Fragments of the Day, Courtesy of CrazyWorld.Com

We've got individuals on top of buildings.
People on buildings?
That's correct.

They were screaming and yelling for help.
The people?
We believe so.

You've been out in the crowds looking for um, right?
We don't know what we're facing.
Are the criminally insane involved?
On the top of buildings, you mean?
Is that where they are?


What's the big deal about fuck, anyway?

Ex: A brief dialogue utilizing fuck...

Fuck!
Yeah, what the fuck?
Who the fuck knows?
Whatever, man. It's fucked up.
I don't even fucking care anymore.
Fuck it!


I think before we even think about it, first things first.
What even is it, in their eyes?
They told me, we all he got.
What do you make of that, fact?
I'm not gonna second guess.

The healing can't begin while we're still picking at the scab.
Uh.....
It used to be they could stand in one spot.
It was demonstrable at that point.
Well, it's out of our hands now.

So what if you're lucky enough to be on TV?

You can call someone a crazy son-of-a-bitch; cannot call someone a crazy fuck.
Bastard, okay; Shithead, not okay.
Last thoughts, Chuck, then we gotta go.
Fuck you! And my name's not Chuck.

*If you're super lucky enough to be in a movie:  you can call someone a motherfucker just before shooting him in the head, but ladies, you better make sure you're wearing a bra when you do it.


uh, the more uh, of uh, them the uh, better
explain what you mean
people is in over their head, is all
are you suggesting that multiple individuals are sharing a single head?
a mysterious woman Josie is all of a sudden reading a script
she didn't use the F-word, did she?
still no reason to shoot the bitch

(wait a minute, can he say bitch on the air?)

I'm in angst every day.


Sometimes you see images like, this..............

Life Imitates Art, Badly...

Maybe it's the weather. People generally get dumber in the heat. Dumber than what, though? You keep thinking the explosion of global stupidity can't get any worse, that there has to be a point of saturation, beyond which it becomes impossible to be surprised by all the stupid things people are constantly doing.

But then maybe it's not so much the sheer idiocy at play, as the blatant lack of originality displayed by the idiotic doers.

As Hank the homeless idiot-savant says, "If you want to act like a moron all the time, that's fine. But it don't mean you can't infuse a little creativity into the process."

Wait a minute, Hank. Did you just use the word infuse?

"Employed it, actually."

Try to remain focused. You're drifting off point like some brain-damaged bug.

Anyway, the latest dumb trend in crazy-trendy America is the leaving-the-kids-in the-car-in- superheated-parking-lots thing. Seriously, cliche anyone?  The kid-in-the-car season kicked off with that guy in Texas or Alabama, one of those low I.Q. States, who "forgot" his kid was in the back seat for 8 hours while he went into work, came out a couple of times to sex-text with some junior high school girl, and never noticed the boiling baby. It was a terrible accident, he claims. A terrible cliche, at any rate.

First of all, the guy looks dumb, the kind of guy who's so dumb he thinks he's smart. He marries the quasi-perky/on the verge of dumpy-looking girl next door, who also isn't too bright, and the very first thing they do is have a kid, only to discover (yikes!) having a kid ain't easy. It tends to fuck up your life in ways you never (lacking the capacity) imagined.  This is especially true, of course, when you're a self-involved asshole. But come on, credit where credit is due. While busy researching ways to get rid of a kid and make it appear accidental, he also found time to sexually exploit minors online.

Hey man, it's called multitasking!

This is a guy who never should have been allowed to have kids in the first place. Maybe it's society's fault for not preventing him from doing so.

Not willing to be outdone, some woman in Arizona, or maybe Nebraska, left not only her kid in the scorching car while she had her hair done, but also the dog. Mindlessly heinous to be sure, but not entirely lacking in originality. 

When questioned by police, the woman said,  "Yes, I'm obviously stupid enough to leave a kid in a hot car while I get a perm, which by the way I desperately needed,  but I think I safely avoided the cliche by adding the dog."

Then there's the recent story of a 16 year old girl who, while at a party, was drugged and sexually assaulted, her attackers videotaping the entire thing, then promptly putting it online, where it immediately received more than a million 'likes.'

Yeah, cool, man!

Adding significantly to the imbecile factor, one of the boys responsible was quoted as saying,
"Hey, that chick is now officially famous. If anything, she should be thanking us."

As appalling as this is, and notwithstanding the extremely warped sense of social media displayed, I'm sure I saw the exact same episode on Law and Order S.V.U. a couple of years ago. I know I've seen the baby-in-the-car episode.

So what's real and what isn't? Can we even continue to use the word 'real' with a straight face? Is 'reality' really the ultimate cliche?  Is life merely the ongoing reenactment of bad TV? 
Do we (no, don't go there!) even exist?

I'll be outside, sitting in the car, thinking about it.....











  

Tit For Tat

So there you are, more or less, the latest version of yourself, meticulously constructed under, let's face it, less than ideal circumstances, the possibility of appearing an actual person increasingly more a strain than a pastime.  The big question: Who are you?

There ought to be a book you can read to figure it out - Figuring Out If You Actually Exist, And Why That Might Matter.

There should be someone you can ask:

"Hey man, can you see me?"
"Whoa! Who said that?"
"Come on. Tell me something about myself, reassure me."
"Okay, you're the coolest fake human I know."
"So, you do know me."
"Uh, the usual deal is in play? Fifty bucks, no questions asked?"
"Yeah, sure."
"I so know you, man. In fact, knowing you barely covers it. I mean, I KNOW YOU! Put it this way, I comprehend you. I grasp the nature of you. I ..."
"Fifty's my absolute limit."
"In that case, I'll see ya - wouldn't want to be ya."
"I heard that."

Okay, so you're paying people for positive feedback. Is that so wrong? Approbation is a commodity, like anything else. You could ask your friends, except you don't have any. No, that's not exactly true. You have friends, even sort of like a few of them. It's no big mystery that most of them are morons, but these are people at least willing to talk with you. Okay, 'willing to' may be a stretch. People tend to be nicer than they normally would be when they suspect you might be carrying a gun; a.k.a. packing heat; going heavy; etc.

Is that a Glock in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
Neither. It's a Beretta. And I'm pretty sure the safety is off.

*****

So this guy is driving along a highway somewhere in Sweden. Why would he do that, you ask? Who knows? Guys do stuff. This time of year in Sweden it's light for like 22 hours a day, the sun in the sky resembling a screaming skull that refuses to go away. You tend to run out of sensible things to do. Sleep is pretty much out of the question, and you can only stay drunk for so long before people start to notice. They're drunk too, of course, but not dumb enough to get in a car and drive on a highway.

Anyway, he's driving and sees this road sign, a sign on a highway, apparently they have those in Sweden, too, although naturally you would expect them to be written in Swedish.  This one, however, was not. And it's not like the Swedes to joke around with road signs. Lighthearted highway high jinks in general is not a feature of the Scandinavian agenda. Basic rule of thumb: Don't make stuff up while you're driving.

Get to the sign already.
Right. Sorry.

The sign.  It read:  "Tom Tits Experiment."  Only that.  No other explanation.  No "Please refer to your driver's handbook for further instructions."

Wait a minute, did you just see that sign?
I did, but I'm pretending I didn't. The sun is playing tricks, that's all.
We should definitely go back and investigate.
Are you insane?
Uh ...
No, don't answer that. Are you at least going heavy?
So I may have put on a few kilos. There's no reason to taunt me with it.
A gun! Are you carrying your gun?
Where do you think we are, L.A.?

What does it mean?  The logical inference is that someone named Tom (not even a Swedish name, interestingly enough) is performing some sort of experiment on tits, which sounds illegal, not to mention more than a little creepy.

Tom:  "Unlike most men, content to sit back and passively obsess over tits, I've taken my obsession to the next level, practical experimentation."

Unless Tom's surname is Tits; equally bizarre, if for different reasons. A man named Tom Tits is performing some unknown experiment somewhere in Sweden, the mere fact of which somehow warrants a road sign.

The obvious conclusion is that Sweden may be a stranger place than we originally thought, although we are all aware of the pitfalls of jumping hastily to conclusions. We'd like to hear from Tom directly on this, or from anyone who knows Tom, perhaps a former girlfriend who bailed as soon as the weird experiments started.  Contact us. Anonymity guaranteed.

Narcissists' Dilemma

Many of us assumed (desperately hoped) that the Twitter debacle, the deluge of idiotic and banal tweets, in 30 words or less, would be as bad as it got - the bottom of the social media barrel, as it were. No such luck.

"I'm not sure why, but just saying the word tweet makes me hate myself, even more than I normally do."

In his new book, The Social Media Disease, Dr. Wilburt Humpies refers to social media phenomena as a bottomless pit of potential self-abuse and destruction.  Any mass-participatory social system, according to Humpies, rapidly seeks the lowest common denominator; judgment, awareness and overall intelligence rapidly plummet, resulting in a disturbing collective stupidity, all the more worrisome because this blatant dumbness is generally misperceived as trendy coolness.

"I have 25,000 followers on Twitter. Unfortunately, they're all morons."

So you might inquire, what could possibly be more appalling than a billion people sending out speculative tweets on the actual dimensions of Kim Kardashian's ass?  (Hint: it's smaller than a planet)

How about a 'Selfie' of Kim Kardashian's ass?

Got a face?  Got an ass?  Got a camera?  The entire population of Earth is apparently dying to see it.

"I usually spend 4 hours a day doing selfies. I guess it could be considered obsessive - I mean, my boyfriend left me, claimed he couldn't compete with my phone - but how else would I know I exist?"

No question that the selfie is the narcissist's ultimate wet dream. After all, it's all about me anyway, and now my face is here to prove it. A recent study conducted by the Institute of Secretive Psychology concluded that 80% of the U.S. population now displays clear cut narcissistic tendencies. Further analysis determined that 79.8% of those had absolutely no right to do so.

What's the difference between a solipsist and a narcissist?
The solipsist says, 'Only the Self is real.'
The narcissist says,  'Correction. Only my self is real.'

Fortunately, there is light at the end of this dark tunnel of mindless self-involvement. Much like nature itself, irony will always find a way.

Professor Linden Henkel, at the Litchfield Connecticut Community College, has been investigating social media, some might say obsessive-compulsively - even while admitting to spending a not infinitesimal amount of time surfing porn sites - and has uncovered a fascinating by-product of the self-photo craze.

 Memory loss. 

"The obsessive concern with controlling and projecting self image - via the so-called selfie - onto social media unquestioningly results in a kind of mental impairment; specifically a deterioration of identity, accompanied by a gradual loss of ability to recognize oneself."

Have to love it, right?

  I don't exactly know who this is in the photo, but whoever it is, he keeps jumping in front of my camera whenever I try to take a picture of myself.

Sending you my latest selfie. If by any chance you recognize me, please let me know who I am.











 

Jupiter Roars, Mars Can't Sleep

So yeah, it's like, uh, like a, you know, a roar, or a howl, or a scream, or a hum, that's it, a hum, but nothing like no ordinary hum, like humming along with a song on the radio, remember radio, people used to listen to them, radios I mean, and hum along, only now the whole thing is out of control, a disaster, most likely lethal in the long term, meanwhile driving a person to the brink of bloody madness.

That woman drove her husband to an early grave.
Yes, but at least she didn't force him to walk.

The situation with schizophrenics is a fundamental inability to contain themselves within their own skins.  The desire, often experienced as unremitting terror, call it a tendency with extremely rigid guidelines, is to be transposed out of one's own head, beyond self, into a state nothingness, where at least it is relatively quiet.

So, she asked me, what are your future goals?
Have none, I told her.
That's so sad, she said, her eyes peering directly through me, gazing off into space where, presumably, her own future goals hovered, bathed in golden light, still out of reach, but nonetheless inevitable.
 
Back in those days, of course, one could claim to be 'living in the moment' with a straight face, without first having to explain the concept of intentional self-obliteration. Nowadays everyone is living in the moment with one eye trained on the clock. So maybe this particular moment didn't quite work out - on the other hand I haven't had a single suicidal thought in the past 30 seconds - but I maintain exceedingly high expectations for the next moment, in which, it goes without saying, I will be exclusively living.

But what about the future?
Don't make me laugh.
No goals?
My only goal, in the moment, needless to say, is to terminate this conversation with you as soon as possible.

After I got a Masters degree in Philosophy, this guy I knew, though didn't particularly like, made one of those incredulous faces - the sort one might make after being informed by someone that they were regularly abducted by aliens - asking with minimally disguised contempt, "What are you going to do with that?"

My clever retort:  "The more important question, from my perspective at any rate, is what will it do with me?"

Not a whole lot, as it's turned out, except for providing me with an ever-increasing fuzzy frame of reference within which to display a fairly unsophisticated grasp of irony. But then again, the sheer hopeless impracticality of it continues to resonate.

So, your future goal is ..?
Uh, a life of hopeless impracticality.
Oh My God, that's soooooo sad!
And of course to obtain an advanced degree in philosophy.
Okay, now you're just being redundant.
Irony?
Go to hell, loser!

So yeah, like I was saying, it comes on at night, this sound, rattling around in my head, a buzzing, screeching, vibrating racket. At first I thought I was losing my hearing, then that I was losing my mind, but now I'm convinced it's coming from out there, tearing holes in the sky, seeping through the walls, an inexplicable phenomenon that, for reasons beyond all human knowing, has targeted ..... me. 

I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink

I'm so o tired, my mind is on the blink...

Temporaily Lost, But Not Entirely Forgotten

Based (however loosely) on a true story....

A spate of disappearances recently; planes, planets, hope, my car keys...  The latest version of things eerily vanishing involves four young women who on a whim hiked into the Yosemite wilderness in the middle of the night and haven't been seen since.

Yeah, it was either four women or eight, reports vary, self-proclaimed eyewitnesses keep changing their stories. One theory is that the four women were actually four pairs of identical twins, that it was some sort of twin thing, like a pact or something, although local law enforcement officials are actively playing down the whole twin angle.

At his daily media briefing, Sheriff Mort Stetson was fairly adamant:  "At this point in the investigation there is no credible evidence to support the twins hypothesis. Until otherwise indicated, our official position is that this is nothing more than a malicious rumor generated on social media, its sole intention to fuel conspiracy fringe hysteria. Now I'll take a few questions."

"Excuse me, Sheriff, but is there any possibility the four sets of twins are actually two sets of quadruplets?"

"Did you not hear what I just said?"

"Any credence to the report that search teams have been operating in the wrong area of the park?"

"Based on credible intelligence, we were initially concentrating out efforts in the eastern section of the park, although it now appears that the hikers may have mysteriously changed course, retracing their tracks and then inexplicably turning north. We are admittedly baffled by this, but suspect that, if true, some sort of illicit drug use may very well be involved.

"Has terrorism been ruled out, Sheriff?"

"At this point nothing has been ruled out entirely, although if one or more of these girls is a terrorist, we're more or less stumped as to what their objective might be. I mean, what are they going to do, blow up a tree?"

"Could you comment on Chinese involvement in the search effort?"

"As one of the missing women may be of Chinese ancestry,  however remotely, and as two of the women currently live in San Francisco's Chinatown, the Chinese government felt justified in inserting itself into the investigation. Chinese satellite imagery, however, depicting what appears to be a large circus tent on fire and several confused elephants roaming aimlessly about the nearby forest, has been for the most part discounted. I have been assured that there are no circuses currently operating in Yosemite, nor is any sub-species of elephant indigenous to northern California."

"Isn't it possible, Sheriff, that a herd of elephants escaped undetected from a local zoo?"

About as likely as you scoring over 75 on a standardized I.Q. test. "I'm certainly no expert on elephants, but I think we can all agree that subtly and subterfuge are not exactly two of their strong suits."

"Is it conceivable these apparent elephants are actually other animals cleverly disguised as elephants, or possibly dinosaurs?"

"Okay, I won't answer that, for reasons which should be painfully obvious, but I will take one more question."

"How seriously are you entertaining the suggestion that these women are suffering from some form of collective fugue state?"

"We have consulted with several psychologists on the fugue phenomenon, who inform us that in certain high stress situations, often involving spatial/temporal disorientation, it can be infectious. We therefore have to consider it, although frankly we are hoping this is not the case. If these girls have gone fugue, they could be all the way into Oregon by now. On a more positive note, I can tell you that one of the women was apparently fitted with a microchip locator implant sometime prior to this reckless hiking fiasco. Once activated, this locator gives off a steady ping, inaudible to the human ear, but easily detected by the various highly sophisticated technology we are currently employing.  The downside on this is that while the ping is inaudible to humans, it is highly audible to wolves, bears and other natural predators."

"How about elephants?"

"I believe my position on answering any further elephant-related questions has been clearly established."

"So what your saying is that these women might be killed and at least partially eaten by the time they're found."

"Regrettably, yes, but let's not lose sight of the most important issue here. We will find them. Dead or alive, their loved ones deserve closure."

"Oh, what a load of crap!"

"Okay, who said that? The elephant guy?"

  






  

Of Simulacrums, Strange Attractors & Scandinavian Coffee Klatsches

Heading presumably north, the shift in air texture more or less a giveaway, but the compass needle is acting up, no more than a jittery approximation of direction. The poles are in flux, possibly contemplating some dramatic rearrangement, the prophesied reversal perhaps, happens every 450,000  years or so, lucky us to be here for it this time around.

One of the many consequences of a major magnetic repositioning is likely to be a dramatic rise in confusion. The simple act of pointing north will become a challenge, a vague though palpable uneasiness will no doubt grip the human population, a kind of global disorientation that will have people walking into walls, attempting to stand on their heads and, for a not insignificant number of people, a descent into full blown madness. 

So basically no discernible difference.  Aside from the fact that we can no longer refer to the Australians as being 'down under.' They would now be 'up over,' as ridiculous as that sounds. And yes, there is the off chance that a magnetic flip would wipe out all life on Earth, and yet we are compelled to ask ourselves, if our entire species was eradicated from the planet in, say, the next 30 seconds, would anyone really notice?

Hey, did you feel that? What the heck just happened?
What are you talking about? I didn't feel anything?
You don't feel like your skin is suddenly melting from non-deflected solar radiation?
I have absolutely no idea what that would feel like, so how would I know?
In any case, you might want to take a peak in the mirror, which by the way appears to be hanging upside down, not to mention pulsating in a way I can only describe as decidedly ominous.
Are you completely insane?
Now that you mention it...

Meanwhile the magnetosphere sighs, the Northern Lights have been turned off in an effort to conserve energy and Jupiter roars. As it usually does, Not so much because it cares, more because it doesn't. Damn distant gas giant!

A woman writes in to an online advise column, asking:
"What exactly is a strange attractor, and is it at all possible that I am one? Admittedly, I am no stranger to the occasional bout of strangeness, and the men I seem to attract are, well, let's just say they tend to give a whole new meaning to the concept of strange. I've also been told that I use the expression, 'Wow, that's so strange' way too often."

 Regrettably, with the exception of a few scientist types who think chaos is cool and in general behave quite strangely themselves (you may have even dated one of them), no one actually knows what a strange attractor is. Suffice it to report that ...

Strange attractors can take an infinite number of different forms, all fractal in nature and demonstrating infinite self-similarity.   Say what now?

You might also want to consider that computer simulations of strange attractors are invariably quite beautiful.  So why not start thinking of yourself as this year's viral version of a fractal beauty pageant winner and while you're at it begin upgrading your standards vis-a-vis the male of the species.

Or simply do what I've done, head north (south actually) to Scandinavia, the new down under, for an out of this world cup of coffee.  Sit back, savor a giant mug and wait for the lights to be turned on again. You probably won't even realize that the climate now resembles Argentina.