Sublime Surprise

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

They Came To America

I'm half italian (sic)
Matt Boyce

I am possibly descended from Mary, Queen of Scots. Most doubtlessly Scotch-Irish for sure.
Candice Hoke


Why in the hell do we, red-blooded Americans, hold on to our legacy of ancestors from other nations? Why should we hold on to the national pride that has devastated people in other nations? The French have had a series of incredibly unstable governments and catastrophic oppressive rulers within the last 200 years alone. The Irish, while successfully attaining their Free State, fought a terrorist war of attrition that killed numerous of their fellow countrymen in Ulster and innocent lives in Great Britain as well as led to a compromise of ethics as they allied with the PLO in Lebanon and helped traffic arms to FARC in Colombia. The Germans... Well, let's not go there. The Italians have had a fractured democratic state post-war, and will always be remembered for being the birthplace of fascism.

Yes, there is art. Royalty. Buildings. History. Law. Philosophy. Mathematics. So on and so forth, but the fact of the matter is that this country was founded by people who obviously found enough faults in nations in the rest of the world to create a place where they could all run to. The Irish starved and moved here en masse, so much so that the Irish population of the United States is greater than that of the Irish Republic. The Chinese ran here and heavily influenced the culture of the West Coast. Jews in Eastern Europe fled the pogroms to come to a land infinitely more welcoming. Africans......

Errrr....

Anyways, to put things in context, you have to remember WWBMS. Or, What Would Bill Murray Say?

We're all very different people. We're not Watusi, we're not Spartans, we're Americans. With a capital "A", huh? And you know what that means? Do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts.
- Bill Murray as John Winger in Stripes

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

What You Say?

Sunday, May 14, 2006

A Glimpse into the Pysche of Josef Stalin

[HAVE YOU EVER..]
been kissed? Da! By many a fine peasant girl under pain of the gulag!
lied to a friend? Josef Stalin only speaks the truth, whatever he says is the truth.
dyed ur hair? Nyet.
dressed punk? Punk?
kissed a girl? Da, for same reasons I've been kissed.
saw something u didnt want to? Da, Nazi pig-dog tanks of facist oppression at the gates of Muscovy.
danced in the rain? Nyet, in Soviet Russia rain dances in you.
lied to ur parents? Da, then purged them.
went barefoot in the snow? haha! Do you see Glorious Leader Stalin in a gulag? Nyet.
made ur own clothes? See above, comrade.
[IN THE LAST 24 HOURS..]
got in a fite? Da, with my alcoholism. I lost.
took a shower? Nyet. Showers in the USSR are trying to kill me.
gave a dirty look to someone? I'm Stalin.
cried=( ? NYET! STALIN MEANS STEEL FOR A REASON MOZILLA CAPITALIST PIG!
did a cartwheel? Da, I'm the best in the glorious Union.
went to school? I am the school.
shopped? Nyet, I only demand.
danced? Who dares to dance better than Stalin?
got sick? STALIN = STEEL!
did something u regret? The Leader is ircorruptible!
discovered something new? Pravda said we invented baseball first!
[IN SCHOOL YOU...]
run to class because ur always late? Class starts when Stalin says to start!
act perfect? Act?
act hyper? Nyet. I am cold, slow, and solid. Stalin means.... you get the point, da?
are a nerd? No head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and defeater of Adolf Hitler is a nerd!
in band?? Stalin is the band.
[RIGHT NOW UR..]
in ur pjs? I always sleep in my uniform. Unless I don't sleep. Steel, comrade, steel.
drinkin water? Sure. It's clear...
listening to music? Glorious Soviet workers' hymns!
watching a movie? Da! Collectivized Farm Fuck VII
iming someone? Nyet! Someone IMs me!
talkin on the fone? No, fone talks to me!
eating? Nyet.
[CLOTHES..]
hot topic or abercrombie and fitch? USSR Army Uniform wholesaler
thongs or briefs? Stalin feels a bit awkward
boxers anyone?!?! Da, only if they can beat Rocky
sweatpants or jeans? Military pants/
longsleeved shirts or short sleeve? Long, for Marshal Winter.
tube tops or tanks? Tube, comrade, and should you question it....
[CURRENTLY .. ]
current clothes? grey coat, grey pants, black boots, grey hat, RED STARS!
current mood? I hate the West. I hate the West. I hate the West. I hate the West.
current music? The ice cubes in my....water
current taste? Borsch!
current make-up? Revlon's Khmer Rouge!
current thing I ought to be doing? Purging. Again.
[ LAST PERSON .. ]
you hugged? Nikita Khrushchev, for being such a great, loving, loyal comrade.
yelled at? The entire populace of the Ukraine
IMed? Molotov.
you touched? Stalin refuses to answer this.
[ EiTHER/0R .. ]
coffee or hot chocolate? hot chocolate. coffee is satan
big or little? Big, like the Union!
lace or satin? Cotton from collectivized farms!
new or old? New heavy industry!
vogue or cosmopolitan? You capitalists ask me to chose between a dance and a drink? Is like comparing borsch to vodka!
[DO YOU..]
put on a "front"? Da, on the east.
have a crush on someone? Da, I built Soviet steel crushers on the backs of the peasants.
if u got a tatoo where wud u get it? I would get a gulag prisoner tattoo on you for asking Steelmansky a stupid question.
[RANDOM QUESTiONS..]
waht is the online symbol u use the most? DCP (die capitalist pig)
u have a boyfriend or girlfiend? Girlfriends abound!
who's hotter, Josh Hartnett or Chad Michael Murray? Stalin!
what was the last thing you said? To the gulag!
who would u want to be stuck in an elevator with? Crazy capitalist horsefaced Tyler singing man.
do you like stickers? Only if they have scents of glorious people's tropical fruits.
do u play with mad libs wen ur bored? In Soviet Russia, my Mad Libs play you!
are you suicidal? Just once when I could make out the iron cross on individual soldiers outside Moscow.
is your window open? Nyet. Don't want to catch capitalist flu.
what was the last pair of shoes you bought? New Balance.
do you have a little brother? Da, all of Russia!
does he draw you cute pictures? Of tractors on farms.
where do your grandparents live? Under the ground
what do you think of when you hear the word click? The sound of a finished purge.
are you a moron? NYET! I am smartest man in USSR!
do you like trampolines? Nyet, I fell on one once and Zhukov laughed. I had to purge him.
have u ever accidentally sucked something up in the vacuum? Nyet, Stalin makes glorious peoples' topless maid use vacuum
did you see American Pie 2? Nyet!
do you cut yourself? Da, while listening to Taking Back Sunday and crying as I read the capitalist pig-dog Salinger.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

What's a Man Worth?

Life is precious. It really is, especially when another life is known intimately and closely. Then, life becomes absolutely priceless. Or so we are told. Unfortunately, everything in a capitalist society such as ours comes with a price tag attached, and the human life is no different. In an age where the cost of everything, its worth to the world and to the owner especially mean more than the actual contents of the building, the human body seems paltry compared to the pricing of things like Westminster Palace or the contents of the palaces of St. Petersburg; however, the human body has some of the most interesting methods of determine its worth to the world.

First would be the simple pricing done by life insurance for amount payed to recipients of the policy. This is perhaps the most common payment form available to the average person, and the pricing is based on a wide variety of information and facts. For instance, was the person in question the primary caregiver to any children, if there were any to begin with? Was this person an active member of the community? Was this person a living petri dish of SARS, AIDS, ebola, polio, antibiotic-resistant strains of bacterium, and so forth? Or was the person clean as a whistle except for those nasty cold sores that they claimed were not THAT kind of herpes (And why shouldn't we trust them)? Basically, the value of the person is made by comparing the impact that their absence would have on the immediate community to their believed worth. Now, this is fine and good for fiscal recovery following the death of said person, but it completely falls short when trying to determine what kind of life they lived in the here-and-now.

So, let's try and figure out how much the human body is in terms of chemistry! After all, the human body is nothing more than a collection of atoms at its very basic form. So, let's examine the basic elements of the human body. Carbon, seeing as we're organic. Calcium, with those bones and whatnot. Iron, in our blood. Oxygen. Nitrogen. Hydrogen. Trace amounts of uranium from failed Soviet nuclear-power satellite's reentering the atmosphere and depositing their nuclear fuel across North America. For added measure to boost both our worth and throw in some really freakin' cool elements let's say the human body also contains selenium, einsteinium, mendelevium, hitlerium (139 on the chart), magnesium, manganese, aluminum, platinum, gold, silver (these last three are important for our friends from Detroit), potassium, all the noble gases, all the alkalines, and for good measure let's double the dosage of uranium. This all adds up to something. What it is, I know not. NASA does, as does the NSA. But not I. Strike two.

This is where a more utilitarian means of measuring what someone's life is worth. I say utilitarian because it sounds good, not because I care to use the word in its correct usage. This is the blogosphere, it's all about appearing to be intelligent. To recover from that digression, the second way of evaluating what a man's worth is is by measuring what they contribute to society versus what they detract or draw out of it. In the welfare state of post-scarcity models, it becomes incredibly easy to do this. Does the person in question give more to the state and the people than he takes away? To add a good degree of fairness to this, is he or she of the capability to actually contribute more than take or is he and/or she in a position where they truly need the state to meet the basic needs of survival? So, using this criteria every single American is worth less than shit, seeing as our government is in debt, social security is in trouble, medicare can't ever stand up on its own, and welfare is a joke at best. A new way to determine the way someone is worth something must be found!

Now, having failed in every other method thus far we have to come to a way to make a human being's worth not only estimate-able but also fair to all considering circumstances. Chemical worth is out. Fiscal contributions for impact on the community isn't good enough. Social contributions doesn't help much here. How can we find out the worth of a man?

Urine

Of course, it's so goddamned simple. What better way to analyze the worth of a man than get some strange nurse-like people to analyze the liquid excrement you produce in order to determine your worth as a human being! Why didn't I think of it earlier! Urine holds all the answers to our quandary. Why, I bet that urine could tell us a lot about a person. Maybe there's an enzyme secreted that tells who a hard worker is, or a partial protein that can be used to determine who a lazy-ass, mullett-wearing, Skynard-loving, PBR-drinking, crusty backwoods retard is. Why, I bet urine is the only source of a new alternative energy source! That must be why they constantly try and get it from us when we apply for jobs, play on sports, and so forth.

God, I'm brilliant. Urine is the way to tell what a man is worth. I'm so glad the government realized this so long ago and decided to force us all to comply with it.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

A Matter of Principle

From time to time, we all are offended. How it happens is simple to understand. Someone takes something we believe in and either treats it something less than what we believe it should be treated as or simply calls one of us a fool for believing in it. At its most simple definition, it's when someone douses a fair bit of urine on what we happen to believe in, sometimes literally.

Now, like most people my age and in my situation, namely cynical college students pursuing a liberal arts degree, I don't get offended often. No, usually the more offensive something is the harder I guffaw or chortle, depending on the barometric pressure on that particular day. For instance, Prussian Blue made me giggle a bit when I saw them doing square dances in a swastika marked out on the floor. The markee of said swastika was most likely a blind rhesus monkey suffering from Parkinsons, seeing as the swastika was all askew on a linoleum floor that has perfectly fine ingrained lines provided. That's just my highly-educated guess. Another example would be the segment SomethingAwful did once on jokes with realistic endings. An example:
Jesus is hanging on the cross and John approaches.

John says: "Jesus, its John. How may I serve thee ain thy time of need?"

Jesus replies: "YEEEAAAAAAAARGGHGGGHGGHGGGHGGHGGH!!!!!"

Pure. Unadulterated. Comedic. Genius.

Something infamous in our recent history did cause me a bit of offense, though. A little woman in Florida who experienced a medical condition not unheard of in these times was catapulted to the forefront of news when her atrophied and listless viscera made it on to the nightly news in one more battle for the so-called "right to life." We all sat, captivated by the slight stream of salivation that was born under her tongue and rolled its way across her face to a waiting napkin or other absorbent paper material held by a loving hand. We watched, heartbroken, as her emotionless face twitched ceaselessly and stared ahead with those vacant, non-seeing eyes of hers.

Terry Schiavo offended me to no end. Why? Well, every court in the nation that a Schiavo case was in (I, II, III, and IV) was held in ruled that she was in a "persistent vegetative state." For those of you out there that doesn't know what that means, Terry's parents included, that means she's a brain-dead, non-reactionary, non-feeling, non-speaking body that doesn't know its time to die has long past. So, taking into account that the courts ruled she was brain dead, her husband claimed she was brain dead, and most neurological doctors, excluding the ones paid to say otherwise, all said she was brain dead it should have been an open and shut case of medical something or another.

No, of course it couldn't. That pesky pro-life argument had to pop up here, and this is exactly why I got offended. Comparing a fully functional, thinking, feeling, seeing, laughing, loving human being to what Terry Schiavo became is an offense to sentient life in this universe. Saying that this...

...is the same as this...

...should be totally offensive to everyone who can read, write, speak, move, play, screw, tan, work, think, or love.

Besides, the whole argument could have easily been solved by looking at another point. She got that way due to bulimia-induced coma. She already made it pretty damn clear she didn't want to eat.