February 2015 – tom's blog

Conversation In The Mead Hall

There is a horde of people all in the same place, all saying the same things, all wearing the same stuff, all eating equivalence, etc. Equivalence tastes good, btw. But there are also levels of good. More on that in a sec. For most this place of samethingeverything would be the ultimate collective paradise or perhaps utopia. For expats, like worst-moi, this is a German resort club. It is one of many resort clubs that fill the Fernweh need of Das Volk and also provide an adequate amount of entertainment that an otherwise diligent/assiduous/hardworking people could not get back home. This offering of relaxation-industry, btw, comes from the fact that Germans don’t really have a country where they can just kick back, pop open a can and head down to the local Disney World. No. Indeed. Germanin need to get out from underneath the machine of the country they have built. They need to expose their organs, a few times a year, to the other workings of this planet that isn’t about chemical factories, auto industry, Autobahn mismanagement, etc. And so. I feel obliged every so often to come to these artificial places that fulfill such a collective need so that I may sit in collective dinner halls, perhaps not unlike, as the Romans would have put it back in 67.5 B.C., with the teutonic barbarians of the past who did the same thing in their mead halls, and get me fill of–having gone native. Going native, btw, is a termed used by nationalists of whatever nation to describe expats who have turned, who have jumped ship, who have left the nest for another nest, etc. Going native is not as simple a concept as it once was, though. Back in the day, don’t you know, when Henry Miller did it, and before globalization turned the western world into a milling shop where most humans are scrap wood, going native meant just taking a wife from the country you went to. Ok. Maybe it also meant learning the language. But today, again, due to globalization, it can’t mean that anymore. For one thing, it can’t mean that because there are so many people that are forced to leave their countries because those countries have so perfectly commoditized opportunity. Yes. Good old-fashioned opportunity. What happened to it dear worst-reader? Did it leave me or did I leave it? Did it go to that great relaxation resort in the sky where “good” doesn’t have levels anymore? You know, where good is simply as good as it gets–because excellent just isn’t in the cards at this price category? Obviously I don’t know the answer to any of that. But I do know that good cooking at these Germanin resorts differs greatly and with this visit, in this little corner of a Spanish island, this level of good is hard to beat. I have completely fallen for the olives here. I can’t stop eating them. The oranges too. They’re both like fruits of the gods–compared to the stuff we can get back in Colonia. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I know where to get good stuff. It’s always a drive or three away but get I can. Yet when we come to a place like this and all I want to do is eat the olives and devour the oranges… Nomatter. I have gone native and that’s ok. There is no turning back for me after this past quarter of a century. I have learned to live with my decisions. But something always happens when I’m exposed to those natives in an intensive way. Something clicks in me and suddenly everything in the dinner hall starts to turn, romp and rumble.

Conversations in the Germanin mead hall on a Spanish island in the Mediterranean while taking a quick, extended weekend from industrialized hell that is the Colonia Bay.

Scene: Dinner (in the mead hall). Hundreds of real natives gather to fill their bellies with all-included chow and drink. There are no seat assignments so it’s come early, first serve. Who sits with you at these tables is left up to the Thor god or any other Germanic deity or the amount of seating made available. Two middle-aged women decide to join us after having broke the ice the day before at lunch in the same hall. One of the ladies brings a part of the newspaper she was reading before dinner. The article in the newspaper obviously caught her attention. Conversation ensues.

Germanin 1: I just finished this article.

Tommi: What’s it about.

Germanin 1: That guy who murdered a hundred people while he worked at a hospital.

Tommi: Oh yeah. I heard about that guy. Why would he do something like that?

Germanin 1: That’s the thing, isn’t it? Why would anyone do something like that? For the the heavens I do not know. But this reminds me of why people with any sort of power need to be checked.

Tommi: Power? He was a nurse. Didn’t he think he was putting people out of their misery?

Germanin 1: You see, that’s it. People believed that. But I just finished reading that this guy did it because he wanted the attention.

Tommi: The attention?

Germanin 2: Yeah. And there is a power a person like that has over a whole family.

Germanin 1: The people get sick and are made to think that the system will make them well, or at least make them healthy, and what happens? A nurse comes around who sees how these families react to the staff that work at these hospitals and thinks that he can do more than just help the sick.

Germanin 2: Can you believe that?

Tommi: He’s nutbag. We have them all over the place in the US. There was this guy called Doctor Death. Kevorkian was his name. He got his kicks helping people die.

Germanin 2: Yes. I heard of him. But he was assisting people that wanted to die.

Tommi: Oh yeah. I guess you’re right.

Germanin 1: There is a big difference, you know. This guy was about power, I tell you. He was after something else. Something else.

Tommi: What something else?

Germanin 1: It reminds of the power priests have. You know. The priest pedophiles. They have a power over the powerless, don’t they?

Germanin 2: And that’s where this guy was heading. He wanted to be powerful over others.

Tommi: Are you sure about that? Sounds like a just another nutbag to me. Remember those two guys in Germany a few years back when the one guy wanted to be eaten by the other? And it really happened?

Germanin 2: Yes. I remember that.

Tommi: I mean, that really happened. Nutbags, I tell you.

Full stop for now.

Long story short. Three other people got up and left us. We thought they were refilling their plates with food. But they never returned. I wonder why.

Good conversation.

Rant on. -Tommi

Tossing Crumpled Up Bills

The simple things that give pleasure. Fresh air. New pair of sneakers. The first sips of red wine. Convinced just the tip is in. Working on an old swiss typewriter. Crumpling currency and throwing it at people. Etc. Yeah. That’s about where worst-writer is these days. Pleasures beyond comprehension abound. In fact, these pleasures are so few and far between that I’ve not found the time or motivation to worst-write about them. Does that then make them über-great? Or does it diminish them to where they really belong? At the side of my broken sword? To the left of my jaundice teeth? Atop the skilled skillet of the Japanese cook inside me who can never come out because he’s afraid of eating the fresh worms that are inside us all because we are designated to spending eternity rotting in a casket? Which brings me to this worst-point: that’s why I’m getting cremated. ¶As usual, I’ve lost my way. But that’s what happens when writers for the famed The New Yorker write too many words about too little. The idear behind recent article where a reporter was able to get inside Apple’s design studio (and report on it) thrilled me. Who-ha! Even though I’m clueless to the innards of industrial design–and for the most part could careless about it–because it really should be the unspoken and hidden part of industry (just like no one needs to know how sausage is made)–I was looking forward to this article. The worst-fact is, dear worst-reader, ever since reading that silly book that was supposed to be a biography about Steve Jobs, I’ve been hoping and waiting for someone to come out with the definitive work about something other than distortion fields. Behold! I’m still waiting. ¶That said. What an article this one is (see below). It reads like a friggin book–is almost as long as one, too. And after the first few paragraphs I knew that I was in for… a disappointing treat. The only thing this article did for me was remind how Apple really makes me feel. The richest, most successful company this side of Neptune, makes me feel no different then when I’m standing next to a cow on a Nordfriesische Inseln and she takes a huge grass laden dump and all I can think about is that I forgot to put on my Burberry galoshes. I mean. Come on. Let’s stop waxing distortion field here. Obviously there is little to be said about Apple’s success. All one has to do is count the money. The company is so friggin’ successful, in fact, that it’s boring to talk about it. And not only that–but the company itself is a bore. And you must trust me here–I know what I’m talking about. Just check out this post. ¶Obviously I’m an Apple-fan-boy. Other than a short stint ten years ago where I worked for the man and had to use a PC, I’ve been using Apple equipment most of my personal and professional life. But don’t misunderstand. I do not choose to use Apple because a PC is a lesser device. I use Apple because, of all the krapp technology that we have to live with, it’s simply the best of the worst. To me, that’s a pretty low bar and should put Apple’s current success in perspective. If that doesn’t put it in perspective then allow me to offer this. ¶Apple’s real success, which is based on financials only, has less to do with its hardware and software than its ability to make the digital age accessible to everybody who wants and can afford it. This is exactly where Microsoft & Co. failed. This is exactly where Nokia failed. And it is also where Samsung, along with Google/Android, are also struggling. Simply put, iOS and the hardware it runs on is the only magic that’s happened in the tech world since the advent of the Internet itself. The PC world was never going to get more users than it had because of the inaccessibility, stubbornness and greed of the Intel/Microsoft cabal. Steve Jobs, either knowingly or unknowingly, saw through this. And that is his only true genius. The iPhone and the iPad and the corresponding closed eco-system that feeds practically every digital wish one could have and thereby providing Apple at the same time a thirty-percent cut on every purchase, is without doubt an f’n tech-age miracle. Because of this little twist that Jobs’ was able to pull-off in the tech world–i.e. making hardware and software irrelevant, instead making the user experience at a reasonable price the focus–Apple today could buy Microsoft and Intel outright and still have plenty left in its offshore bank accounts. Wow. ¶With that in mind, who gives a tinkers shit about Jonathan Ive! Seriously. What a pretentious little brit shit-bag this guy must be. And the whole friggin’ world is swooning over him because he knows how to round corners on a smart phone? Or is it because he knows the real way to say alew-minimum? No. It’s none of the above. Everybody is swooning over him because Apple has figured out a way to get gullible and deep pocketed buyers of iPhones–who usually only pay a fraction of the price of that device upon purchase because they buy them on subsidised contracts with cell phone carriers–to pay at least $350 more to attach a watch to it? Which this guy designed? Are you friggin’ serious? The iPhone is the reason I haven’t worn a watch in five years. And this pretentious shit is gonna make me want one again? ¶I stopped reading the article around part III–but wanted to stop mid Part II. Just like most stuff written about a company that has the financial means to control the solar system, this article is full of all the nothingness that only a fancy-pants from New York can write. Nothing new. Nothing real. Nothing worth reading. But then again, maybe it is interesting to hear about a Brit living in the US who still drives shitty British cars. ¶Which brings me to the premise of this worst-post, dear worst-reader. There are some simple pleasures in life that are worth worst-writing about. One of them is the desire motivated by others who consider themselves to be part of greatness when in reality they are nothing but riders on the storm. As I said, I’m an Apple fanboy. But that doesn’t mean I love this company. For one thing, I never buy Apple products new; the best way to buy them is used or refurbished. Second, their OS upgrade policies are horrific and there should be a law against making perfectly good hardware obsolete before its time (not to mention what an environmental waste such corporate policies are). In fact, I never thought I’d wish Apple would go back to charging money for its OS because at least that way we (users) could hold them responsible. And last but not least. I hate Apple Stores. I have yet to go into one and actually get some help. These stores are full of the worst form of high-nosed tech incompetence there is. And so. With this type of arrogance and corporate frivolity, more often than I should, I think about what I would do if I were to actually meet a rider of the storm. Like Jonathan Ive. Well. This is what I would do. I would take whatever currency I have in my wallet, crumple it up into a little ball, and throw it tauntingly at him. “Here! Take my money, bitch!” Ive’s and everyone that works at Apple can go fuck themselves. They are not part of anything great they are only the best of the worst where consumers must play second fiddle to the whims of corporatists, wanna-bees and automatons. The only thing Apple can claim as being worthwhile
right now is that the laurels established by Steve Jobs haven’t run out yet. Or something like that.

Link that motivate this post:

Jonathan Ive and the Future of Apple – The New Yorker.

Rant on. -Tommi

Children Of The Sandbox

The image today is of an unlimited number of children playing in an unlimited sandbox. It used to be called a sandpit but that name had to be changed because of the minds that prefer mysticism over science, the irrational over reality, propaganda over fact. For you see, the word ‘pit’ is to reminiscent of the pits of hell, or the like. And so. It is, indeed, quite a large sandbox that we’re dealing with and truly reminiscent of things unwanted. It is also a very fancy sandbox. A sandbox of modern civilisation where the goings-on of humanity are centre stage of time, space, bodily secretions and nasty bedsheets. And what is it exactly that is going on in this sanbox? That’s right, dear worst-reader. In it are the children of today. And they play harmoniously, joyously and their lives are relevant and respected by all. Or? Maybe not. For we are believers in the mysticism, are we not? I know. Tommi’s worst-readers aren’t all as stupid as they look. All (three) of you know well enough that something else is going on in that sandbox but the bliss of ignorance is too great to combat–at least not as easy to combat as ISIL or ISIS or fighting that urge to eat… Nomatter. The point today in this worst-post is to try and figure out how we know that something else is going on in, around and underneath our sandbox. Does the bludgeoning (of nature) give it away? Does the regular beatings (of our environment) atop another child’s head with the green bucket give it away? And how ’bout the jamming of the pink shovel up the nose of johnny-come-lately where to repair the damage johnny’s entire skull must be put in a plaster cast to 1) hold his spongy brain in and 2) allow the fractured skull to repair itself. Yes. That’s the reality of the/our sandbox. The children in the form of money hungry, greedy (corporate) bastards ride the laurels of the past, have living standards at the expense of others and thereby occupy and bully the whole damn sandbox. One only need look at the behaviour of the children inside it. Or read about it here and here. And so. What better represents the truth of the sandbox we are all forced to live in these days than the reality behind using a hair dryer, filling up your car with petrol, pressing HI on your microwave, ruling the planet, etc.? I suppose one could also look at the banking industry and not just the energy industry–but where’s the fun in that? Do banks blow up in a mushroom cloud of flames and black smoke? Do we see nitty-gritty worker-bees struggling in their HAZMAT suits fending off toxins when banks fuck us over? No. Of course not. The energy industry, post technology boom of the nineties, has rum amok in the sandbox. And while Apple assumes the reign of corporate money terror over us all (and history) the has-beens of the boomer generation secure their ways & means. And no one really cares. The whole shebang passes us by even when it crashes into some rednecks house in god-knows-where W. VA. And redneck here or there complaining that an energy company blew up his house while his wife is in the hospital getting open heart surgery… None of that matters. Look at the plume of fire rising above the sweets ashes we live in.

List of recent examples of how we play in the sandbox of life where the children beat the living krapp out of each other and the sandbox because of energy resources. This is only a list from 2010 up to a few days ago and only accidents that occurred in the US. I purposely left out all the sandbox accidents on the Canadian side of things but if you’re interesting in reading about those you’ll have to go through the whole train derailment list which is at the source hyperlinked below.

30 September 2010 – United States – Two Canadian National ore trains collide head on twelve miles north of Two Harbors, Minnesota, injuring all five crew members.
17 April 2011 – United States – A Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway train hauling 130-cars of coal from Wyoming to Chicago rear-ends another train hauling maintenance equipment near Red Oak, Iowa about 07.00 (local time) on Sunday 17 April 2011. The lead locomotive on the coal train derails and fire engulfs the cab. The crew of two, the conductor and engineer, on the coal train are killed. Ten cars on the maintenance train derail. The two crew members on the maintenance train are not injured. The line is heavily trafficked and is shut down for 24 hours, with trains re-routed. An investigation is conducted by the NTSB.
7 October 2011 – United States – 26 cars of a 131-car freight train derail and explode near Tiskilwa in Bureau County, Illinois, approximately 160 kilometres (99 mi) west of Chicago. No injuries are reported; 800 people are evacuated.
6 January 2012 – United States – Three CSX freight trains collide in a remote section of Porter County, Indiana resulting in a fire and possible HAZMAT situation. Two injuries are reported.
1 February 2012 – United States – The Amtrak Wolverine train from Pontiac, Michigan to Chicago, carrying 71 passengers and 5 crew, strikes a stalled tractor trailer (carrying equipment for oil production) on tracks in Leoni Township, Michigan. The lead engine and at least two cars derail. There are no fatalities, and six people suffer non-life-threatening injuries, according to the Jackson Citizen Patriot and the Blackman-Leoni Public Safety Department.
4 July 2012 – United States – A Union Pacific coal train heading to Wisconsin derails, collapsing an overpass on Shermer Road in Glenview, Illinois at about 13.45. A day later, a couple, having been crushed by the falling coal and cars, are found dead in their car buried beneath the rubble.
11 July 2012 – United States – A Norfolk Southern train with 2 locomotives and 98 cars derails in Columbus, Ohio, near the Ohio State Fairgrounds at 02.05 CDT. The resulting explosion, caused in part due to the burning of 76,000 litres (17,000 imperial gallons) of ethanol, causes a mile-wide evacuation. At the time of the explosion, two nearby individuals are injured; they drive themselves to hospital.
21 July 2012 – United States – A Kansas City Southern freight train collides with a BNSF coal train and derails in Barton County, MO, injuring two railway workers.
21 August 2012 – United States – Two women celebrating the night before their return to university on a railway bridge die shortly after midnight when a CSX coal train derails on the bridge in downtown Ellicott City, Maryland, burying the women under coal.[145] The NTSB investigation attributed the probable cause of the derailment to a broken rail.
29 October 2012 – United States – Thirteen cars of a 57-car Paducah & Louisville (P&L) freight train derail near West Point, Kentucky. A tank car loaded with butadiene leaked and later caught fire while workers were repairing the track. No deaths, 5 injured. On 31 October, the train derailment exploded at 13:30 causing evacuations to be ordered in a 2 kilometre radius and an 8 kilometre radius to stay indoors. 3 were seriously burned in the explosion.
8 November 2013 – United States – A 90-car freight train carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale patch in North Dakota (possibly similar to the type carried in the July 2013 Lac-Mégantic derailment in Quebec, Canada), from Amory, Mississippi to a refinery in Walnut Hill, Florida, derails and explodes in the morning in Pickens County, Alabama (west AL); the flames, which shot upward 300 feet high, were left to burn themselves out, which may take up to 24 hours. There were no fatalities or injuries.
30 December 2013 – United States – Casselton train derailment – Several grain cars from a westbound train derail and strike an eastbound train carrying crude oil on an adjoining track near Casselton, North Dakota. Several crude oil cars explode, resulting in large clouds of black smoke which forced an evacuation of the area. No casualties were reported.
17 January 2014 – United States – A CSX train carrying coal derails near Dunnellon, Florida. Twelve cars of the 100-car train derailed in a rural area. The train was transporting the coal to the Duke Energy Crystal River Energy Complex. No injuries were reported.
19 January 2014 – United States – A Union Pacific train carrying coal derails near Caledonia, Wisconsin. Nineteen cars of the 135-car train derailed. The cause is believed to be cracked rails caused by unusually cold winter conditions. No injuries were reported.
20 January 2014 – United States – A CSX train carrying crude oil derails in Philladelphia, Pennsylvania. Seven cars of a 101-car train derailed on a bridge over the Schuylkill Expressway, causing the road to be shut down for brief periods of time as emergency crews drained the tankers. No injuries were reported.
28 January 2014 – United States – A CSX train carrying phosphoric acid derails near McDavid, Florida. 23 of the 69 cars derailed, resulting in the destruction of the tracks and bridge over Fletcher Creek, and chemicals leaking into the water. No injuries were reported.
30 January 2014 – United States – A NS train transporting 179 empty coal cars derailed near Jewell Ridge, Virginia. No injuries were reported, and the accident was cleared on the same day.
31 January 2014 – United States – A CN train carrying crude oil, methane and liquid fertilizer derails near New Augusta, Mississippi. 18 to 24 cars of the 85-car train derailed and began leaking. The derailment occurred in a rural area, but resulted in 12 families being evacuated and four lanes of U.S. 98 closed as emergency responders began to clean up the spill. No injuries were reported.
30 April 2014 – United States – CSX derailment: 15 tankers carrying crude oil derail and catch fire in Lynchburg, Virginia, striking fears of water contamination in the local area and beyond.
1 May 2014 – United States – CSX coal train derailed three locomotives and 10 cars in Bowie, MD.
10 May 2014 – United States – a train traveling in Colorado derails and spills 6,500 US gallons (25,000 l; 5,400 imp gal) of oil west of LaSalle, Colorado.
5 October 2014 – United States – a Union Pacific freight train slams into a lowboy trailer in Mer Rouge, LA, seriously injuring both railroad crew and causing two engines along with 17 cars to derail. 50 homes are evacuated for about two hours due to the leakage of argon gas from the tank car.
16 February – United States – A CSX freight train derails in West Virginia. At least 7 tank cars catch fire, with over 60 people evacuated from their homes nearby.

List source here.

Another link here worth reading on the subject, maybe.

Good luck suckers.

Rant on. -Tommi

Jokes Not Got

I’ll tell you what your reaction will be to my next story. When I get to the punch line there will be silence, giggles, snickers, then laughs. Watch. These two girls are walking down the street. The one girl says to the other, “Hey girl, isn’t that your husband coming out of the florist?” She says, “Yes dammit, and he’s got two dozen roses.” She says, “I’m gonna have to keep my legs up in the air for three days.” Her girlfriend looks at her and says, “Well, why don’t you get her face?” -Redd Foxx

Explain Money

“About a year ago, upon reading Tropic of Cancer, Ezra Pound wrote me a postcard in his usual Cabalistic style, asking me if I had ever thought about money, what makes it and how it gets that way. The truth is that until Mr. Pound put the question to me I had never really thought about the subject. Since then, however, I have thought about it night and day. The result of my meditations and lucubrations I now offer to the world in the shape of this little treatise which, if it does not settle the problem once and for all, may at least unsettle it.” -Henry Miller, Forward to Money and How It Gets That Way, Paris, November 1, 1936

Less Better

apple wifi router bs.png

That’s his name, btw. Less Better. Almost an ornery type from the ‘burbs. Moved to the city because he wanted to be hip. But you know what they say? You can take the hipster out of the suburbs but you can’t oil him up enough to make him go that way. Or something like that. Nomatter. I had to pull Less into my realm because my tech was acting up again. Damn routers! How is it that they make these devices with WinXP-like operating systems? Who wants to get into the innards of these devices in the first place? So I switched to something new. Simpler? Yes. Access to the device through an application. No more accessing it through some cryptic 192.168.1.x URL and a browser. Who came up with that krapp? Oh yeah. Win-XP. You know, I never liked Bill Gates. But then again. I hated Steve Jobs more. These fake industrialists think they can get away with anything. Gates with his dumb-ass operating system and Jobs with his closed world monopoly. (Say, is that last one redundant?) Alright. Enough already. Here’s the issue that Less Better solved for me. I don’t know who engrained/instilled it in me but the remembrance of more is better is quite wrong. More is less–unless Less Better is only a SIP-call away. And this time he was quicker than the last.

“You can’t have three routers set up like that, dude,” Less said.

“Where does it say that? It doesn’t say that anywhere,” I countered.

“Stop being a jerk, Tommi. Every time I come over here and fix something for you, you think that there was never a problem in the first place. Why is that?”

“You know as well as I do, Less, that I have tech issues,” I said, continuing to poor us rooibos tea, his favourite.

Less whipped out one of his fancy slate-like computers and showed me (the above) pic. Diagrams always help. He then sipped his tea and proceeded to walk around the labyrinth of halls in my house and took out one of the three routers. He then restarted the primary router. After a few seconds it was back online and I looked at my network printer settings–the cause of the whole ordeal. It had now switched over to the extended router.

“But Less,” I said. “I don’t want my printer on that router. I want it on the other router.”

Less finished his rooibos. He snickered at me. He winked. He then inquired as to what gadget I would buy next and promised to be over in the morning after he had a few drinks in the night and fell asleep with two tylenols.

Rant on. -Tommi

Feminism vs Emancipation

eat cherries — “You can leave your hat on.” -Randy Newman

Today a few thoughts on another movie (Fifty Shades of Grey) I won’t see. This post is NSFW. Or maybe not. Good luck.

Every generation has to have its own mainstream how-to fuck film. I say mainstream because the porn industry isn’t really a how-to fuck industry, although that’s probably a shame on account it does provide a lot of obviously needed information on The Carnal. (Seriously. Where would #americant be without porn? Childless? Fewer lost boys? Women walking around with donut glaze on their faces? Etc.) But then the question becomes: since so much porn is being consumed why is it that most young people still don’t know how to fuck and thereby, for all practical purposes, require how-to films? Could the answer have anything to do with misconstrued morality? Puritanical shame? Or how ’bout this:

Romantic-love should die?

Indeed, dear worst-reader. The reality is, romantic-love has run its course and it’s time to move on. Seriously. It would help humanity a great deal. Just drop it. Get rid of it. Be done!

That said. I have nothing against romance (and sex) as a transaction–which is all love is these days as defined by its culmination: marriage. But I do have a problem with going against nature. And. Fucking is nature. Making love is… anti nature. Or maybe not.

Which brings me to this part of this attempt at opening a can of worms: What’s with the debate on marriage rights? You know. We shouldn’t be debating whether or not one group can marry and another can’t. What we should be doing is getting rid of the institution of marriage outright. Obviously, in the wake of the past hundred or so years, as an institution, it is an utter failure. Get ride of it. By doing so, we can kill two birds with one stone. Offing marriage’s head could finally save the children. It could also save females from themselves. Be done!

Oh yeah. I was worst-writing about romantic-love in the context of feminism vs emancipation vs porn all motivated by silly films. Wait. Or was I…? Nomatter. The how-to fuck film of my day was called 9 1/2 Weeks. A silly bourgeois cinematic romp where a female couldn’t decide what to do with the confusion that arises between (her) biology and the inevitability of husband hunting–which often gets confused when the libido takes the first step off the cliff (great job Kim Basinger). And when I think back on that movie the only thing I can remember is the confused look on my then girlfriend’s face regarding her puritanical upbringing juxtaposed with being raised in the wake of 1960s flower-power and being fed cherries on the kitchen floor while wearing fancy pyjamas (or the like).

Did you know that romantic-love has no purpose? It used to have a purpose. Back in the day when Das Volk loved feudalism, birth entitlement, aristocracy, monarchs. Oh wait. We still live in those times. Nomatter (again.) Something about getting daughters from wealthy houses to marry into other wealthy houses where the groom wasn’t the best match or vice-versa was the only way to play the patriarchs game. Today that game is the same but played in the vein of the same-difference. Marriage, and by default romantic-love, as an institution, still provides the patriarch rulers the mother teat. And he sucks joyously upon it. So go and fight about your silly marriage vows. When you give-in to institutions it doesn’t matter what you suck on. Doom is neigh.

Ok. I’m confused. And I’m way off subject. The subject is how-to fuck films and why they are so stupid. It has nothing to do with porn and exploitation as Chris Hedges so rightfully points out (see link below). What it is about is what Mr. Hedges misses. The reality is how-to fuck films are about something much deeper. They are about the mindset of the indoctrinated human female who is either Barbie or August Ames*. The confusion the female, the child bearer, the mother faces today, now that porn is mainstream, must be horrendous. Yet so few females voice anything above and beyond what they themselves have trivialised by exploiting romantic-love which can only lead to the transaction of marriage which ultimately leads to the mass silliness we have today–half of which all end in expensive and child ruining divorce. And so. Maybe there needs to be an alternative to the fiction that we are forced to make real that is romantic-love and maybe that alternative is buried deep in the subtext of how-to fuck films. Or maybe not. Whatever.

And on a side note. Even though worst-writer doesn’t believe in much, you know, as in gods and mysticism, there is something in me that does believe in nature which means that there is a slight thought or three regarding the validity and/or possibility of reincarnation which in-turn makes me shudder at the thought that I could come back as a female. Aghast!

Links:

Chris Hedges: ‘Pornography Is What the End of the World Looks Like’ – Chris Hedges – Truthdig.

Oh Look! People Are Going To See It Because They Don’t Know How To… | HuffPost

Rant on. -Tommi

*For kicks I googled something like “popular porn star” and her name came up. Seriously. I’ve never heard of her or seen her before. Really. Wow.