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My New Website: The American Nerd Association

2004-07-05T20:54:00.000-07:00

Announcing the creation of a site that is even more outrageously smarmy than THIS one! (Don't think it's possible? Just click on the link to The American Nerd Association-- over on the right-- and prepare to be amazed!)

I've dumped quite a lot of sweat into this, and believe it or not I'm serious about building a real organization. Someday, if we work really hard, we may even get to rent a conference room at a hotel. Not a motel--- a hotel.

Stop by, register at the forum and vent your spleen by posting some feeback. You can't post feedback here, so the only way to give me Hell is to get your butt on over there and get busy.

Fighting in Hockey

2004-06-30T18:52:00.000-07:00

Last spring, a fellow named Todd Bertuzzi made headlines by hitting another man in the side of the head, and then tackling him and slamming him into the floor, breaking his neck. The whole thing was recorded on videotape. Fortunately, the victim of this assault was not paralyzed. He is expected to make a full recovery. The perpetrator was not arrested, nor charged with a crime. He was, however, suspended from his job and fined by his employer. Many, many people agreed that this was a proper punishment and that he should not have to face a judge in a court of law.

I honestly can't remember the name of the man the Mr. Bertuzzi attacked. I could look it up-- but I won't because the fact that I can't remember his name is significant. It signifies that even though Mr. Bertuzzi is a violent man, his victim is not as interesting as he is. Mr. Bertuzzi is more interesting to me, and I would venture to say that he is more interesting than to other people, as well. You see, the entire incident occurred during the playing of a game. The floor into Mr. Bertuzzi slammed his victim was made of ice. Mr. Bertuzzi plays hockey for a professional team called the Vancouver Canucks. He is a famous player. His victim is not quite as famous. The entire incident began when Mr. Bertuzzi challenged his victim to a fist fight. His victim declined the invitation, and Mr. Bertuzzi became frustrated and this led to his becoming even more aggressive.

The invitation that Mr. Bertuzzi extended was for his victim to engage in a ritualized form of combat called a "hockey fight." It's difficult to stand up on skates-- it's almost impossible to fight on skates. Only a few individuals are actually skilled at it. The result of a hockey fight is almost never a serious injury. It is stylized combat-- intended to resolve conflicts in a formal way so that no one actually gets injured. Or rather, so that injuries are limited to broken noses, cut lips, lost teeth, fractured bones in the hand, etc. Nothing that would preclude someone from playing hockey.

The reason that fighting is part of hockey is that hockey has always been game that is played at an extremely high speed. It's very difficult to officiate a hockey game. It's almost impossible to observe everything that goes on. So it's possible for a "dirty" player to hurt someone and get away with it. The only way to stop this behavior is for someone to punch the "dirty" player in the mouth. Or at least, that's the reasoning behind it. Kids grow up playing hockey on ponds near there homes-- and there is no official to call penalties. The youngsters have to work it out themselves. That is, they fight.

The tradition of the hockey fight is so firmly established that even though the National Hockey League has expressed a desire to see fighting abolished, no one has been able to come up with a plan to end it. In particular, the league has not been able to convince the average hockey fan that fighting is wrong. In fact, many fans feel disappointed if they do not see a fight during a game. This has led to the practice of having a "designated fighter" on each team, who's job it is to "arrange" a fight with the "designated fighter" on the other team. The whole thing seems forced and illegitimate-- but safer and more controlled. Real fights involve anger and explosive action. The "proxy" fights are fairly sedate affairs-- interesting only to those who really enjoy professional wrestling.

When Mr. Bertuzzi challenged his victim to a fight, he used a certain protocol to do it, thereby invoking the unofficial rules of hockey fighting. Mr. Bertuzzi felt that his victim was obligated to fight him. After all, the challenge had been issued using the proper protocol. But his victim, not being a professional designated fighter, must have thought that Mr. Bertuzzi was confused. He must have assumed that Mr. Bertuzzi was issuing a challenge to a proxy fight-- and his victim was not a designated fighter, so he was under no obligation to answer the challenge. Hence the confusion. Mr. Bertuzzi's next act was to strike and then tackle his victim from behind, in expression of his frustration.

If this all sounds like a bunch of nonsense, that's because it is. Hockey fighting has become more and more phony over the years. It may not be possible to eliminate fighting, but the National Hockey League should actually make an effort to stop it now. We do have the technology to be able to watch every single move of every single player during a game. The old excuse that players have to be able to "police themselves" no longer applies. Video technology gives us the freedom to put as many virtual officials on the ice as we need. But that is not really the issue. Fighting in hockey reinforces the idea, that percolates through the minds of hockey fans, that we, in our everyday lives, should be able to "police ourselves." At some deep level, we still believe in the medieval idea that right makes might and that the winner must have God on his side.

If you get in a fist fight outside of a restaurant downtown, the odds are that no-one will receive a serious penalty, even if the police arrive and arrests are made. It's not just hockey where the rule of tooth and claw is still in effect. Every person who cannot or will not fight knows, deep down, that they may be beaten on the street, receive a cut lip or a bloody nose, and the attacker will never spend a day in jail. Let the attacker take a dollar from their victim's pocket, and we have another sort of thing altogether-- a felony. But unless that occurs-- little will be done. You can beat people for fun and the law won't stop you until you have gotten away with it on many occasions.

Drunk driving used to be a crime that would get you a simple fine. Gradually, penalties were increased. Today, we need to start seeing street fighting for what it really is-- crime. One way to send that message would be to start handing out serious penalties for fighting-- in hockey. If professional sports are actually going to be something other than a manifestation of our darker natures, then the people who run them must be lead the way towards a better society. The National Hockey League should implement the changes needed to bring this about. Not to make hockey a better entertainment, but to make a statement about the dignity of human life that is long overdue. The idea of sitting and watching a man be crippled for entertainment is disgusting. Let's put it back in ancient past where it belongs, and never dig it up again.

The Nerd Zone: Going Around the "Bend"

2004-06-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

Okay-- I've been working like a maniac on my new website. So I've been neglecting this blog. But here's something new-- that I have also posted a the forum at nerdmovement.org

The Nerd Zone: Going Around the "Bend"

For your consideration-- I give you Mr. Douglas Nelson. A man who is living the good life. A high-paying job. A loving family. The respect and admiration of his peers. But all of that is about to change...

Doug Nelson was a star athlete in high school. He was shorter than average, but he more than made up for that when he discovered than his height was an advantage in the sport of wrestling. He proudly wore his letterman's jacket, and was one of the "in-crowd"-- with an active sex life starting at the age of fourteen. When Doug graduated from high school, his uncle, a banker, and his father, who worked as a delivery driver, advised him to attend the state university and go into banking. Doug took this advice seriously. He de-emphasized athletics while staying in excellent shape lifting weights and running. He drank rarely and did not smoke. He developed a new passion-- golf. He played harmonica in a band and acted in a few plays. He became a model of a "well rounded young man, with a fit mind in a healthy body." He studied hard and graduated with a 3.0 GPA and had a job waiting for him at a large Midwestern bank.

Ten years later, Doug was riding high. Despite his short stature, his natural "likability" had made him a popular guy. As a banker, much of his job involved selling banking services and he excelled at it. He set records with deals that were often closed on the golf course. He had married Linda five years earlier and they had a daughter, Rebecca. One day his bank acquired a smaller bank, The Rocky Mountain Bank headquartered in Salt Lake City. Doug was offered a huge promotion if he would agree to move his family to Utah and join a group of hand-picked executives in overseeing the merger of the two banks. Doug happily agreed, and he and his family relocated from Chicago to Utah.

One of the first things that Doug had to do in Utah was to hire an assistant. He quickly selected a young woman who came with good references and plenty of experience. At first, her job performance was excellent. But then trouble began. There were rumors that she was going through a bad breakup with her boyfriend/partner of several years. Co-workers sometimes smelled beer on her breath after lunch. Eventually, she dropped a bag of marijuana on the floor of the restroom, and someone saw her do it. Word got to Doug. He simply went to her desk, and, not finding her anywhere around, opened up the drawer. There, in plain view, was a bag of dope.

He called the Human Resources people and arranged a meeting where he intended to fire his assistant. She was calm enough, at first, but as soon as she realized what the meeting was about, she became more and more agitated. When Doug finally told her that she was being "let go," she exploded:

"You bastard! This is the last time that I take a job with a runty, rosie-topped, twisty-dicked bend like you! GO TO HELL!"

And she stormed out of the office, sobbing.

Doug was shaken by the exchange. Firings could get ugly. But Doug was proud of being "tough" and tried to shrug it off. But at 3 am the next morning, Doug suddenly woke up and he heard her words quite clearly:

"...a runty, rosie-topped, twisty-dicked bend like you!"

What the hell did THAT mean?!? For the first time in his life, Doug felt genuine fear. He didn't know what it was, of course-- that is he couldn't identify the emotion-- but something about those words scared him. He had been cursed at, using words he had NEVER heard in his life. It was deeply unsettling. What the hell was a "bend?" And what on earth did she mean by "twisty-dicked?" This made Doug especially nervous since he had, in fact, a penis that bent downward and to the right when erect. But how, how in the name of God had she known about that?? It implied that they were having some kind of sexual affair! Oh my God! The implications were terrible. What if Linda heard about this? He had been quite a "ladies man" in college but he had NEVER cheated on Linda. But how was he going to explain what had happened? What was going on?

The next day Doug made some discrete inquiries. He asked around about the words that his ex-assistant had used. Doug began with the assumption that these words were "local slang"-- native to Utah but unknown in Illinois. But the more Doug asked about the word "bend," in particular, the more he discovered that it was a word that was familiar to most people. How had he missed it? Eventually, and not eagerly, Doug logged-in the the internet and searched for "bend." What he discovered shocked him. On one site, entitled "Are You a Bend?," Doug read a description that he could hardly believe.

"Are you red-headed?"

(Doug's hair was red. Reddish, anyway.)

"Are you short?"

(Doug was five feet, six inches tall. Almost.)

"Do you like to arrange things in EXACT order?"

(Linda was always telling Doug that he was "a neat freak.")

"Do you have a bent dick?"

(Doug felt as if somebody had reached into his pants on that one, and not in a nice way. Cold sweat prickled under his blazing white shirt.)

"Have you ever tortured animals."

(What the HELL?! Where was this going? Then Doug thought about his hobby when he was ten years old. he collected insects. He would take the live insect and mount in on a bulletin board by pushing a pin through the bug-- while it was alive. Now Doug was experiencing another symptom of fear-- trembling.)

Doug could hardly focus on the screen. Red hair. Short. Bent penis. Neat freak. Torture. Doug was muttering "Good God" over and over and over...

During the next few days, Doug was "distracted" at work. He did more research in the internet. Linda could tell that something was wrong, but she assumed that it was a business matter and she knew that, with Doug anyway, he wouldn't want to talk about it. Doug took one afternoon off and went to the university library. He found out that he belonged to a "type." The slang term for this type of person was "bend." There had been papers published on this "type" by distinguished medical doctors and scientists. There were official sounding labels. His body type (twisted penis and all) was called "lobomorphic." Doug was a "lobomorph." His personality, neat and orderly (and mean to bugs), was called "pre-dynamic personality type." But there was more. "Pre-dynamic personalities" were susceptible to "Dynamic Personality Disorder." Genetically, they were probably suffering from "Drooper's Syndrome" ("Did I read that right?") which meant that they were many times more likely to become fully schizophrenic and become ("I can't be reading this right!") serial killers.

Serial killers!!

Doug began to feel something that was truly and genuinely new to him. Despair. Again, Doug could not have identified what he was feeling. But he was very depressed and getting more depressed. His boss noticed it. His new assistant noticed, but he had not known Doug "before" so it it didn't bother him as much. Linda noticed it as well-- and it bothered her a lot. It was a "sign."

Linda called her mother and they talked about Doug. Her mother, Grace, had "always worried about Doug." After all, he was rather, well, bendy. Depression could lead to worse problems. Linda began to think about the unthinkable. She was thinking about asking Doug to see a therapist. But how? After all, it was Doug!

Now, things were becoming much worse for Doug. Every time he looked, he discovered more and more evidence that he was not only a member of some strange club that he had never joined, he knew that OTHER people knew. He suspected every glance. Wondered at a "hidden meaning" in every remark. Two weeks before, he had been on top of the world. Now, he was a shadow of his former self. His confidence, always his greatest strength, was melting away. He had never felt feelings like these. Fear. Anxiety. Depression. Had his entire life been some kind of sham? How could this happen?

He felt as if everything in his life faded to insignificance compared to this one terrible fact. But HE had not changed! But, somehow, EVERYTHING had changed. He was a BEND. Total strangers would look at him and speculate on the shape of his penis! Anyone who "knew the score" would wonder if he were a closet sadist and potential murderer! What did this mean for his daughter? His wife?

Doug looked closely at photos of serial killers. "That guy could be my brother!" "That one looks like my uncle Brad!" He looked for evidence of "mental illness" in the family and did not have to look for long. Uncle committed suicide. Great Aunt in an institution. Cousin in prison.

One day, Doug took a "personal day" and took a drive up to Park City. He and Linda had invested in a ski chalet near Deer Valley, and it had proven to be an excellent investment as well as a great way to go skiing. Doug hid himself in the chalet, pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels, and poured himself a double. After a couple of these, Doug noticed the extension cord, used to plug in the engine block heater on the Land Rover, lying near the door. He wondered if he could tie a noose in it, and secure the other end to the railing on the open stairway. Would it hold his weight?

Doug poured the whiskey in the sink and drove, carefully, to an emergency room. He checked himself into the hospital as depressed and suicidal.

I think we can leave Doug there-- I know he'll be okay. I know this because I made the whole thing up. There is no such thing as a "bend." On the other hand, it is interesting to consider the horror that Doug felt, knowing that he had been "drafted" into an army of "weird" people and finding himself becoming deranged. And it all happened so fast. Barely three weeks went by and Doug deteriorated from successful executive to basket case. But, after all, Doug was a bend, and they tend to do that sort of thing, don't they?

Of course, this story IS fiction, right? Well, yes, as long as we are talking about the imaginary "bends." But this is no fiction for Nerds. We live it every day. We're "endomorphs" or "ectomorphs." We have "Asberger's Syndrome." We are suspected of being homosexual-- and maybe pedophiles, to boot. We are members of a club we didn't join. Doug found out what it's like to be drafted into an army of people who are considered "defective"-- but because it happened suddenly, he was not able to handle the shock. We Nerds, on the other hand, find out about our "situation" slowly over many years. It's easier (slightly) that way. Many of us are depressed-- even suicidal-- but it takes time for the problem to really disable us completely, because we are slowly immersed in the sea of suspicion, beginning in childhood.

Doug is a fictitious character. He found out what it is like to suddenly find that your "self" is listed in a medical book as a "curiosity." He found out what life is like-- in The Nerd Zone.

Honorable Mention-- Action Films

2004-06-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

Here are some films that deserve to be mentioned in addtion to my "top ten" list.

Thief

Michael Mann made this movie before he became a Mogul with Miami Vice. Mann may not be a super genius, but in this film he hit that right combination of actor (James Caan) and role, story and image. But mostly, I like movies that have great casting and great scripts, i.e. "My money, in 24 hours, or you're gonna be wearing your ass for a hat." Yay-yuh.

Escape From New York

John Carpenter was born to make this film. Kurt Russell was born to make this film. Ernest Borgnine-- naaaaaaaa. "AAAAAAAAAAA NUMMMMMMMBER OOOOOONNNNNEEEEEE!"

One False Move

An old fashioned thriller. If you want to rent a movie that nobody has ever heard of, get it and pretend you don't know whether it's good or not. Impress people with your intuition!

The Assignment

Go to a video store with a friend. Goof around and then grab this movie and One False Move. Pretend you picked them based on the box. But seriously folks, if you like thrillers/action films you can't go wrong with these two. One False Move came out in 1992 and The Assignment in 2001. Nobody has heard of either of them (unless they are film buffs). Both are great. No psychological nonsense. No strange freaky stuff involving cannibals. Straightforward, old fashioned good-guy vs. bad-guy stuff. Yeah baby.

Mad Max

Get the one and only original. Max is well, MAD.

Best Movies of ALL TIME

2004-06-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

Number 10:

Singing in the Rain

The best movie musical of all time. Good movie, too.

Number 9:

The Bounty

It has all the ingredients of a good film. Mel Gibson. Anthony Hopkins. A true story about men who have to choose between a life in Paradise and life in Hell. The interesting part is how difficult it is for them to finally decide.

Number 8:

Apocalypse Now

Not perfect-- but the best damned Vietnam movie anybody is going to make. The greatest failing in the film is the fact that Coppola completely missed the point of the Joseph Conrad novel, Heart of Darkness, upon which the film is (loosely) based. He should have ended the movie by having Willard (several months later, of course) go and see the son of Col. Kurtz. Willard tells us (through narration) that he intends to tell him the truth-- all of it. But when the son asks, "What were my father's last words?" Willard lies. He can't bring himself to tell the truth.

But hey, they didn't ask me (fatal mistake)! DO NOT waste your time with the "Director's Cut." The added parts should have stayed out.

Number 7:

Annie Hall

Not dated-- despite having been made at one of the most easily dated periods in history (The Seventies). It's as fresh today as then.

Number 6:

Blade Runner (Director's Cut)

What a movie. Rutger Hauer is my all-time favorite actor. Get the "Director's Cut." The whole idea of "Director's Cut" actually makes sense with this film. If you don't like this movie, I can't help you.

Number 5:

Caddy Shack

What can I say? Cinderalla story. Came outta nowhere...

Number 4:

Star Wars

At last, SOMEBODY made a science fiction movie. I think it was a hit, too.

Number 3:

The Shining

Stephen King did not like what Stanley Kubrick did with his book. That sums-up what's wrong with Stephen King. A masterpiece. "Hello Lloyd!!"

Number 2:

My Dinner With Andre

When I am dictator, not liking this movie will get you a one-way ticket to the Alaskan Prison Camps.

And finally....

NUMBER ONE MOVIE OF ALL TIME!

Forbidden Planet

"Star Trek" is just a TV version of this movie. If you write it off as junky '50's schlock you are just not paying attention. It's a great film if you have, ah, some personality defects and you have ever visited our friends in the psychiatric profession. I guess that means you have to be nuts to like it. Hmmmmm....

.... but c'mon!! The ID. The Wonders of the Krell. "It's my own evil self at that door! And I'm powerless to stop it!" Ever feel like that? No? Good for you. For the rest of us-- this is THE film.

Beep

2004-06-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't had anybody pull anything really evil on me in quite a while. One of the things we all aspire to is to have the resources to be able to insulate oneself from the kind of casual attacks that might be directed at a homeless person or a high-school student. Back in school (thirty years ago) I never knew where the attack was coming from, or why. "Keeping my guard up" was exhausting and fruitless, since the "one that got you" was always the one you never saw coming.

The garbage thrown from a second story window. The profanity etched into the car door. The spit dripping from the locker door. Usually an attack would occur just at the moment when it seemed that things were beginning to change and the world was becoming less hostile. Then would come an anonymous, random act of senseless aggression or a display of hostility. As if the perpetrator simply "sensed" that I was becoming comfortable and the message "GET OUT" had to be reinforced.

Because that's the message. Like chimpanzees herding a "peculiar" member of the troop away into exile, I was hammered with a message of rejection, over and over again. Unfortunately, unlike a chimp, I couldn't wander away into the forest to lick my wounds and live a solitary life. I was trapped by the system into sharing a space with people who were driven by instinct to chase me away.

The statement that "children are cruel" means nothing, really, until you understand that the motive behind the cruelty is ordinary social behavior for primates. Human beings are apes, after all-- and apes are cruel. But our childhood behavior as apes is glossed with a coat of shiny good-intent by adults who refuse to look at a group of youngsters and see anything other than adorable children-- like plucky Horatio Alger and sweet Ann of Green Gables. But Horatio and Ann share more than 99% of their DNA with chimpanzees. And one thing that chimps do is this-- they banish oddballs.

Like I said, I haven't encountered anything evil in long time. Too well insulated. But taking on the lonely occupation of newspaper carrier (if you want to call it an occupation) removes some of the insulation. So last night, the old feeling of being targeted by a stranger for an act of unwarranted hostility paid me a visit. It's dark and lonely out there on the urban streets at 4am. It's hard to imagine it unless you, yourself are prowling around at that time of night (and I don't want to know why you would do that). The only other folks around are-- well-- the other paper carriers for competing newspapers.

Now, on my route there is one place where I have to go into the back yard of a big old house by walking up the narrow driveway to what used to be a carriage house about a hundred years ago. The carriage house has been converted into a home, and that's where the paper is delivered.

The driveway is not like something from the 'burbs. It was designed, originally, for horse-drawn carriages. It's very narrow and there is a fence on one side and a wall on the other. It's a surprisingly lengthy driveway, too, with a curve at the end and huge old oak trees hanging down over it. I suppose that some folks would flat-out refuse to walk into such a narrow space in the middle of the night. But I rush in where angels fear to tread on a regular basis. So imagine my consternation when I see some headlights coming at me. There really wasn't anywhere for me to go. The driveway was just the right length to make an escape impossible if you were in the middle of it and a vehicle suddenly appeared.

When I have time to think about things, I'm a coward. But when I don't have time to think, I get stupidly brave beyond anything I would have imagined possible. So I put up my hand in the universal "STOP" gesture, figuring that the oncoming vehicle would see me, wearing my reflective tape and holding my hand up, and, at least, slow down and give me a chance to avoid injury. So there I stood. What had been my usual walk in the dark had been upgraded to an emergency in about a quarter of a second.

The oncoming vehicle did not, in fact, stop. It did not slow down. It plowed at me as if the driver had decided that homicide might be fun. I had time to take half a step towards the wall before the black bulk of an old (but shiny) Ford pickup whizzed by. At about this point, the driver actually honked the horn. Not a big HONK but a little "beep." My hand struck the door handle as I side-stepped and tried not to get killed. It didn't do any damage, but that, and the absurd little honk, set fire to my short Irish fuse. Without a second thought, I pounded my fist (the way that you would pound on a table) into the side of my new friend's truck, making a loud "bang." I felt the exhaust. I could smell the chrome on the bumper. It didn't miss me. I was actually struck. My hand hit the door handle. Then I added a "counter punch" for good measure. But I had collided with the truck. There really hadn't been any way to avoid contact unless I had flattened myself against the wall like a suicide on a ledge as the truck whizzed past. But I didn't do that. I just did what I felt was appropriate and prudent. I signaled "stop" in a futile appeal to reason and civilized conduct, and stood to the side of the driveway, near the wall. I did not expect the driver of the pickup to display no regard for my life and safety.

I was wrong.

After hitting me, the truck just drove away. Like the Devil Truck from Steven Spielberg's Duel, it just drove off. I recognized the truck as belonging to the carrier for another paper. I knew that the driver saw me-- you don't beep your horn at 4am without due cause, after all.

I felt ill. The impact was slight. I wasn't hurt. But I felt sick because I knew what it felt like to be suddenly confronted by a combination of contempt for life, immaturity and negligence in the form of a member of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Apparently, this person made a split-second decision and, somehow, the decision was reached to execute the prisoner. How? What in the name of humanity was going through his/here/its mind? I don't even know the gender of the driver let alone the driver's name. But that little "beep" sent a message loud and clear. "I could get away with killing or hurting you because there are no witnesses. So the conventional mask I wear every day is not required. I'll kill or maim you if you delay me."

I'd like to imagine that this is not true. My mind rebels at it. I don't want to deal with it. But, there is no way to avoid it. I was very, very lucky. I dodged a bullet. I know that the driver of the black pickup was not after me, personally. I know that he or she was not doing what they did in high school. It was not, really, like some cowboy movie where the rancher cuts the farmer's fence and shoot his mule, leaving a sign saying, "Get out, sod-buster!" I know that it wasn't like that. But it was significant, anyway.

What was significant about this incident is that, for a relatively small fee, I was re-introduced to the world of sudden and terrifying criminality. If you listen to All Things Considered and walk your Golden Retriever every day, you might not realize how paper thin the line is between you and the Mongol Horde. The barbarians. The HUNS.

Open the shop you sweated blood to build, and find evidence of a break-in staring you in the face. Return to your home from an extended trip, and realize that the lock has been forced. Walk to your car after a movie, and, hey, where's the CAR? Drive down the freeway and the last thing you remember is the rock crashing through the windshield.

We don't need Stephen King to write a horror novel scare us. We live in one.

So what, then, must we do? I'm still trying to believe that last night's incident was the result of sleep deprivation and poor judgment. I have to believe that. When the store is burglarized, when the house is robbed, when the crowbar is swung behind you, it's too late to be prepared. You could arm yourself like a Marine and conduct yourself as if you were in a combat zone and still get hit. No degree of paranoia will save us, ultimately. No amount of searching for a "defense" will provide a defense. We're helpless before the universe. They've got us covered. So smile at them. Do not surrender. Raise your hand to say "STOP." Remain open and friendly. Don't pass laws and hire more cops and build more fences from razor wire. It won't work, anyway. The one that gets you is always the one you never see coming.

Furthermore, I have lived long enough to understand the motive of the faceless driver of the pickup-- it's fear. Fear of other drivers in other pickup trucks. The trauma I felt was reflected in the trauma of the pickup driver-- raging helplessly at the injustice of it all. The very thing that I felt-- fear of being hurt or killed-- was the very thing that motivated the pickup driver to display such wanton disregard for my safety. The person driving that truck, in that moment, responded with fear and anger and contempt for a cold and hostile world-- by making it a little more cold and hostile.

The ancient Chinese holy book-- the Tao Te Ching-- asks "What is a bad man, but the student of a good man? What is a good man, but the teacher of a bad man?" It's easy to get angry. It was easy in high school-- and I had plenty of reason for being angry. But that is not why we are here on this planet. The Earth does not need a large tribe of hairless chimps to make a mess, squeeze out more little naked chimps, and pass on, having lived a nasty, brutish life. If that's what it's about, if life is a contest to see whose rotted corpse is perched upon the tallest stack of crappy consumer products and over-priced hobby equipment, then I say this life is garbage and the Almighty should shove it up his ass. But it ain't like that. Life, (and black pickups) is "fired at us point blank" (Jose' Ortega Y Gasset). Step aside gracefully. Try to avoid pounding the truck as it passes. Smell the lavender flowers, they're in full bloom.

What IS a Nerd?

2004-06-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

You can't do much research on Nerds without running into "the SEX thing." When Nerds are hounded in high school, it's their sexual identity that is attacked directly. Males are accused of being homosexual or a-sexual. Females are accused of being sexually promiscuous or of being homosexual. It's sex that fascinates high school kids and it is there the weapons are found to do the most damage. Why is this? Why are Nerds specifically targeted for sexual slurs? Is it just because "sex" is such an emotionally loaded subject that even a high school kid can inflict pain with it? Is it just convenience that makes it so?

Untangling this mess is one of the primary goals of The Nerd Movement. We can't get anywhere until we face the fact that while many Norms will be happy to say how open they are to accepting Nerds and treating them fairly, quite a few people secretly believe that Nerds are "perverts." Trying to hide from this is not going to further our agenda. I don't think that the answer is going to be easy to accept. But the fact that there IS an answer is the important thing. What we need to keep in mind here is that THIS issue is nestled ominously, like Lucifer in Dante's Inferno, at the heart of Nerd Issues. We cannot break the cycle of abuse of Nerds until we understand the hatred of the Norms for sexual deviance. Even suspected deviance draw their rath. In fact, it's usually just that-- suspected, but not real.

So what is it exactly that has the Norms up in arms? Any deviance from the sexual norms of society brings on the dogs of war. You can be ugly and awkward and, yes, even brainy and this won't get you attacked, maimed, killed or imprisoned. But cross the line in matters of sex and you risk your skin (maybe literally). Nerds will never breathe free until we confront the fact that a horde of townspeople can be on our doorstep-- torches lit-- in two minutes if we cross the line into "forbidden sex" territory. I believe that much of the outright abuse of Nerds comes from the fact that we are merely suspected of being sexually deviant.

(I hesitated to write that last line. I'm intimidated, too. I can feel the hot breath of a demon on my neck... the flames of the torches flickering outside...)

Nerds often ARE sexually "deviant." But gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals and all the other varieties of "queer" people have their own movement. What makes The Nerd Movement different is that we want to get to the heart of the matter-- politically. Economically. So that we can find bedrock upon which to build our church. You CAN be Nerd and Queer. It's okay. You CAN also be Nerd and STRAIGHT. In fact, you can get out there farther than Captain Kirk, partying with the space-alien women (at least he things they're women). That's okay. Unfortunately, "society" has some large-caliber firearms and other tools that can bring all discussion to a halt. So, here is the question: Why does society spend so much time and energy making damn certain that only the "right" people have sex at the right place and time? After all, trying to control sex is like trying to hold back the tide. Why waste the effort?

Well gather around children. Uncle Dancho has a story to tell...

It all began with the Greeks, and later the Romans. Our Roman ancestors were practically unique in the development of a society based upon the most ruthless kind of slavery. Within the Roman Empire, human beings were traded as property and treated like household appliances. They were diminished to the level of "objects." Unfortunately, our friends the English, in the form of Professors from Oxford and Cambridge, spent a great deal of time and energy apologizing for the Romans. So, in the English Speaking World, we hold the unhealthy opinion that the Romans did nothing unusual in terms of slave-holding. Not true. The Romans were almost unique in their ruthless and, well, evil development of slavery. The Roman Empire ran on the backs of slaves. On the feet of slaves. The heads of slaves. The vaginas and penises of slaves. This was NOT a universal situation. Civilizations in other parts of the world may have had poor people, who were controlled by ruthless warlords-- but nothing on the planet was even close to what the Romans created. It was a Roman specialty. Today, we make the mistake of thinking that "serfs" in Russia or "peasants" anywhere were "just like slaves." This thinking diminishes the crime of the Romans. The Romans perfected a particular evil. It's still with us.

When the Christian religion began to take hold within the empire, the emperor Constantine hi-jacked it and twisted it to fit the Roman, slave-holding mold. Instead of a world of love and peace, Constantine simply adapted the existing Roman Slave Law to incorporate the new reality of The Christian Religion. Instead of a society of "Romans" and "Slaves" there was a new society of "Christians" and "Heathens." Of course, the heathens could be enslaved. This maintained the empire just as before.

The Romans encountered one group of people who made very poor slaves indeed. The Jews. Since they made such awful slaves, the Romans attempted to systematically destroy them. Other peoples were enslaved more easily.

What are the primary considerations of a slave holder? Slaves should consume few resources, be easy to control, obey orders and "police themselves." They should take the drugs given to them (slaves are often given stimulants to work harder and tranquilizers to calm them down, the Spanish in the New World perfected this). Finally, and most importantly, slaves should NEVER breed uncontrollably. Sex between slaves is the business of the master. It must always remain under control for a number of reasons. Firstly, infants drain resources. Food. Time. Energy. Secondly, slaves tend to fight over sexual relationships. Thirdly, pregnant women can't do their work adequately. Finally, parents make lousy slaves. They may not rebel for themselves, but they just might for their children.

What are the characteristics of a good slave? Humble. Quiet. Hard working. Giving. Eats very little. Naturally healthy. Concerned about hygiene. Celibate most of the time. Avoids sex unless told that it's okay. Obeys orders without question. Not intelligent. Not creative.

What are the characteristics of a Nerd? Arrogant. Noisy. Lazy (unless it's a personal project). Selfish. Fat (or skinny). Sloppy. Intensely sexual. Resents and resists authority. Very intelligent. Creative.

A Nerd, then, is a poor slave. Anyone who would not bend their knee, would not hide their displeasure, would not take pleasure in pleasing The Master-- there is your Nerd.

Slavery-- the formal, Roman kind, was abolished just over a hundred years ago. We still feel its affects. Whole peoples (Slavs) are named for their "slave qualities." Do not think that you are immune to this. It is in our "Bully Culture" and entrenched within the institutions we inherited from Rome.

We have been condtioned to think like slaves. Our culture conditions us. Our heritage conditions us. We "police ourselves"-- with only a little help from "the authorities"-- to enforce the rules of slave owner. Even now, when the last slave owner is cold in the ground, we still enforce His rules like mindless machines.

The Nerd Movement is against it. Join Today!

Nerd Lit

2004-05-31T14:49:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm hoping someday that a University will offer a PhD in Nerd Studies. One of the areas ripe for exploration is Nerd Literature. The Russians have always produced Nerd Literature. For some reason, "The Russian Soul" is just a wee bit Nerdier than, say, the French. War and Peace portrays the ultimate Nerd Hero-- Pierre Bezukhov. Today, Pierre would spend his inheritance at computer swap meets, lugging his massive frame down the narrow aisles, wearing an old army fatigue jacket and sporting a serious expression while trying to locate a certain kind of flash memory for a home-made digital camera. You know the type.

Pierre's life is truly a timeless illustration of The Nerd. Wounded. Triumphant. Nutty. Always intimidated by vicious thugs like Dolokhov (who hides his fangs behind a snappy uniform) but willing to fight if he has to. Always the easy prey of pretty women like Helena-- who use him for his money.

Occaisionally falling prey to fits of grandiosity-- as in trying to kill Napoleon (himself a Nerd)-- Pierre is said to have much in common with Tolstoy himself. I wouldn't be surprised. It would take a Nerd of major stature to write such a sympathetic portrayal.

Another Russian, Leonid Andreyev, wrote a play that belongs in every Nerd Lit class-- He, the One Who Gets Slapped. This play was made into a famous silent movie starring Lon Chaney-- He Who Gets Slapped.

He Who Gets Slapped portrays a young man who makes a crucial discovery in human paleontology. His work is stolen by his mentor, and his wife betrays him by having an affair with the mentor as well! When he challenges his mentor at a conference, his mentor laughs at him and slaps his face. The crowd at the conference laugh with him. His wife joins in and slaps him as well.

He joins a circus and performs an act called "He Who Gets Slapped." In white-face makeup, he stands and allows various other clowns to slap him. The audience laughs histerically. In the end, he is betrayed again, and is murdered by his betrayer.

Come to think of it, though, the French may have produced a piece of Nerd Literature that surpasses anything from Russia. I'm referring to The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Victor Hugo's masterpiece (I'm talking about the novel, not any of the movie versions) is an outstanding example of the Nerd portrayed as hero and victim. If you haven't read the novel, read it. If you're not shedding some tears at the end of THAT I'll be darned surprised.

Hunchback. Read it. Aloha.

Rich Dad, Our Dad

2004-05-30T16:39:00.000-07:00

Why is it that some Nerds turn out to be super-wealthy computer barons-- and other Nerds turn out to be street corner crazies? Why do two, similar children, both slightly odd and a little un-coordinated, have such diferent destinies?

I think I know. The Nerds who infuriate the Norms by getting richer than Richie Rich have something that the poor Nerds don't have. Connections. A Bill Gates or a John Kerry starts out with something that "Trash Talking Willy" on 3rd St. doesn't have. Little Billy and Johnny had parents with money, know-how, and friends who knew how to guide Billy and Johnny in the right direction. Of course, for every success story there are a bundle of failures, but the truth is that a good way to become a success is to start out in a successful family. To become a billionaire, start out as a millionaire.

What I want to do is provide the tools and ideas needed for success to people who did not have the good luck to be born into functional, wealthy, connected families. I want to provide ideas and tools to Nerds whose families may be a little "less than" adequate in the guideance department. If your aunts and uncles are lawyers, doctors and engineers, you are much more likely to be aimed in the right direction than if your aunts and uncles are truck drivers and fry cooks. It's a fact.

That is what The Nerd Movement is about. Ideas and tools. Guidance for youngsters who do not receive it. Resources for oldsters who feel isolated by a lifetime of social ineptitude.

Stay tuned.

Requiem for the Whole Earth

2004-05-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

The Whole Earth Catalog appeared in 1968. It was a revelation. The "counterculture" or "hippie" movement had been going on for several years. The great "silent majority" of Americans were quietly beginning to understand that something was going on, but most people were more frightened than attracted to what seemed to be a mass psychosis among young people. Mainstream mom-and-dad did not like, understand, nor have any desire to like or understand what some freaks in San Francisco were doing.

Then came The Whole Earth Catalog. Straight outta Berkeley.

The Whole Earth Catalog challenged you. It hit you right in the face with the truth. It said "LOOK." It said something that people hungered to hear, but were also afraid to hear. It said, "If you want to do something about the world, DO IT. Here are the tools. Here are the ideas. You want action? Take it. You want to change something? Here. Go ahead."

That stuff just blew people's minds. More than LSD (almost). More than Woodstock. People bought the WEC in order to show how hip they were. And they put it on the shelf. And they ignored it.

Of course, the editors of the WEC did not realize that it was being ignored. In fact, they changed the name of their magazine from Co-Evolution Quarterly to The Whole Earth Review and modeled the magazine on the catalog. I mean, who didn't love this wonderful new creation? A source for real information for people who wanted to actually DO things instead of just talking about doing things? The trouble is (and was) that as long as you don't have the tools for change, it's okay to sit and bitch. Complaining lowers the blood pressure and leaves a warm comfy feeling. On the other hand, if you DO have the tools, complaining becomes whining and it feels unsatisfying somehow. Once you know that you CAN drive a clean reliable car, or build your own house, or grow healthier food-- without buying into the established system-- then it's damned hard to justify the energy to sit and complain. If the tools exist, why not get off your ass and use them?

It's a question that most of us would rather not face. How do I know that this is how we feel? Because The Whole Earth Review is a magazine that failed. It never paid its own way. Imagine! A magazine that provided real, effective and important information-- free of political dogma or hidden capitalist agendas-- flopped. It took a long time for The Whole Earth Review to die. The editors struggled mightily to make it more popular and increase circulation. But nothing worked. Finally, in the late nineties, after nearly two decades of financial stagnation, The Whole Earth Review took a step that they had resisted for years. They began to alter their format. It was subtle change-- barely noticeable at first. What changed was the overall "point of view" of the magazine. Articles stopped being about what YOU could do. They became more and more about what OTHER people OUGHT to do. Just like all other magazines. The difference was so slight that you might not notice it at all-- unless you were looking for it. An article on preserving the wilderness would no longer focused upon HOW to remove trash from a campsite. It no longer specified with whom and where to pick up trash. Instead, it talked about changing laws. It talked about some awful people "out there" somewhere who are causing the problem.

And so, one of the greatest legacies of the counterculture passed away.

Today, if you visit The Whole Earth Website you will find that they are out of funds and need donors to mail the latest issue. Never was a financial failure so richly deserved. Never has one been such a genuine tragedy.

Cross That Lonesome Valley...

2004-05-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

So much ground to cover! So much. Where to begin? You see, as someone who might be diagnosed as an Ass Burger with additional complications from Fries Syndrome and Shake's Disease, I have difficulty getting to the point. Points scare me! Now, to the point.

I want the great the Nerd Nation to rally to the cry for freedom from fear. I want the Sci-Fi Channel to be part of basic cable. I want to hear the truth.

So here, in brief, is a Manifesto for the Nerd Movement.

Nerds need space and air and clean water and bedding. We demand these things. We demand the space to walk in the high school hall. The air to breath in the smoke-filled rooms. The clean water from the faucet in the kitchen, not the bottled water from the supermarket (what's naive spelled backwards?)

And we want to get laid.

To achieve these goals, we must accomplish the following things.

First, we need to raise the consciousness of the majority of people. Many folks would deplore Nerd Bashing if they weren't so used to it. Nerd Bashing is so common that most folks have become desensitized to it and don't realize when it occurs. Consider the circus clown, for example. Circus clowns are caricatures of Nerds. They are just like "black face" performers who made fun of Africans. A "black face" performer stepping onstage would shock a modern audience. A circus clown would not even cause them to raise an eyebrow. So, raise consciousness.

Second, we need to talk to each other. A little networking goes a long way. In the sixties, African-Americans built their organization upon a solid bedrock of pre-existing institutions-- churches. Nerds need to do the same thing. The pre-existing institution in our case being conventions. Science fiction conventions, gaming conventions, fan conventions are all Nerd gatherings. Of course, there are a lot of Nerds and Nerd friends among the bikers and "Dead Heads"-- but we need to do the most work at our own gatherings. Here's what you can do-- contact me at this email address. We'll discuss what you can do to set up a Nerd Movement in your town. The first thing would be to organize a seminar at a convention. If you don't live near a big city, this could be a problem, but most of us live near (or fairly near) to big cities. Do a Google search to find out where and when a science fiction convention is held in your area. Contact the organizers and tell them that you want to have a seminar/round table/talk about The Nerd Movement and Nerd Liberation. They will think that you are joking at first, but that's okay. It's part of the process. Most conventions will have some time/space for your meeting. It may take a little convincing to get the organizers to believe that you are serious. That's what printed materials are for! And with a computer, nothing is easier than cranking out a pamphlet.

Usually, the organizers will agree to let you have a room for an hour (or maybe an "information booth" will be available). With the "room for an hour" option, you can do the thing and then leave. The "information booth" is a much lager commitment and probably not a good idea, at first. You need someone to be there all day for that, handing out (you guessed it) pamphlets.

So what do the pamphlets say? What do I say during the seminar? Well, that's easier than it sounds. The pamphlets should be simple and direct. Say that Nerds demand fair treatment. Call for an end to bullying. KEEP IT SIMPLE.

At the seminar, the conversation will take care of itself. Talk about "bullying." KEEP IT SIMPLE. Then-- assuming somebody showed up for the seminar-- have a discussion. There ought to be a lively discussion at some point (even if it doesn't happen until after the seminar is "officially" over). You're talking to a group of veterans of The High School Wars. They will have stories.

Get some contact information. Phone numbers, email addresses, etc. Mobilize. Educate. Involve. We're not going to have that Million Nerd March if we don't get started!

Bully Culture

2004-05-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

I ran across a site recently that I decided to add to the links (see "Real Self Defense" on the list). All kidding aside (nyuk nyuk nyuk)-- "bullying" is to being a Nerd what "racism" is to being African-American. We live in a racist culture, and we live in a bully culture as well. Perhaps it would help if we saw these two things as being two aspects of the same thing-- hate. And just as everyone has a little racist in them, everyone has a little bully in them as well.

Been frustrated dealing with Big Government or Big Corporation? Want to get even? It sure would be hard to resist!

What if you found yourself dealing with an agent of the Big Government/Corporation-- but the agent turned out to be a little, weak, timid person? Wouldn't it be fun to just VENT on that unfortunate soul? Wouldn't it be something (once you realize that you can get away with it) to finally tell "them" what you think of "them" by taking out your frustrations on this one poor defenseless Nerd? Go ahead-- tell me that this something that you would NEVER do. (Sure. Right. I used to work doing "Customer Service" and I can tell you that if you want to make a career of being bullied, consider Customer Service.)

We all have the taint. All have fallen short of the glory of God. Don't you forget it. Which is why I was a little hesitant to post a link to the "Bullies OnLine" site. The fellow who runs the site, Tim Field, is a courageous champion and a bit of a fanatic. Unfortunately, he tends to lump "bullies" into one group and "targets" into another and I think this kind of thing diminishes his credibility. But I applaud his effort. I'll keep a link to his site here, and I'll advise people to pay him a visit. He may not be 100% correct on everything, but in the end, he is fighting the Good Fight.

An interesting thing about Mr. Field is that he is being ruthlessly attacked by (surprise surprise) the teacher's union in his native country (Britain) Apparently, he "libeled" someone by calling this person a bully. In Britain, this is very dangerous, since one has to PROVE the truth of the allegation or face serious financial consequences (unlike the good old USA, where you can slander somebody til breakfast and dodge the consequences fairly easily).

Of course, Mr. Field claims that he was simply telling the truth. I believe him, but a court may not and therein lies the problem.

I'd advise you to visit the links I post on this blog. Spend some time on each of them. But, in particular, spend some time reading Bullies OnLine. Whatever you may think of Mr. Field, you can't dismiss him. After all, he's talking about people who use power toward perverse ends. Not to facility nor to exercise legitimate authority, but to gain "status" as if human beings were a pack of chimpanzees. Even the largest organizations will provide safe haven for those who prefer to bully rather than work for a living. "The Boss" may be an effective manager, but he or she is almost always a bully as well. For some people, bullying is their reason for living, and becoming a manager is their passport to heaven. They often make good managers, surprisingly enough, since management in the real world involves competing for scarce resources, and bullying comes in handy there.

Perhaps an individual who needs to bully in order to live is a true "bully" in the sense meant by Mr. Field. Perhaps some shrink will call these people "bullying addicts" and form a twelve-step group ("I admit that I am powerless over my need to just punch those Nerd's faces in!")? I don't know. But the one thing that marks the bully, not in the eyes of the world, perhaps, but marks them well enough, is that they lack compassion. They lack sympathy for others and feel no empathy at all.

Wait a minute? Doesn't this sound a bit like the mythical "Ass Burgers" described in excruciating detail by our friends at the National Socialist's for a Better World Institute (or whatever the hell it was called)? Hmmmmm.

The more closely we look at our world, the more it begins to resemble a mirror.

Take a child, replace hugs with shouts and kisses with beatings. Then this child will begin to see violence as loving, and express every emotion with a fist or a curse. Take this monster out into the world and you have the perfect instrument of hate. Keep them on the shelf for wars or when unexpected evil comes calling.

Man... Curtain... "Pay No Attention"... Etc.

2004-05-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

One of my many wonderful employment opportunities brought me to the bowels of a gigantic multi-national insurance company. While stewing in the intestines of a large corporation is not the worst way to make a living, it could have been better.

I had the enjoyable task of photographing zillions of documents so that they be stored away on microfilm. This as done to save space, since a big insurance company creates an amount of paper-work equal to the mass of the sun every week.

Unfortunately, the Masters of the Universe who ran Unamed Big Insurance realized that a smart lawyer might cause a jury to question the accuracy of ANYTHING other than the original documents, so the microfilming was stopped-- only ten years after they began the project. Yowsa.

Now, don't go getting the idea that I held the pages under a camera and clicked a shutter (that went out a few years before I got there). Nossir. We fed the documents into these desk-sized camera/readers that ate stacks of documents just like some kind of high-tech picture taking gizmo would eat stacks of documents. Fast. Whoosh -- the stack is filmed. Only it didn't really work very well 'acause the documents would get, like, STUCK in the machine since somebody would put Polaroids in there or something... so we had to put the pages in one...by...one.

Think this annoying you? Imagine how I felt! I would get very, very bored. Which would interfere with my reading the private and personal medical records of the unfortunate S.O.B.'s who tried to collect from Big Insurance. Some of those files were the size of RHINOS. I kid you not. Incredibly (to me) my colleagues in paper pushing seemed uninterested in the contents of the giant files-- they could pop their gum, shove the pages in the gizmo, and, well, pop their gum again. No hesitancy resulted when their eyes were drawn to the photos snapped by the private detective-- their eyes didn't snap.

Mine did, though. As I filmed, I couldn't help but read. I read fast. I guess if I had to pause and think about it in order to read, I wouldn't have been able to do it. But like some kind of Soviet Super Reader of the Future, I could digest those pages as fast as they were offered them up the whirring maw of the filming gizmo. This was not a good thing, from a career standpoint. I really needed to shut down the old reading ability, but without a bottle of Jose Cuervo I found this difficult to do.

So I read 'em. Personal, private, highly classified medical records on people who never in a million years would have figured that their info would be treated like so many wigs at Treblinka. Piles and piles of records. Boxes filling warehouse after warehouse.

Now I know that I tend to exaggerate. It's supposed to be funny, I guess. But I'm not exaggerating now. They had THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND BOXES of files. Fortunately, they didn't all have to be filmed. Yay!

Anyway, the one thing I always noticed about the medical records was the bizarre little note that the physician would write about the patient's initial examination. They were almost always the same. Different doctors in different parts of the country would see a patient and write the same damned thing. It was as if they learned it in Medical School.

"Mr./Ms. X is a pleasant XX year-old male/female..." etc. After this breath-taking statement, the doctor would write what the patient's complaint was, and what the diagnosis was, and so on.

Weird.

Always the "...is a pleasant..." thing. Like they don't know WHAT to write so they put that in there as a way to get started. At first it seemed funny but after several hundred of these things I got the impression that this was some kind of "tradition." I really hope that somehow the medical profession can STOP DOING THIS. What the hell is wrong with "Mr./Ms. X is a XX year-old..."etc. WITHOUT the word "pleasant."

I mean, what does "pleasant" mean in this context? Not dangerous looking? "I always write 'pleasant' out of habit?" Did the doctor at San Quentin write "Charles Manson is a pleasant 35-year-old male...?????" Think about it. You go the doctor, and they have that initial exam, and they comment, for the rest of the medical profession to see, on your personality. Now in Medical Land, where all doctors live, whatever goes in that file is THE TRUTH, and what bugs me is that, after they check your tonsils, they diminish your personality (whatever it may really be) to "pleasant." You could be Eric the Red, but when you cross the hospital threshold, you are not merely advised to be pleasant, you're declared to be that way by a medical expert.

I wish they would get honest. "Mr. Gray is an unpleasant little 40-year-old weiner with lower back pain." "Ms. Smith is a whorish 24-year-old with eczema." Something like that.

Then it would mean something to be labeled "pleasant." It would be reserved for those few individuals who are, in fact, pleasant. I fear that in the future, some distant race of highly-evolved humanoids will dig up those microfilms, and be unable to determine anything about our time except for this:

1) Insurance companies were bastards.

2) Everybody was pleasant.

Riot Nrrds, Activitists, and Uncle Freds

2004-05-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

Just like the good-old-days, I tell ya. Back in the day, when the Freedom Riders were heading south to lend their aid to The Movement, and trying to get people registered to vote, we had the militants (like the Black Panthers), the activists (like Martin Luther King) and, of course, the Uncle Toms (you know who you are).

Nerd Liberation has similar groups. Here is a link to a site that describes the "Riot Nrrd." Not a militant, maybe, but close enough. Nobody seems to be wearing arm bands or quoting Malcom X (yet). Could happen, though.

Here is a site that just doesn't go down too well with me, but I have to be careful not to judge this thing too harshly. After all, the movement had to walk before it could run. I guess. I just can't help but feel that this site (ASpar) is just a leetle bit... uh... Uncle Fred. You know, Fred Rogers, everyone's favorite Nerd. I can't help but feel that ASpar is some Uncle Fred kinda stuff. Don't like it. We'll get back to this "Asperger's Syndrome" stuff later.

As an activist, Marc Perkel is a good example of how to do it. He is bound to piss somebody off and that's a good thing.

You may recall that link (look over to the sidebar there) to "The Anti-Psychiatry Coalition." I have major issues with the medical profession in general, and with psychiatry in particular, although (amazingly enough) I've never lost any limbs or other body parts due to malpractice. Could happen, though.

I just happen to believe that "mental illness" usually results from a difference in perception, not a failure of perception. I think that "the mentally ill" have a different way of looking at things, and it's not always the wrong way.

So when I first heard of "Asperger's Syndrome" I had to laugh out loud, since it's just so amazingly wonderful that this particular "disorder" (which is primarily about social skills) should have such an obviously absurd name. I'd like to suggest that African people are victims of "Koonz' Syndrome." Let's not forget our Irish friends. "Trunk's Syndrome" victims all. How about the Japanese? "Kokakora's Syndrome." What? Don't think that's funny? Well I guess I would like to buy the world a Kokakora and diagnose the whole gang with some-syndrome-or-other. What's that? Asperger was a real person? A dedicated researcher? It's not his fault that his name sounds like Ass Burger!

Anyway, it only does that in English. Don't be silly.

But I say that it's a mighty strange coincidence (in a world without coincidences) that the one name assigned to this "medical condition" sounds like the title of a porn flick. Anybody else notice this coincidence?

Now, as a Nerd, I can do a little Google search and turn up plenty of stuff about Hans Asperger. He had an interesting life. He tried to do psychological, medical and sociological research under the Nazi regime. Apparently, he did some good science. Under the circumstances. Which were really, really bad circumstances, by the way. It sure must have been tough to do research back then. Yes it certainly...

Oh forget it. Not only does the name "Asperger's Syndrome" really bug me, but I think we oughtta throw out anything that got the official stamp of approval from Hitler's boys. But that's just me. Then again, maybe there was some "everybody was a Nazi in those days" little fellow who did good science on Koonz' Syndrome? How about that idea?

Sure man. It's ALL a coincidence. Treatable with SRRI's (like Paxil, Prozac, etc.) Let's medicate those annoying coincidences out of existence, shall we. There.... I feel so...much....better.

Let's not walk down that road. Autistic children fail to provide us with feedback that this world is "real" and that really annoys us. But Ass Burgers are not on the menu here. Tell "The Man" to take his goddam "Ass Burger" out to the alley and dump it. We don't want anything that he has to sell, particularly if it came out of Vienna in 1944. Fuk dat.

The Nerd Movement

2004-05-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

I just did a Google search with the phrases "Nerd Liberation Movement" and "Hellmouth" and I got nothing. Not one damned hit. As former president George Bush (the elder) would say-- we, that is to say, we Nerds, are like "a quail hiding under a bush." To carry the bird metaphor further, we're big chickens. Nobody seems to be willing to put the magic words "Hellmouth" and "Nerd Liberation Movement" together as the result would only be harmless as long as it took someone to put two and two together. Eventually, somebody would realize that the combo might explode if not handled carefully.

"Hellmouth" was a kind of on-line happening that grew out of the Columbine High School murders. "The Nerd Liberation Movement" is the brainchild of Marc Perkel-- "the most dangerous mind of the internet." I don't doubt it. But even Marc shrinks from assembling the device that would result from juxtaposing the rage and sorrow of high school misfits with the idea of a political movement. Too scary, even for the a dangerous mind. But I think I'll go there. Sensitive folks are advised to forgo reading the following manifesto, since it may cause unpleasant sensations and worrisome memories may rise to the surface.

We need a movement to add "Nerds" to the endangered species list-- I mean the list of protected classes of people. Or whatever. I want a federal bureaucrat working away like a nut-gathering-squirrel on my behalf. I want a newsletter and, eventually, a glossy magazine. I want political candidates (The Nerd Party?) and I want all of this to happen today, or as soon as possible. I'm not kidding. This is not intended to be funny. It might be funny, but that's not where we're headed here.

But let's not be morose. It will help, a bit, if you, gentle reader, will do me the favor of clicking on the links above and reading for yourself. Then we can all be on the same page, or at least in the same novel... I'll wait.

I'd have to say that a lot of the humor has gone out of this already. Wouldn't you?

Now that you've done a little research on your own (I saw that! Some of you haven't done your homework. Stop reading until you go back and click those links, dammit!)

Some people's kids...

Now where was I? Oh yes. Who are these "Nerds?" Well sir, they are the mail carrier, the clerk at the grocery store, the dentist who caps your teeth, the soldier who fires a missle and the politician who gives the order. Mom and Dad. The kids playing on the corner. Mr. Rogers. Mr. Ragers. Miss Manners. Uncle Fester. The President of the United States. Me. Anyone who is hated for any reason deserves to wear the "Nerd" label with pride. You can be a hater and a Nerd, in fact it's likely. Hate comes over us all, at times. The economy is driven by an engine of hate. Hate love handles? Hate to wash your hair? Hate waiting for the bus? Hate funny-looking people? Hate Darkies? Hate Jews? Hate anything? We've got the answer for just $19.95 plus shipping and handling.

Hatred of human beings is the thing that the Nerd Movement is against. Shoot, you can't get much more idealistic than that. Jesus founded the Nerd Movement. He was, as I recall, against hating people. Preached loving people, I believe. So what could be wrong with something that promotes love and kindness, and discourages hatred and discrimination?

I wonder. The real danger here, and what doth make cowards of us Nerds, is that the cosmic "football team" won't like it. Wearing bed sheets or brown shirts or blue uniforms, the forces of hate always have an interest in anything that threatens their fun. We Nerds have suddenly been awakened by a rifle butt to the face too many times not to fear a cross burning in the night. But we shall overcome. One day.

Armies of the Night

2004-05-21T18:57:00.000-07:00

Go driving around town at about 4am. Surprisingly, there are other vehicles driving around with you. Not too many, but there are a few. They prowl around residential neighborhoods, pausing at stop signs and stopping here and there for a few minutes. Get up close to one of them and you can see the driver taking a newspaper from the back seat, trudging up to a house and tossing it on the front porch. Imagine doing that two hundred times every night.

C'mon! Who are you kidding? You can't imagine it. Unless you have done it you can't. So I'll help you out. Long tables in a drafty barn. People standing at the tables rapidly putting the papers in plastic bags. Wheeling the papers out to the car and tossing the pile inside. Rushing off into the night, dropping off papers for two hours. It takes an hour to bag the papers (much of which is waiting time for the papers to arrive) and two hours to do the deliveries. Three hours and the compensation is thirty dollars. It's better than McDonald's.

The paper carriers belong to three groups. The careerists, the misfits and the desperate. Few people really want a part time, three hour job with hours from 2am to 5am. The boss of the distribution center doesn't ask too many questions. Unlike the majority of careers in post-industrial America, you don't have to provide a urine sample or three references or a work history. If you're drunk or high you won't get a chance so forget it. If you sound like an intelligent person, that's a plus. If you're scared, that's good. Fear means commitment. Single moms, recently divorced guys with old fishing trucks and kids who left the house in a hurry line up for work. Many of the carriers are recent immigrants who speak little or no English. Overall, about half of the carriers are careerists. Serious and motivated. Been doing it for years. Have a day job.

I read somewhere in a newsgroup that newspaper delivery was a job for morons. "An intelligent monkey could do it," was the sentiment expressed. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday the delivery route is the same. There are a few changes every day after that. A few subscribers fall off the list. A few are added. The newspaper is reluctant to provide a complete list every day. They would prefer to provide a single list on Monday, and rely on the carriers to update in with changes. Saves paper.

On Saturday the paper includes a special section for about ten percent of the subscribers. This section costs them extra so you have to identify the papers with the special section and keep them seperate. Every day, there are twenty or more free sample papers that have to be delivered to non-subscribers. A carrier is paid ten cents for delivering each of these free samples-- less than a regular subscription paper. The free samples always have a flyer delivered with them that has coupons from an advertiser. These have to be kept seperate from the regular papers.

Most people do not subscribe to the newspaper. Even in an affluent neighborhood with single-family homes, the number of subscribers is less than fifty percent. A carrier typically gets little training. You get one or two trips with someone who knows the route and then you are on your own. Many people quit after the first week. Sunday usually finishes them.

Delivering the paper is tedious and difficult work in good weather. In freezing cold or rain it's very demanding. On Sundays, single moms bring their little kids in to help out with the route. The kids range from six to twelve years of age. To deliver Sunday papers effectively, it helps if you can easily lift and throw a paper with one hand.

If a delivery is missed, the carrier is charged one dollar for each mis-delivered paper. Three dollars for a Sunday paper.

A paper carrier is not an employee of the paper. A paper carrier is an "independent contractor" and is expected to be able to pay self-employment tax and file a schedule C with a long-form 1040 at tax time. It's important to keep your car in good repair. Rising gas prices impact your bottom line. At least that's what the note from management said.

It's important to be very careful driving while delivering papers. Other drivers may not be as careful as you are. They may think that they "have the road to themselves" and run stop signs and fail to signal turns.

Whenever a subscriber goes on vacation, they usually want to make dead certain that "undesirable" people-- you know, poor, desperate people-- can't drive by and see that they are not home by noticing the papers piling up on the front porch. The newspaper gives each carrier a list of who is going on vacation and when they will be back. Some people are ALWAYS traveling.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

2004-05-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

I am mentally ill. I wonder if anything that I write will be understood in any way that is close to what I originally intended-- but I think that this particular little piece of information is going to be understood just fine. I suppose that an admission of "mental illness" sounds humorous. It sounds that way to me, anyway. The first thing that pops into my head is an image of some guy like Harvey Pekar, but not Harvey Pekar, of course, since he isn't mentally ill. Is he?

"Mental illness" is usually a euphemism for something ghastly. Like the little girl in "The Exorcist." She was mentally ill, all-righty. Lots and lots of mental stuff going on there. But in reality "mental illness" is just like physical illness (but without the physical part). So it's mental, get it?

I'm officially depressed (I think) and maybe alcoholism qualifies as a second mental illness, I'm not sure. I don't think that I have any other "official" mental illnesses, but who knows? I might have some and they just haven't been diagnosed. Perhaps I'm bi-polar? I just had the funny thought of someone reading this (who?) and shouting, "If you had it you'd KNOW, Buster!" As if I had disrespected the world of the bi-polar by claiming some affinity for it when those poor suffering souls are drifting atop the icy waves like that naked gal and that guy with long Italian name who doesn't look Italian. In that Titanic movie. You know the one.

Of course, I have some very unorthodox ideas about mental illness. I have a link to a site I call "Real Therapy" on this page. This site is actually the "Anti-Psychiatry Coalition." They really, really don't like psychiatrists. I don't share their intensity since I feel that mental illness is real, but it's not mental, per se. You see, I think that our understanding of mental illness is very, very poor indeed. I don't think that we are beginning to understand it. For starters, I think it's contagious.

Gary Stollman entered the studio of KNBC in Los Angeles on August 19, 1987 and held an empty pellet gun to the head of consumer advocate David Horowitz, forcing Horowitz to read a prepared statement that Stollman had written. In it, Stollman explained that the CIA and space aliens were persecuting him. The CIA/Space Alien group had replaced Stollman's parents and other people in his life with replicas he called "clones." Stollman was arrested and taken to jail.

In the twenty or so years since then, Stollman has continued to attempt to tell his story on the internet. He has become a kind of internet "character" who is well known among computers geeks for his antics. However, over twenty years his story has not changed. CIA. Space Aliens. Replicas.

If you look up Gary Stollman on Google, you will find references to two people named Gary Stollman. One is the persecuted Gary Stollman, who lived for years in Southern California but is now (I think) living in the American South. The other person named Gary Stollman is a minor celebrity. He lives in Los Angeles and has appeared on KNBC. He is not a tycoon nor a Hollywood actor nor a plastic surgeon nor a cruise ship captain. He's a psychiatrist. He is involved with a project now to find beautiful blonde gold-digging women to "date" wealthy men. Seriously. He coaches the rich guys on how to be better at dating. I'm not sure if he coaches the women.

Interesting.

The most famous CIA agent in history (who wasn't head of the agency) was Francis Gary Powers. (Gary Powers, I assume, had the misfortune of being given a girly first name, and having to go by "Gary" to avoid harassment). In case you can't remember (or never knew) who this guy was, he was the guy who flew the U-2 spy plane over Russia until he was shot down and the whole incident became a huge cold war crisis. Eventually, the soviets gave him back to the U.S. in return for some of their spies that we had captured. Gary Powers was killed in 1977 under mysterious circumstances when the helicopter he was flying for a Los Angeles TV news show "ran out of fuel" and crashed. By the way, the station he worked for was KNBC.

Uh huh.

Recently a television news crew had their film confiscated by the U.S. Government near Area 51 in Nevada-- the place famous for having space aliens on ice. There is an organization that protests the secrecy surrounding Area 51 and has a web site where they describe what they refer to as the illegal activity of the government. They were all up-in-arms about the seizure of the film. What really galled them, though, was the lack of any real effort by the TV station to recover the film. The TV station involved?

KNBC in Los Angeles.

All of this may sound like nonsense to you, but to "mentally ill" people it's significant. Because of the first rule of mental illness-- there are no coincidences.

But wait a minute, that sounds a lot like something that is being promoted by New Age Gurus-- Synchronicity. Synchronicity can be a mild form of amusement-- or if you turn up the volume a bit too high, it can do serious injury. Most people prefer not to "read too much" into things. But the "mentally ill" just LOVE reading EVERYTHING into EVERYTHING.

C'mon. Ya gotta admit that this whole "Gary Stollman" thing is pretty weird. And all I did was thirty minutes of research on the Google. Who knows what I could find if I really looked?

And here's the weirdest part. Gary Stollman is an actual person, who may read what I have written here, and may actually begin to see some new pattern emerging. Not a good pattern, either. So should I post this message to the world? Knowing that I may be adding fuel to a fire?

You damn right I should. Remember, I have already stated that I am mentally ill. So I'm not expected to do anything else, am I?

Brown vs. Board of Education

2004-05-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

The education system we have now in the U.S.A. is a disgrace. Leaders of racial and ethnic minorities lament the disparity between the wealthy schools of white America and the poorer schools that serve African-American or Mexican-American neighborhoods.

They're worried about the wrong thing.

White people in America do not succeed because of their education. The fact is, the deck is no firmly stacked in favor of white folks, that they succeed (if they do) in spite of their "schooling" in America's public schools. Our public schools teach information that is practically worthless to people who can sense how worthless it is, and respond accordingly. From time to time, our schools do make some effort to relieve the monotony by providing some kinds of worthwhile activity-- activity that may actually teach something of merit. But these activities are considered "extra-curricular," however, and they must be engaged in after the "curriculum" is satisfied. And whenever someone wants to cut a budget for funding a school, the "extra-curricular" activities tend to be the first to be cut.

So what is this thing called "the curriculum?" The CORE curriculum?

The curriculum that is promoted as appropriate for students who are "college bound" is not an educational curriculum at all-- as a matter of fact, the usual nonsense peddled by education experts is a complete waste of time, invented by our friends The English to prepare young upper-class gentlemen for the task of running an empire. An empire that was founded on cold steel and gunpowder and did not require much beyond a ruthless snobbery and vicious racism to continue to operate.

A school that taught practical things would have been useless to these future plutocrats. In fact, just about any other activity was considered superior to learning a trade, since immensely wealthy young men do not need to know how to do a damn thing. The private boarding schools (called public schools in England) were constructed with a hidden agenda. To teach the young lords to think and speak and behave in a way that was utterly foreign to the "lower classes," thereby driving a wedge between the upper class and those below that could never be removed. The wedge had to be pounded in again with each new generation, and the boarding schools existed to do that.

Under this umbrella of class separation, the schools had two primary purposes. Firstly, to teach all the young lords that certain behavior was acceptable and certain behavior was not (for them). Youngsters naturally police themselves, and enforced "the rules of social conduct" with mindless glee. So that problem took care of itself.

The second purpose was to make certain that the everyday activities of the "Upper Class" had nothing to do with making a living. If the young lords learned how to make money, they might not want to continue to squeeze the blood out of those "under" them. So the subject matter that was chosen was intended to provide the maximum distraction and the minimum of utility. Astronomy. Ancient Greek. Algrebra. Poetry. Zoology. Affected grammar so stiff that it could be used as mortar in a pinch. Any subject that designated the knower as a "superior" was good. Any subject that was of absolutely no use to anybody was worshipped as a true religion. Anything that satisfied both criteria was loved to pieces.

There was only one snag. Some young lords insisted on actually learning the stuff. You see, one of the rules, enforced by older boys at whip-point, was that actually learning Greek or Algebra was for fools. Aristotle had described a type of harmless sociopath called "a gentleman" and a gentleman received an average grade-- now called the "gentleman's C" in this country. But some of the students just insisted on learning, and no amount of discouragement, poor teaching or the rejection of peers could dissuade them. These fellows were the first Nerds. These proto-Nerds must have concerned the high and mighty, until someone invented engineering and sent them off to do that. Some of them could be medical doctors as well, and a few even became solicitors (a type of attorney who works quietly in an office like all "good" Nerds) but Nerds are overly fond of tinkering and inventing, and that's dangerous behavior. Nerds tend to think for themselves, and so the Proto-Nerds were often shipped off to distant colonies, since the flesh-pots of the orient can easily convince even the most radical thinker to sit down and be quiet.

So there you have it. The birth of the American School Curriculum-- and as dreadful a beginning as I can imagine. This montrosity of anti-education was shipped over here with the pilgrims, and apparently took root amongst the snobby, wealthy Anglophiles of the early United States, who wanted to emulate the success of the British in maintaining an empire through the development of a class of chauvinistic, ethnocentric, ignorant bullies. So in American, gosh darn it, we set out to create a bunch of these-here evil-doers to run OUR empire, which was, even then, being greedily snatched from the red-and-brown-skinned natives.

So where do we stand today? Incredibly, the red-and-brown-skinned natives are learning about Jane Eyre and the geometry of Euclid. But why should anyone want to know any of this nonsense? It's always the same answer. Parents lose some of their reason when a child is born. That good sense that stood in good service for so long fails them where their own children are concerned. The mind knows that Euclid is as dead as a door-nail, but the heart believes that maybe, just maybe the Power-Ball won't come through and little junior will have to make his way alone in the Valley of Death, and maybe those nice English gentlemen did something right when they learned all that fancy stuff. Sure, that's it. We can't bail out now-- just as we are about to hit the cosmic jackpot. Ten generations sacrificed to the Moloch of Curriculum, but if I just hang in there and throw little Junior into the school, and cross our fingers and pray REALLY HARD, some magic will occur and Junior will emerge from the flames unscathed, and rich, like one a them English guys...

Unfortunately, the system cannot be "just shut down." The parasite has buried its fangs too deeply into the host. Our modern system depends upon this monstrosity of educational malfeasance. But the first step in reform is to recognize the extent and nature of the problem. Students leave school ignorant of Euclid-- which is no surprise-- and ignorant of firearms, tenant's rights, auto repair, real estate, banking, bookkeeping, nutrition, cooking, navigation, first-aid, sewing (to list a few examples)-- which is monstrous. I tell you that if our schools taught something worth knowing, our kids would learn it. Let the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts teach poetry. Our schools ought to be teaching something worthwhile. A child is born seeking knowledge and we provide "the curriculum" of dead old English Lords and it's a wonder our children don't hang themselves.

Jane Goodall and the Winos of Cali

2004-05-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

It's not that I didn't have good drunkalogue stories to tell at AA meetings-- it's just that I ran out of stories.... eventually. I couldn't attend further meetings without repeating myself. That, I suppose, is the primary difficulty in talking too damn much.

But I have stories.

I managed to get into trouble with "the authorities" on more than one occasion during my alcohol abuse career. I learned that (to paraphrase Ken Kesey) "the authorities" are meaner than cat dirt. Fortunately for me, I look so much like an Irish Cop that I must remind most officers of the of their mothers, for they draw back, transfixed, and feign hesitate to lay hand upon me-- and this combined with the unholy politeness of California cops in general meant that I was treated better at the L.A. County Jail than I have been at most good hotels. If only I could get the physical plant of the Fisherman's Warf Sheraton with the kindly treatment provided to me by the Sheriff's Deputies... but I digress.

After several encounters with the law, I was sent to a re-education camp in the lovely mountains north of San Fernando. There was an ancient facility there, named Warm Springs (not to be confused with FDR's Warm Springs, since the one in California doesn't actually have a warm spring). Los Angeles, in a fit of civic giving, had constructed "drug rehabilitation" facilities for the poor and indigent, long before it became fashionable to complain about the lack of them. In this case, Los Angeles County provided what can only be called a genuinely humanistic facility-- far, far different than anything that I would have imagined. In fact, it was an amazing place.

Like a Boy Scout Camp (which it may have been at one time) the well-scrubbed barracks shined in the perpetual mountain sunlight. The inhabitants, who may-or-may-not have been admitted to the facility upon the instructions of the court, went about their activities as if they were extras on a movie set, assigned to "mill about and look purposeful." About half of the men there had found the place without help from a probation officer. They may have heard about it on the street-- a mythical place where an old wino could go and rest in the mountains and have some peace. The grass was green, the trees grew tall and the mountain breezes would blow in through the open windows of the barracks and as long as you didn't lay down on your bed (prohibited during the day), you could sit and read until your time came to report to whatever little job the village elders had arranged-- the elders in this case being the "counselors" who provided "therapy," and the the purpose of therapy at Warm Springs was to rehabilitate drug addicts.

I stayed at Warm Springs in the mid-1980's, when the epidemic in cocaine smoking had really begun to roll through South Central Los Angeles. Suddenly, the typical Warm Springs resident was not an exhausted alcoholic, but a terrified youngster who had been taken up in the teeth of a demon and shaken like a rag doll. A few lucky addicts managed to get to Warm Springs and a couple of other, similar facilities.

I learned up close about the culture of Los Angeles gangs, Crips and Bloods, and heard the hair-raising stories told by young men who had managed to survive. Some of them, I knew, were there not to cure an addiction, but to avoid a bullet. On the other hand, some of them had simply smoked up everything they owned. The guy who had the bunk next to mine left a few weeks before I did. He didn't have any kind of bag to carry his few possessions, so I gave him my laundry bag. He never admitted to being a gangster, although he liked to tell stories. He had a talent for comedy.

I spent three months at Warm Springs (the usual thing). During that time I washed dishes in the dining hall and went to AA meetings. I discussed philosophy with the elderly chap who was head of the tiny library (which had a building of its own, though)-- he lived in a hut in the reeds when he wasn't at Warm Springs. I spent a lot of time trying to kill time. I joined the Jaycees, believe it or not. We tutored guys who wanted to complete a GED. I volunteered to teach math.

There was a little classroom that was dedicated to the Jaycee's tutoring (the tutors tended to outnumber the students). When, at last, someone applied for help, I was assigned to provide him with some math instruction. When I met him, he eyed my suspiciously and openly questioned whether I could, in fact, solve some fancy math problem like "2x+3=7." I explained that it was easy to do, and began to show him some basic algebra. From the look on his face I could tell that I was going too fast. I started to explain what the symbols meant-- that "2x" meant "two times something" and that we were trying find out what "something" was. Still, he looked baffled.

Eventually, I just asked him about multiplication. And he stared back at me. I asked him to do some simple addition, and after an hour or so of my determined lecturing, I realized that he could not add 4 and 3 and get 7. He could not add or subtract, and I could easily tell from his demeanor that he was not pretending to be ignorant. But I was determined to get this fellow a diploma. So I kept going, demonstrating things on the chalk board, and I kept asking questions, and he responded when I managed to get the correct answers as if I were a magician, and it was all a trick of some kind. Finally, I won some small degree of trust from him-- as it was obvious that I was one sincere, math-doing goofball. And so I eventually determined the extent of my pupil's math skill.

He could not count. He did not associate the number 6 with the fingers and thumb on one hand combined with the thumb on the other. He had no familiarity with the notion of the number other than a symbol to be memorized.

After two hours of training, I found myself face-to-face with something that I had only read about. A man of the fourth century, ignorant of the Numbers of the Arabs.

So I had to shut up. The more I tried to explain, the more there was to explain. It was endless. What seemed simple to me was a revelation to him and he was not in the mood for a revelation. He just wanted a GED so that he could get a simple job. Washing dishes, perhaps. At this point I would like to say that I kept on working with him, like Anne Sullivan teaching Helen Keller, showing him two fingers and asking, again and again, "What is this!?"

"I don't know! I don't know!"

"Come on! You KNOW this!"

(sobbing)"I just DON'T KNOW!!"

(shaking him by the shoulders) "If I have a full magazine in a Glock and I fire eight rounds, how many do I have left?"

"Standard or extended magazine?"

"Standard."

"Was there a round in the chamber?"

"NO!"

"I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!"

"Come on!! HOW MANY!!!"

"I DON'T KNOW!!!!! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!"

(taking a Glock from the deputy and firing eight rounds) "HOW MANY ROUNDS ARE LEFT!!!"

(muttering) "I dunno I dunno."

(pointing gun at his head) "HOW MANY?"

(looking up slowly) "Tuh.....tuh.....two??"

(embracing and sobbing) "Yes yes yes!"

Unfortunately, reality doesn't work that way.

When I started doing this blog, it was like the time I tried to teach math to that fellow at Warm Springs. I thought it would be easy to explain a few simple things, and get it all out and straight. But the more I try to explain, the more there is to explain. It's JUST ENDLESS. And then there is the credibility problem.

When I finally left Warm Springs, I told a friend of mine that, strangely enough, nobody in Los Angeles called rock cocaine "crack." She seemed mildly interested in that observation. Some weeks later, I happened to be talking to her and she suddenly burst out, "You remember what you said about how they don't call it 'crack' in L.A.? Well, YOU WERE RIGHT! I saw a documentary about it last night on television!"

Well, that was good to know...

On Manhood

2004-05-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

What is a man? In this decrepit age, a "man" is a male human being who is old enough to reproduce. At least, that's a working definition of something that fades in and out of our collective consciousness-- popping up during football practices and military training-- and then ducking away again, especially when a woman tries to "find a man." Now, we see that a "men's movement" has arisen, as a kind of faint echo of feminism, and it has all the manly qualities that the word "faint" implies.

Oh I know the practitioners of "masculinism (or worse yet, masculism)" are sincere. They are seekers trying hard to find an answer in a world where "being a man" is becoming an archaic phrase so empty of meaning that a Dictionary of Ancient Language will have to be consulted to explain it to young boys. Masculinists try to find inspiration within more primitive cultures, and with the help of archaeologists, they've hit upon something called a "coming of age ritual" or a initiation that is supposed to offer some relatively easy way to acquire the magical properties of "manhood." Unfortunately, our understanding of what the word "man" has meant throughout the history of the human race is so corrupted now that no number of pagan rituals borrowed self-consciously from simpler people will repair the damage that has been done. In America, we do not even have our own rituals to forget, since when our ancestors departed those foreign shores they must have muttered something like "...and goodbye to those damned PRIESTS forever (spit!)!" So ritual is dead and "manhood" conjures visions more in keeping with hood ornaments and hoodlums than with the hidden world of the dragon's breath.

Manhood is an idea born in mythology and realized by mortals in keeping with what is good and proper-- as well as what is required and necessary. It is not absolutely essential that every male child become a man. It has never been that way. But, it is probably best that no boy attempts to "become a man" unless he first understands what the hell being a man is supposed to be. It certainly has been a question that has arisen in my life, since nobody, and I mean nobody, seemed to understand it, but they all insisted that it was very, very important. Thanks a lot, guys!

So let's clear this up then. For thousands of years, a "man" was born when two men were joined together in a holy arrangement, where one man became the Lord and the other became the Man. A priest (of some kind) officiated at this ceremony. The man pledged devotion and service. The Lord pledged protection and nobility. Both, on that day, gathered with other men to witness this solemn event, entered into a bond of honor that defined them, almost entirely. This "binding" is not listed today among the holy sacraments, nor is it something that the county justice of the peace is going to want to officiate, but at one time it was EVERYTHING to the men involved. The two male persons pledged loyalty to one another, and each recited a promise just as we do in marriage today. The Lord pledged to "be a Lord" and the other male person pledged to "be a true MAN" and at that instant a "man" was born. Defined completely by this relationship and a complex patriarchy of other Lord/Man relationships and keeping in mind that the Lord was a Man only because of his devotion to a higher Lord. Ultimately, The King, when he was crowned, pledged devotion to THE LORD, which would be God, of course. Perhaps not a Christian God, but some kind of God.

All of this old-fashioned stuff would mean nothing were it not for the fact that we cannot do without it unless we decide to stop having men around. We may have male children, but without partiarchy they will not be men. It's not such a terrible thing-- I myself am living proof that with determination and hard work, a fellow can delay growing up indefinitely. But now that so very many men appear to be "not growing up" the "experts" (psychologists and sociologists, etc.) have been stumped by this phenomenon. Men, feeling panicky about the loss of something they probably never had, join "Promise Keepers" and go on camping trips to perform "initiations" and hope that their sons become men. But you can't just switch off ten thousand years of history. No patriarchy, no king, no god-- no men. Whether we are better off without men is open to debate, but until we all agree as to what we are talking about, nobody will make any sense attempting to talk about it. Manhood has to be what it has always been.

And this is what it has been. There is a story, told around campfires as grizzled warriors tried to hide their tears from their comrades, of a man who stood about three and a half feet tall. His lord was killed in battle. So this man, who certainly would have been challenged to find a way to fight the killer of his lord, infiltrated the enemy camp, and became a loyal servant and "jester" for the very man who had slain his lord. A few years passed, and his new lord became comfortable with the idea of having him around, and perhaps because of his size, he forgot that he had been the "true man" of his fallen enemy.

Then one day, the little man approached the lord from behind and buried a dagger in his back, killing him and avenging the death of his true lord. Guards then rushed in and killed him in turn.

There, for this age to ponder, was a man.

Writing an Effective Drunkalogue

2004-05-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

We cannot put off living until we are ready...
Life is fired at us point-blank
- José Ortega y Gasset

This quotation sums up my philosophy of life. To me, it means the same thing as "Be Here Now" (which is the title of a book by Ram Dass). Or, as my Sergeant used to say, "You keep your head of your ass." Nerds, in particular, need to keep their eyes upon the donut.

But "Nerds" aren't the only folks who need to keep their head in the game. (Sober) drunks and other intellectuals need to maintain that here-and-now focus as well. I have some experience with being a member of ALL these groups. I am a double whammy boy-- nerd and drunk. A Nunk. Lot's of Nunks are out there, I'm just the tip of the iceberg (somebody had to do it and you get hazardous duty pay to being the tip). Fortunately for me (and a few innocent bystanders) I'm "in recovery" which absolutely guarantees that I am a tedious windbag and this blog is proof positive of what I say.

Jose Ortega Y Gasset's line about "point blank" comes to me when everything is in free-fall and the chickens are dying of cock-city-osis and I'm feeling low. Like a clerk in a fast-food restaurant, we all occasionally need to change out our cash drawers. We need to take the mound of crumpled green-backs, moistened with spittle ejected while saying "have a nice day" and soiled by baby drippings and some guy's cologne, and go in back and get a new drawer, with fresh crispy bills smelling only of Allen Greenspan's limo. In other words, we need a fresh mind. And that's what I do. I look reality right in the eye, and take the full fury of the moment, fired at me point blank, and with a mighty KA-CHING I slam the mental cash drawer back into the register. And that is how I get by when the demons come by to pay respects.

It wasn't always that way, of course. I used to sit down with Blackie and Red and drink alone. I ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous, of course. I learned a lot in those meetings. These days, I still attend meetings with same frequency that I am elected President of France. Bon Jour!

It's not that AA isn't a great organization-- dammit, it IS a wonderful organization. I could not have stayed as (mostly) sober as I am today without it. But... well, darn it, I just never could come up with new and entertaining drunkalogues. My stories fell a little flat. You see, a "drunkalogue" is a tale that's told around the AA circle, by bold adventurers, about their drunken exploits. Some people find drunkalogues annoying. (Okay, I lied. Drunks usually find EVERYTHING annoying and drunkalogues are part of EVERYTHING). But, I cannot help it. Since I fancy myself to be a spinner of tales, I felt challenged to compile a good'un. But the truth was never adequate to win the daily drunkalogue ribbon. So I grew despondent. I could never make up a good drunkalogue. Phony drunkalogues are almost instantly spotted and the offender is subjected to judgment. Not openly, of course. But I KNOW THAT THEY ARE!

So what could I do? Well the only way to come up with new drunkalogue stories is to get drunk and go out there and live them! Every time I would tie-one-on I would return, sheepishly (that's required) to the AA tribe and tell some FIRST CLASS stories. Until I ran out of material-- and then I had to go out and do more research.

So I quit going to AA meetings. Too much time spent researching new drunkalogues.

I should point out that this is a really bad reason for not going to meetings, since there is probably some drunken schmuck out there right now, trying to find a meeting to go to, and there isn't one because I'm too darned stuck-up to go and help that poor bastard to find inner peace. Kid's probably dying right now, for want of a lousy hour-long meeting that I and a few other deserters could be holding if we were right thinking persons of quality. So I should feel tons of guilt about that. But I don't. When life is fired at us "point blank" there is no time for guilt or shame. Guilt and shame lurk in the jungles of the shadowy islands of "Would-a, Could-a, and Should-a"-- an archipelago in Hell where all of us spend some time, since the exit doors from High School always dump you out on one of the beaches in that island chain. The proper role of any person-- nerd, drunk, nunk or punk-- who wants to live in the real world, is to proceed to those islands directly by sea, to storm the beach, to move inland and to occupy them by force-- removing any occupying enemy troops by any means necessary.

The role of the misfit is to recognize that our "wanted posters" have been printed, and to live accordingly. Think like an infiltrator in enemy territory, since that is what you ARE. Take on your identity as a person outside of the common herd, and sooner or later, you will find out if you are a coyote, a herding dog, an eagle, a cow-pony or something else. Don't stand and moo with the steers if you're not a steer yourself. Moo with the birds-- until a song begins.

Something Completely Different

2004-05-13T13:41:00.000-07:00

So what is all this "Nerd Army" stuff about? My little Web Log (Blog) contains references to a an army of Nerds (capital 'N') and this is just a bit weird-- is it not? So allow me to explain.

We live in an age where the electronic media assault us with images of mayhem and disaster. I don't need to contribute to this ghastly and ever-more-twisted Theater of the Voyeurs. I want to do something positive, but I hardly know where to begin. I want to talk about serious things, but to do so in a humorous way. On the other hand, any attempt to discuss the life of a misfit in the USA is bound to be funny. Misfits, nerds, losers and geeks are my people. I claimeth thee, oh people of the 24-hour chain restaurant, with bottomless coffee mugs and horn-rimmed specs! Us weirdos gotta stick together. But an adhesive is difficult to find. Most difficult.

I started life as a nerd-- but I built myself into the Nerd I am today. Nerds are born AND made. Nature plays a role-- providing the peculiar body shape, the "outside the lines" coloring of Momma N when she hit the Creme de Menthe after a major oil spill. Funny old gal-- Mother Nature (but don't try to fool her).

Ahem.

But a Nerd is not the mere product of genetic reaction with amino acid building blocks falling into place to spell "FATTY" instead of "GO USA." I can imagine a nerd-child born to wolves, and raised under their oblivion, striding confidently onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, shirtless with baby-fat a-jiggle, and fearing no cat-call from the multitude of loud-mouths. But those of us not suckled at the teat of a she-wolf would falter there, for fear. For people hate a nerd-- and hate is not too strong a word-- it's right.

I was raised in a family where emotions like "love" and "hate" were thought to be psychotic episodes portrayed on television so that we would know what to look out for. People who "hated" went outside and killed with guns. As soon as "hate" struck them, they would have to acquire a firearm (even if they had been knitting and watching game shows at the time) and rush forth like Army Rangers to kill and maim. "Love," on the other hand, was an emotion that caused people to suck other people's mouths as if they were looking for hidden diamonds underneath their tongues. Any man who felt 'love' and 'hate' on the same day would surely suck a tongue and fire a round in anger before the setting of the sun. Since I did not have the required documents to suck tongues or fire live ammo, 'hate' and 'love' were to be feared and avoided.

But gather round, children. "Hate" is just not liking, and "Love" is liking. That's the truth. Those who try to try to tell you different-- lie. Mark these liars names, and take every word they say with a barrel of salt. To hate is to like less, and to love is to like more. Keep these words of wisdom close to you, guarded carefully, for the Powers of this World want to keep Love and Hate to themselves and they don't want a Nerd to join them in the game. If a Nerd should rumble with the Thunders of Hatred, or blaze with the Lightning of Love, the Powers of this World would be discomfited. If you be a NERD sane and true, don't let them lie to you. They hate you, and they know this, and they fear that they are insane because the "Normal People" believe their own lies, and "Normal" just means "Average" (look it up).

But love and hate are fun to do. "Boink!" There, my Nerd Child Friend. I have smacked you with my majick wand and freed you from fear of your own emotions. Go forth, and feel. Do not fear your feelings, since fear is an emotion too, just add it to the pile! One word of caution-- don't take too much emotion in with the first gulp. Measure it a bit, at first.

We outcasts have only fear to fear, and when you dive in and fear it with both feet, the feeling become less an agony and more like a thrill! We victims, we targets, we butts of jokes that do not even mention our butts. Stoke the coals of barbecue, and throw some Ass Burgers on the grill.

The Death of Service

2004-05-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, a man could walk into a diner and order a cheesesteak and expect the guy behind the counter to provide a mysterious package of greasy vittles, wrapped in a loaf of something, and if you didn't like it you could keep your mouth SHUT. In particular, you might be asking to get yourself rushed outta the joint if you started fishing around INSIDE the sandwich.... looking for something. In other words, if you started checking the sandwich for content, the maker of the sandwich might think you were questioning his qualifications or casting aspersions upon his competence. Ya wanna sandwich? Eat dat.

But today the widening gyre in which we all helplessly turn includes few places where a greasy gut bomb can be detonated without someone's thoughts turning to nutrition and the acquisition of carb equivalents. I regularly buy sandwiches. I've done it all my life. I go in, I sidle up to the counter, and I announce in a clear strong voice that I would like a sandwich please. In a fargone age the maiden fair behind the counter might size me up with a knowing glance and say, "I know what YOU need, cowboy," and run off to the kitchen to assemble a masterpiece. "What IS that delicate flavor?" I would say to my (invisible) friends. I would smile the smile of the blessed as I marveled at the imagination and inventiveness of the clever cook who combined sage with honey and lemon zest and promoted to nobility the flavor of the humble tuna fish.

No longer. Like all old poops, I encounter, every day, some new atrocity that has arisen from the stinking corpse of the Good Old Days, and has, leering cruelly, crept onto the place of honor reserved for "Excellence" and befouled it with its retched slime. In other words, I can't get a good sandwich now.

Oh hell, I've tried. I know how the game is played. I go in, I see the shiny stainless steel and the eager young faces behind the counter, and I marvel at the god-awful amount of MONEY that I know (having briefly been in the restaurant business) went into building such a sandwich bar. I optimistically scan the menu, see that roast beef is the special of the day, and I order, "One roast beef sandwich, to go." The eager worker behind the counter quickly removes one pre-assembled portion of sandwich meat from what appears to be an appropriately sized cow-morgue, and assumes the position of "present arms." Then my humble servant, holding a shiny stuff-spreading implement in one plastic gloved hand, fixes me with a expectant look and, sighing impatiently, asks, "Well, what do you want on it?"

What do I want on it? I want a good sandwich placed upon the plane of my existence. Furthermore, since I specified Roast Beef, it should include some remnant of a recently departed bovine. But that's really optional, as long as it's good.

This attitude is absolutely beyond the understanding of anybody I know. The entire world of my acquaintance is convinced that the asking of this question, by an army of sandwich-making assemblers, is a true advance for civilization. "Just think of those awful days when people had to eat just ANYTHING that some evil sandwich gnome would fish out of their crack! *Shudder*." Now, of course, one may specify PRECISELY what goes into the sandwich. No surprises there. No danger of being fed some evil, unfamiliar combination like pork and raisins or spinach with ketchup and ebola virus. Nossir. What goes on the sandwich is what you order. YOU have control. For example, if I want I can have Lithuanian Peasant Bread, or Dark Buckwheat Pita, or Sourdough Mustard, or Plain White Bread-- oh sorry, we're out of Plain White...

The power is YOURS!

It's not that I fail to understand why folks want Sandwich Authority. Intellectually, I understand it. But emotionally it has no standing with me. I don't like "picky eaters" since, as a child, I had to watch my brother remove the raisins from cookies. He would eat the raisins, but not IN the cookies. Apparently, this provides further evidence of reincarnation. There is no other explanation for his hatred of certain foods and certain food combinations. In a previous life, he may have been a Chinese Chef, forced to cook for the Mongol barbarians.

"Put raisins in the cookies this time, Chinese Dog!"

(sotto voce) "Raisins DO NOT GO IN COOKIE! Raisins heat the blood!"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Nothing Lord."

On the other hand, I have been known to eat things of which one may not speak. Insects, for example. Mighty tasty with a big mug of fermented milk beer, a little dog meat and a chicken fetus on the side! Yeah baby. (Warning: never go out drinking with a group of Koreans in Korea if that didn't sound good to you.) My lack of concern over food ingredients may be a bit extreme, but I find the attitude of the typical sandwich consumer to be extreme. I can understand why those unfortunates with medical conditions need to carefully watch what they eat. That's why candy comes with a warning label-- "Made in a facility that processes nuts-- may contain nuts." Some people are allergic to nuts. I get that. (Although I really don't get how the nuts get in the candy just because they are in the same facility-- lunch time nut-fights at the old candy plant? "Whoa! You just threw a handful of peanuts in the nougat, man!!" "Don't worry about it-- the label says 'may contain nuts.'") But I do not understand why a typical sandwich consumer wants to have to give detailed instructions to a sandwich-maker in order to have lunch. But apparently most folks have bought into the idea that "choice" is good even when you don't know what you are talking about. The next thing you know, a plumber will show up at your house, stand there with a wrench and a baleful look, and say, "Well, how do you want it fixed?"

But all this is academic. I don't really buy the idea that "consumer choice" is at the top any corporate scumbag's list-of-things-to-do. "Oh my, do the consumers have enough choice in our sandwich bars! Heavens!!"

No way. The reason that you can't find an actual sandwich chef making a sandwich is that people who know how to do stuff, like make sandwiches, are expensive and require training. That costs money. It is far easier to hire someone who knows nothing and tell the customer to make their own damn sandwich, with the hireling becoming a mere automaton. But I can't say that I am completely unsympathetic to the plight of the restaurant owner. I was one, until I came to my senses. I know that some customers are sadistic creeps. I think if anybody should be watched by the authorities, it should be people who want restaurant workers to do "special little things" for them. Ish. Like somebody ordering a sandwich with a poppy seed roll and then wanting the poppy seeds scraped off and put INSIDE the sandwich. If you haven't worked in the restaurant industry, you have no idea.

I say that kind of behavior should not be encouraged. Some psycho starts out wanting their poppy seeds inside the bun and next thing you know they're kidnapping youngsters and building an army of slaves in their basement. It's the same mentality. But the modern sandwich bar encourages perverted sandwich practices-- hell we practically endorse them. The next thing you know there will be a sign on the counter next to the sandwich work order forms that says, "Private Sandwich VIP Rooms Available!" ("Yeah baby, spread just a little more mayo on that right there-- just like that... ahhhhh.")

Of course, nothing is a simple as I imagine it to be. The obsession with food that has enthralled so many of us, the cheap-bastard behavior of the Minions of Hell (tm) that run our corporate food industry and the simple fact that like water on Arrakis, not one good sandwich is made on Earth-- all these things have combined to force me to learn to make a sandwich by proxy, and enter the sandwich shop with my stubby pencil and my list of sandwich "fixings" and "sides" (so that I don't forget anything) and convene a class each day anew, teaching the pretty children of post industrial Amerika how to put some meat on some bread and make something good. Subversive to the last, I'll do my best to steer them away from the pervs who want the mustard warmed up (I won't say how) and I'll try to guide them into the land of tasty food-- with none of the nutrition and all of the flavor! By God-- to do this I swear. Or perish in the attempt.

At least that's the plan.

Here's a link to a guy's site who has the right idea about frying a steak (or anything else).

John Thorne, outlaw cook.

Post Number One

2004-05-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

This being my very first entry-- and my being new to blogging-- I'm just going to post a couple of links to sites I consider important. Think of this as my "List Page for the New Millenium." Ooooh. That sounds good. Anything "For the New Millenium" sounds classy. "Vomit for the New Millenium." "Snot for the New Millenium." Clahhhhhsssssayyyy.

I want to refer you to the website of Mark Percel. He is a super-genius. I should know, since I am also a super-genius. There some disadvantage in being a super-genius, since excess brains are excreted out the ears and must be cleaned up quickly to avoid a nasty rash. Never seen this? Hmmmmm...

Please go to the site of John Taylor Gatto. This man has single-handedly disabused me of the notion that people with three names were phonies.

Scott Ryan is another very bright guy. You should read what he has to say about philosophy.

Finally, get on over to this site and learn something about living.