and "new," like the last version was merely the same old C-grade inferior bullshit -- it's funny how advertisers love to say how inferior the previous version of the same product was. If you were smart, you'd realize that THIS version is just as inferior -- and useless).

Nor does this Comrade get the difference between "redefining gel cream" and "smoothing cellulite gel-cream." Does one cover up cellulite while the other completely changes your personality? Does it have peyote extract in it? Does it make you dance like that commodified bitch on the package? And WHAT THE FUCK IS A BIO-SLIM COMPLEX? It sounds like something that just made it into the recent edition of the DSM. I mean, really, yes, you'd have to have a complex to use this shit, and yes, it would have to be about your bio-slim neurosis, but COME ON! haven't we had enough of meaningless advertising drivel and phoney concepts that don't even make sense on a linguistic level?

Apparently not.

This culture is doomed. And this Comrade, for one, is not sorry to see it go. I just hope it's in my lifetime so I can LAUGH, yes, LAUGH at all the morons who ran out to buy Nivea Bio-Slim Complex "My Silhouette!" [which of course makes it sound like you're hiding in the shadows, like you've got something to hide] Redefining Gel-Cream (which can in no way "redefine the body's contours" -- only liposuction or a really heinous auto collision can do that), only to find that in the long run, they ended up being exactly who they were when they started. Boo-fucking-hoo! Why don't you buy some onion goggles to help quell your tears?

(Comrade X is not happy as he just cleaned a giant load of the world's foulest-smelling cat shit out of the bathtub, and so apologizes for his irascible tone. Fucking counter-revolutionary cats.)

Anyway, whatever, if you're retarded, put on your bathing suit and rub this shit all over you and dance around like a moron. The exercise might actually redefine your body's contours, who knows.

Fuck You, Crybaby!

Comrades! Comrade X is again on the case, after spending some time -- too much time! -- performing undercover operations in service of destabilizing capitalism. But he is back now, to further enlighten and enrage with the various ways in which capitalism, in its oh-so-condescending way, treats you -- yes, YOU! -- as a complete fool.

Consider the Onion Goggles. Now, what kind of pathetic, weak-willed creature needs a pair of swimming goggles to protect themselves from the smell (and not even the smell, which of course they won't protect you from, but whatever aspect of the onion enters the atmosphere to irritate the eye) of onions? Sure, they might sting a bit when you cut them, but really, who is this weak? Who is this whiny? And who doesn't mind looking like a complete idiot while preparing food?

Let us consider the details as we find them in the advertising language:

1. Why is there a picture of an ONION wearing the goggles? Do onions need protection from themselves? Are these goggles specially designed for self-loathing onions? Is this picture designed to show the absolute effectiveness of the product by depicting the offending vegetable being protected from itself? Is the onion mocking you by showing you what an idiot you'd look like wearing them while actually NOT being protected? This makes no sense.

2. "Chopping, mincing dicing, slicing": taken out of context as they are on the front of the package, it is unclear whether these verbs apply to the action of the goggles themselves, which of course would lead to lacerations, lawsuits, and blindness, or the actions against which this product is putatively (again, no evidence provided) effective. Do THEY slice, dice, etc., or or YOU doing the slicing, dicing, etc.? (Nota Bene: Not until you turn the package over does this make sense by being put into context.)

3. "Tear free": well, OF COURSE they're tear free -- isn't that the point? Who would buy onion goggles that MADE you cry? (But see previous nota bene.)

4. Anti-fog lenses: I'm not sure how anti-fog lenses offer maximum eye protection as the fog would come from one's own breath, if I'm not mistaken, or perhaps if you're cutting onions over boiling water, in which case you get what you deserve if there's an accident (and the third-degree burns would be more of a problem than teary eyes at that point, anyway).

5. Okay, the unisex design means nothing -- since when do they make men's and women's swimming goggles, or any kind of goggles for that matter? And the fact that they do not fit over glasses will of course not deter the timid, onion-fearing (see below) moron from wearing them, which of course DECREASES safety because now they're cutting onions which they can't see. Be sure to keep a bucket of ice handy for those severed fingers if you want to be able to have a chance at reattaching them! But then, once you take the goggles off, you will be assaulted by "irritating onion vapors" which will cause teary eyes which will keep you from finding your car keys while incapacitating you with pain, so by the time the ambulance arrives, your dessicated digit will be worthless. Might as well just throw it away at that point and keep slicing, dicing, etc.!

6. "Fear no onion": why would an anthropomorphized onion wear this slogan on its, what, Nascar jacket (what IS that thing?)? Is it afraid of vegetablism? Does it wonder why humans and vegetables can't just get along? Is it tired of being the hated stepchild of the vegetable family? Is it a contender for this year's Nextel Cup? (Nota Bene: they don't show a human wearing the goggles because if they did you'd notice how STUPID they look -- the human AND the goggles -- and not even consider buying them.)

7. "These are not designed for use as safety glasses": soooooo, then they AREN'T safe? You could be cutting a piece of onion and have it fly up and hit you in the goggles and crack them and a piece of the goggle could fly in your eye and then you'd REALLY be crying?! That doesn't really inspire confidence. But hey, at least the storage case keeps the goggles clean -- that's something. You don't have to worry about them getting dirty in the drawer where you keep your Carrot Gloves, your Cucumber Protective Finger Wear, or your Potato Protection Ear Plugs.


Just fucking cut your onions and shut up. People have been doing this for thousands of years, and as far as I know, no one has yet died from doing so.