Revision as of 18:26, 30 March 2009

Hodge it up, bitches

These times they are a changin'

and we enter the next season

I say, maybe it's Bureaucracy for real now, riding high over the hill on his gray horse. He wields credit and routine, and leaves shredded cabbage and coleslaw 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 Stephen Colbert* and JJ Abrams and Charlie Todd and Goddess only knows. We're getting closer to the point where a supercharged meme might ripple through the sleeping masses and inspire some dream of freedom which they will awaken and easily attain if they could just get out of this line. Standing in line, waiting for something. "Something". Yeah.

Some say we should get worked up about the police state coming down and the temperature going up, and by Limbo Peak you should! The world is incrementally transforming into something, and 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 it's smoking cinders har har.

But here's the barstool coming at you - rallying against lost causes is what they want you to do. They want you to waste your time using the "traditional channels" of change -- like writing to your congressman or going to protests or some other effete symbolic gesture. 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, people who want to capitalize on your cabbagelike tendencies. It's endemic of even the coolest ideas. For example I insist that pranks and culture jamming can be just a fun toy instead of being a save-the-world quest or a marketing agenda. I want to have FUN again, and it's a happy bonus if that coincides with the adbusters agenda. But I'll never score a victory myself, just for myself, until I stop nursing my ego at the teats of the mighty egregore.

Since this is the Prophetica Discordia, here's my prophecy for the mix – the Discordian Society, if it continues to grow, is going to 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. 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.

I bet that if Lao Tzu were around today, him and I would be tight friends. 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. Maybe it's more useful as a weapon than as a refreshment.

Then we'd ride bikes downtown and ding-dong-ditch the mayor. If he spotted us, we'd have to give him the Key to the City (which I think is one of those dirty sex moves which involves teabagging). Lao Tzu would totally have my back.

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 beards in this place. And one fake moustache.

Times, they are a changin'. Next year I say we get mohawks.

Hail Eris

All Hail Discordia

• 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)