Diarrhea
It is a quaint concept to entertain: Scientifically rational and certainly
medically commonplace, yet socially taboo. Why is that? Other bodily excretions
seem to have an adequately respectable niche in society - phlegm, for example.
The word is used openly in idle conversation and is the cornerstone of Hebrew
linguistics. It is now all but polite to spit in public, and in most cases
there is phlegm involved. Dandruff is referred to quite readily in a certain
television commercial for shampoo. And once a pathological by-product has
achieved the level of television-commercial it is a short step to Fox sitcom,
and then colloquia. The same is true for warts, hemorrhoids, canker sores
and pus. But for diarrhea it is not. Could it be that its accompanying
undesirable conditions are the reason it has been assigned a status not much
better than anathema? Perhaps it is its maladic properties that attest to
its disdain? As a sign of illness is could never be welcomed, and perhaps
it is the unconscious association it generates with disease and malady that
are its undoing. Perhaps the fault lies in us. We in the comfortable,
climate-controlled, automated, environment that we have created for ourselves
at the expense of those grounding realities that serve notice to us that
we as subjects of nature and must abide her laws, have lost site of our natural
affiliation with this ostracized function. Perhaps it is disliked for what
it is by nature. Diarrhea is after all watery shit. It is inherently
disadvantaged in that fecal matter has never held a very estimable position
in our great society. Its close affiliation with the anus, itself an unpopular
orifice among heterosexual males, does nothing to improve the situation.
Or maybe it is because it's just plain gross.
I bought a drill. Not the very fancy industrial strength, two-handled,
send-a-blunt-screw-through-6"-oak type of Power Tool of My Dreams, but y'know...
it turns... it has a speed control thingy... and it was about $30, which
is about all I was prepared to spend. Drills are my kind of tool: they're
useful, versatile, and don't have the same insidious destructive connotations
as a power saw or a nail gun, while still retaining the beloved firearm styling
that made the Glue-gun and the Salad-shooter so popular. I was waiting on the platform of the 2/3 line at Times Square subway station when I spied an unfortunate disciple of contemporary trends a few feet away. He was sporting the Lowered Long-shorts Look to the extreme. The waistline of his ill-fitting "shorts" was quite literally below what could reasonably be considered the lowest perimeter of his buttocks. Now I'm no fashion plate, granted; and true, I have been known to wear my pants lower than my waistline; but I would think the primary purpose of pants is to cover your ass! As I observed this gentleman repeatedly adjust his garments, I couldn't help but chuckle and ponder just what statement about his person he intended to make with the crotch of his shorts occurring around the level of his knees? Just how seriously could you take a guy whose pants are eternally falling down? "Here's $10 buddy go buy yourself a belt." But if I had $10 dollars I'd most likely buy Mentos spearmints (campy commercials, but they're the shit! Really!). Besides, if there was a belt for $10 I'd buy it for myself just on principle. Alas in the world I know a strip of leather attached to a metal ring costs more than a small Baltic nation.
In a related vein, I went to Bloomingdales to buy a shirt, because... I had
gift certificates. Just a plain old white dress shirt; to wear to work. When
I asked "the guy" for shirts he of course directed me to the Men's Section.
The Designer Men's Section. I want to ask your opinion: Is it right
to charge $280 for a shirt? Is it right to pay $280 for a shirt? And
it's just to cover your upper torso. For that kind of money I'd expect it
to have some added luxury features, like automatic buttons, or temperature
control, or something; maybe an airbag so you don't hurt yourself when you
faint after getting your credit card bill. It's not bullet proof, it's not
flame retardant, or stain resistant. Hell, it's not even wrinkle-free! It's
a piece of cloth with buttons. ... but necessary, I find. While on break at work one night one of my co-workers was explaining, in a tone that seemed almost to brag, that he never watched television. Well hooray for him and his discipline, but I realized, that from the few hours of TV I had watched over that past weekend I could speak authoritatively and lucidly about such current issues of the day as the Israel bus bombings, the admirable competence of Israeli Intelligence and Arafat's reciprocal incompetence, the defection, treachery, return, and execution of Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law, and the death of George Burns. Whereas he could only say "Really?". Half-way into my amateur newscast I realized that whole "Knowledge is Power" crap isn't just a catchy phrase they feed you to keep you in college. I could have told my captive audience anything and they would have believed me, because I had the authority of TV in my manner. The authority that makes people believe that a special cream that you rub on you skin will melt fat away; that a guy can take a bullet in the arm, one in the side, and another in the leg and still save the day; that police officers are driven, highly skilled, intelligent, urban cavalier types; and that a seven people can be marooned on a island for several years and no one would touch Ginger. That last hope, that enduring bastion, that final hold out, has alas fallen. I speak of course of the erstwhile mighty Cheerio, for so long the sole surviving cereal that had stayed the evil tide of Frosting. But now this former flagship of frostfree-dom has at last, been conquered by the insidious sugary white stuff. Behold the defeated "Frosted Cheerios". So Cheerios are now frosted. That's it, I don't think there are any left, Cheerios were the last. I guess the competition was just too strong, I think Cornflakes were the first to go, Rice Crispies and others of the like followed suit shortly thereafter, but nobody worried because these were all insubstantial cereals—Cornflakes: thin whispy weakling flakes; Rice Crispies: the fragile empty shell of a the once sturdy rice grain. All not surprisingly early to go frosted, and they needed frosting to stay competitive. At that stage there was still equilibrium. Then came a new wave of attack in the form of the so-called Kid's cereals, these were of new breed of cereal, of no nutritional value, specially formulated and engineered to drive the non-frosts off the national palate, cereal killers if you will. These weren't former grain cereals that became frosted, These were born of Frosting. Lucky Charms: pure sugar! Pops, Coco Pebbles, Reese's PB Crunch, the list goes on. These had the effect of driving the market away from the non-frosts and sweetening the Average Tooth. It was a battle gradually being dominated by Frosting. Then when Shredded Wheat fell I think we all died a little death. It was downhill from there. Until finally there was only Cheerios left. Oh for sure they tried all sorts of things to get around it: Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, Honey-Nut Cheerios, and doubtless these helped it survive all these years. But now, they've finally fallen. Cheerio Cheerios. I thought "a piece of you" was just a figure of speech.
I didn't watch the June 29th Tyson-Holyfield
fight, nor see any of the barrage of clips and video... um... bites that
doubtless are saturating the American TV Media right now. I heard about it
from a radio news broadcast in which the caster took the liberty of reading
some of the less-than-scarce bite-related headlines. "Biting Criticism."
"Tyson Bites the Big One", "... Bites the Dust", "'Bite' of the Century",
"Coming out biting", "Holyfield might take a [pecuniary, I assume] bite out
of Tyson"... are just a few examples. In the spirit of such fine and tasteful
(mmmm... earlobe) journalism I came up with some of my own that I would like
to see: "Tyson's Feeding on you like the Addams Family.", "Friend,
Holyfield, lend me your ear.", and "Tyson bites off Holyfield's ear." but
I fear my particular brand of reporting is a tad vanguard for the popular
media. The Penis is Mightier Than the Sword
You can't make jokes about rape.... but it's quite alright to jibe about
murder, and commonplace be flippant about assault and battery. Test this
for yourself: The next time you find occasion to say "I'm going to kill you",
or "I'm going to kick your ass" substitute "I'm going to rape you/your ass"...
If you think about it this attitude hurts the feminist cause more than helps.
If rape is culturally considered more sensitive than murder it follows that
the penis is a more powerful weapon than anything that can actually take
person's life; it certainly doesn't help the effort to make our society less
phallocentric. A damaging paradigm for anyone fighting this phallocracy. Could it be that intelligence can be unattractive? You know how the studies show that the #1 quality women find attractive in a man is Intelligence? Well Gloria Steinem once came to Cornell and said "The Truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." I'd like to preface my arguement with her quote because... well she's Gloria Steinam! but a more apt quote for my purposes would be that of an anonymous audience member who made a statement at the end of the lecture (and then went on into a comical shrill tirade that destroyed our empathy and discredited her. But I'm not going to succumb to straw-manning). She said "The more I learn, the more angry I get." And hey, so do I! What's more, I get cynical, bitter, disheartened, and just plain hateful! "That doesn't mean knowledge is bad. What's bad is that you allow the truth to sour you." Retorts the other side of that argument in my head. To which I respond: How can you not? How do you deal with the realization that the underlying structure of (the) Man's world is evil, there's no way you yourself can correct it, and there's no way out. What's more for you as one excluded from the power on a race- and role-basis there's no way in. The only ways I know to deal with it are ignore it—which I tried for a while—or become cynical, bitter, disheartened, and just plain hateful.
Ignoring it: assuming a sunny disposition, "spreading some light", allows
one a certain measure of solace for a while, and so feel good about oneself.
So truly Ignorance is Bliss. But that positivity has to be held tenuously
aloft with some effort; and it's exhausting. Eventually it comes crashing
down, in a disenchanting spate of cynicism. And that's ugly. I think the phone is evil. Not just because a clerk will keep you waiting for service while s/he answers and serves the phone customer over you who expended the time and effort to show up in person, but because ordinary people do it in their private lives. I can agree that there are occasions when the "phone customer" is more important (parents, business, the Call of the Wild), or hasn't the flexibility of the "in person" person (long distance call). I'm the first to admit there is always grey area, and this is why I don't get angry about it, and even do it myself. But exceptions and intentions aside there is a small amount of rejection that goes on in that situation ("... I think Man created God as an intellectual entity, which became a policy that took on a..." *ring ring* "Hello? Oh Hi Joe...No, I'm convinced Gilligan was gay! Just look at what he's wearing...") that must have a not inconsequential cumulative effect.
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