Hodgehogs

Hodge it up, bitches

These times they are a changin'

as we enter the next season

I'm not even sure what season this is. But who cares about that trash anyway, what's coming??

I say, maybe it's Bureaucracy for real now, riding high over the hill on his gray horse. He wields credit and routine, law and security, and leaves shredded cabbage in his wake.

Or maybe, (and I say this too, I do) we're finally coming up on the Aftermath. There are all these Children of Eris out there culture jamming and remixing and windsurfing giddy on el mar digitál. There's more of us in the media than ever, like Grant Morrison, Stephen Colbert*, JJ Abrams, Charlie Todd, Goddess only knows. We're getting closer to the point where a supercharged meme might ripple through the sleeping masses and inspire some dreamfart of freedom. And maybe it'll be the fart that wakes everybody up and we'll escape, giggling from this mutual dutch oven.

I feel like everybody's waiting (hoping? fearing?) for the event which will change their lives. But you don't usually find it by standing in line, waiting for something. "Something". Yeah. What the hell is THAT all about?

Some say we should get worked up about the police state coming down and the temperature going up, and you probably should! The world is incrementally transforming into something. It's happening very fast and it's on a very narrow track. And I think it would be fun to beat the shit out of that track and stomp on it and laugh on it and dance a little jig on its cinders har har! But here's the barstool argument - They want you to waste your time using the "traditional channels" of change -- like protesting or writing your congressman or some other effete symbolic gesture. Listen guys, a lot of these fights are rigged. I say maybe forget all that stuff. Maybe start a kingdom in your living room.

You gotta be careful out there in the meme sea, because there are a lot of agendas coiled up in the cool ideas. Leaders, by their nature, want to capitalize on your cabbagelike tendencies. It's endemic of even the awesome. They want you as their meme soldier. Who doesn't?

For one, Lao Tzu, the bearded author of the Tao Te Ching. If he were around today, him and I would be tight. We'd troll the Internet together, dropping imagebombs and laughing like ninnies. The tea of enlightenment's too hot to drink, anyway. I mean it's literally boiling. Sometimes it's more useful as a weapon than as a refreshment.

I think this is the Strange Times and that weird people are now in the majority. It's a coyote moon, a time when a prank or a jam can change the world. But don't get all high on the savior trip, get high on the FUN. If it's honest to Goddess FUN, it doesn't matter if you're on a save-the-world quest or a marketing campaign. And if it's FUN, they'll come. I want to have FUN again, and it's a happy bonus if that coincides with adbusters or whatever. But I'll never score a victory myself, just for myself, until I stop nursing my ego at the teats of the mighty egregore.

After crapping all over the internet, Lao Tzu and I would ride our bikes downtown and ding-dong-ditch everybody, even the mayor. If he spotted us, we'd have to give him the Key to the City (which is a teabagging, I believe). Lao Tzu would totally have my back. We'd high five and ride bikes into the sunset.

Since this is the Prophetica Discordia, here's my prophecy for the mix: The Discordian Society, if it wants to grow, will get more ordered (in some sense). But holy chao, that's not a bad thing, not at all. There will be gatherings, then larger gatherings, and then “it” will become something else completely. People will argue about its shape. There will be groups and outgroups and spags and cones and rebel leaders and leader trolls and black sheep who are doing it wrong and black sheep who are doing it right and imaginary empires, banging on the windows, hollering, mass hysteria. But it's cool, the circular snake will shed its skin and we'll hide Erister eggs in the green grass around it**. Some of us want to do pranks, big pranks, big stuff, big adventures. It's like a religion to us. To reach that level of big, “ha-ha big” we need to organize. Then something will emerge. Something wearing a silly hat.

But that may be neither here nor there in your living room kingdom. There's an agenda in even that meme, even if it's a silly hat agenda. You don't want to be my soldier, right? Go ahead, say it to me, say it out loud: Fun is a sacrament which, like religion, must be guarded with territorial pissing and monkey noises. I will moralize you into a hospital, man. Non serviam. Back off.”

Okay dude, cool. Maybe we just like different kinds of silly hats, you and I. I'm a fake moustache guy, myself.

See? You back down real easy like I just did, no resistance at all. Then, when they're not looking, you grab your stapler and your posters and you puncture-post feedback all over them like it's one-star day at youtube and big daddy capslock is up to bat.

Malaclypse the Elder has it right. He's holding up this sign that says DUMB -- and he's spot on. I see him by the laundromat, leaning against the side of the western union. He looks real grizzled. Between him and Lao Tzu, there are some serious-ass beardos in this place. And one fake moustache.

The times, they are a changin'. Space is changing too and so are you. Order and Disorder are coming to your country and your head. Since you get to pick one, pick FUN. We'll juxtapose the wisdom of the ancients with insane cackling as we bike boomtime. The Age of Beards is over. Next year we'll get mohawks or something!

• We planted Colbert in the Illuminati in early 2008. (ColbertGASM)

• • The Erister Egg hunt is a new Discordian tradition. Around Easter time, hide stuff in plastic eggs and leave them somewhere to be found. Religious symbolism meets guerrilla surrealism. (EggGASM)