Rant 142: How to Stop a Conga Line

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Rant 142
How to Stop a Conga Line

"Stop all this goddamned bullshit and pour some more tequila!"-The White Mouse

Yuppies and their overpriced cheaply made designer clothes don't impress me. Neither do their overpriced condos acquired by "bend-over" low-interest mortgages impress me. The problem is not that they are fraudulently wealthy enough to buy stupidly expensive goods. The problem is that they all look and act the same. Like they were made in a huge factory somewhere. Even their professed life-stories are all sounding the same. I avoid them usually because of their homogeneity. So I go into a bar and sit there thinking I can enjoy a few pints of swill without interruptions from yuppies asking me about whatever the fuck it is in their yaddayaddayadda chattiness because it's a dive. Yuppies tend to hate places that don't have amstel light beer. So I should be safe, right? Hah! Then crowds of yuppies come in all excited because they have discovered a new kewl place. It seems that dive bars are all the rage now. THIS is NOT a good sign. What gives?

The above explains why my recent pranking skills have been put to good use. I could moan and complain about the yuppie hordes invading my favorite hang outs. (And I do, trust me.) But I also turn the situation into some entertainment and satisfaction GUARANTEED for me and any buddies of mine that might be sharing the experience.

Yuppies now think that drinking PBR and wearing trucker hats is stylish. They profess to like Johnny Cash but can't recall any of his song lines. (They think that "the Man in Black" is a cool title but they don't know why Cash was the Man in Black.) Sometimes I humor them and go along with their stupidity so as to better study potential dupes for pranks and because their bank accounts can afford my drinking habits better then mine can. But one night recently I got in a bit of trouble when confronted by a small group of "white trash chic" looking groupies who asked me if I thought they looked hot. I said "You think looking like a bunch of dorks is cool? What's the matter? You run out of hip-hop gangster gear?"  They looked at me with blank stares, amazed that not everyone on this planet thinks their antics are cute or hot. I left the place shortly thereafter before they could gather enough brain cells between them to actually come up with some retort.

Hell, I shouldn't have been so hard on them. After all, they're only doing what they have been told. Perhaps I could have even convinced them to buy some special kewl Discordian bottled air teachings. Perhaps deep down inside I would have found some actual live human beings living underneath the mass marketed and prefabricated cliches they were wearing. Perhaps I could have even persuaded them to go to a real country and western bar where one or more of them was guaranteed to get some shit from off the fan onto their face. That is always a hoot to watch.

But the night was still young and more fun was to be had in other places. And I had to meet a friend for our more-or-less weekly pub crawl. A friend who hates yuppies even more than I because he has to work with them as clients.

I don't know when the yuppie invasion started nor do I know when it will be finished. I can't fathom it because they don't have as many children as most other folks and yet every year there are more and more of them inundating this city. Something is seriously wrong here. There are two types of stupidity being marketed and reproduced in the souls of the average American Greyface. One kind is the normal cletus trashy sort who we all know and love so well. (Because if we didn't publicly say that, the cletii in power would lock us up.) The other is the yuppie who masquerades as an intelligent and informed person who is up on all the latest fashions and goes to all the latest hotspots. The former sort of cletus calls his or her meth "ice" or "meth." The latter sort of cletus calls his or her meth "crystal" and thinks there is a difference. Neither one is the sort of person you'd want to spend any time with, even if some of them may exhibit a spark of mentality every now and then. To me, both types are within one of three categories of fascist: The first category is that of those who are actually in charge of something or will be shortly. The second category is the sort who pretends to be in charge and thinks that it will get them somewhere. The third category is the "useless" sort. They just hang around people of the other two categories because they think it gets them somewhere.

I have run into all three versions, many times simultaneously. They are hard to distinguish from one another since they all look, dress, act, and talk alike. One time I was in another bar enjoying my drink and waiting on some friends when a neighbor came over to me and said "You notice the difference in this bar tonight?" I said "What do you mean?" "Well, look. Over here you see all the distinctive people. The ones who seem to have character. Over there you have nothing but people who look like cookie cutter cut-outs of each other." None of the people over on my side of the bar were making any effort to look different or distinctive. None of us were wearing anything weird or "distinctive." Perhaps what we had was "soul."

The slacksucking hoors are all over the place replicating themselves...but that is no cause for alarm. In fact, it is really too late for alarm. But at least we have one consolation. Because many of us are different (and we have "souls"), we are actually better than anyone else. We aren't better because we imagine ourselves to be so and then try to ram it down everyone else's throat. We are better because we are true to ourselves and don't give a rat's ass about keeping up with the latest trends or styles or other distractions. (Unless we like some of that entertainment.) We are better because we don't have to prove to everyone else how smart we are or how "with-it" or "worldly" we are. Being free makes us smarter than the average and this should be cultivated. Encouraged, no matter what the end result brings.

Think about that the next time some cardboard cut-out prefabricated personality gives you shit for not being like one of them.

October 6th, 2005

-Irreverend Hugh, KSC

[Under the influence of the White Mouse. He is definitely back.]

[Eldora, Oracle of Alchemy]

The small town, well it was a small town, where my mom lives is between Flint and Detroit.  People from both large cities are moving to this formerly small town.  They build houses and condos that all look the same.  The city has not upgraded water, sewer or power resources, so there have been problems.  One hot summer a bunch of these yuppies lost power every night for about a week.  There has been so much build up in the last five years or so, there is no reason for my mom to go to Flint any more.  They have a Walmart, a couple of the cookie cutter building stores, Ruby Tuesdays, Applebees, they are getting a Target, they have a JoAnne's and a Micheals.  Downtown Flint started to die when the malls were built.  I wonder what will to the mall, there is already fewer people shopping at the mall, and that is because of the department stores.  

Earlier this century people moved from the country to the city.  Then at some point they started to move from the cities to the suburbs.  Then the suburbs got too crowded so they created new suburbs and moved there.  People are weird.  

"You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because you are all the same"

[Cain]

Earlier this century people moved from the country to the city. Then at some point they started to move from the cities to the suburbs. Then the suburbs got too crowded so they created new suburbs and moved there. People are weird.

Or economic forces dictated the follow the jobs, then search for affordable housing.  One or the other.

[l0c0dantes]

"You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because you are all the same"

Heh that shrit is being sold at hot topic, oh teh ironies

[Lord Daddy Lombrosis]

Haven't finished reading yet but +50 for use of the word cletii!

[agent compassion]

Over here, Measure 37 was recently tossed by a judge. Measure 37 doesn't sound like too bad an idea until you get into the specifics - if some land-use regulation passed after you took ownership of your land happens to affect your ability to use that land, you can sue the county for compensation and/or waiver of that regulation. Regulations like wetlands protection, zoning laws, etc. Stuff that keeps the last rural bits of Oregon from being turned into yet another strip mall or cookie-cutter apartment complex or *gack* Wal-Mart. A relatively small population of voters/landowners managed to get 2/3 of the residents here to believe that Measure 37 would mean $$$ for them. Which is bullshit - in this crap economy here, most people are renters, not owners, and most owners have less than .5 acres anyway, not enough to develop even a LAWN on. Still, they passed the thing, and the suits came rolling in. Since the state's mostly broke, the waivers were issued, so that these people could flout state (and in some cases, federal) laws governing land use. Last week a judge tossed it on constitutional grounds.