Ultima Ratio Regum
The Staff of Dominion of Cool was spending its December 26 doing what most Americans probably were not doing. Work. And the work we were doing is exactly what our job description calls for as it is written into our contracts. Allow me to quote: “The writing staff will be expected to sit around, drinking either Cabernet or 7 and 7’s, discussing whether or not Bob Dylan was an over-glorified beatnik or a genius of the highest order, and in exchange for these services the writing staff shall receive a regular base salary of exactly $nothing.”
So that is what were doing, as for some reason our pleas to be given the day off were denied by HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED, BUT WHOSE NAME IS ZIGGY (that’s our boss). And as usual, we were all agreeing and mutually congratulating ourselves on our very astute observations in favor of Bob Dylan not only being a musical icon, but one of the foremost brilliant artists of the entire 20th century in any medium, worthy of placement alongside the likes of Fitzgerald or Brando. We were further slapping each others backs as we dismissed anyone who thought otherwise to be a little loony, and then, of course, as we are prone to do, going on to laugh off everything Dylan did after the 60’s as the jibberish of a man who had already made his point and felt no pressure to make it again.
At just that time we received a phone call from somebody named Fred. We’ve never really understood who Fred is … we just know that he is somebody who likes to demand occasional pieces of writing from us, and that is what he was doing tonight. His face towered above us on HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED, BUT WHOSE NAME IS ZIGGY’s massive video-phone as he told us in a solemn manner that ex-President Gerald Ford had just passed on and he wanted exactly 1465 words on it. We told him that we were drunk from all the wine, and that we were still discussing Dylan’s place in history, but he interrupted us and told us to stop referring to ourselves as more than one person when in reality we were just one person (me), and second of all, give us those goddamn 1465 words or he’d be disappointed, and you know what that means.
In reality we had no idea, but we were beginning to suspect that this Fred person may have just been a drunken illusion that appeared to us – a terrible symbol. A symbol of what, I can feel you asking? Why, a symbol of the very obtuseness of this whole blogging thing in the first place – the calling we bloggers feel to splatter our feelings into cyberspace where very few will ever read them, and even less will actually care. Fred is the symbol of that calling, and he was calling us to sound off in exactly 1465 words on the death of ex-pres Ford.
So there you have it … and here you go. It starts off as an angry insult toward politicians, wanders into a bit of cultural/societal criticism, springboards right off into historical analysis, and soars freely then into observation about the nature of the very cosmos, and indeed the whole of EXISTENCE. Now … on with the show:
I am not in a very good mood, and the reason is the death of ex-president Gerald Ford. Let me make this absolutely clear - FUCK GERALD FORD. His death registers as not even the smallest blip on my radar screen of barely-important goings-on. He's a 90+ year-old creep, and it sickens me that we have to see this turned into a life-shattering ordeal on television and in the newspapers - which is why I do little else than listen to music and read books. Coming up to breath the stale air of current world affairs is akin to sticking your head inside a gas tank for a big whiff.
I know, you think I'm being insensitive. So in the spirit of goodwill to my readers, let me ease some of your horror with a bit of explanation. You see, politicians have few fair comparisons in this dimension, but one that is at least reasonable is that of a snow storm inasmuch as it consumes everything around it and forces everyone to go screaming for cover. Presidents of the United States, for all their pompous horseshit, are politicians just the same ... and politicians are NOT heroes. They are the worst kind of human being you can find on this planet, and there's many reasons for that. First of all, they are no different than any rockstar or actor in that what they really want is to be a celebrity. However, unlike these latter types, who want to be made rich and famous for their art, presidents want to be made rich and famous for something else entirely - namely, their small, old penises. Yes, I know how that sounds, but it's true I'm afraid. What every president truly dreams of is having his old, pale, breaking-down body plastered on every television in America. They want their discolored, badly mutated faces to be associated with every major event that happens in the world, good or bad. They know damn well that politicians are the most mutated, sexless disasters on the planet, and they also know that there is only one way for such (shall I say) specimen to get the attention they crave ... power.
But here's the rub on power. Yes, they say the president of the US is the most powerful man on earth. But the trick is that Gerald Ford, like every other president, is a fucking slave. Slave to expectations, schedules, public opinion, and the lies that pile up in politics faster than Jay-Z is able to put together cliche-riddled, exactly-the-same-as-everything-else-out-there rap albums. And I'm not talking government conspiracies or anything outlandishly hippy-fueled like that when I speak the word "lies." I'm just talking about the nature of the biz, as they say. Politics is like the world of sales or advertising in OVERDRIVE. Compassion where a vaccuum exists / outrage where mild irritation suffices / knowing when to smile, when to speak, when to stay silent, when to be religious, when to be wordly, when to cry, when to laugh, when to kill, when to be seen, when to hide, where to go, what to do, how to do it, who to do it with, who to swear loyalty to, whom to betray, how to inflect one's voice, etc., etc., on and on, day after day, year after year. Politicians are actors, and they aren't even good ones ... but the American people buy it because we're not asked to suspend our disbelief. There's no convenient disclaimer that speaks the comforting word "fiction" to us, and so we believe that it must therefore be non.
And in like manner, we are slaves to those who are slaves to the worst kinds of things to be slave to. We are the worst kind of people - the ones who are cowards, but have bought our own deceit so totally that we've become too stupid even to remember. We believe our own cliche: the dog is happier for his ignorance. Who is happier? A creature who eats its own shit and licks its own crotch, acting out of blind instinct? Do you believe that? You might say no when you read the way I've written it, but we believe it as a culture, because that's exactly what we do. We toil in a universe of our own making that demands WORK and DISCIPLINE and OBEDIENCE ... preaches this horeshit in each and every religion since the beginning of time. Blessed are the meek, blessed are those who serve, blessed are those who live miserably with nothing inside accept a bit of empty, unfounded "FAITH."
Faith! That's the answer. Have faith in your gods. Have faith in your government. Have faith in your boss. Have faith, whether you good reason to have it or not. Why? Because you will be cast into a fiery hell for eternity if you do not. Or into a hellish, cold prison. Or fired from your job. You see, there's consequences for not having faith. Consequences ... inescapable, because they are all backed up by those final words ... Ultima ratio regum!! (the last argument of kings). The centuries-old latin of a French king, actually inscribed upon his royal cannons. The sickness of that. And yet the eternal reality of that. It's brilliant, actually. In a sad way, you have to respect that kind of grasp on a timeless truth, and the audacity to flaunt your grasp on it.
Then there's the irony of it. The Ozymandias "look on my works, ye mighty, and despair" attribute that the ol' Louis was probably only dimly aware of, if at all. You see, it is literally the LAST argument of kings as they have fallen throughout time, defeated by their own weaknesses and evil, perished under the blade of some other conquering idealist who seeks slavery to the same life/death, truth/lies cycle of the politician he has just vanquished. These are the real laws of the universe, if you believe in that sort of thing. There is slavery, but there is nothing else. You are tiny, you are insignificant, and you are servile. This is true from the smallest microorganism to the cosmos themselves, all of whom are going to sink into a supermassive blackhole anyhow.
But you are free to choose the object of your loyalty, and there's plenty of options. I've chosen what I feel is an honest path. I love music, I love books, and I love living like an honest person - which doesn't always make my choices/behavior the popular thing, but there you have it. And I'm not shouting my own praises here, because I'm shouting yours too in a sense. Politicians are the dregs of a society ... they are the weird, reflectionless monsters that devote themselves to an ideology, and then pursue it - becoming heroes in the process to all those who share the ideology, and villains to those who oppose it. Either way, they are maniacs. At some point they decided that what they felt was worth inflicting on everybody else. Do you see how this is worse than even sales and advertising? Sales and advertising might lie at every syllable, might stretch and shape society as they see fit, and might influence all of us in ways that are too subtle for us to even catch up on, but in the end they are not actually force-feeding you anything with a gun to your head. This is what politicians do, and they do it blatantly, out in the open, and carve the fact of it right into the very cannons they use.
Then they die. And if they were scourges upon the face of humanity, we do not lament. If they did relatively little damage, then we plaster their mug all over our television sets, write millions of articles across the world, and call them the very greatest of our heroes. This is not unique to America, nor is it even unique to our particular moment in history. It simply is. The worst kinds of humans make slaves of us, and in so doing become slaves themselves, and ultimately this pattern never ends ... nor indeed can it ever end. Like I said, that's the way this universe rolls. And none of this is new ... I don't pretend to be saying wholly original ideas here. Shit, we've known about this for thousands of years. We just haven't found a way around it.
And that's a small pearl of what may or may not be truth for you, chums. This is why seeing Gerald Ford on TV and in the paper has fouled my mood. Good riddance to another inevitable screwdriver in Existence's toolbox. I do not mourn for you, Ford.
Ultima ratio regum, friends.
Mike
So that is what were doing, as for some reason our pleas to be given the day off were denied by HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED, BUT WHOSE NAME IS ZIGGY (that’s our boss). And as usual, we were all agreeing and mutually congratulating ourselves on our very astute observations in favor of Bob Dylan not only being a musical icon, but one of the foremost brilliant artists of the entire 20th century in any medium, worthy of placement alongside the likes of Fitzgerald or Brando. We were further slapping each others backs as we dismissed anyone who thought otherwise to be a little loony, and then, of course, as we are prone to do, going on to laugh off everything Dylan did after the 60’s as the jibberish of a man who had already made his point and felt no pressure to make it again.
At just that time we received a phone call from somebody named Fred. We’ve never really understood who Fred is … we just know that he is somebody who likes to demand occasional pieces of writing from us, and that is what he was doing tonight. His face towered above us on HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED, BUT WHOSE NAME IS ZIGGY’s massive video-phone as he told us in a solemn manner that ex-President Gerald Ford had just passed on and he wanted exactly 1465 words on it. We told him that we were drunk from all the wine, and that we were still discussing Dylan’s place in history, but he interrupted us and told us to stop referring to ourselves as more than one person when in reality we were just one person (me), and second of all, give us those goddamn 1465 words or he’d be disappointed, and you know what that means.
In reality we had no idea, but we were beginning to suspect that this Fred person may have just been a drunken illusion that appeared to us – a terrible symbol. A symbol of what, I can feel you asking? Why, a symbol of the very obtuseness of this whole blogging thing in the first place – the calling we bloggers feel to splatter our feelings into cyberspace where very few will ever read them, and even less will actually care. Fred is the symbol of that calling, and he was calling us to sound off in exactly 1465 words on the death of ex-pres Ford.
So there you have it … and here you go. It starts off as an angry insult toward politicians, wanders into a bit of cultural/societal criticism, springboards right off into historical analysis, and soars freely then into observation about the nature of the very cosmos, and indeed the whole of EXISTENCE. Now … on with the show:
I am not in a very good mood, and the reason is the death of ex-president Gerald Ford. Let me make this absolutely clear - FUCK GERALD FORD. His death registers as not even the smallest blip on my radar screen of barely-important goings-on. He's a 90+ year-old creep, and it sickens me that we have to see this turned into a life-shattering ordeal on television and in the newspapers - which is why I do little else than listen to music and read books. Coming up to breath the stale air of current world affairs is akin to sticking your head inside a gas tank for a big whiff.
I know, you think I'm being insensitive. So in the spirit of goodwill to my readers, let me ease some of your horror with a bit of explanation. You see, politicians have few fair comparisons in this dimension, but one that is at least reasonable is that of a snow storm inasmuch as it consumes everything around it and forces everyone to go screaming for cover. Presidents of the United States, for all their pompous horseshit, are politicians just the same ... and politicians are NOT heroes. They are the worst kind of human being you can find on this planet, and there's many reasons for that. First of all, they are no different than any rockstar or actor in that what they really want is to be a celebrity. However, unlike these latter types, who want to be made rich and famous for their art, presidents want to be made rich and famous for something else entirely - namely, their small, old penises. Yes, I know how that sounds, but it's true I'm afraid. What every president truly dreams of is having his old, pale, breaking-down body plastered on every television in America. They want their discolored, badly mutated faces to be associated with every major event that happens in the world, good or bad. They know damn well that politicians are the most mutated, sexless disasters on the planet, and they also know that there is only one way for such (shall I say) specimen to get the attention they crave ... power.
But here's the rub on power. Yes, they say the president of the US is the most powerful man on earth. But the trick is that Gerald Ford, like every other president, is a fucking slave. Slave to expectations, schedules, public opinion, and the lies that pile up in politics faster than Jay-Z is able to put together cliche-riddled, exactly-the-same-as-everything-else-out-there rap albums. And I'm not talking government conspiracies or anything outlandishly hippy-fueled like that when I speak the word "lies." I'm just talking about the nature of the biz, as they say. Politics is like the world of sales or advertising in OVERDRIVE. Compassion where a vaccuum exists / outrage where mild irritation suffices / knowing when to smile, when to speak, when to stay silent, when to be religious, when to be wordly, when to cry, when to laugh, when to kill, when to be seen, when to hide, where to go, what to do, how to do it, who to do it with, who to swear loyalty to, whom to betray, how to inflect one's voice, etc., etc., on and on, day after day, year after year. Politicians are actors, and they aren't even good ones ... but the American people buy it because we're not asked to suspend our disbelief. There's no convenient disclaimer that speaks the comforting word "fiction" to us, and so we believe that it must therefore be non.
And in like manner, we are slaves to those who are slaves to the worst kinds of things to be slave to. We are the worst kind of people - the ones who are cowards, but have bought our own deceit so totally that we've become too stupid even to remember. We believe our own cliche: the dog is happier for his ignorance. Who is happier? A creature who eats its own shit and licks its own crotch, acting out of blind instinct? Do you believe that? You might say no when you read the way I've written it, but we believe it as a culture, because that's exactly what we do. We toil in a universe of our own making that demands WORK and DISCIPLINE and OBEDIENCE ... preaches this horeshit in each and every religion since the beginning of time. Blessed are the meek, blessed are those who serve, blessed are those who live miserably with nothing inside accept a bit of empty, unfounded "FAITH."
Faith! That's the answer. Have faith in your gods. Have faith in your government. Have faith in your boss. Have faith, whether you good reason to have it or not. Why? Because you will be cast into a fiery hell for eternity if you do not. Or into a hellish, cold prison. Or fired from your job. You see, there's consequences for not having faith. Consequences ... inescapable, because they are all backed up by those final words ... Ultima ratio regum!! (the last argument of kings). The centuries-old latin of a French king, actually inscribed upon his royal cannons. The sickness of that. And yet the eternal reality of that. It's brilliant, actually. In a sad way, you have to respect that kind of grasp on a timeless truth, and the audacity to flaunt your grasp on it.
Then there's the irony of it. The Ozymandias "look on my works, ye mighty, and despair" attribute that the ol' Louis was probably only dimly aware of, if at all. You see, it is literally the LAST argument of kings as they have fallen throughout time, defeated by their own weaknesses and evil, perished under the blade of some other conquering idealist who seeks slavery to the same life/death, truth/lies cycle of the politician he has just vanquished. These are the real laws of the universe, if you believe in that sort of thing. There is slavery, but there is nothing else. You are tiny, you are insignificant, and you are servile. This is true from the smallest microorganism to the cosmos themselves, all of whom are going to sink into a supermassive blackhole anyhow.
But you are free to choose the object of your loyalty, and there's plenty of options. I've chosen what I feel is an honest path. I love music, I love books, and I love living like an honest person - which doesn't always make my choices/behavior the popular thing, but there you have it. And I'm not shouting my own praises here, because I'm shouting yours too in a sense. Politicians are the dregs of a society ... they are the weird, reflectionless monsters that devote themselves to an ideology, and then pursue it - becoming heroes in the process to all those who share the ideology, and villains to those who oppose it. Either way, they are maniacs. At some point they decided that what they felt was worth inflicting on everybody else. Do you see how this is worse than even sales and advertising? Sales and advertising might lie at every syllable, might stretch and shape society as they see fit, and might influence all of us in ways that are too subtle for us to even catch up on, but in the end they are not actually force-feeding you anything with a gun to your head. This is what politicians do, and they do it blatantly, out in the open, and carve the fact of it right into the very cannons they use.
Then they die. And if they were scourges upon the face of humanity, we do not lament. If they did relatively little damage, then we plaster their mug all over our television sets, write millions of articles across the world, and call them the very greatest of our heroes. This is not unique to America, nor is it even unique to our particular moment in history. It simply is. The worst kinds of humans make slaves of us, and in so doing become slaves themselves, and ultimately this pattern never ends ... nor indeed can it ever end. Like I said, that's the way this universe rolls. And none of this is new ... I don't pretend to be saying wholly original ideas here. Shit, we've known about this for thousands of years. We just haven't found a way around it.
And that's a small pearl of what may or may not be truth for you, chums. This is why seeing Gerald Ford on TV and in the paper has fouled my mood. Good riddance to another inevitable screwdriver in Existence's toolbox. I do not mourn for you, Ford.
Ultima ratio regum, friends.
Mike
posted by Il Pazzo @ 5:50 PM
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