I Grow Weary of Speaking to My Audience

Megadeth - Symphony of Destruction

How is your precious Freedom Tower coming along?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rebuilding at the World Trade Center site will take longer and cost more than previously projected, a report from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is set to say on Monday, a source familiar with the contents said.

The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Sunday that rebuilding of the Trade Center won't be completed until the middle of the next decade and will cost up to $3 billion more than planned, citing people familiar with the matter.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080630/ts_nm/wtc_rebuilding_dc_1

It's the "Tase Me for Talking Tower."

"The Penny Shiner Tower."

"The No-Asbestos-in-This-One Tower"

I don't know about everyone else, but I kind of liked 9-11. It was the first time a routine demolition included real live people for a little local color. ...All the better to make for a tear-jerking backstory for the War on Globa Terra(R).

Awww...

I went to boot camp in Orlando in 1986.

Each recruit was assigned to a company of about seventy or a hundred guys. My company was C170.

We had our act together. We all kept a pretty tight ship, we scored high on academic and athletic tests, and we were a sight to behold on the grinder. The "grinder" was an enormous expanse of tarmac where all practice marching took place.

There is no more impressive a sight than to see seventy disciplined guys marching in formation, the first three or four ranks flush with flag bearers. I was a flag bearer --in the very first rank-- marching just to the right of the single most important man in that formation: the guidon. He ran the whole show. He decided where that company went. And within that small world called boot camp, there is no greater privilege than to march in the front rank of a company. Fresh air all the time...

The number of flags possessed by a company was an indication of that company's excellence in various disciplines --academic, athletic, military bearing. Flags --and for additional citations, ribbons attached to those flags-- reflected the degree of respect that those men commanded as they marched across the base. When a mass of men approaches you --thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump-- and when you can see nothing but a sea of flags five ranks deep, you WILL get out of the way. Lesser companies yield in the face of such a force.

Now and again you'd see a fuck-up company. They'd have a flag or two, all the guys would look dumpy, they couldn't seem to master the art of marching in formation. You'd peer out the slatted window of some classroom you were sitting in and watch their company commander flying into a rage at them. He'd yelled, "Aaaaaaaaaand... Halt!" and some goof would continue marching and run into the guy in front of him.

They were often wearing PT gear. ...Shorts and a T-shirt and sneakers... because they hadn't quite won the privilege of wearing a proper uniform. They were an embarrassment to all who had.

And they'd never learn. A month later you'd see the same bunch of goofs with their one flag, with the occasional moron who just can't seem to learn how to march without stepping on the feet of the guy in front of him.

...And they'd have their dixie cup hats turned inside out and with the brim turned down, just like Gilligan. It was the ultimate badge of shame. It was the company commander's way of telling everyone nearby that he knew full well that he had been saddled with a bunch of fuck-ups.

If in some parallel universe I were ever in the position to do so, I would force the entire officer corps to wear soup bowls on their heads.

Because you're all nothing but a bunch of fuck-ups.

And the United States Military is worse off for your existence.

Like I said, there is only embarrassment in once having been a part of the military.

Another detainee, "Amir," was arrested in Iraq in August 2003 by U.S. troops. He endured a month of "being kept in a small, dark room" before transfer to Abu Ghraib. At the infamous prison -- around the time it was "Gitmo-ized" by Guantanamo commander Gen. Geoffrey Miller -- Amir was "sodomized with a broomstick and forced to howl like a dog while a soldier urinated on him," the report said. Similarly released without charge, he told Physicians for Human Rights that "no sorrow can be compared to my torture experience in jail."

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/report-lives-damaged

I knew I'd read about that broomstick thing before. And this was no isolated incident. It was the rule rather than the exception, I assure you. Can we see the boy rape videos?

Who's running that abortion called the military? One, you've got the wrong guys. Two, you've defiled the uniforms you wear.

I like those TV commercials you run with the guy in the snazzy uniform and the white gloves and the shiny sword, prancing around like he's some kind of honorable warrior.

If I were convening a sit-down with the officer corps I would first hand out PT gear and have you remove your uniforms.

And, uh, did I mention that you got the wrong guys? While you were off wiping your asses with the flag and pinning medals on each other and laying waste to a functioning society, the United States has fallen --eaten out from within by business interests who take exception to the inconvenient restrictions of the Constitution. ...You know, the defense of which is your sole reason for existing.

So you can't even do that right.

Remove your uniforms, grow a pot belly, and work mall security which is obviously more your speed.

...And don't you ever claim to be military men. You make me want to vomit.

I will shortly unveil my latest brainchild.

It is my grand unification theory of all that is Chris King Pop Icon. It encompasses such things as engineering reality; that retro-temporal communications device that I invented some time ago (and which I graciously turned over to any industrious engineers to build for me;) and my informational tooth fixer.

It is all predicated upon the notion that we inhabit what we may call "God." God is a quantum wave function. God exists in the one moment and contains both the first thing and the last thing, simultaneously. In our updated conceptual model, God contains everything that ever might have been and everything that may be. Realities manifest themselves according to informational probabilities. The business of the wave surfer is to provide an informationally plausible link to the "next" desired reality. He is teasing out individual realities from within this wave function called God.

Sneak peek: This place is not real. ...Or, more precisely, it's no more real than anything else that we can provide an "informational linkage" to. Reality is what you choose to conjure. (So if I choose to become a benevolent dictator --and assuming that such a thing is pursued with a pure intention-- it will be. Resistance is futile.)

One of my tasks for myself is to practice remaining in a positive state of mind. I confound my own progress with negative thoughts sometimes. My behavior must remain congruent with some ideal of behavior. I'm trying to figure out precisely what that is.

Ever since I began my internet-based stand-up career(?)--

I have noticed a disturbing decline in the quality of public discourse. I see a lot more name-calling, ad hominem attacks, and vicious language coming from people on TV and in the blogs.

"That's rich coming from you, Chris."

Let me explain how what I do differs from what you do:

I get to say anything I want, because I have chosen the lowest possible station. I have chosen to be the least among us. This grants me certain licenses, which you do not have.

And with those licenses come certain responsibilities. I have decided for myself that I am to cause no long-term harm. Every hurt that I cause is a karmic debt to myself. That hurt gets put on a shelf. That shelf must eventually be emptied. All debts must be paid. So I always keep one eye on that shelf to make sure that I am not neglecting making good on something.

My brand of comedy is peculiar to this particular age, an age where the executive branch is infested with 9-11 perpetrators. That is the defining characteristic of this post-9/11 age in which my act has developed. I am waging war. I am not to be considered an equal-opportunity offender. I practice outcome-based comedy. I have an agenda. That agenda is checking the abuses of power by whatever means necessary. And those means include calling people names, emotionally traumatizing them, sticking a knife into their souls and twisting it, and ridiculing the piss out of people until they're in tears.

But I always keep an eye on coming back around to repair what I have broken. It is not my purpose in life to leave people worse off for knowing me. I don't want to be bad for my audience.

I have defined this theater in which I operate to be a "meta reality." A meta reality is a reality that is used to describe another reality. My reality is a reflection of, and proffered antidote to, your reality. I don't mean to be confusing, but that is the best way I can describe my show. What you see on this stage cannot necessarily be taken at face value. (Maybe it can, maybe it can't.) I say this not to provide some fig leaf of plausible deniability to what I do here. What I mean to say is that you are witnessing an illusion. This illusion is not necessarily real and it's not necessarily unreal. Its realness can only be judged first by immersing yourself in my reality. You are watching a movie that is being performed by a man who is responding to your world.

Furthermore, I have spent quite some effort honing my toolbox, which includes irony, hyperbole, satire, hyper-bald truth-telling, neuro-linguistic programming, and reverse behavior modeling. In short, most of what I do involves drawing my quarry out of you, receiving it into myself, then removing it from myself, and placing it into the garbage disposal. ...And try to be funny at the same time.

Do not make me regret using these methods.

I do not regard the use of the word nigger to be suited to public discourse.

If I want to say it, I will, as I reserve the right to say anything. ...because my use of words may be part of a linguistic trick that is designed to help you see something that I have difficulty explaining in a head-on fashion. I will often reverse things.

Do not necessarily model my behavior. This is not monkey see, monkey do.

You are not funny. You are not a satirist. You are not a comedian.

A comedian may claim the right to say anything, because his audience KNOWS that he is a comedian. His audience knows that he speaks in riddles. It's what he does. They know that he is attempting to illuminate something that cannot necessarily be viewed head-on.

If you are not a comedian --and if you have to wonder whether you qualify, you don't-- if you are not a comedian, then your audience does not expect you to speak in riddles. They will take what you say at face value. And they may attempt to model your language or your behavior.

The shit jobs of the world are reserved for comedians. Comedy is a shit job. And the more difficult the material, the more of an entertainment pariah you'll be. "Heaven forbid that anyone should try to diagnose and fix this fuckin' mess that we made. He'll never work in this town again! ...But I'm sure glad that he's covering it!"

SO BECAUSE I GET NOTHING OUT OF THIS PURSUIT, I GET TO SAY ANYTHING I WANT. GET IT?

If you work in another field, you may not claim the licenses claimed by the comedian. ...because you would deny to him entry to your station. If you would not associate with the comedian, you are denied the use of his language.

Bloggers and television personalities and newspaper columnists are not comedians. Their audiences expect to be able to take them at face value, and they expect that their behaviors be suitable for modeling.

If you are not a comedian, you should be aware that your audience expects you to maintain a modeling-worthy level of language and behavior. They want someone to look up to. They want someone to tell them how to behave.

Rush Limbaugh is not a comedian. Nor is Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, and whoever else would claim the cover for objectionable language and behavior that the comedian's license would provide.

They represent themselves as one thing and then claim the licenses of another thing. "Oh, ha ha. I was just kidding. ...It's satire; don't you get it?"

If your audience does not know that what you say is perhaps designed to be received in an ironic or satiric spirit, they will think it is language to be modeled.

In particular, I'm thinking of this: (I can't know if this person reads my material. I don't know how he somehow got it into his head that he should be tangling with such language, which, like some kind of viper, is very dangerous to handle. Leave it to the professionals.)

http://jazz-from-hell.blogspot.com/2008/06/grover-norquist-comes-up-with-perfect.html

I can't even figure out who came up with this "bumpersticker" or who is merely reporting on it or what's happening here. So I'm not bitching at anyone in particular. But if --after a casual yet attentive reading-- I can't figure out who said what or if it purports to be satire, then your audience most certainly cannot know how this information is to be interpreted.

I suspect this is supposed to be a satirical take on what I suppose someone by the name of Grover Norquist said about Obama being "Kerry with a tan." Or something. I don't care.

You're not a comedian. You're not a satirist. I expect you to adhere to a higher standard. And that goes for everyone. Conduct yourselves as your stations demand. You may not do what I do. ...because you wouldn't condescend to occupy something so shitty as my station.

Know your place.

A Ha - Take on Me

Um, no.

Isikoff told MSNBC, “The Homeland Security Department is talking about expanding the program to use military satellites really, for domestic purposes. They say the primary driver is natural disasters — like the recent flooding in the midwest — to pinpoint areas that are most hard hit and to help with responses, first responses. But they also leave open the possibility that this could be used for other purposes, law enforce many purposes. Tracking potential terrorists but also tracking potential drug operations.”

“And that is where the concerns about civil liberty abuses come in. First of all, there are strict laws about the act that limits the use of the U.S. military for law enforcement purposes. But the precision of these satellites, they can literally capture crystal clear images of your car as you leave the studio this afternoon. And capture them in computer databases — in the governmentcomputer databases. And it raises all sorts of concerns. To some degree, the administration is paying the price of what is for — what many in congress see as way over stepping — in the electronic surveillance era.”

http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=1378

Wow. Look at all the rationales the Devil's Son is trotting out to make his control grid more palatable: So that they can pinpoint flooding, huh? You know the United States has no lawful role to play in mitigating the effects of natural disasters, right? Can't see it anywhere in its mission statement. Not to mention that even when those swaggering goofs do stick their noses into flooding situations that they prove completely incompetent. So why bother? ...Potential Terriss, eh? Like the ones who were nowhere to be found when Securacom wired the Towers for demolition? Those? ...Drug operations? Like the CIA torture planes that run out of gas over Mexico with four tons of coke on board? Will you be busting your own operation for running their own drugs?

Mister Chertoff, I know it's hard. But try not to steal for once. And the lying just gets kind of old after a while. Sell your snake oil elsewhere, you evil creature.

What this troglodyte really wants is a piece of paper that gives him the legal mechanisms to target satellites and to receive their imaging. See, that way he can keep tabs on his clan's business competitors. He doesn't actually care about any silly old flooding.

You obviously were denied a proper upbringing. So I will tell you that the better classes do not engage in lying. It's just unseemly. But if you must lie in business, at least make the lies a bit more artful. The insult to one's intelligence is a greater affront than the lie itself, really.

Also: Most Jews from Central Europe or wherever they come from have nice, handsome features like that Jon Stewart or that Andy Samberg on Saturday Night Live. How did you turn out so ugly? Is there some Fragile Jew Syndrome or something in your past that we should know about? All publicly displayed Jews should have sharp, angular facial features, big eyes, and full lips. Your beady eyes and lie-defiled lips and your misshapen cranium are the picture of ugliness. How did you ever escape the Home for Ugly Jews? Eww. The more I think about you, the more revolted I become at the thought of your ugly face. Why couldn't Hitler get rid of just the ugly ones? At least then it could have been spun as a public service.

This is how Vermonters deal with Zombies.

(We'll trot this one out again.)

"Ahhh! It's John Yoo!!!"

Yoo, with his eyes rolled back in his head: "Unnnngg... Bring me your lit-tle boys... I want boy cunt... Our vic-tory is imm-in-ent!"

I never knew that understanding the Second Amendment was so difficult.

Yet another jurist, Justice Story (appointed to the Supreme Court as an Associate Justice by James Madison in 1811), wrote a constitutional commentary in 1833 ("Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States"). Regarding the Second Amendment, he wrote (source):

The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndpur.html

It is my habit to speak plainly --and that is why my audience tolerates me-- so I won't mince words. The purpose of owning guns is so that the people may kill government agents when they get uppity and start tasing people for talking. Or so that when government becomes destructive of the ends for which it has been created --defending one's property, including rights-- that it may be abolished. An armed man may escort off his property those persons who have not yet gotten the memo that "we're not doing that whole 'government' thing anymore. Didn't you hear?"

And I'm pretty sure that when government flies planes into the World Trade Center and ass-fucks little boys in dungeons that it has magically gone bye-bye. "Where did it go?"

You're still not getting it, are you? The federal government is gone. You WILL need to escort off your property those persons who refuse to believe that their precious government pensions no longer exist.

There will be two classes of people in this land: Those who are able to persuade the Government Man that maybe it's best that he find someone else to round up and bring to a concentration camp, and those who are unable to convince him of this.

Which one are you?