Bill Hicks despre Religie

Nu stiu cum am reusit sa nu dau peste Bill Hicks cand in liceu devoram stand-up comedy, mai ales categoria inteligenta care o tine mai mult pe o tenta filozofala decat pe ideea de a scoate cat mai multe glume pe minut.

Desigur si Bill a trebuit sa moara, destul de tanar, si nu ramane decat sa speculam cum s-ar fi dezvoltat materialul lui daca ar fi trait pana azi. Ar fi fost genial sa-l auzim vorbind despre George Dub-ia, sau chiar in saptamanile astea despre ACTA si SOPA.

Dar lucrurile fiind cum fiind, cancerul a decis sa-l viziteze pe el si nu pe Carrot Top. Poate Dumnezeu exista, si e furios

Aici sunt cateva din gandurile lui Hicks despre valorile crestinesti.

(hint: Jackie Onassis e sotia lui JF Kennedy, George Bush-ul la care se refera e seniorul)

I miss George Carlin

Pe 22 iunie 2008 aveam examenul oral la Limba şi Literatura Românã la Bac, nu trebuia sa fiu acolo decât pe la ora 13 aşa cã am avut timp sã-mi verific mailul. Prima chestie pe care am vãzut-o când am intrat pe Yahoo a fost „Famous comedian George Carlin has passed away.” Shit. Am luat zece la examen, dar ziua aia nu a mai putut fi salvata.

În momentul de faţã citesc „The God Delusion” de Richard Dawkins, o carte de nonficţiune despre ateism, care în mod elocvent analizeazã argumentele generale împotriva acestuia şi pro-religie. Iar unul din capitole începe cu citat de George Carlin (Dawkins rules).

    “Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man ... living in the sky. Who     watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time...But he loves you.”

De îndatã ce am recunoscut citatul nu am putut sã-mi scot vocea rãguşitã a bãtrânului din cap. Probabil cã ştiu întreg segmentul aproape pe de rost.

Au trecut aproape patru ani de la moartea sa şi nu e nici vreo aniversare, aşa cã postul ãsta poate pãrea cam aiurea, dar efectiv mi s-a fãcut dor de George Carlin. Lumea e un loc mult mai searbãd fãrã el. În retrospectivã îmi dau seama cât de mult m-au influenţat showurile lui. A fost primul care a vociferat elegant şi amuzant (şi ofensiv, foarte foarte ofensiv) multe din gândurile şi pãrerile mele. M-a fãcut mândru sã fiu ateu, şi a fost unul din factorii majori care m-au determinat sã fac şi eu stand-up.

Dumnezeule, dacã exişti, mulţumim pentru George Carlin, sunt sigur cã şi pe Tine Te-a fãcut sã râzi.

Aici e întreg segmentul de unde e scos citatul.

Suna cunoscut? O poveste despre succesul colindelor romane in filmele Bollywood

Se apropie Craciunul! Yey!












Eu am sa fiu la lucru intr-un restaurant din Londra! Buuu!

Dar asta nu inseamna ca nu ma pot gandi si eu la Sarbatori, mai ales cand acestea isi fac prezenta tot mai simtita, de exemplu restaurantul de stil portughez si-a schimbat muzica de fundal de la versiuni portugheze la melodii Coldplay si Franz Ferdinand la versiuni portugheze la colinde americane, ca deh, mandrie culturala.

Dar nu de la acele melodii mi s-a trezit mie dorul de Craciun. Multi angajati sunt de origine Asiatica (Indieni, Bengali, Pakistanezi etc) si isi aduc propriile contributii la diversitatea culturala. Iar intr-o zi cand doi dintre ei fredonau o melodie de pe meleagurile lor (care suna destul de asemanator cu manelele noastre, doar ca doza de kitsch si de sintetizatoare e abia perceptabil mai mica), m-a lovit acel sentiment nesuferit cand ceva iti pare foarte cunoscut dar nu sti de unde. Abia cand au pus melodia pe playerul din bucatarie cand mi-am dat seama de unde o stiu. Si pur si simplu am simtit nevoia sa impart si cu voi aceasta descoperire:



Sune cunoscut? Dar nu sti chiar de unde? Sa-ti dau un indiciu:



Pam-pam!

Da, Bollywood a reusit sa ia asta:

Si sa o transforme in asta:

Talent dom'le, talent!

Poate noi singuri am impins lucrurile in directia asta. Sigur trebuie sa fie o varianta manea de la melodia asta, si daca nu, nici varianta asta nu pare a fi la un pas prea mare departare de la Teri Meri Peri:

Eh, nu avem ce face. Melodia e un succes imens in India si tarile aferente, muzicianul e laudat, si nimeni nu va recunoaste ca melodia e furata (cu exceptia romanilor care se plang pe youtube). Tot ce ne ramane de facut e sa punem pariuri care e urmatoarea colinda care va fi Bollywoodizata: O, ce veste minunata?, Trei Pastori? 

Mos Craciun cu plete dalbe?

How Justin Timberlake screwed me over

Ok, it wasn't Justin Timberlake, his only the main actor in the film which stole my idea, but hey, I gotta attract readers somehow, and how many of you tabloid consuming, product purchasing cretins know who Andrew Niccol is?
Well, he is the director of such films as "Gattaca" (and others I'm sure) and director and co-director of a Science Fiction film called "In Time" featuring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. But will get back to that later.


About 5-6 years ago, on one of those occasions in which life bores me to tears (yawning tears) I started constructed a fantasy world; I tried to conceptualize what the World would look like if people were immortal, and I soon realized that for such a society to function properly some form of severe population control needed to be put in order, otherwise people would just live forever and multiply until there is no more room or resources on Earth. My solution was a timer which would let people live only a period of time, in this case people would die after a certain number of heartbeats.
I like the concept and decided that one day I will turn it into some form of fiction. Now, I'm a lazy little fuck, and won't scratch my nose without an outside force putting pressure on me to do it, so it wasn't until March 2010, when I had a short story module and we were analyzing SF, that I actually wrote down the first version of the story based on the concept I made up. And here it is:

(don't worry, I know for some of you it is impossible to read a whole 700 word long short story, with all the facebook, and 9gag and ADD and all, so you can find a synopsis after the short-story, just skip and scroll)

Beats                                                                                                              

The man was sitting at a table in a restaurant and was checking his watch nervously. “Ten minutes now!” he thought, “Where is he? Maybe something happened, maybe they got him!” He checked the small monitor of the rectangular device implanted on to the underside of his left arm, his heart rate had risen to 100 bpm. “No, must not get nervous, calm down!” he picked up the restaurant’s magazine which was on the table and started randomly reading the articles and advertising. “Aren’t you tired of time-consuming queuing? How many beats are you loosing weekly while waiting to pay for you groceries. At TESCO we value your time and that is why we tripled the number of our cashiers in order to insure there is a free one for you when you want to pay and get out. TESCO: Every little beat helps” The advert calmed him down, any thought of improving his beat administration made him feel more at ease, as if he had already saved those extra precious heartbeats. The heart rate had gone down again to a regular 85 bpm, but it slightly rose again, when he looked at the other number on the device: 244800 out of 150 million; that was barely two more years.

He was sixty nine years old, but one could not tell, considering everyone around him looked about the same age once they passed twenty, but he knew he was probably the oldest person in the restaurant, termination usually occurred around 65 years of age, that’s how 150 million heartbeats would get you in a regular life. And what a careless life it was. The  second you were born the Counter was attached to your arm, immediately adjusting to your blood type, pumping nanites into your body; microscopic robots taking care of you, killing bacteria and viruses, eliminating cancer, healing injuries in a fraction of the time it would’ve taken your body to do it, but most of all, once you reached your physical high at about 22 years, they bring the aging process to a near halt. An everlasting youth, free of disease. A dream come true. Just that to avoid overpopulation people still needed to die, and accidents were not by far enough to do the job. So everyone was given 150 million heartbeats, after which the nanits would turn on their hosts and terminate them quickly and painlessly. And that is the moment which the man at the table feared most.

The other man came in with not a hint of hurry in his attitude.

“Hello Jon.” he said.

“You are late!”

 “Do you really care about ten minutes now? Are you forgetting why you are here?”

“No, but that still isn’t respectful behavior towards others. If you are careless with you own beats, Jerry, that’s fine, but you should mind others’. Do you have it?”

“Of course I have it.”

“I don’t understand why you are not using it! You throw your beats away, skydiving, clubbing, sports…”

“Don’t forget the sex. All the sex I am having and you are not.”

“Yes, another useless, beat consuming activity for the easily impressionable. You don’t even take calming pills! Well, anyway this I all understand, but why don’t you use the virus?”

“We are given what we are given. We must make the most of it! I presume you aren’t going to change your life-style after the procedure.”

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“A near eternity of boredom, now why would I want that?”

“Maybe when you reach my age you’ll understand. Then again you won’t, you’ll have consumed all your beats by the age of forty.”

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Yes.”

Jerry handed Jon the little device containing the very rare, highly illegal computer-virus which overwrites the nanits termination program. Jon took it with a reluctant eagerness and the men parted ways.

An hour later Jerry received a phone call: “Another job well done. He just activated it. 244634 beats transferred into your account. We suggest you attend his funeral to avoid suspicion.”

“Sorry Jon," he said to himself after hanging up, "but I will use the beats much better than you ever could’ve. You would’ve understood if you had reached my age.”

SYNOPSIS:

Somewhere in the future, all disease has been eradicated with the use of microscopic robots which are injected into a persons body and stay there for the rest of his life mending them and stopping the ageing process at around 22 years, so basically only accidents and murder can kill them. To avoid overpopulation, people are given a certain number of heartbeats, which will give them around 60-70 years to live at a normal life-style, after which the robots kill their host. People have devices on their fore-arms telling them how much longer they have to live.

Jon, who has lived a very boring to keep his pulse down, is close to the end of beat-number and meets Jerry, a man who enjoys adrenalin inducing activities, and who will provide a virus which will hinder Jon's termination. However Jerry actually works for an agency which seeks to eliminate people who try to cheat their way out of death, and as a reward gains their remaining heartbeats once he eliminates them

Now, the story itself isn't very good. The second paragraph is a classic example of telling not showing (a writing NO!-NO!) and the rest is so-so, but that's because I never meant this to be just a short story, so I had to explain the concept quickly. I just wanted to get feedback on it, see what people think about it. And I must say it was well received; it worked, it pushed the story along, there were many aspects I could explore, it had room for expansion. It was among, or even the best SF concept made up by members of that particular group. Even the tutor, a published SF writer said he was actually a bit jealous of this world I made up. So, hell yeah! 

This gave me courage to start thinking about a novel/movie script based on the short-story, even if with different characters. I actually started working on it, which was unusual for me. I thought about characters, plots and mostly about how this society would look like. I wanted it to be well thought out, a Phillip K. Dick style proper utopia/dystopia story.

Fast-Forward to August 2011.

I am at work, cleaning the restaurant after closing, and am talking to a movie-buff friend. He is telling me about the trailer for the new Justin Timberlake movie coming, which pissed him off, because it was chock-full of trailer cliches. He told me it was about a not-so-distant future in which disease is eradicated and people stop ageing at 25 years. To avoid overpopulation however people only get a certain time to live, and time has become the new monetary system. Justin is a young guy who meets a guy who was able to cheat the system and live indefinitely. And then some action scenes happen.

After saying this my friend couldn't understand why I was just staring blankly and I didn't talk for a while. Finally, I asked: "Is this a joke?"

"What? No. Why?"

"Did you read my short story?"

"What short story?"

Later I went home to watch trailer, and this is what I saw:

Well, that didn't see slightly familiar...MOTHERFUCKERS! I'LL KILL YOU! I mean, they even have the device on the fore-arm counting your minutes. What the fuck?

Sure, it's not heartbeats, it's literally minutes and seconds, and the rules are different, you have to earn your time, and you can buy stuff with it and some people are immortal, but the concept is the same. No. Not only is the concept the same, many of the details are the same. Why would anyone do this to me?

I wanted to explore how people act when they need to mind their heartbeats. What do they do for fun? What drugs do they use? How do they view each-other considering nobody ages? What do relationships look like? I had all sorts of small details like that TESCO advert. So, what now? Should put effort and time intro writing the novel (because a script is out of the question), just so every publisher can tell me "Wasn't this a Justin Timberlake movie? We can't publish this, they'll sue us for plagiarizing". Of course, my story wasn't published. It was read by a handful of people in a classroom, so how could I prove i wrote it even before production on the film began?

Don't get me wrong! I do realize that they didn't actually plagiarize me. And that the whole thing is a coincidence, even the details. But I still feel cheated. The first thing I actually planned on properly working on has become obsolete, unusable. Fuck this shit!

Besides somebody already sued them because apparently there was a similar story written and published in 1965. They sued successfully, even though that story is far less similar than mine.

But I digress, it's a weird fucked-up twist one me, and I just wanted to tell it. If I've been robbed of my story, at least I can show that it was there. But the worst is that not only was my story 'stolen' by a block-buster action SF film, but it was stolen by a block-buster action SF film with Justin Timberlake in the main role; and not only that but apparently it is not a very good film, it has a rotten rating of 38% on rottentomatoes, and 6.7 on IMDb. If at least it was one of those good SFs, like "Gattaca" even, but all that potential is lost.

Sigh.

And what is the lesson supposed to be here? If you have good idea, kill everybody in Hollywood first, and also everybody with a creative mind just to be sure? Or, just forget it?

I don't even have the benefit of a lesson.

Headline Factory 3

Authorities are still baffled by the multiple homicide which has occurred at the Royal Court and has claimed the lives of the King, the Queen and the Prince Regent among others. Only one witness has been found, and has been taken in for interrogation.

Headline Factory 2

Man attempts suicide by shooting himself in the head. The survivor is believed to suffer of multiple personality disorder and to be connected to recent urban terrorist attacks known as "Project Mayhem"

Headline Factory 1

Tragedy strikes Verona City as two teenagers from wealthy rival families commit suicide after their love is forbidden.

rebirth

different city
different people
different world
but i am the same

i walk down
the road smelling of the world
yet the smell of home has long been lost

surrounded by you all
i am alone
as you walk against me down the road
all in sync
and i’m the filth-stain
on a fresh painted wall
and i stay alone
with myself
the idiot
the fool

sitting outside my window
ten stories high
as night copulates with dawn
absorbing the world as it changes
i would cry
but i won’t
i’m dry

so i just smoke my fag
and drink my coffee
no sugar
like life

i slip and i fall
ten stories down
i break my legs
longing to feel anything
...yet not even pain

i start crawling back
to what was once familiar
crawling with my arms
but they erode
leaving a trail of blood
then they are no more
so i crawl on my belly
and still not even pain

and my stomach erodes
and i erode
‘till i am no more
just the trail of blood
i left behind
but it quickly fades
and my passing is unmarked
forgotten and useless
i am no more

there is no new start
the chains of what was
tie me down
so i am where i was
nowhere
i am no more once again

Countdown

It had been snowing for twenty-one hours and thirteen minutes as Chris limps slowly back through the desolate village, thinking about the devastation in his life.

Chris is a clockmaker.

Evening does not ‘creep in’ during winter.

The phrase ‘darkness falls’ is not just a metaphor, at least not in a small village in the Carpathians, where not even electricity has been introduced.

Despite the clear sky, the darkness closes in, like a wall, for the moon is not yet up.

A full Moon will shine tonight.

There is nobody on the street.

As Chris drags his foot through the fresh, crunchy snow, he counts every one of his steps. He always had the need to measure time, and now he curses himself for forgetting his pocket-watch at home; an old relic inherited from his father, who got it from his father, all of them clockmakers. There is a safety in counting time, a sense of control. And of all nights it is on this one that he lacks that feeling. He quickens his pace.

Dim, yellow lights start flickering in the windows around him. Candles are being lit revealing ghoulish faces with a cadaveric pallor, seemingly floating in the pale light like the ghosts of disembodied heads.

Chris is near his house when a long howl is released somewhere in the woods.

He stops.

Drops of sweat start dripping down his back as he feels his temperature rising.

A candle is dying on his desk, and the low light reveals hundreds of glazy eyes staring at him. All the clocks he has collected over the years, regardless of shape and size, hang from his wall, and if until now he felt their constant ticking reassuring, now he feels harassed, as if an omen keeps reminding him of the little time he has left. “The black wolf with the white glowing eyes” he mutters without realizing.

His heart is still beating at an agonizing pace.

He checks his daughter’s room.

It is empty.

She is at her grandparent’s, as he had arranged.

He hasn’t got much time.

Suddenly a loud noise crushes the silence.

Again.

And again.

And again.

The grandfather-clock announcing the sixth hour.

He has little time left.

Old folk used to scare little children in the village with the tale of the black wolf with glowing eyes. The man eater who had plagued the villagers for centuries, a pawn of the Devil. People sometimes came to the pub, all pale, mentioning just two eyes glowing in the distance. But wolves rarely came as far as the village, and attacks on humans were even rarer. His wife had been the only case in thirty years. She had been dragged off five years ago, and they had found only blood and scraps of clothing.

Then, a month ago, five years to the day, Chris was chopping some wood one night when a dark, huge figure lunged at him out of the darkness, biting his foot. He swung his axe at it, and the wolf made for a run, looking back only once. Chris still wasn’t sure if in that second the creature’s eyes did glow or if it was the light of the moon.

He didn’t think it was anything else but a lone hungry wolf, but since then he started having cravings. He felt like eating raw meat, still soaking in blood. His temper was quicker, and he had nightmares of tearing people apart…even ripping his daughter to pieces. And last night, after going to sleep, he awoke in the garden howling at the moon.

He has no time.

He cannot risk harming anyone.

It is probably all just in his mind.

But he cannot take that risk.

The ticking of the clock grows ever faster, and so does the rhythm of his heart beat.

A terrible pain hits his chest, and moves to his whole body. His bones and muscles feel as if they are stretching and tearing. He runs for the door, and goes towards the edge of the village, towards the forest. His leg stops limping, his body seems to grow stronger. He moves faster. He can still hear the clocks ticking in his mind.

He feels the urge to kill.

He fights it.

He must press on.

He hears footsteps.

He moves faster.

The steps follow him.

He turns.

“Papa, where are you go…?” the girl manages to say before she starts screaming.

I don't know anymore

i’m somewhere
nowhere
always someplace else
some place distant
i watch myself from that place
like a bad sitcom
i don’t have the remote to change the channel
i must pull the plug

yesterday i drove my bike into a car
it was speeding on the opposite way
i crashed
flew off my bike and right through the windshield
i could see my parents and friends
sitting on the front seats
they were scared
so i tried not to hurt them
when my head broke the glass

i landed on the backseat
next to a child
and he was me
and he held my hand
and wouldn’t let go

please let go
let me pull the plug
just let go