Theory of human history

Man's birthright is... warm weather. And woman's birthright is... a man bringing her a margarita on the beach.

If we believe that life emerged from some swampy goo billions of years ago, on some long lost stretch of sand between the warm salt seas and the unknown land masses of Pangaea... AND... if we further admit that such primordial states are locked deep in our DNA, or collective subconscious... THEN we must admit that it is man's natural state to be lying on a warm beach. Woman's state too, even more so... and probably the first creatures that did crawl up on that beach, the male of that species carried a bag full of towels, bottles of water, suntan lotion.

How it ever came to be that man migrated from warmer climes to colder ones, is beyond me. I suspect that those prehistoric wanderers were more likely trouble makers in paradise. Maybe they spilled the pitcher of margaritas one too many times. Maybe they kicked sand on someones suntan-lotioned back. Maybe they left soda cans on the beach. Who knows... but I suspect they were asked to leave, and to take all of their agitated non-mellowness somewhere else. So they all went to Europe and started universities, losing themselves in reading and writing, so they wouldn't have to think about how uncool they had been.

Of course, it was the men who screwed this all up. I'm sure the women wanted to stay on the beach, with headphones in their ears, occasionally rolling over to "get their back". It just had to be the men who grew impatient with paradise. The Bible blames Eve, but I'm sure it was Adam... or maybe in my version of history his name was Tommy. So Tommy screwed it all up, and he said to (let's say) Debbie... "Let's get out of here, I'm bored, plus they don't like me here". I'm sure she was not amused, but somehow she followed him out of paradise. He must have promised her something... like he would take care of her and let her mother visit whenever she wanted. I can just imagine them walking hundreds of miles on foot, while she complains bitterly about how he  screwed up her life, about how she was happy on the beach, about how she should have married that guy named Carlos.

This version of history actually makes sense, as it provides a theory for behaviors we see today. I should be an anthropologist.

Of course, the joke is on those who stayed in tropical paradise, as they now third world dopes, with unstable governments and low incomes. Meanwhile, the descendants of the exiled Europeans have inherited tenacious work ethics, fine jobs, and tons of cool shit to buy.

But even given all the strange twists and turns of history, we can all be transported back to a billion years ago each time some winter air blows up our pant leg, and reminds us that our great-great..ultra-great grandfathers fucked up back on that ancient beach. But come spring, we are relieved of that guilt by the warm air.

The British are interesting

The British are more interesting than americans, and I'm jealous. Not only do the accents sound really cool, and imbue their communication with a certain calm flair, but the manner in which they phrase even simple things suggests a poetical soul, a literary soul.

A brit might say, "Oh what a tangled web"... an yank says... "Don't fuck with me".

An American might say, "2.7 million families have an average income below 35,000 per year", whereas a Britain conveying the same idea might say..."A lot of families aren't too happy at Christmas"

Now maybe the British just can't count, or aren't smart enough to reduce their world to information and science... but for god sake they sure can express complexity in an interesting and comforting way. 

Americans are the opposite. We seem to have no capacity to express things poetically. We place so much emphasis on facts and figures and science and technology... that we take our poetical souls out of the equation. Our educational system reinforce this bias. We don't produce interesting people. Except for me, of course. But even I am not interesting in the way I describe.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. I was watching this documentary on The Sex Pistols, and as the band-mates (now in their 50s) recount their violent past, they report on it in the most understated, British way. To describe a knife fight in an alley where someone was razor-bladed to death, they'll say something like... "John and Wally had a bit of a disagreement"

It's funny as hell... the simplicity of the viewpoint... the quiet and peaceful way in which their minds describe what looks (to me, anyhow) as acts of insanity. But nobody cares in England, I suppose. Somehow, capturing the simple truth is more relevant than detailed explanations. Explanations are not detailed, in that sense... they are literary. They are narrative. They set the stage. This type of approach is inherently literary, and suggests a very different approach to education.

As an American, I run my mouth non-stop... but in America the best you can hope for is to be accurate. Nobody cares if you're interesting here... only that you're accurate. No matter how intriguing or subversive your expression may be, the first thing you'll hear back is ..."hmmm, well I don't know about that". It's as if you have to clear some veracity hurdle on every statement... like intellectual censorship... where what is being squelched is not information, but using information to make a point. Using information to make a point is tricky... because the POINT you make is always something more than just the sum of the information... and so even if you clear the veracity hurdle on the information, you'll still get shot down on the POINT... because the point is not something that is confirmed, but something that has to be understood.

Humor is uniquely human

The ability to make sense is not unique to humans. Rocks make sense. They are what they are, they conform to the law of identity. If things act upon them, they are affected in a predictable way. If they act upon something, they affect the other thing in a predictable way. This sensible nature is shared by everything in the universe, so really, everything in the universe makes sense. 

The only thing that isn't controlled by this overarching materialism is human consciousness. Our minds are free to roam. What should we do with this freedom? Should we conform our minds solely to consideration of the material world? Should we fill our heads with facts and figures and information and theories?  Should we use our freedom to turn ourselves into biological containers of the boundless information of the dead material of this universe? Our minds are free in their capability, but if we put them only in the service of the material world, with it's infinite facts and figures... we are not free. The details of the universe are endless... and pursuing them without limit will fill up every nook and cranny of our minds, pushing our humanity out. We will be slaves to the real.

The only escape from being not that much different from a rock, is to NOT deal with reality. Tell the universe that you don't give a shit. Laugh at reality. Humor is only possible to humans, because only humans can look at reality and NOT draw the reasonable conclusion. We choose to look the other way. We can draw unreasonable ones... unexpected ones... ones that make us laugh. Laughter is freedom, laughter is determinism leaving the body. 

Laughter reminds us that WE determine how to view the world, not the other way around. Laughter reminds us that there is irony in the human condition. We are so dependent on knowledge to survive, yet that survival is pointless without decisions that cannot be constructed from that knowledge. 

These decisions can only be made by free individuals.

Laughing at reality is not, ultimately, to disrespect it. If you need to achieve some materialistic goal in the universe, then by all means focus on the facts, as that is your only chance of success. Laughter doesn't serve the material requirements of survival, it serves the psychological needs of a human being. The need to feel free, to be reminded that our existence is not entirely rooted naked facts.

People who cough loudly during live performances

I'm sick to death of people coughing loudly during live performances. Whether it is music or theater, the these coughing audience members drive me nuts. They are rude, and the behavior is inexcusable. They should be escorted out of venue, and made to watch from a TV monitor in a basement room.

Case in point... I was at a concert tonight at the Kimmel Center. The performer was John Williams, the classical guitar player. Classical guitar performances are notoriously quiet settings, which is required for the subtle beauty of the acoustic guitar. At one point, just as Mr. Williams had finished a flurry of beautiful notes to end one piece... as the notes hung in the air, vibrating softly... and before he officially lowered his head solemnly to signify the end... in that transcendent moment of beautiful silence where the audience is temporarily transfixed before they burst into applause... three people started coughing really loud.

The audience of maybe 400 people had a dozen or so suffering from some form of tuberculosis. I wish. No, these hacking audience members aren't suffering from TB. They're just freakin' rude. The usual suspects are older white males, typically overweight, whose throats are apparently covered in mucus, or whose fat chests are pressing down on their lungs like a big dead weight. Occasionally the hacker is an oddly petite woman, in which case I'm dumbfounded. How is it that women can suppress burps and flatulence, but can't manage to not hack their lungs out during quiet moments of Shakespeare.

To be, or not to be, that is the question... COUGH COUGH COUGH
Whether tis nobler in the COUGH COUGH COUGH mind to COUGH COUGH COUGH
 suffer the COUGH COUGH COUGH...

Jesus H Christ!!!!!!! People... you're ruining it for everyone. We paid money here, I want my money back.

Ironically enough, the profile of the hacker (older white male, or oddly petite woman) is exactly the kind who go to quiet performances. They go to the Kimmel, or the live theater, or to acoustic sets at World Cafe Live. They go, they appear normal, they seem like quiet and sedate people... but the minute the curtain goes up, they start coughing. Why don't they go to a rock concert instead... then they could hack themselves into a coma and collapse on the floor and be trampled to death. Justice.

I refuse to believe that these audience members are innocent victims of the same coughing issues that affect all of us. The issue isn't so much that they cough, it's that they obviously are not doing anything to suppress the cough. We all know what a suppressed cough sounds like, and feel like. It's muffled. You hold it in. It's a tiny bit uncomfortable to hold it in, but you suffer the small inconvenience in order to not make hacking sounds that disturb others. You cannot possibly be holding in a cough when it is loud. If a loud cough is actually a suppressed cough, then I'd hate to hear the unsuppressed cough of these people. Would it be like a shotgun blast, or a car horn? No, no, no... the only conclusion that makes sense is that they're not trying, because they don't care.

In conclusion... Those who cough loudly during live performances are not even trying. They just don't give a shit about the rest of us. I think it's high time that the polite members of the audience take these rude people out back and put them out of our misery.