Subject: Re: alt.slack: The Next Penetration

Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 17:51:11 GMT

From: lurch@mindspring.com (lurch)

Organization: MindSpring Enterprises

Newsgroups: alt.slack

References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10

>nickie@mars.superlink.net ( Rev. Nickie) wrote:

>Plus, I am interested in SubGenius not to feel superior, because

>that would be redundant. It has nothing to do with people I "don't

>like"- and if you think it does, I'd really like to know your

>motivations. There's a difference between BEING superior, and just

>wanting to feel that way.

Agreed. But who and what are we supposed to feel superior to? Hell,

you may say, everybody knows that--the moronic, mewling hordes barging

through life wearing imbecilic grins because they are too fucking dumb

to realize what a shithouse the world is. They aren't worthy to drink

the whiz or smooch the seats of folks like us, overeducated, smug,

cynical, sarcastic and generally monumentally bitter slack-shitz who

spend a good chunk of their lives with their faces bathed in the

sickly glow of a cathode-ray tube. But, goddam it, at least we realize

the world is fucked, and we don't have to worry about it because we're

getting out of here, and it wouldn't matter even if we weren't because

there is no fucking way to change it, but before we go for that saucer

ride we have to make sure everyone knows we're not part of that great

unwashed mass of ignorant (insert currently in vogue perjorative term)

that actually believes new and improved bleach really is. But--horror

of horrors---some of them are lurking among us, mere pretenders to

self-described superiority, and they must be exposed and cast out:

"back to the fruit stand, you ignorant peons" you don't belong here,

presumptuously seeking to take part in our ha-ha comraderie of

perverse arrogance. All part of the joke you say? I'm not so sure.

There are only a couple good reasons to piss away countless hours on

the usenet. The first is that we can learn things, but jeezuz, I think

I already regret knowing half of the things I've learned here. The

other is that we can occasionally get a laugh. And even though there

is probably some humor somewhere in what appears to be the

transformation of a faith once swathed in a sort of nose-thumbing

sub-absurdity to an apparent bastion of mean-spirited elitism

(featuring alms-selling tsk-tsking clerics) not unlike the

conventional religious coalitions we seek to parody and hopefully

lampoon by our very existence, so far it has escaped me.

Ain't any of it worth a roasted fart if it ain't funny, even BEING

superior. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm just a shitty

little human being like a billion others. If I was rich or famous or

brilliant I wouldn't be nosing around here like some kind of

cyber-slug looking for a cackle, would I? Naw, I'd be on my fucking

yacht with a bunch of bimbos or writing a real book (instead of just

threatening to) or curing cancer or something.

I follow "Bob" because he's a funny looking asshole that wants other

people's money, and I was always taught that God created man in his

own image. So for me, at least, "Bob" was the obvious choice. But, if I

though for a minute that he was taking himself as seriously as the

staff-wielding cassock-wrapped talking statues that managed to scare

the shit out of me when I was a kid, I'd try pagan idolatry. If

dieties are going to take themselves seriously and prescribe expected

behaviors from the faithful, I at least want them to kick some ass,

trash some crops and demand a sacrificial virgin once in a while.

Superior is a relative and largely meaningless term, and if could be

accurately and unconditionally used to draw a dividing line between

one group of bipedal gut-bags and another, those favored in the

delimination would be obliged to shoulder an enormous amount of

responsibility for educating and/or eliminating those less endowed in

every concievable category of mental and physical capabilities. Well,

you can have that fucking job. I got enough problems managing my own

incidental and laughably ordinary existence.

I'm only as pink as I gotta be to function in this socio-cultural

compost heap, and I don't like it even that moderate concession. But

that don't make me better than some jerk that looks forward to the new

fall TV lineup. He's just a different kind of asshole, and hopefully

if he comes nosing around here he'll learn how to ditch at least some

of his neon pinkness and join a group of people that, while they don't

know shit from tunafish, wouldn't trust the labels and the word of the

con enough to eat lunch without taking a good whiff first. In

fairness, though, most of us learned what we know by eating shit a few

times. But even that dork won't bother with us if he finds us merely

claiming to be clever, enlightened and hilariously irreverent, but in

reality doing little other than opting for smugness rather than

hypocrisy and sheep-like managability. Some of you may say "No big

loss." But once again, I'm not so sure. But who cares what I think?

Like I said, I'm just another asshole, and I wouldn't be able to

recognize superiority if I fell face first into a reeking pile of it.

Glad of it, too.

Lurch