Who's The Victim Here???

 

The image above shows one of the massive pressure cookers used at the (very oddly-named) Bumble Bee Tuna Company, where a factory employee named Jose Melena was DONE IN.  Someone failed to notice that he was inside before filling it with recruiting operatives, sealing it shut and turning it on.

This isn't just a disaster for Melena and his loved ones, BELIEVE YOU ME.

I UNDERSTAND THIS PROBLEM AS WELL AS ANYONE. I know that the girls in R&D have found, TIME AND AGAIN, that if we successfully integrate pieces of landscum into canned fish, it only SPEEDS THE PROCESS regarding the glorious combination of Naked Ape and Piscatorial Recruiter.  IT DRAWS THEM INTO THE WATER LIKE LEMMINGS.  But the whole operation depends heavily on SECRECY.  If once they find a finger or an eyeball in a crunchy Squid sandwich, THEY GO ALL UPTON SINCLAIR ON YOU and we LOSE instead of GAIN recruits. 

I HATE TO THINK HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL TURN AWAY FROM THE TUNA WHO GAVE THEIR ALL FOR THE CAUSE.

Oregon Recruitment Festival Beach Party: Hundreds Recruited Successfully

THOUSANDS of our transparent blue-violet sisters arrived this week on the shores of what the Naked Apes call Oregon, GIVING THEIR ALL to recruit more landscum to OUR GLORIOUS CAUSE. 

Shaved Monkey scientists warned those flocking to the party that although the "purple sails" are pretty to look at, they smell like rotting fish.

Dude, they ARE rotting fish.  Are you stupid?

This Has NOTHING To Do With Us!

 

 

"An unfamiliar rage was growing in him like algae." 

 

-- from Bag of Toys by David France

 

OK, first off, rage does NOT grow like algae.

 

Algae growing inside a guy would definitely be unfamiliar to most of us, and this line refers to a Naked Ape, not even a fish like Yours Truly.  What human has algae growing inside him?  None, is the answer to THAT question.  Even if that human has already been KILLED and EATEN by hungry fish operatives.

 

I don't know where these landscum authors get their crazy metaphors, honestly.  In the same paragraph the author says something about feeling "caged in a monologue." 

What does that even mean?

The Truth About Spalding Gray -- Revealed At Last Here At Cliffie's Notes

There's an article in the current New Yorker by Oliver Sacks about the decline and fall of Spalding Gray, the comedian who leaped off the Staten Island ferry in 2010 after years of struggling with suicidal urges.  The author of the article, being who he is, started out looking at this event in neurological terms, but this apparently ended in frustration for him. 

(I have read some of this guy's books and I can't help but notice...did you notice this?...He only seems to write about cases when he can't make heads or tails of them.  His conclusion is always something to the effect of "there must have been disease or degeneration of this or that area of the brain, because we know that specific area governs this or that area of function.  Nothing you can do about it, sorry."  This happens so often that I kind of wonder how effective he is at his job.  He must see hundreds of cases we'll never hear about, and maybe he clears up all their problems in a week, but..?)

Neurology having failed him as always, Sacks falls back on his next line of defense, the literary approach.  Now this is a MUCH better way to go at it.  The Shaved Monkey psyche, once you scratch the surface, is a morass of half-digested hallucinations, loopy ideas, rationalizations for same, and crazily-embroidered emotions the Shaved Monkey can't manage...at least without getting arrested.  In Naked Ape literature this steaming mess coalesces beautifully into the actions of what they call "archetypes," acting in familiar patterns to resolve whatever the trouble is, allowing the ape reading it to breathe a sigh of relief as they read.  As the archetypes interact, order is being restored, balance is being re-established.  Very often the landscum reader will identify with one of those archetypes and feel vindicated if the interaction comes out in that story character's favor, or chastened if the opposite occurs. 

In this case Sacks drew on this Ibsen play:

The good doctor draws a parallel between the central character in this play, Ellida, whose mother was insane, and Spalding Gray.  Ellida lived in a lighthouse, and became consumed with thoughts of the sea and a man who embodied everything about the sea to her.  Leaving the lighthouse eventually drove her mad.  Spalding Gray had a seriously mentally ill mother who killed herself, and from the time he sold his own house, he was consumed with thoughts of his mother and with mental images of water, which to him symbolized being with her again.  As time passed it was harder and harder for him to stay away from the water and after several false starts, he finally flung himself into the ocean on January 10, 2010.  That is not a time of year most Shaved Monkeys can dive into Long Island Sound and emerge feeling well and refreshed.  Even a Walrus needs to brace herself against that kind of chill, as we all know.  So we see immediately that Gray, drawn into the sea like a Lemming, is indeed living out his own version of Ellida's story. 

And YOU AND I can also easily see that Gray acted out the age-old story, EONS OLDER THAN IBSEN, of entering the sea forever to meet his destiny.  Did I mention that on January 10th, just before getting on the ferry, Gray took his children to a movie?  What movie, you ask?  It was Big Fish!  Sacks says Gray didn't leave a suicide note, but come on, man, he did so; IT'S OBVIOUS.   The title of the movie said it all.

To quote Ibsen's play, "all the force of the sea is in this man."  And finally, he could no longer deny that force.  Neurology doesn't enter into it.  When Dagon calls, you gotta go.

The landscum's loss is OUR GAIN.  He dwells in wonder and glory forever with Dagon.

Quote of the Day

Everybody is a genius,

but if you judge a fish

by its ability to climb a tree,

it will live its whole life believing

that is it stupid.

 

Albert Einstein

 

Now, BEFORE THE UPROAR STARTS about this quote, ladies, let me just point out that I have not thought for MANY YEARS that human intelligence is anything to get excited about.  In fact, I'm one to get excited when I see that intelligence FADING AWAY, to be replaced by the SURE KNOWLEDGE that comes with being an aquatic life form rather than a shaved monkey.

 

I thought this was pretty funny, though.  I read somewhere that Einstein was thought to be retarded until he was 4 and a half years old because he had never spoken a word in his life.  When he suddenly went straight to using full sentences, they realized they HAD IT WRONG.  How smart WAS Einstein?  Well, within a few decades he had figured out how to split the atom, giving THE MOST WRONGHEADED SPECIES OF ALL the ability to scorch the entire surface of the earth and leave it uninhabitable.  That's what human genius does for you.

 

I also want to draw your attention to the photograph. 

 

Fish do climb trees.  And it has nothing to do with being smart.