shorter Atrios:
TREEHORN
People forget,
He taps his forehead with one finger.
that the brain is the
biggest erogenous zone--
DUDE
On you, maybe.
TREEHORN
Of course, you have to take the good with
the bad. The new technology permits
us to do very exciting things in
interactive erotic software. Wave
of the future, Dude. 100% electronic.
DUDE
Hmmm. Well, I still jerk off
manually.
we here at Defeatist Central have flung ourselves all willy-nilly onto our swords on many an occasion. it's fun! now I run mostly on intuition, and four things stick out to me about the defeatists in our midst: 1.if what you're doing, blogging, is not fun or fulfilling (something) in some way, then why are you doing it? 2.show me how exactly blogging has changed or upset the structures that bind us. 3.show me how you've infiltrated the existing structures and morphed them from within (via the internet, like arthroscopically and shit). 4.what sort of sad person does not do this for fun, and thinks this is the new means for ch ch ch changes!? (sing it)
now, there is nothing as satisfying or enjoyable as being completely and utterly useless. that is simple and resistant anarchy:
That's when [Fry Pan Jack] told me - you know, he'd been tramping since 1927 -
he said, "I told myself in '27, if I cannot dictate the conditions of my labor,
I will henceforth cease to work." Hah! You don't have to go to college to
figure these things out, no sir! He said, "I learned when I was young that the
only true life I had was the life of my brain. But if it's true the only real
life I have is the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain
to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption
that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition?"
Fat chance!
but to sit up at attention in one's barcalounger and bellow across the tubes that this is simply not the case, and to whack those that are pointing out a simple truth, and to settle back into the chair, somehow satisfied, is well...sad.
It's rather odd to spend all your time following political news and blogs if the only reason to do it is to provide justification for your view that All Is Lost. Just go out and have some fun instead.
I don't know what he does for work, but I work tangentially for a local government, which is constantly pointing out to me how hopeless everything is, because even at this level, it's bad, real bad, and if I didn't have this to entertain myself, I might just go insane.
so entertain myself I will. and we do. one of the best scenes, I think, from the favorite of all favorite Defeatist movies, TBL, is this:
CHIEF
Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in
this town, You don't draw shit Lebowski.
Now we got a nice quiet little beach community
here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet.
So let me make something plain. I don't like you
sucking around bothering our citizens,
Lebowski. I don't like your jerk-
off name, I don't like your jerk-off
face, I don't like your jerk-off
behavior, and I don't like you, jerk-
off. Do I make myself clear?
The Dude stares absently.
DUDE
I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.
if there is one thing the internet and blogs have helped the "royal we" sharpen, cultivate and hone, it is the art of the Fuck You. which I think is the greatest thing ever, because it is one of the best tools we have for upsetting the powers that be. (from fruitcake to f-bombs and back again, baby!) I can probably find a fake picture of Bush humping two midget twins on the internet somewhere, and I can also find amazing essays and posts that tickle the best parts of my brain, that inspire and invoke and sadden. (maybe we're making rebel music) both of these products of blogging do in fact shape and manipulate the political, if that is the intention. both are as useful as they are useless. but, what is the utility, or the effectiveness, of blogging, or for that matter, a blogger? feh! not one damn thing I do or write on the internet is going to un-President the President, bring the troops home, dismantle our government, or bring about any noticeable change to the machine. a million of us chirping away in the tubes won't either. what we're here for, really, is to commiserate, to backslap, to create a little, to share, and to maybe, you know, learn something in the process. because no matter how hard we try, when we close the browser window, we go back to the world as we know it.
nothing is as defeatist as thinking otherwise.
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