Minority Report
Potpourri
September 19, 1999, 1:27 PM
I've been slacking like a gallows on the moon when it comes to writing this column. I have no excuse for it, other than the attention lavished on my new zine, Section 8. But I am back in the saddle, buckaroo, and I'd like to share some thoughts I've been having lately. To wit:
You cannot spell "deflagrate" without "flag." I tell this to people and they look at me with incredulity, even though it's true. Part of the pre-millennial press' burden is to refurbish the same old arguments for a new generation of freshly emancipated young adults. "Deflagrate: (n) to burn suddenly and violently." Flag burnings do tend to happen suddenly, as desecration of national symbols is best done with a minimum of fanfare, so as to keep the violence down to that requisite flag-stomp at the end. Once you've burned so much of it that holding it becomes painful, it almost seems like a waste of all that attention from the cops, media and constitutional lawyers to not end the affair with some dramatic flourish. The flag-stomp also scatters the flames, cinders and ash (in varying proportions depending on the amount of flag left when the stomp occurs) up into the air and outward into the crowd, giving the offender time to run.
It seems to me that the role of the citizen in a democracy is to push the limits of our constitutional freedoms on a regular basis, its effect being the continual reaffirmation of those freedoms. So far, we the people have yet to think of too many means of personal expression that are absolutely unacceptable, but still we try. Why? Chalk it up to the allure of innovation. What is the point of doing anything unless you're going to do it better than those who have done it before? That cannot be done without being New. New changes the very nature of the act by simplifying it, which creates profit, and that's what it's all about.
For example, the makers of Astroglide wanted to get into the personal lubrication business, which was dominated by the folks at K-Y Jelly. K-Y is owned by Johnson & Johnson -- a great name for the "parent" company -- whose penetration of the market was such that Astroglide could not compete without a better product or superior advertising. Even in our modern, desensitized cultural climate, there isn't much you can do to pitch personal lubrication to a mass audience, so instead they had to improve on flaws in the design of their competitors' product. They realized, probably through personal experience, that K-Y tends to dry up and requires frequent reactivation with water in order to work. This is only mildly irritating if water is nearby, but odds are that the only liquids at arm's reach are alcoholic, so someone will have to make a trip to the faucet. This can destroy all the erotic momentum that a couple has built up. So the geniuses at Astroglide created a formula that doesn't dry up. What gets wet stays wet, and the fornication can continue all night long, without interruption. This selling point allows the Astrogliders to make a tidy profit every year.
The shreds of decorum left in our society are in some ways rather unfortunate. I, for one would jump at the chance to create advertising schemes for Astroglide. The possibilities are endless. Perhaps a television commercial: fade-in to a bunch of guys at a bathhouse. They're wrapped in towels, lounging around the tubs, or whatever they have in bathhouses, eyeing each other seductively. Buncha slick homos, literally and figuratively, the hip, trendsetting type, as apparent as this can be when wearing a towel. One by one they begin to produce their lubes, and all the smooth operators pull tubes of Astro. The last guy is clearly a rube, freshly off the turnip truck. Maybe he has big buck teeth and a piece of rope tied around his waist, which is always useful. This guy has a tube of K-Y. The man next to him shrieks, in a note-perfect 16-year-old valley girl accent, "Ewww! You're a freak!" The others jump up and run away in mincing strides, leaving the rube alone in silent contemplation of his failure. And then the slogan: "Astroglide, if you really want to fit in."
Or: scenes from the hectic life of a prostitute. She's standing on the corner, walking up to cars, you see her head bobbing up and down like in those HBO documentaries. Voice-over: "When my job requires me to engage in the most intimate of acts with strangers in the most dangerous parts of the city, the last thing I need" -- cut to our heroine slap-fighting with a colleague -- "is friction. These dudes have one eye on the clock, they don't give a fuck how you feel. Well, just because I'm a whore doesn't mean I have to be sore." Or: a porn star on the job. She's buying expensive clothes, driving a hot car, getting make-up and practicing her lines. And then she's being double-penetrated by two large black guys, with a look on all their faces reminiscent of OJ's at his first arraignment. Voice-over: "I work in a very high-performance environment, putting things in places they don't belong anyway, much less without copious lubrication. When I've got nine yards of throbbing cock lined up in front of me, I reach for Astroglide...quick!" I could be the darling of Madison Avenue if someone gave me the chance.
*****
To many people, mass organized prayer must seem like the sort of utterly self-indulgent exercise that humans, particularly Americans, are prone to because of what may be imagined as an inability to comprehend the basic truths of science and political affairs. One result of the emphasis placed on crime and brutality in the media -- which is somewhat justified, but hardly as much as they'd like us to think -- is that people really want to know that someone is looking out for them. In lieu of the love and affection of one's fellow man (a rare commodity in these days of relentless suspicion), perhaps the platitudes of some preacher will suffice. I doubt the claims of conservatives that institutional prayer will improve anything: it's another stupid idea that escapes the genuine problem with our education system, whatever the hell that is. Anyone who's had to deal with some obnoxious crusader on the street, who seems convinced (with that mindless, unquestioning absolutism that is the defining trait of a devout Christian, in addition to the bad clothes) that their destiny in life is to coerce a stranger into accepting their local shaman's line of bullshit, can readily attest to the Christian's complete and total lack of reservation when it comes to practicing his faith. Most Americans are religious in one way or another, and instill their values in their children, so they might like to see those values reinforced on the institutional level. I see nothing wrong with the concept of school prayer, superficially; most of the curriculum in schools today consists of lies and propaganda, anyway, so where's the harm in giving them more? The problem is that the majority of Americans are Christians, and their collective confidence is born of statistical superiority. A school prayer amendment (Republicans are fond of treating the Constitution like the Sunday crossword) would benefit these people, and give them the legal backing to preach, preach, preach all day long. Nothing would get done at school, not that anything gets done now.
Seen on a bumpersticker in Jacksonville: "God Is Coming - Stick Out Your Tongue." That's kinda gross, but rather similar to the Catholic Communion ritual. But that's not important. I mentioned the bumpersticker because it set me to thinking about an idea I had a couple of years ago. In the 2,000 years since the events detailed in the New Testament, the history of man has been littered with the bodies of various self-designated saviors and messiahs. It follows a fairly predictable pattern: one may be merely eccentric, merely extremely eccentric, and it is tolerated so long as one does not attempt to ascribe any sort of divinty upon oneself. To say that you are Christ, or to say anything that remotely implies that, carries at least the suggestion if not the declaration of immortality, and that's a notion that society is all too eager to refute. So the prospective prophet can look forward to a violent, socially proscribed death if he is not humble. Which begs the question: what if they were telling the truth? What if Christ has been trying to return to Earth and liberate our souls for the past 2,000 years but, every time he makes his presence known, the establishment clergy snuffs him out? They killed him the first time, so who's to say they wouldn't do so again? Personally, I believe in the probability of a higher power, and anyone else who believes must consider the incongruity of Jesus' teachings with the morally malleable doctrines on display on Sunday. Religion is a business now, and as with any serious business operating within the capitalist framework, profit is far more important than product integrity. If Jesus came back, right now, on National TV, with all the apostles in tow, and started complaining about the systematic bastardization of his life, death and design for human behavior, I am fully confident that he would be killed again immediately, on the spot. Of course, they wouldn't say it was really Jesus. They'd say he was some nut, a dangerous lunatic with his own 12-man cult preparing the violent overthrow of the government or something. "Peace and love and generosity," they'd say, "what kinda new-age nonsense is that?"
Shelton Hull (aka Archibald Bobo) has been writing professionally since 1995. He also does the column "Money Jungle" for FolioWeekly (Jacksonville). His work has appeared in places like Section 8 Magazine, Movement, CounterPunch, Lew Rockwell.com and the Florida Times-Union. He was a 2002 Fellow at the Academy of Alternative Journalism, AAN/Northwestern University. He works for himself.
