The Cult of Banality

Considering the number of things that I find troubling, I really should meditate more…

I saw an entertainment headline a few days ago, something about drugs being found on Justin Bieber’s tour bus in Amsterdam. Okay, great. Who cares? Everyone it seems; the people who aren’t his fans regard this incident as another in a long line of incidents that point towards the young lady’s self-destruction while Bieber’s fans would defend her even if the tween idol chopped up a baby and served it with a glass of wine. And that’s what I find troubling – why are Justin Bieber’s off-stage antics more important than her art?

I remember many years ago when I, as a die-hard Judas Priest fan, learned lead singer Rob Halford was gay. The news did not phase me; I didn’t care because I care more about the man’s art than who he has sex with. Gay or not, Rob Halford can scream like a sonofabitch and that’s a part of what makes him a good music artist. Really, it’s the art that is important. Or maybe that’s a misperception on my part as the art of a musician or actor is now a distant second to what news the artist’s life generates.

Case in point, Taylor Swift: She really has very little musical skill either as a writer or performer, yet she is terribly famous. Why? Mostly because she’s a perfectly pretty lily white girl, so pretty that people apparently have no choice but to root for her as she dates a platoon of men who dump her as soon as they figure out she has no talent. Justin Bieber floats in the same boat, more famous for his homosexual attributes than for his music. Is anyone going to remember any of his songs decades from now? No, but people will remember that he started acting out as soon as his balls started to drop and realized he doesn’t have to date someone equally untalented. Worse, you have celebrities not famous for anything besides being rich and having hired a publicist, e.g. Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton. Yet the general public snaps up news of these people’s lives. Is it because seeing how the other half lives is inspiring? No.

The reality is perhaps more depressing. My hypothesis is that people who lap up entertainment news have low self-esteem and no desire to be much of anything in life (not that one needs to make something of themselves). I arrived at this conclusion by thinking about what people get out of reading entertainment news, which oddly has very little to do with entertainment itself: A glimpse into a purportedly glamorous life that for the 99% is unattainable. Entertainment news, that is celebrity news, actually reinforces the notion among lower class people that they belong in the lower class. [I use ‘lower class’ here to mean the people who place celebrities in a status above themselves.] While someone may pick up People Magazine and say, “That’s going to be me some day,” the people who actually become celebrities don’t stop to say such things because they are busy becoming celebrities. That said, I have very little respect for anyone who reads celebrity news as it indicates just how little they contribute to the world.

Of course, I’m not saying all celebrities contribute something positive to the world. Many of the afore mentioned celebrities are in the game for celebrity’s sake; it’s better to be on top than on the bottom so I don’t blame anyone for walking down that road. But, in order to make some kind of contribution to the world, a person must begin with some sense of their own value and a person cannot do that if they are consumed by details of the lives of celebrities. Celebrity news is disempowering, not inspiring. It also reinforces one of the worse tendencies of human beings, the desire the see others fail or become miserable.

The people who keep track of celebrity news to satisfy their lust for schadenfreude are no doubt worse than passive purveyors of celebrity news since they take their disdain for their low class status in a direction opposite from where it should go. Instead of ignoring celebrity news to spend their time more wisely or turn their view of the well-to-do into a force of positive change, they wallow in the muck of celebrity divorces and self-abuse as if doing so could possibly make themselves feel better about their meaningless lives. Either way, news about the lives of celebrities is destructive for those who consume it.

To be fair, talking about the well-to-do has been going on for ages, obviously because the lives of celebrities are more interesting than that of the Average Joe. Only, wouldn’t everyone’s life be like the life of any given celebrity given the fame and fortune? Why then do people consider lives of celebrities more interesting? I suppose people who track celebrity news lack imagination. (Ask them what they’d do if they won the lottery if you want to confirm my suspicion.)

I don’t know what we’re supposed to take away from this other than a good many people do not mind their status among the blissfully ignorant. Personally, I find such an attitude repugnant. I find the desire to put details about a celebrity’s life ahead of their art or professional business even more objectionable, for if the lives of celebrities are more important than their professional lives, why not dispense with what they do for a living altogether and go straight to Free Parking? For a nation that likes nothing more than to pretend accomplishments and talent matter, America sure values its Lindsay Lohans.

Art is dead. Long live the “artist.”

Fool's Gold

I’ve spent some time beating up on witless conspiracy theorists/”truthers” this month and I’m almost over it. That said, there is one more topic dear to their heart I’d like to skewer before moving on and writing something more relevant. Today I’m going to talk about gold. That’s right, gold, that shiny metal that makes pirates go “argh!”

You may have heard as of late that the world economy is teetering on the brink of collapse. In fact, according to conspiracy loons, this imminent economic collapse has been right around the corner since…well, let’s say it’s been so long it’s not actually imminent. At any rate, given the impending doom, you may have heard it’s a good time to buy gold (or, if you can’t afford gold, silver). Why gold? Because as any conspiracy theorist will tell you, gold is real money. Meaning, gold will be the only thing that is still valuable if fiat money collapses; fiat money being whatever a government declares to be money. The conflict in monetary theory arises from the fact that In the United States, until 1971, fiat money – dollars and coins – were theoretically convertible/exchangeable for gold. Well, some economic theorists (basically the weathermen of the business sector and just about as accurate) insist that fiat money is actually useless, having no intrinsic value. If an issuing government decides to withdraw any guarantee of their money’s worth, YOU won’t have anything tangible to exchange for goods or services but what you already own. To complete the circle, that’s why it’s considered necessary by people who’d like to see the world’s economy collapse to have gold. After all, it says only gold and silver shall be legal tender, right there, in the US Constitution Article I Section 10. Wait, is this where the idea of gold as ‘real money’ is coming from?

I think it is amusing that the people who buy gold as a hedge against an economic collapse or runaway inflation are the same people who wish dearly for the collapse of the US government (for starters). The thing is, if they’re getting the notion of gold being real money from the US Constitution, then the US government must avoid collapse for the US Constitution to retain its meaning. Sure, “truthers” could organize their own country and write their own constitution that values gold, but we’re talking about the same people who couldn’t organize a bake sale that didn’t sell special brownies. Naturally, conspiracy nuts couldn’t possibly be so ignorant as to not see this, so where else might they be getting the idea that gold is worth more than anything else? Where are they getting the idea that only gold (and sometimes silver) is real money?

Advocates of gold like to point out the history of gold’s many uses. Problem is, such a view is wrong. Yes, gold has been used as currency in the past. Funny thing is, in being so, it was actually fiat money since how much a gold coin was worth was derived from a state’s laws. Before gold’s use as money, it was used in the making of all sorts of ornaments, seeing how purty it is, to say nothing of its malleability. That’s right, gold’s value was – and often still is – based upon its aesthetics. In the 20^th century, gold has become very useful in the manufacturing of electronics due to its conductive properties and resistance to corrosion, but this does not count as part of gold’s historic value since this value of gold is rather new. Now, obviously I can’t say gold hasn’t been valuable to many people over the course of history but what I’d like to point out is that gold is no more valuable than anything else: What is valuable arises from the agreement of two or more people. While two or more people can agree that gold is valuable and can be used in exchanges (which is what money is, a facilitator of exchanges), two or more people can just as easily agree that sex is valuable enough to be used in exchanges. Thousands of years ago, two people would have considered sea shells a better form of money than a hunk of gold and used that in exchanges. That said, gold does not have any inherent value. Such an idea is utter nonsense.

My reasoned and brief examination of gold as not being inherently valuable will not stop the nearly-certifiably insane from insisting gold is real money, especially if they actually own gold. In such cases, the owner of such “money” pray for economic collapse so that they will become the new upper class. Not surprisingly, conspiracy wackos who buy gold are the same people who buy lottery tickets despite the odds (at least the ones I know). Somehow, despite the millions-to-one odds, they’re banking on an early retirement by either winning the lottery or the collapse of the New World Order, an organization that has the whole world under their thumb while the world simultaneously teeters on economic collapse. (That’s the consistency of their theorizing for ya.)

Finally, I’d like to say that should the conspiracy asshats be right and the world economies and world governments collapse, what’s going to stop me from going to their house with a gun and taking their gold or anything else they have? Their own guns? Wow, I guess I just pointed out something more valuable than gold come the apocalypse. Although, it’s not like I need it to shoot fish in this here barrel.

5 Suggestions For Conspiracy Theorists

5. Get off Youtube – Like anyone else, you conspiracy loons love having an outlet for your madness. Funny thing is, you bemoan “tell-a-vision” while believing without any investigation of your own everything one of your kind spew. I might also mention that if you really do pose a threat to the Illuminati/Whomever that they know who and where you are because you can’t keep your big mouth shut on the internet. Yet the conspirators don’t do anything about you. Hmmm, could it be because they don’t exist? Could it be that the conspirators are powerless against the 2^nd Amendment? Etcetera.

4. Stop oversimplifying – You call everyone outside your little circle “sheeple” who don’t think. Believe me, as an actually educated and fully-fledged philosopher, I can guarantee you that you’re not thinking either. While the law doesn’t persecute cars because cars don’t kill people the driver does, the analogy is not the same as trying to restrict gun ownership. For example, agencies do background checks on driving records and you have to pass tests to drive. The same cannot be said for gun ownership. See how quickly your argument falls apart?
 

3. Stop calling yourselves “truthers” – Really, you think you know what the truth is? Somehow, you of all people have some special knowledge most everyone else does not? Hey, you might as well start a religion. Religious people claim special knowledge; they’re just not asses about it and don’t go to great lengths to prop up their egos by audaciously calling themselves “truthers.”

2. Get lost – If you’re all so worried about where the United States is heading, leave. You have the option of renouncing your citizenship and leaving the country. What’s that, you aren’t going to bother because of the New World Order’s global reach? Oh, that’s right, we’re talking about the same organization that doesn’t have the power to stop you from exposing their plans on Youtube. There, there, it’s going to be alright. Just gaze into the sun…

1. Stay, and get involved – Obviously you’re not going to leave because you’re all too comfy with your Industrialized Western way of living that allows you a good measure of free speech. So, how about you get organized and campaigning against elected representatives OR run for office yourselves. How about getting off your fat, whining asses and doing something more than just putting information out there as if that’s going to wake people up? You know why people aren’t waking up? Because even if the Illuminati or New World Order existed, people don’t care. So you might as well get yourself elected so you can actually help the rest of the world as you so desperately claim to want.

Still Full of Shit

So much for taking a month off to blog about nonsense like style and music. I think it's time to get serious about nonsense.  

I knew within moments of the Boston marathon bombing yesterday that the event would be another fist-pumping confirmation to conspiracy theorists of some nefarious New World Order plot to take over the world. Conspiracy theorists would rather confirm their own biases based on information they simply do not know than take a minute to sympathize with victims of an evil deed. Not only are conspiracy theorists full of shit, as I wrote in a previous blog, they're douchebags, too. I'd be sick of their nonsense if I weren't so fascinated by their delusional beliefs.  

I'm fascinated by conspiracy theorists for the same reason I am fascinated by religious zealots; their propensity to believe stupid shit. For example, conspiracy theorists believe that the misinformation that is often a result of the news outlets' rush to report is in fact intentional. What they don't understand is that news media is a business and the agency that leads with information wins. (Take for example the 2000 US presidential election, in which Fox News called the election for George W. Bush without justification.)  

And so conspiracy theorists like to play connect the dots where either connections or dots do not exist. They can't tell you the difference between a correlation and a cause. One conspiracy theorist I know well had the nerve to speculate that recent events with North Korea, Cyprus, the drop in value of gold and silver, and the Boston Marathon are all connected, a plan to part American citizens at least from their God given rights. It's all well and good to speculate, but how about proving such fucking absurd assertions? 

Nor do conspiracy loons ever search for other possible explanations for such events. For example, what's more likely, that the Boston Marathon was bombed by a fucking nutjob or terrorist group, or that it was the latest chess move by some global shadow government, a government that no one has been able to expose with hard evidence? There's hard evidence of government corruption alright, it's just not the evidence that points to a secret conspiracy. The fact that lobbyists from big businesses such as Monsanto wind up with government jobs is a matter of public record. The fact that US CEO's make approximately 285 times their average workers is something just about everyone knows. There doesn't need to be some Illuminati plan for world domination. The average person allows themselves to walked all over despite the great injustices of this world.  

It is my belief - as long as we're on the topic of erroneous beliefs -  that conspiracy theorists are simply upset that they have so little control over their own lives and are looking for a scapegoat, seeing how their shitty lives can't possibly be their own fault. That's where conspiracy theorists referring to themselves as "truthers" really becomes laughable; they're going to expose all the horrible truths about the world, all of them, except the truth that where they're at in life is their own fault. (Or not; it depends if you believe in free will.)

I also take issue with conspiracy theorists for their cowardice. They are simply not willing to do what it takes to overthrow the evil forces at work against them and everyone else. They could organize and lobby their representatives en masse or take up arms against their enemy, but they don't do that. No, they think it is enough to get their somehow reliable information to people from safely behind their computer screens, over the internet that the big, bad New World Order isn’t bothering to monitor. Supposing there really were a reptilian shadow government to expose, do you think they’d let “truthers” expose the truth on the internet? Nah, they’re content to allow conspiracy theorists to add to all the misinformation already out there. On a side note, conspiracy theorists, Youtube – that outlet for all your temper tantrums and misinformation dissemination – is as much a “Tell-A-Vision” as television you fucking dipshits. 

To be fair, difficult as that may be, I’m not going to say governments never do bad things. Yes, The US government has committed some pretty heinous acts in the past and will likely do them again at some point. But that particular monster is not lurking around every single corner. If that monster is, then I say: Fucking prove it. That is, prove it in a court of law, not the court of public opinion. I’m betting a gajillion dollars no conspiracy theorist can do it. (Why a gajillion dollars? Because that’s how much money the conspirators have.) 

In the meantime, conspiracy nuts, here’s a little gem from Patton Oswalt that reveals just how little the New World Order is controlling all of us, because if they were, no one would have run to help the victims of the bombing.

* * *

Boston. Fucking horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will." ~ Patton Oswald

We-EE Hate This Song

Every now and then I listen to one of the pop radio stations to hear what the latest worst songs are, presumably because I hate myself. Rewind to last week when I turn the radio on and catch a song cleverly entitled “We Are Never Getting Back Together.”  Oh. My. Holyshitthissongisaweful. Seriously, wtf? So, I look up who sings the song and, having never heard a Taylor Swift song, was surprised to find out it was a Taylor Swift song. Why was I surprised? Because like most people, mostly women, I sometimes confuse beauty with talent. Yes, I do think Taylor Swift is very beautiful, but then, what musical starlet with no talent wouldn’t be with a S.W.A.T. team of stylists at their disposal? At any rate, anyone with a musical- or objective bone in their body, which excludes most women, cannot possibly like this song.  Let’s examine the song point by point with the less serious offences first.

Musically, the song is derivative. There is nothing remotely interesting about its composition or arrangement; the song merely retreads the well-established protocol of the last 30 years of pop music, meaning it’s boring. (Wait, isn’t Taylor a “country” music star? Oh, that’s right; there hasn’t been much country in country music since the mid-90’s.) Lyrically is where the song descends into Hell, though. First, it is my firm belief that there should be a 50-year moratorium on lyrics about love or relationships gone sour. Second, if you’re going to go down that road anyway, at least be creative about it. In other words, Taylor, a ten year old Alanis Morissett called and she wants her lyrics back. Third, the hook in the chorus involves a scale jump that no one who wrote the song could possibly pull off live. Cue the live performance on Youtube and…yep, I’m correct again. As a final insult, Taylor goes for “the talk over” during the bridge with disastrous results. Frankly, I’ve tried “the talk over” in songs I’ve written and let me tell you that it never-ever-ever, works. Unless you’re a rapper and obviously Taylor's no wigger.

Now, I don’t blame Taylor for trying to speak for the millions of tween girls who try desperately to convince themselves that they are not the reason a guy actually doesn’t love them or are trying to convince themselves not to go back to an asshole after a break-up. Or, whatever. Young women have been bat-shit crazy since the dawn of time, so what else are you going to do after you’ve been dumped for the umpteenth time but air your grievances publically if you have the means to do so? It's just so empowering, right ladies?

Somehow, Rolling Stone magazine named this song the second best song of 2012. Then again, what can we expect from a magazine that hasn’t been relevant since the 90’s? (Wow, the 90’s were really a watershed decade.) In all truthfulness and objectivity, Carly Rae Jepsen’s dreaded “Call Me Maybe” is a better song, and that came in at number 50. They even ranked Taylor’s song higher than Adele’s “Skyfall” which prompted a quick, “Who writes this shit?” from me. Perhaps it is time to rethink that whole legalizing marijuana thing.