Wayne LaPierre is paid $970,330 a year.

This may be the shortest essay I write.

Wayne Lapierre and his legal team must possess some of the most outstanding cocksucking skills on the planet, because the NRA sure ain't paying them as an idea factory.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/21/nra-newtown-armed-guards-schools

The Hidden Persuaders (part 2)

When Vance Packard wrote the book in 1957, he presented his case in a more alarmist tone than was necessary. No fool he, he actually, ironically, stole a page from the playbook of the very manipulators he was critiquing. Obviously, advertisers are not as successful as they present themselves, or as Vance presents them. Otherwise, we'd be making a lot more ridiculous purchases and driving ourselves deeper and deeper into debt. Right? Hey, wait a minute...

Some old department store magnate from the 19th century once said "Half my advertising dollars are wasted. I just don't know which half".

What the advertisers lack in target accuracy they can make up for in saturation. Many may try to ignore these messages, but when you are constantly inundated, when you have no choice but to swim in this sea of stuff, it is hard not to pay attention to it - especially when you trying not to pay attention to it.

Even if you manage this task, it is hard not to be influenced or affected by everyone around you who is paying attention to it. Thus, I hardly ever watch TV, yet I know, through interactions with my TV-watching fellow chimps, at least a cursory knowledge of TV land and its celebrity denizens.

It's as if we swim in a sea of plasmids, those rings of DNA information that bacteria swap with each other, and just can't help but bump into them.

Well, nothing new or insightful here, right? And yet one of the themes I choose to keep on hammering on is, despite our seeming complexity in form and function and behavior, we are still quite primitive creatures, illogical, ruled by animal passions, and predictably irrational. Fear. Anger. Comfort. Pain avoidance. Pleasure seeking. It's as if simple biological rules can describe us, our attributes, our boundaries, and all the little receptors that populate them.

And, of course, all designed to move product, which is what life does. That's metabolism. Move it, convert it, transform it, and survive on the energy of transformation.

And one of the most amazing, magical products, one that is protean, chymerical, modularly brandable, massively adaptable is that creature known as the political candidate...

The Hidden Persuaders

I have limited time today so let me just cut right to the chase. You know those beer commericals where they feature these really obnoxious guys? Frat boy types? Not very smart? With all the eloquence and finesse of bull seals waddling on a beach? Not very attractive? In fact, below average in looks, with pudgy, doughy, unsightly bodies? And possessed of troglodyte moral standards.

In short, don't you just want to punch their faces back into their brains?

And aren't they always surrounded by hot chicks, or at least with cool toys or a superb abode that they are obviously too fucking dumb to have the means to afford?

And these commercials have been in place for decades. And don't you think the advertising guys know this?

Well, of course they do. They are bypassing your logic circuits and tapping right into your reptilian brain. "Look at these assholes" the advertisers say, "They are obviously losers. Life has played a cruel joke upon them. Much worse off than you. And yet these fucking clowns are turning away super hot chicks that want to fuck them. And the difference between them and you is that they are using our product".

Years ago, I read a book called "The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard. Packard recounts how advertisers teamed up wth behavioral psychologists, and tapped into the vast wealth of the subconscious. Packard wrote the book as a cautionary tale in 1957. The advertisers have become far more sophisticated, as now we have neurologists and brain scanning to tap into.

And the advertisers have moved beyond the manufacturing world to package some of the easiest product that ever was concieved - politicians. I'll have more to say about this as time allows.

"A Volcano of Oil"

I watched the speech our President gave last night on the continuing BP oil gusher nightmare. Though he tried to present the crisis in the best light, I noticed there was a fidgety unease in his demeanor. I think the prez is sitting on something. Just between you and me, I think he should have given us the worst case scenario.

"But, they got it under control, right? He said they'd be recovering 90% of oil soon!"

Well, yes, assuming nothing goes wrong.

I am a firm believer in Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong". Actually, the term "belief" is a pale and shallow descriptor of my conviction in this statement. This goes beyond fact, beyond faith. This is a universal physical principle.

And so, in light of reading through what may be the worst possible scenario, that the well casing is well-and-truly fucked, that oil and sand mixture is rapidly eroding the parts down there like a high pressure sandblaster, that the wellhead and blowout preventer could very well pop right off and the whole monstrous flow turn into a literal volcano of oil, I think we all need to steel ourselves for this eventuality.

It could very well be that the entire oil reservoir, between 2 to 4 billion barrels of oil at minimum, could devastate the Gulf. It would be an American Chernobyl, times ten.

There's no point in planning. Just get your mind ready for it. Just in case.

Hope for the best. Expect the worst.

Stupid Ideas

I actually had an idea that was not stupid, once. Naturally, others thought of it as well. I'll get to that.

I've had a number of stupid ideas, but can only remember only a few. Perhaps shame and embarassment have something to do with memory retention.

The first I can recall was rawhide frisbies for dogs. You know how your dog chews up your frisbee, and after some time it is no fun throwing it? Because the dog has torn up the plastic and little thorny protrusions of plastic from the teeth marks cut your skin when you throw it? So, I figured. Fine. I got my frisbee. Dog has his. Go ahead chew the shit out of that fucker. Of course, he still wants to chase and catch your frisbee. And his frisbee is all chewed up and yuck. And so...

Green lights on the back of cars. You got red lights to signal when your breaking braking (jeez, I cannot spel todya). Why not green lights to signal when you are stepping on the gas? Uh, why? I don't know. Maybe to give people a scintilla of hope in a traffic jam? Maybe alleviate the monotony of a sea of red lights? Moving on...

The warm water tap. Next...

This one I got while watching the opening of the Las Vegas Star Trek Experience on TV. Amidst the celebrity shots and celebration was a long angle shot of the hotel and, well, lookee, there, hookers. Or high class prostitutes. Or probably just Orange County babes in Vegas. But then I thought. Hey! Makeup artists and latex makeup and we create alien hookers for the Star Trek geeks. You know, Vulcan hookers, Klingon hookers.

I mean, who doesn't want to do a Klingon hooker?

I might have to join the team get set up as a Klingon Pimp Daddy. I wonder how Klingon Pimp Daddies dress up? I can see the leapord or zebra skin fur coat, the cane, the big hat, maybe. But a feather in the big hat, or high heeled shoes with goldfish in them? I can't see a Klingon Pimp Daddy in that.

Anyway, anyone notice a common theme here so far? Perhaps the sweet blue musty musky earthy odor of cannabis?

Well, duh! Not lately, though. Least ways, not so you could notice...

Which brings me to my idea. A little background. In fourth grade, I had a bout with some kind of viral crud which put me down for a week. I recovered, except that I had damage to the nerves in my ears. I lost a lot of the high end of hearing, which is kind of crucial in conversations. Old age and rock'n'roll abuse and power tools have not helped. So I am well on my way to becoming stone deef.

So, once DVDs came out and the machines had subtitle options. I was so on that. And then one day, I'm coming out of the theater, and it was an English comedy ("Snatch", if you must know), and I was a little disappointed that I didn't catch all of the dialogue that everyone else was laughing at. "It's too bad they don't have subtitles, or at least like heads-up display closed caption glasses that I could wear to see the subtitles without the other folks having to see them".

(!!!!)

Of course, subtitle glasses. Fuck those 3-D glasses. I'm color blind anyway so they don't work.

Of course, a quick googling brought me down to Earth. Someone else had thought of it, and they were in development. Actually, they should be available now.

So where the hell are they?

(Oh, and if anyone makes monies off of the Klingon Pimp Daddy, I want my cut).

The 'Lost' Finale

I'm sorry folks, but I just can't give a shit.

If it weren't for the fact that I just happened to catch a snippet of news this morning, I'd never have known that ABC TV's show 'Lost' was having their series finale tonight. It doesn't help that time restrictions have kept me from watching much of prime time TV for the past five years. That and the fact that I don't have cable leaves me out of a lot of conversations. Is that bad? It's not like I'm a TV snob. Hell, I love TV. If I could, I'd be a fat, old slob on a couch. But I've got obligations to fulfill, bills to pay, a life to live. (No offense, couch potatoes).

I've had chances to watch TV shows. From the few viewing opportunities I've had, some shows look interesting. Other shows just do not engage me. 'Lost' is one of them.

I had a chance to watch a season synopsis, where the show summarizes everything up to now. I sat through the whole thing. At the end, I said, "Well, looks like I don't need to watch this for another year".

Now, I'm introspective enough to wonder what the buzz is about. Why are so many people fascinated with this show? Is it me? Am I suffering from Hollywood/TV imposed and inflicted ADHD? Is it possible I need everything explained and resolved?

No, its not that. I may not be a dramatist or TV critic, but I do recognize the need for suspense in a mystery. The question is, like in music or sex, how long do you prolong the tease before the resolution? Take it too far and it gets irritating. Leave too many things unresolved and I lose interest. Not because it is too complicated. But because it is too contrived.

It's a false mystery.

Questions are set up that do nothing to drive the narrative forward. Just as there are some action movies that make use of maddeningly jittery and quick cut edit shots to create a sense of velocity to the action (as opposed to, oh, I don't know, writing a good story) and create what I call false action, so you can have false mystery.

Not to mention I'm unable to empathise with the characters. They are all just too stupid. Like in frustration comedy, they have to choose the least straightforward course of action - not because they are flawed human beings, but because the law of melodrama - suspense for suspense's sake - requires it.

And then there's the whole "Save the World" theme. "The fate of the world depends upon what you do next". In today's TV and movie land, I think that's the corpse of a horse that's been pummeled into a thin veneer. Don't you think that's just a little infantile? Just a touch self-serving in an emotionally immature manner?

Am I a snob? I don't think so. Contrarian? Sure, why not.

Well, anyway. You 'Lost' fans. Enjoy your show.

(Oh, and uh, the 'Matrix' movies all sucked a big, red rubber cock. And I can give you ten solid reasons why).

My inner dog

Note: This is the first entry under the Friday Happy Fun Time label (FHFT). Aren't you excited? I may, at some point, go through my prior entries and label them all. I might also, with the same probability, fold my clothes neatly and put them in the dresser, as opposed to just dressing out of the clothes basket as is my wont. I think you get the picture.

Last Friday was my four month anniversary of quitting smoking. I completely spaced it off. I smoked usually a pack a day for thirty-five years. My lungs are as clear as interstellar space. That was a pretty good run.

I'm told that it takes six months for all of your body's cells to be replaced, and so the nicotine taint is still with me.

I've not really experienced any extreme positive health effects yet. I chalk that up to maintaining a lifestyle of running, and fitness training throughout my life.

(Thanks, Coach Tower).

Oh, there are some noticeable changes. I don't end up in a coughing fit whenever I laugh now. And I can run a lot farther and faster before really start to suffer (and those who do it know that suffering is when the run actually starts). But, like I say, I'll wait for the six month anniversary before I can really make any judgements on the new lifestyle.

I quit cold turkey. It actually wasn't all that bad. Oh, it was bad, but I was able to make it through, so it wasn't all that bad.

I tried the patch before. Didn't work. I'd just tear of the patch, light one up, and get a REAL buzz going on. I was going to try the Chantix, until I heard one of the side effects "thoughts of suicide".
Now, that's a successful quit strategy.

Funny (funny strange) thing is, I still have cravings. That actually isn't all that funny, but what's strange is what triggers the cavings. I have some weird triggers.

Being around smokers is not a trigger. Sometimes it smells good. A lot of times it does not smell good. Smoke on other people, combined with their personal odors, is usually pretty stinky. I have a feeling, had I not ever started smoking, I'd have gotten laid a lot more than I did.

Drinking heavily is not a trigger. Nor is the reptilian torpor behavior after meals. Nor after sex. Well, not so bad that I can't resist it.

What's a trigger? The first one I noticed was simply getting into the car after grocery shopping. Oh, yeah! I guess that was a time to light up.

Another one? Standing outside in subzero temperatures. I guess the brain rightly assumed the only reason I was outside in that kind of weather was to smoke a ciggie.

It's like having a fucking dog in my head. Ready to play catch.

You know, we like to think of ourselves as rational entities with conscious control over our thoughts and desires.

But no, we are dumb, stupid animals ruled by habit and impulse.

No, we are obviously of two minds.