Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars,
the best way would be to start his own religion”
L.Ron Hubbard
I’ve been feeling a little like reporter John Sweeney myself lately, and only today did something like this to a neighbor of mine, someone whose blithe inhumanity needed a good smackdown. Maybe the BBC should hire me, as I definitely scored more hits than this poor, hapless Brit.
To be fair, he’d just sat through a video designed to destabilize people; to be fair to the Scientologist production crew, it’s obviously quite effective. But before they had a chance to move on to the “love bombing” phase of the experiment, the subject returned to the clutches of his profession and started asking questions.
Here is the full, just-under-a-minute rant when he snaps and goes apeshit on Tommy Davis, the blocker droid that L.Ron‘s minions sent to deal with him. Listen to the bot as he flawlessly repeats the same line for the entire duration of the verbal assault; it’s like the dilithium crystals got scratched and they’re skipping. THAT, my friends, is the truly scary part.
The rant is parenthesized by background reports from the BBC that explain, among other things, that prior to his outburst the reporter had been stalked for several days by Scientology operatives, and had just endured a 19-minute video designed to show that the Holocaust was the fault of psychiatry; this video included helpful scenes such as children getting needles in their eyes and other such light fare to set the tone.
One thing I’ll say for them; the Scientologists, for all that they’re psychiatry naysayers, understand psychology very, very well indeed.
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Is it a war of the sexes, a war on language, or should we all just go commando?
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An idle question: could the middle class for once pull its head out of its own ass and just STFU for once? Is that too goddam much to ask? The world does not exist so that you can express your dissatisfaction with it, and there is a REASON God did not consult you for tips before he made this world.
Selah.
Jesus, I hope I spelled that right. I am only genetically Catholic, after all. No doubt The Sister, who rode our Catholicest of the Catholic family name all the way to a very senior job in the Catholic school system (which, of course, neither of us attended although we did go to Baptist day camp), will correct me.
After she asks her secretary how to spell it.
In any case, I have a confession to make. I have taken you for granted. And judging by the hits yesterday, you didn’t seem to mind.
I think acetominophen is antithecal to blogging, or at least on two extra strength tylenol I wasn’t feeling very fresh, so I just didn’t post. Now, this may seem odd, given that what I usually post is just the online equivalent of shoving the newspaper under some handy person’s nose and saying, “check this out!” but nonetheless, one must be in the mood, in the zone, or in the groove, to blog effectively.
I took one look at the stats and said to myself the Britney pervs will keep this thing afloat overnight if I flake out, and so they did, all 1200 of them looking for the elusive porn tape. Guess what, guys? It’s not her. Now you can get on with the rest of your so-called lives.
You’re welcome.
So, I jammed the Axe Gang dance moves up there and went to bed, sulking and wisfully thumbing through all the workouts in Self and Shape that I cannot, in this shape, actually do. Gawd knows what I did to my left ankle right now, but it’s quite clear that I am being singled out for punishment in this life, as we finally have perfectly clear, crisp days that are perfect for rollerblading, and the T-factor has not yet become suffocating, although I did scare a bunch of oblivious Iranians and one tiny Hong Kong realtor wheeling and dealing on a cellphone when I zoomed between them. They’re just lucky I swerved rather than treating them like vertical speed bumps. I did pat the realtor on her shoulder, and she looked quite surprised. Perhaps she thought I was after her jacket?
In unrelated news, I spent the day cooped up and the energy had to go somewhere, somewhere that didn’t involve the feet, so I washed all the mold and lichens off the wall of my patio, revealing the pink stucco that lurks beneath. I also cleaned up most of the crap on the patio and looked wisfully at the iron potbellied stove that Carinthia gave me, but dismissed the idea of starting a fire, for fear my neighbors would smell smoke and become alarmed.
Then my upstairs neighbor threw his trash over the balcony and onto my patio.
The fire is lovely.
