The Voice of Reason: A V.I.P. Pass to Enlightenment Read online

  So. If you are Native American, and sulkily imagine yourself the latest link in a chain of victims that begins with the Spanish incursion, keep these things in mind: You may very well be the descendant of a slave and a slave owner; one of the oppressed and an oppressor; one of the mass murdered and a mass murderer. And at this point in time, it’s just a little too far removed and way, way too complicated to continue to use the European contact and its subsequent cultural impacts as a platform to confer modern-day victimhood status and gain some type of advantage. The moment I hear, and people like me hear, the whole “We lived in peace ‘til the White Man came” number, I kinda roll my eyes and reach for my wallet, wondering what it is going to cost me; even though the white men that I descended from were from places like Germany and Scotland and had absolutely nothing to do with the Spanish contact. In fact, at that same time, my descendants were getting their asses kicked inside-out by whatever local, regional, or national Teutonic version of Moctezuma II or Athahualpa was running the show back then. They endured some pretty terrible tyranny, but I, unlike many others in modern society, am not allowed to claim victimhood based upon my ancestors’ troubles. Am I complaining? Certainly not. I don’t need some manufactured notion of historical aggrievement to succeed. Take it if you feel you need it. But let me share a solid fact: it’s hard to pity and respect someone at the same time. Take your pick, and then live with the choice.

  Social Media

  Hey, are you friends with me on Facebook?

  You know what, skip Facebook. Facebook sucks.

  Social media lures people in by convincing them that it is essential for keeping in touch with their far-flung friends. People don’t stay put the way they used to; we are go-getters and jet-setters who would feel nothing but shrieking loneliness if we couldn’t touch base with our 564 friends and loved ones to remind us of who we really are. Whatever happened to making a good old-fashioned phone call, or writing a letter? I love letters. I even send them on occasion. I like hearing a friend’s voice when he has exciting news, but I also like to be able to hang up the phone when he wants to ramble on about what he is having for lunch or what song he is listening to at that exact moment. I don’t care, and neither does any other unneurotic human being. Social media doesn’t facilitate friendship; it encourages using your friends for ceaseless validation. So, you had lunch? Anyone who gives you a “like” for that is fat (as in, “Holy catfish, Batman! I LOVE LUNCH! IN FACT, I’M ON MY THIRD!”). That person needs a gym membership.

  Because of both hipster culture and Facebook culture, the human race is starting to resemble a school of hairy piranhas. Bad eye makeup and a few whiny albums used to be the coping mechanisms for the average teen with daddy issues. Now cryptic status updates, complete with the insta self-portrait, are the salve for their wounded egos. I have a violent allergy to self-photos. Get someone else to take your picture so that at least one other person personally witnesses your narcissism. What’s that, all of your friends are on the glowing screen in your lap? I’m so surprised.

  I especially hate the Facebook profile information. Most people seem to think that in order to come off as an interesting yet genuine human being, you have to be both open and enigmatic. This smattering of random facts resembles a drunk paint-gun rampage, producing a picture so blurry as to completely obliterate the outlines of anything remotely like a human being.

  Don’t believe me, do you? Fine. Here are some facts about me that I guarantee you didn’t know.

  I have hated mushrooms my whole life, but I’m beginning to change my mind about them.

  I hate when I ask a question and it doesn’t get answered.

  I’m not into cars or trucks. Who cares? It’s all Point A to Point B.

  I miss Europe, but only because of the sandwiches. What’s not to love about a place that puts a fried egg on top of every club sandwich?

  If I could have one wish, anything at all, it would be for my dog, the Distinguished Gentleman of West Linn Mr. Danger Waffles, to talk.

  I don’t like snakes or people who do.

  My favorite movie franchise is the Bourne trilogy with Matt Damon, and I think that the best actor to ever play James Bond is Pierce Brosnan. Not even Sean Connery brought James Bond to life like Brosnan did, and I don’t care if you disagree with me.

  I don’t believe in UFOs, but there is a clear UFO phenomenon that I can’t yet explain.

  There. I bet you feel like you have known me since we were kids, right? You know everything that you need to know about me, don’t you? Yeah, that’s what I thought. You don’t know squat, and you don’t have a very clear picture of me, either.

  See, these online profiles can be edited to be whatever you want them to be. Peasants on Facebook are worse, because by being the editor of their identity they have forgotten that they are trivial and anonymous and always will be. It’s the same tactic crazy people use to appear lovable on dating Web sites, when they probably have some psychotic secret stashed in several pieces in their freezer. If they were so lovable, they wouldn’t have to hide behind an online profile in the first place. Facebook fans, online stalker daters, same thing to me.

  And why does “Facebook official” matter? I have heard reasonable, intelligent people say, “It isn’t official until it’s on Facebook.” Is Facebook a legal entity that grants marriage licenses and religious ordinations now?

  I have been focusing my criticism on Facebook, but it’s not like Mark Zuckerberg is the only guy to blame here. Facebook at least allows for some semblance of dialogue. Twitter, on the other hand, lets every mouthpiece feel like he’s addressing an adoring crowd. It shouldn’t be called Twitter; it should be called Blather. No, you’re not that important, and how dare you think you are. Nobody cares if you got tagged in that photo. None of us care that you’re going to be at such and such a club on such and such a night. Twitter is moronic, and possibly the root of all things stupid and evil.

  If you want to read more about my hatred for social media, check out my Twitter feed at @sonnench.

  Why, Exactly, Are We Keeping the White Rhinos Around?

  eco-freakos, it’s time to spar a lil’ bit with that crude-oil-consumin’, big-truck-drivin’, air-conditioner-blastin’, endangered-species-devourin’ rogue, your ol’ buddy ChaCha! Ready to trade some shots?

  Before we get started, I have a few requests. First, go take a shower. You smell like a springbok that waded five miles through a swamp to escape a pack of hyenas. You don’t use deodorant, so what did you expect? Next, take off the love beads, the hemp bracelet, and the organic-cotton dashiki. I know you think some barefoot Bushwoman from Namibia wearing mismatched American hand-me-downs decades out of style wove the dashiki while chewing on a mouthful of leaves, but it is actually a 50-50 poly-cotton knockoff that was made in a sweatshop in Vietnam right next to the fake Twilight T-shirts. I know, I know, you bought it at a street fair full of “fair trade” and “organic” merchandise, so it’s gotta be real. After all, there are no hucksters in the world of green living, right? You’ve got a vaguely identifiable, hysterical need and no oversight, and that combo never breeds dishonesty or corruption, does it?

  But wait a second. Didn’t that fellow who sold you that “fair trade,” “organic,” hideous pseudo-serape look suspiciously like the guy manning the sausage ‘n’ peppers stand at last week’s Italian-American street fair? You know, the booth you pointed at in righteous disgust before you turned up your snooty little vegan nose. They look awfully similar, that’s all I’m sayin’.

  Now I want you to remove those filthy Jesus sandals. God, if Jesus only knew that his name would become irretrievably linked with people like you, wearing shoes named after him, I think he would have fast-forwarded himself to modern times for a brief shopping interlude. Before heading back to the dust and distrust of the New Testament, he would have snagged his holy self a pair of Bally driving moccasins to gallivant around in.

  Great, so glad you’re out of them filthy, phony duds.
Dang, you’re a scrawny one, arentcha? Unka ChaCha is going to call up a meatball-parm air strike from my favorite pizza place while we getcha all scrubbed up. That’s right, little guy, crawl under that translucent, shimmering column. It’s what we call a “shower.” Yes, that stuff coming down is heated, flowing water. It helps carry away dirt and grime. I’m hoping it can also carry away self-righteousness and stupidity, but that’s probably expecting too much. There ya go! How’s that water feel? You know, water has a friend, kind of a sidekick or lil’ helper. He’s like water’s Tonto. We normal human beings call him soap. He’s right here—I told him all about you, and he’s dyin’ to meetcha.

  Now get under that hot water, grab that soap, and start scubbin’. While you’re doing that, getting all warm and clean for the very first time, I’ll go outside, chop down an endangered tree, and use its life—its very essence—to make a fire so I can burn your clothes, your shoes, your grubby accessories, your grimy hacky sack, that dime bag of skunk weed I found in your pants, and your well-thumbed copy of Silent Spring.

  Finished? Good. You no longer smell like a plague-ridden rat. You still look like the lead singer from the Spin Doctors if he had been swept up by a tornado, spun around for three weeks, and then deposited in a cistern somewhere, but for you it’s an improvement. Your cell phone? Oh, I burned that, too. Too many chemicals and minerals and slave-labor-manufactured parts. It hadda go. If you want to communicate with your girlfriend and let her know where y’are and what y’are doin’, just bang out a coded rhythm on that hollow log like all those indigenous tribes you admire so much would do. Oh, she’s in jail? Disturbing the peace again, you say? Well, I’m sure she did it for the “right” reasons. Throwing that brick through the plate-glass window of a Starbuck’s during last week’s rally against corporate America really sent a message to … well … somebody, I guess. Hope she’s enjoying that orange jump suit and grape Kool-Aid in the slammer.

  But let’s focus on you, my newfound, newly clean(ish) friend. Here’s a Team Quest T-shirt. Wait—gimme that back. Here’s an Anderson “the Spider” Silva T-shirt for your emaciated lil’ midriff. It’ll give me something to aim for once we start our verbal sparring; you know, I hit him about 697 times when we fought. Plus, I’ve got lots of these T-shirts. Since he’s got no fans, I scoop them up on eBay for two bucks a pop. I use them to wash my truck, which I do five times a week using as much clean, fresh water as possible. I like to make sure every inch of my “highway star” is gleaming, just in case I have to drive to a rally in support of Monsanto or Halliburton or Raytheon or any one of the dozen other evil corporate entities you battle like a mangy little Don Quixote; corporations that perform functions like creating drought- and plague-resistant strains of crops that keep millions of people around the world from starving, or technologies to prevent maniacs in turbans from frying your Mecca, San Francisco, with an atomic devise.

  Washing my truck is a waste of water, you say? Well, exactly how is it being wasted? After it gets my truck all bright ‘n’ shiny, it goes down a storm drain, ready to perform another job. It doesn’t disappear into thin air like Nicolas Cage’s career or Kim Kardashian’s dignity. It goes back to work; it evaporates, turns into a cloud, falls into rivers that drain into a reservoir, and gets pumped back into my pipes, so I can spray it on my truck and start the cycle all over again. It’s called recycling! A perfect system. Aren’t you proud of me, He with An Empty Head Who Points Filthy Fingers at Others? That’s your new Native American name. Just thought it up. You like?

  OK, enough of this shilly-shallyin’, Nature Boy. It’s time to start takin’ some shots. Let’s see what you’re really made of underneath all that grubby unctuousness. Take this headgear and pull it over that empty head. Now put in this mouthpiece. God! When’s the last time you let a dentist take a look at those choppers, Jungle Jim? What, no toothbrushes available at the sit-ins? Anyway, the bell is about to ring. Throw up your mitts and guard your grille. I’m about to spit some knowledge, and it’s going to come hard and fast.

  First things first. A little history lesson.

  Your attitude and behavior are direct ideological descendants of the student-protest movement of the 1960s. It shares that movement’s overwhelmingly self-mythologizing, self-referential, colossally reckless, insensitive, and vile aesthetic. Just so you know, the student protesters of the ‘60s weren’t all students. They were a small group of semi-professional agitators who didn’t fit into society and rode herd over a bunch of lost, dimwitted, self-impressed, highly impressionable, sub-adults ripe for indoctrination and processing. In theory, structure, and practice, the leaders of the protest movement marched in philosophical lockstep with that other world-weary, grizzled, pimp and failure Charles Manson. And let me ask you this—did your ideological predecessors ever stop to think about how the lives of the overwhelming majority of college students were disrupted and derailed thanks to their protests and attacks? Of course not. For the protesters, what they believed in, what they wanted to tell the world, was the only thing that had value to them.

  Thousands upon thousands of students, many of whom may have opposed the Vietnam War themselves but chose to manifest that opposition by voting and maintaining society, were inconvenienced. They had their entire academic lives upset and defined by the actions of a scurrilous few who occupied buildings, disrupted classes, and made unlawful and ridiculous demands on society and the institutions of higher learning that they targeted. Hopped up on illegal drugs, they fomented showdown after showdown with the forces of reason, law, and order—with disastrous results. I often speculate on the actual nature of that famous photo taken at Kent State: a young hippie woman, looking, I should observe, not unlike Squeaky Fromme, kneeling down over the prone body of some male hippie, her mouth frozen in a scream, her agony captured for all time by a clever and fortunate fellow hippie photographer. I wonder if that young man lying there, instead of being the victim of some justified act of self-defense meted out by some heroic National Guardsman, isn’t actually just laid out in the middle of the street in a narcotic haze from a bag of really potent dope. I also wonder if his aggrieved female counterpart isn’t just screaming to their dealer across the way for another bag, so she can join him in the land of Nod for a while*.

  That is your heritage, friend. That is whom you take your cues from.

  Feelin’ the heat yet, Activist Boy? Seems like it. You’re starting to sweat a lil’ bit. Starting to stink again, too. But this time you reek like a root cellar full of musty rutabagas. We gotta get some deodorant on you, stat.

  To make some of my better points, let’s head out on a safari. It’s important. There are some rhinos that need our help!

  That’s right, save the rhinos … or the pronghorn antelope, or the dung beetle, or the meerkat, or whatever your pathetic choice of animal to champion this week as a way of vaulting yourself into my consciousness without any legitimate accomplishment or quality of your own. But let’s go with the rhinos for now. Big. Cute. Deadly. Got no real issues with them. But if their numbers are dwindling, and they are, isn’t that nature’s way of showing them the door, like nature does with every species eventually? Didn’t nature put us here, too? Isn’t the natural order of things for species to eventually go extinct? Doesn’t the fossil record indicate that everything dies out sooner or later? How do you know that nature, and fate, and evolution didn’t put us here to get rid of them, so something better and more productive might rise in their place? How do you know that keeping them around by artificial means isn’t stifling the development of a baboon with two brains that might cure cancer in five hundred years? Who are you, eco-boy, to decide? Why do you, and not nature, get the deciding vote on what goes on the species scrap heap and what doesn’t? I know. Rhinos are beautiful, they’re intelligent, blah blah blah.

  Like the whales. We’ve gotta keep them around, too, because someday we’re going to be able to communicate with them. This coming from the likes of you, who doesn’t even communicate
with the members of his own family residing two towns over, which speaks the same language. But we keep the whales around for the extremely unlikely reason that we might be able to “communicate” with them one day. As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather get rid of them if it affords the benefit not having to put up with the likes of you, even if that means that my great-great-great-great-great-grandson is never going to get an email from friggin’ Shamu. And what is Shamu going to say, anyway? “Hey, humans. This is a chain email. Bring me some fish and a cute female whale to mate with. Then leave me alone or I’ll bite ya in half.”

  Trees. Got to save the trees. Majestic giants, leafy wonders, your bark-covered blood brothers. Right. Gotta fight those evil lumberjacks. Don’t let the fact that natural occurrences, like floods and lightning-ignited forest fires, kill more trees per year than human logging. Inconvenient truth, and leaves you nothing to scream about and no one to scream at. It’s frustrating, I know, because how can you feel morally superior to a swollen river or an electrically charged thundercloud? Neither of them cares about you, and neither of them will throw fifty dollars of guilt money into a paper envelope and send it to your annoying tree charity of choice, just to make you shut up and go away. So that leaves us for you to annoy, and pester, and feel better than. As for me, I like the fact that trees exist so they can be cut down, and used to build things, like hospitals, and schools, and airports, and research labs. I like that. I want more of that. The older and bigger the tree that gets cut down, the better. It’s had a wonderful, glorious, long life. It is getting closer (by dint of probability) to dying every second in a fire, or flood, or by disease, and getting rid of it will open a hole in the forest canopy that will let sunlight in, which will then help to make the area ready for a new tree, which would never have existed had that selfish old bastard of a tree, and an idiot accomplice like you, had their druthers. In fact, two or three trees might be able to grow, and thrive, in that old tree’s place. So what are you saving it for? We need building materials. We need paper. What do you want to do, wipe your ass with an old cat?