18May04 — 0

40% Gay; 100% Normal

PooterGeek is in the top ten hits on Tiscali search for “circumcised gay models“* so I feel it’s my duty to bring you stories like this one.

Question: where do gay people go when they become boring?
Answer: Wilton Manors, Florida.

“Gay marriage is not a lightning-rod issue here,” said Gary Resnick, one of three openly gay men on the five-member City Commission. “For the most part when people call the City Council they’re calling about local issues — noise, road work, things like that.”

Andrew Sullivan‘ll be livid [when his Website comes back up].

[*Wrong on all three counts—now that‘s search technology at its finest.]

14May04 — 0

Second Prize: Two Trips

Yesterday I received two books of raffle tickets from the Eastern Region Labour Party. I am supposed to sell them in aid of our campaigns. The first prize is a trip for two to the European Parliament. The joke is old, but perfect.

14May04 — 2

Super-Genius

Chuck Jones—the director of Wile E. Coyote, “Super-Genius”—and his co-workers at Warner Brothers worked to a set of rules when creating the Road Runner cartoons:

  1. The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going “Beep-Beep!”
  2. No outside force can harm the Coyote—only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products.
  3. The Coyote could stop anytime—if he were not a fanatic. (“A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.” — George Santayana)
  4. No dialogue ever, except “Beep-Beep!”
  5. The Road Runner must stay on the road—otherwise, logically, he would not be called Road Runner.
  6. All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters—the Southwest American desert.
  7. All materials, tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation.
  8. Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote’s greatest enemy.
  9. The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.
  10. The audience’s sympathy must remain with the Coyote.

Yet, within those constraints, Jones et al. somehow captured the existential struggle of the lone technologist and his endless, poignant, soul-searing fall…

…to the bottom of a cartoon canyon.

14May04 — 0

Come Back Later

It used to be sleepy around here (PooterGeek, that is). I could tinker with a ‘Blog entry a few times, publish it to the Web, tinker with it a bit more, and then, a couple of days later, somebody might wander by and read it.

Now, people descend while I’m in the middle of correcting the bloody things. They even post comments before I’m finished, for pete’s sake. It’s like having someone look over your shoulder while you’re writing the first draft of your diary.

Yesterday evening’s “and the freedom” entry went through about twenty iterations before I fixed all the problems I had with those fiddly blockquote paragraphs and corrected all the spelling mistakes and disagreeing subjects and verbs and possessive adjectives—is “the BBC” singular or plural? On top of those, there were the wrinkles of style to roll over. The hits were arriving while I was working.

What’s really annoying is that the readers disappear again just before I’m happy with the result. I blame the aggregators.

13May04 — 0

“…and the freedom”

Imagine this: you have skipped your morning exercise routine so you are not hot and sweaty as usual when you stagger into the bathroom; acutely low local water pressure means that your powershower can only produce icicles; and the T-shirt you know you are going to put on when you clamber out of the full-body chiller is still wet from the washing machine.

Then John Humphrys comes on the radio to tell you that Iraq is “in chaos” again. It’s a wonder there are any Iraqis left in the country, what with things being “worse than they were under Saddam”, and those foolish enough to get themselves arrested as they flee to refugee camps being stripped naked and sodomized by guard dogs trained by Donald Rumsfeld.

Christ, how cold can water be and still manage to flow through those little holes in the showerhead?

Later in the day, when my genitals are no longer completely retracted into my pelvis and I have recovered the use of my fingers, I stumble upon a amusingly naïve account of life in Iraq from someone lower down the Corporation’s hierarchy. I’m tempted to quote it all, it’s such an unintentional scream—or perhaps it’s satire? Enjoy it now before the BBC notices how head-slappingly, unselfconsciously stupid it is and pulls it from its news Website. It begins with a list of the improvements that have taken place—ordered in their descending importance to the author, I suspect. Watch out, Bridget Jones, here comes Shelley Thakral:

“The mobile phones, satellite dishes and the freedom are better.”

“The roads are full of new cars and getting anywhere quickly is an impossible nightmare.”

“And if you were to visit today, you would see heaving markets, crowded tea shops and children playing football. Life is slowly getting back to normal.”

” We live close to the Sheraton and Palestine hotels and are surrounded by American soldiers and fellow journalists. I often wonder what our Iraqi neighbours think of us. We have a fleet of cars that range from armoured trucks to low key saloon cars. One thing that has become more important when moving in and around the city is to keep a low profile. In the last few weeks I have made an effort to wear a headscarf.”

“I speak ‘hello and thank you’ Arabic but I carry a digital camera with me, the children love it. It’s also a great distraction from the larger TV cameras which people crowd around.”

“One of my favourite things in Baghdad is going to the souk where you can buy everything from saffron to Saddam memorabilia.”

“The hardest thing now about covering the story is keeping it fresh, coming up with a new angle whenever there is a bomb.”

13May04 — 0

Jesuits Go Boldly

For a long time, the Vatican has had a theological position on extraterrestrial life. There is even a Graham Greene-meets-Arthur C. Clarke novel about the implications of our encountering intelligent aliens. Today, Slashdot links to an interview with the Vatican astronomer. After outlining some of the possible scenarios for such a meeting, he goes on to make an excellent case for the importance of Christianity to the development of science; then undermines it with his last sentence:

“The whole scientific enterprise really does coincide well with Christian theology. The whole idea that the universe is worth studying is a Christian idea. The whole mechanism for studying the physical universe comes straight out of the whole logic of the scholastic age. Who was the first geologist? Albert the Great, who was a monk. Who was the first Chemist? Roger Bacon, who was a monk. Who was the first guy to come up with spectroscopy? Angelo Secchi, who was a priest. Who was the guy who invented genetics? Gregor Mendel, who was a monk. Who was the guy who came up with the Big Bang theory? Georges Lema,An(Btre, who was a priest. There is this long tradition; most scientists before the 19th century were clerics. Who else had the free time and the education to gather leads and measure star positions?”

11May04 — 8

Thrills And Spills

I’ve been spending time more time than usual on public transport lately, so it’s time to review my recent diet of junk fiction.

Persuader is a macho thriller written by an Englishman in an American setting and idiom. I enjoyed it so much that I’ve ordered one of Lee Child’s other “Jack Reacher” novels from Amazon. The words are flat, but the story is more satisfyingly messy than most thrillers. Child is so thorough and consistent about practical details that the novel’s world seems solid. Like Frederick Forsyth, what he lacks in style (and his narrator is meant to be an ex military policeman, not a poet) is made up for by his research and plotting; and because he keeps things simple, he manages to sustain a real sense of danger.

The Da Vinci Code is an even bigger bestseller and was recommended to me as great, brainless entertainment by people who I am going to have to have a word with. Although the cover says the author is a Mr “Dan Brown”, it has clearly been ghostwritten by Basil Exposition in the finest Archerese. Here’s the terrible opening sentence followed by some other samples from the first two pages:

“Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery…

“…The man stared at him, perfectly immobile except for the glint in his ghostly eyes. ‘You and your brethren possess something that is not yours… Tonight the rightful guardians will be restored. Tell me where it is hidden and you will live.’

“…The gun roared, and the curator felt a searing heat as the bullet lodged in his stomach

“…Saunière closed his eyes, his thoughts a swirling tempest of fear and regret.

“…[The man] reached for a second clip, but then seemed to reconsider, smirking calmly at Saunière’s gut. ‘My work here is done.'”

Everyone reading this who knows me personally [and that’s half the audience] must now imagine me doing my dinner-party “exasperated Muppet”, forearm-flapping gesture while I repeat the anti-mantra “‘My work here is done‘!? ‘My work here is done‘!?” over and over in disbelief until another guest pushes a spoon into my gaping mouth to make me stop.

Claire! Hurry up and write a sequel!

[I think I am going to have to get a username and write a review to lift your average rating on UK Amazon nearer to the US score. At the moment there is only one review, from someone calling herself “girlfriendinacoma”, and she has given your work a wholly undeserved kicking. Alternatively she could be persuaded to see things differently 😉 . Knowing you, Claire, “girlfriendinacoma” is some posh Englishwoman you offended during your 90s UK tour. If we are planning a campaign of intimidation that doesn’t really help us much in our search for her, though, does it?

This shameless advertising on behalf of an old college friend is a response to the Norminator plugging his wife’s book today.]

10May04 — 0

Clash Of The Disadvantaged

Don’t, whatever you do, browse “everything2“. If you start you won’t finish until it has sucked your life away. One of the contributors goes by the username “spackle“. This will now be one of my most out-of-date ‘Blog entries because he wrote the following in 2001, under the title “Strange things homeless people have said to me“:

A little background before I begin. I am in a wheelchair. You’ll understand why that was necessary in a minute. First was the lady who asked if I was a Vietnam Veteran. This wouldn’t be so strange if it weren’t for the fact that I am 20 and very obviously too young to have participated in the Vietnam War. Then there was a lady who told me, “You musta dun somethin wrong, cuz you in a wheelchair and I aint seen no white folk in wheelchairs”. I really have no explanation for this statement so I told her to come out to the suburbs more often and that there are a lot of white people in wheelchairs in the suburbs.

Of course there have been at least ten instances of homeless strangers coming up and praying for me to be able to walk. Some have gone as far as to kneel next to me. I find this odd but it beats the hell out them asking me for money. I have also had several homeless people offer to push me up hills. Once again this wouldn’t be so odd but for the fact that I weigh 210 lbs and I can benchpress 315 lbs. I don’t think I look like I need help pushing up the hill, but maybe I just have a false self-image. Who knows?

08May04 — 1

Step Backwards

In the latest Spectator Rachel Johnson reflects on the remake of The Stepford Wives and the progress of women’s liberation since the original film was released.

Even members of The Spectator‘s natural constituency on the Right have been mourning its decline lately, and, sure enough, the rest of the magazine contains a lot of rubbish. Try this nonsense from Petronella Wyatt or how about the following from the letters page—surely a parody?:

My lambasted Latin

From Peter Knight

I was sorry to read of your contributor Harry Mount’s apprehension that he might not remember sufficient Latin to satisfy the Oxford examiners (Letters, 24 April). This must surely reflect badly on his early tutors. In 1946, at the age of 11, I was beaten by my prep-school headmaster for failing to use the subjunctive after ut. I can say quite honestly that in the intervening years I have never made the same mistake, and that in 40 years as an insurance broker my diligent adherence to the subjunctive after ut has been the source of widespread admiration. In case any of your younger readers might consider my early chastisement an unduly severe sanction, I must confirm that my headmaster was the most civilised man, for whom everyone had the highest regard. He had a profound love of Ovid’s elegiacs, many of which are still imprinted on my memory and not, I hasten to add, on my backside.

Peter Knight
Ansty Coombe, Wiltshire

07May04 — 1

Institutional Vanity

I no longer receive invitations to participate in Reader’s Digest prize draws, but this week I was asked, for the second year running, if I would like to appear in Who’s Who In Science And Engineering. I have no illusions about my professional standing, so my instinct was again to treat the letter as a scam and toss the accompanying form in the bin, though, if the editors’ aim is to pick money out of the pockets of the undistinguished but self-important, they choose their victims well.

Then I did, as I do, a bit of reading and a bit of Googling, to find out more. The publishers weren’t asking me for any money—unless I was vain enough to buy the book itself. They didn’t seem to have been denounced on the Web—as so often happens with real scammers these days, thank Tim. So, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing, maybe even something to be prouder of than an invitation to appear in the UK Who’s Who, which advertises its modernisation from being a catalogue of toffs and civil service timeservers by drawing our attention to its including TV presenters in its pages. There’s progress: from compiling a phylogeny of the inbred spawn of historical robber barons to enumerating gel-crested talking heads.

It was, however, amusing to discover how some people react to the “honour” of being listed in WWISaE. When I was a sixth-former we all used to joke about how easy it was to get into Keele. The entrance requirements were amongst the lowest of any actual university (as opposed to polytechnic). It didn’t help that their campus wasn’t that far from my home town. In those days, if you were one of the lucky minority at my school thinking seriously about university, it was considered deeply uncool to aspire to anywhere within nagging distance of your parents.

Imagine my mirth when one of the hits for my Google search about the book was for a press release from last year, issued by that same illustrious seat of learning. In it, Keele University crows that one of its faculty has been invited to appear in Who’s Who In Science And Engineering. It doesn’t mention the other 17 000 or so invitees. I am drafting a press release for the Medical Resarch Council now. They’ll be dead chuffed with my achievement. Perhaps they won’t close down my place of employment after all.

06May04 — 0

Two Years Is A Long Time In Showbusiness

“These uploaders supplying millions of files on a daily basis are having a negative impact on … the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of songwriters, musicians [and] artists”

— Hilary Rosen, CEO of the Record Industry Association of America, the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry, 24Oct02

“The world’s top five music companies yesterday agreed to pay $US50 million in unclaimed royalties.

Thousands of artists, including such stars as David Bowie and Dolly Parton will benefit from the agreement, which followed a two-year investigation by New York Attorney-General Eliot Spitzer’s office.

It found that many performers and writers had not received royalties because the music companies had been negligent about maintaining contact with them.

The record companies had an obligation to maintain information about the artists to whom they owed money, Mr Spitzer said.”

— The Age, 06May04

[You are welcome to wander over to the counsell.com music page and have a negative effect on my livelihood by uploading or downloading or remixing or sampling my music. The first pressing of the album on which “I Know I’ll Know” appears has sold out, but the second is on its way. Damned file-sharers.]

05May04 — 0

PooterGeek’s Three Most Hated Countries In The World PopQuiz

In descending order of international detestation:

  1. You are an Arab-Israeli double agent and have been playing each side against the other for months, squirrelling away your profits in a Swiss bank account. Your cover has been blown and you are on the run. The door to your hiding place is being beaten down by armed men. Would you prefer them to be acting on behalf of:
    1. the Palestinian Authority or
    2. the Israeli government?
  2. You are a dictator fancying a bit of genocide to keep down the opposition (or whoever the local guestworkers are). Do you feel more afraid of the possible consequences to you of your planned pogrom under:
    1. a system of international law that respects absolutely the integrity of sovereign states or
    2. the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military action?
  3. You are a poor African. [Is that a redundancy?] Your wrists are tied and you are on your knees in the middle of the main road through your village. Your neighbour has just lifted his machete over you and is about to hack your head off because you are not circumcised and you worship trees. A lightly armoured truck comes over the hill. Are you praying to the acacias that the vehicle is full of:
    1. UN Peacekeepers or
    2. British SAS men?
05May04 — 0

The Jewish Entertainment Conspiracy (cont.)

Gail A Stocker, one of LA’s leading comedy agents, offers humour for (almost) every minority, but, we ask, in what proportions does she take it on?:

(Roseanne Barr, Garry Shandling, Jerry Seinfield…)
total Jewish comics: 31 (US popn: 6m)

(Arsenio Hall, Sinbad…)
total African-American comics: 20 (US popn: 30m)

total Catholic comics: 3 (US popn: 58m)

Black Catholics not funny enough for ya, Gail? eh? eh?

Tomorrow, in his hard-hitting series, I reveal the shocking results of my demographic analysis of Motown Records and the NBA. PooterGeek: no stone unturned; no cabal undisturbed.

[Just in case Ms Porter wanders over here, and reads this without familiarizing herself with the “themes” of PooterGeek, this is an example of what we, on this side of The Pond, call “irony”—and perhaps an explanation of why she doesn’t have many “Catholics of colour” on her books…]

And where are the German-American comics (US popn: 44m)?

And the Filipinos?

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