THE ELECTRONIC NATIONAL
an online version of the Tim Slagle newsletter
vol. I #3 Forecast: Dark
vol. I #3 Forecast: Dark
Contents:
Right now the world is recovering from one of the worlds greatest spectacles, the Olympics. We witnessed the world’s best athletes pushing the envelope of man’s greatest achievements. Hogwash.
Let me start out by saying that I’ve never been terribly interested in sports. Maybe it’s a result of numerous gym class humiliations, but its too late to change me. I find the world of sports boring, sports pages unreadable waste of newsprint, and publicly funded sports arenas one of the most criminal acts ever perpetrated by a state or municipality.
How much more incorrectly could a government act than to build sports
facilities? At this point we are dangerously close to the Fall of
the Roman Empire. In the final days of the first Reich, Caesar sent
forth soldiers, as representatives, to raise taxes, and built a coliseum
where the Senators could watch Christians being eaten by Lions. Now
we have the owner of Little Caesars lobbying State Representatives to raise
taxes in Michigan and build sky boxes where Senators can watch the Tigers
get eaten.
Times are lean for America’s favorite pastime. Ball parks are way bigger than the fans appetite for it. Watch the clips the next time you’re forced to sit through a television sports report. All you see is home runs being hit into empty seats. Personally, I don’t pay any attention to baseball anymore. The Fan’s Union hasn’t given me my back to work order yet.
I have the solution for the ailing sport. First sell all municipal, county, or state owned ball parks to the teams. If they don’t want to buy them, tear them down and let them find their own park. If they leave town, wipe a tear, blow your nose and wave good-bye. After all, it’s only a game. Despite what the owners tell you, pro-sports do not help the local economy. Unless you consider a team owner's pocket as a local economy.
Once the facilities were in private hands, owners would have to not only run a team and turn a profit, they would have to maintain their facility. Real business decisions would have to be made. Down sizing would occur. Stands would be built closer to the field Prices would drop. Salaries would plummet. Players would have to decide whether they would play out of love, or quit. Humility would return.
I was annoyed at the Bull’s championship, because it cut into the comedy club business. I was rooting for Seattle for a while, before I realized that it would only prolong the season a few more days. I don’t understand the loyalty fans feel for a team. Teams change their players annually, their uniforms every few years, their owners every twenty or so, their stadiums every fifty and once in a while even move to another city. Meanwhile the fans remain loyal. They remain loyal to a team that is completely different than the team they rooted for five or ten years ago. The only connection this new team has in common with the old one is its name and colors. I think there must be a gene that causes loyalty to colors that I was born without. I don’t understand how a multimillionaire, playing a child’s game, with my city’s name on his pajamas, involves me. But here in Chicago, when the final championship game was played, people all over the city were acting as if they had accomplished something.
It is the same reason why people are fed up with government. How can a multimillionaire limousine riding, lifetime Washington resident ever claim to represent me? In both baseball and politics, there is a sense that royalty is claiming to be ordinary citizens. I think that’s a lot of the reason why people aren’t interested in baseball any more. There was a time when you could believe that the ball players were representing you. They made about the same amount of money as you, and they played a game that you grew up playing. You would go down to the ball park so your boys would have someone rooting for them. You paid a reasonable admission to a well kept park, and were grateful to pay a little extra for the concession men, as you didn’t have to haul in food and beer from home. If your team lost so what? You were still outside on a beautiful summer evening. The smell of the turf and the crack of the bat just seemed right. Now you have to pay way more than the show is worth. How can anybody enjoy spending a couple hundred bucks to take the family inside a dome to see millionaires playing on the carpet. A team used to feel privileged to have loyal fans. Now, you’re made to feel as if it is a privilege to watch a baseball game.
People are just as convinced that because some of the Olympic Athletes are wearing our flag that we take part in their victories also. Granted we are paying for the spectacle. 500 million Federal taxpayer dollars were being used to fund these ridiculous games. It is the same mentality that equips a high school football team before it buys a book. I know a campaign to prohibit the federal funding of the Olympics would be doomed from the get go, people really get a kick out of these things. There is a sense that we’re charting human achievements.
You’re not. No matter how fast a runner is, he will never complete a one minute mile. Sorry it’s impossible. I don’t even think a two minute mile is achievable. There are strict limits to the ability of the human body. In our cars, a one minute mile is quite attainable. In fact there are cars on the road that can do a half minute mile. No matter how good a jumper is, he will only stay aloft for a moment. But aircraft can stay up for portions of days, and reach heights a pole-vaulter could never dare. Monster trucks combine the speed of a hurdle jumper with the spectacle of a circus. A javelin’s distance is measured in meters, but we have created missiles that have traveled all the way to the moon. And hit dead center. The original marathon was a race based on the run of a messenger. We can now transmit messages to the far reaches of our solar system in less time than it takes to run a marathon. Are these not human achievements? They are achievements of the human mind and by comparison they dwarf the achievements of the body.
And yet we still cheer. We are somehow fascinated how fast a person can run, if he spends his whole life practicing running. We still favor the physical achievements beyond the mental. We are still in high school, worshipping the jocks and mocking the intellectuals. An MVP will garner more attention at a book signing than a Nobel Prize winner. We are still tribesmen, honoring our warriors and banishing the strange little man that discovered a weapon to make the warrior obsolete. This is the kind of behavior that earned the Unibomber’s Anti-Technology Manifesto respect.
It is why we honor the raw labor of Unions more than manufacturing technology. We still cheer for the turtle paced Olympian, like they cheered for John Henry the day he beat the steam drill. Never did they stop to think that the steam drill would mean cheap and prevalent railroads, all they cared about was whether the body was stronger than the mind. It wasn’t. John Henry might have beat that machine, but it killed him. That wonderful machine and its brothers then opened up our continent with reliable transportation.
John Henry wasn’t thinking too clearly. A logical person would say, “You’ve got a machine to do this crummy job? You mean I can just sit behind the controls and pull levers?” When people work for themselves they try and finish the job quickly so they can go on to something else; after I paint the house, I can wash the car. If it is a reoccurring job, they will try and do it as efficiently as possible. That is why almost every homeowner also owns a power mower. When you work for someone else however, you make the job stretch. Because when you’re done, you’re out of work. Unions are driven to make the job go as slowly as possible. That is why John Henry is a Labor Hero, he fought to the death for his Sisyphan job in spite of technology..
A truly modern Olympiad would involve motor-sports. As long as were watching people break running records, why not go for the land speed record at the same time. Let American Indy race cars go up against European Gran Prix. Why not invite monster trucks from all over the world to compete in the World Championship crush off. (I tend to think we would be the world leaders in the monster truck competition, I don’t think any other government on earth allows such a spectacle to take place... Live from Sarajevo, Monster Yugos!). I think the snooty Olympics committee would forbid such a show, but screw their whiny euro-attitudes. They make fun of our ways here, but the love our corporate sponsorships, like a French waiter holding his hand for a tip and spitting on the ground after you’ve left. They even let cartoon characters, Mickey Mouse and Katie Couric, run with the torch for a while. You want Capitalist American Dollars, you take Capitalist American Sports. Up next, drag-racing and surfing, the California Biathlon!
World records are now measured in thousandths of a second. A record that minuscule does not even exist without modern Swiss timing. We are charting a non-technological achievement that owes its very existence to technology. The lengths and expense it takes to achieve that millisecond advantage seem preposterous. The achievements, in fact, rely heavily on technology. All the athletes are using video recording and computer imaging. The bicycles used for this years events were $45,000 dollar creations, made of space age composites, designed on super computers, and tested in wind tunnels.
Ironically though, when it’s discovered that an athlete might have gained an advantage through pharmaceutical science, he is forced to resign in disgrace Steroids are taboo for any Olympian. We also test them for narcotics and other recreationals, because blood purity is paramount in this Nation. Nothing ruins a perfectly believable "drugs kill" campaign more than a junkie that became one of the world’s greatest athletes. Rather than honor such a dual achievement, we force him to hide. Don't want the truth to get in the way of a perfectly reasonable argument.
I think if we’re going to use all the other sciences, why not involve bio-tech. Why not let scientists develop super athletes through the use of growth hormones. Why not even start from the womb with genetic manipulation. Imagine what a runner you could create if you could splice giraffe leg genes into a human embryo. What a wrestler we could manufacture with bear DNA, think how fast a dolphin / human hybrid could swim. (I imagine there will be tests in the future to insure generic purity of each athlete.)
There are two other things that would make the Olympics watchable for me. First off, not all athletics have to be competitive. Running a race, or a game of soccer is competitive. It is very easy to explain to a neophyte how a game of soccer is won; Whichever side kicks the ball in the net the most wins. I don't know how gymnastics is scored. Networks hire winners from decades past to try and explain the scoring, but I still don't get it. I don’t think I am alone in my bewilderment either. Synchronized swimming, forget it. (Incidentally, if we can have women’s volleyball, why can’t we have men’s synchronized swimming?)
I really think some events should be for exhibition only. I understand that gymnastics requires years of dedication, and ability that I'll never know, but why do we have to make it competitive? It is an art. Art should always be separate from competition. Anytime art is subjected to judging, it shortly caters to the populist mentality. Could you imagine a painting competition? Poor Pablo Picasso would have never been able to beat Norman Rockwell. If all writing were subjected to populist scrutiny, the only books you could buy would have been written by Erma Bombeck. If gymnasts were allowed to perform with no required moves or judicial scrutiny, the beauty of the sport would advance without bounds. If television still needed some competitive angle, let them measure the strength of the applause.
Lastly, I would bring back a long forgotten competition. Blood Sport. Let every nation send one soldier to the final competition. (All participation is voluntary and I bet there would be no lack of potential competitors). Pair them off and let them fight to the death. Survivors go onto the next round. Only the gold medal will have to be awarded. Losers will return to their homeland for a hero's funeral. It would be the most watched event of the entire Olympics. Countrymen would have watch their boy next door take a bayonet in the face. In close up, Slo-Mo Instant Replay. And maybe that would cure them of war urges for the next four years. We might have to stop warring if everyone became sick of watching it. Leaders could even settle treaties on the outcome of their soldier. We would certainly lose a few hundred young men every four years, but compared to the body count from the world’s skirmishes today, the casualties would be negligible.
An Olympiad that allowed technology, celebrated beauty, and eliminated the need for war would most certainly be a worthwhile event. Until then, I’ll just sit in the back yard, enjoy the Summer, and wait for the baseball strike to end.
A regular feature of this newsletter where I will actually answer
your questions. E-Mail RevHdqrtrs@AOL.com. For a confidential
reply, hire a therapist and keep it to yourself. This is a comedy
rag dammit, and if you need me to straighten out your life, you're
already further gone than you suspect.
Hey Slagle!
Pro-choice or pro-life?
Need to Know.
Dear NtK
Both.
I think too many people narrow their spectrum by subscribing to one or the other. The party you belong to will in most cases dictate your belief. It will also make it difficult to keep all your beliefs consistent.
Democrats are pro-choice, unless it involves your money. A woman is responsible enough to decide what she wants in her body, but can only be trusted to be compassionate with a percentage of her money. Allowing parents to keep a portion of their property tax, and choose which school to send their fully developed fetuses, would cause social upheaval. God forbid if we were ever allowed to choose between contributing to government social programs or private charities. Most of the operational budgets these departments require would end up in the hands of corrupt organizations like the Red Cross, Salvation Army and the Catholic Church. This would cause mass starvation, homelessness, and leprosy. It would turn Main Street USA into Bangladesh.
Republicans only respect life when it is an American past conception. There is no respect for any foreign national. Especially if the Tyrant who runs your country is a drug dealer. Or has just seized a couple oil wells. In those cases, you have no right to life, just crawl into your root cellar and wait for the Angels of Democracy to pass over your house. Pray to whatever pagan god you worship that justice will be served quickly , and you can shortly return to your squalid marketplace.
I am not only pro life and pro choice, I am pro-pursuit of happiness. Neither party will follow me here. I believe I have the right pursue happiness into any baggy, vial, or bottle where it may live. If you find such behavior repulsive, don’t do it. It’s as simple as that. In return, I won’t forbid any of your happy activities that I find repulsive. Like jogging, shopping at the Gap, or watching “Friends”.
Hope this helps.
Slagle
This
month’s Government at work for you award goes to the state of Arizona for
a most humorous legislative mishap. In an attempt to punish Marijuana
Criminals more severely (than murderers and rapists) the State decided
to require vendors licenses for all Pot Pushers. Assuming that no
Cannabis Concessionaires would have the nerve to apply for State certification,
Dope Dealers could then be punished twice, once for selling and again for
operating without a license. (a modern day version of being drawn
AND quartered.) One ironic day, the police arrested a gentleman for
Tea Trading, who had a cannabis vendors license on him. On trial
day, the judge in an uncharacteristic example of justice threw the case
out of court. The State, he reasoned wisely, cannot punish an individual
who has already followed the mandate and letter of the law. You’ve
got it right folks. In an attempt to thwart the double jeopardy clause
of the United States Constitution, The Great State of Arizona has
become the first to decriminalize marijuana. Marijuana Vendors License
Applications doubled. Skunk is Sold on the streets, and Weed Whacked
in front of cops defiantly. In the parking lot outside the Super
Bowl, Bowls were being Bartered in front of television cameras. Way
to go Arizona!
Singer Frank Sinatra was forced to ignore his doctors orders and continue smoking and drinking whiskey.
The trouble began shortly after he was declared to be a national treasure. Historic landmark legislation prohibits the alteration of national landmarks and treasures. “America automatically associates Frank Sinatra with a cigarette and a glass of whiskey. To allow him to quit smoking would be like letting somebody put a dormer on a Frank Lloyd Wright building.” Said Secretary of Preservation. Cody Lee Gifford.
Upon hearing the news Charles Nelson Reily made arrangements to leave the country. Even though chances are slight that he would ever be declared a national treasure, good taste would prohibit him from returning to the kind of leisure suits and loud ties that preservationists might clamor for.
Sinatra wasn't terribly happy about the decision, as years of abuse have already taken their toll on the entertainer. “It's not as easy as it used to be to knock back a quart of hooch and a couple packs of smokes every day, but I'm too old to be breaking the law,” Frank stated before being wheeled onto a plane for (cont. on page A26)
I was working for a couple of weeks out in the great northwest, and almost every night somebody would come up to me and say, “Hey man, I thought you were really funny and stuff, but I was really offended when you said you didn’t recycle.” I imagine a few of you though the same thing when I wrote that article last issue on The Chicago Blue Bag program.
Sorry. I knew that recycling was becoming an environmental sacrament, but I never knew the proportions it had reached. I didn’t mean to say that you shouldn’t recycle, all I said was that I won’t. It’s my trash. I paid for it. I’m allowed to do anything I want with it. As long as I am willing to pay for the bottle, and the stiff to haul it away, it shouldn’t bother you. If it does, your probably taking this environmental crap way too seriously. I know all my neighbors who do recycle are subsidizing my luxury, but its not my fault the City has an unlimited trash (all you can toss) policy. Heck, given the option, I would gladly pay extra for the convenience of not having to rinse and separate.
And still, people are offended.. I know that a lot of parents are worried that there will be no resources left for their children to inherit. Well if that’s the problem, their kids can come over and pick them out of my trash. Contact Revolution Headquarters for information on where I throw it. They will probably have to fight the winos for the aluminum though.
I know a lot of people worry about the landfill shortage. That’s not your problem either. Most landfills are not public property, they are private industry. As long as there is garbage to be disposed of, people will gladly take your money for the privilege of dumping it on their property. In some parts of America, it is actually a sign of status to have your front yard filled with scrap metal. I’ve often thought of opening a chain of stores that sell nothing but old refrigerators and rusting cars as lawn ornaments. In the right market you could make a fortune.
Right now existing landfills are about full, but we can build more. That thought might disgust some of you, but its really quite natural. Remember that almost everything that goes into a landfill came out of the earth in the first place. Look at a landfill as part of the circle of life. According to Resources for the Future, the amount of garbage we will generate over the next 1000 years will fit in a single landfill 44 miles on a side and 120 feet deep, a space roughly the size of the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. Certainly we could find enough toxic wastelands in this country to contain our refuse forever.
Throwing stuff away is not as final as it sounds either. Everything you ever owned is right down the street in the neighborhood landfill. All that stands between you and that vintage Brady Bunch Lunch Box mom threw away, (and is now worth 300 bucks) is a shovel and a hundred feet of garbage. When natural resources are depleted, landfills will become some of the richest mines on earth.
The rarer the substance the higher its value. When you figure that most recycled material is worth less than $40 a ton, our resources must still be quite plentiful. The higher the value, the less that’s thrown away. That’s why aluminum is the only thing that gets picked out of the trash ($600/ton). Gold is almost 100% recycled and has been for millennia. The gold in your ring may have once been part of an Egyptian scepter or an early Roman coin. It could have been part of Aztec jewelry ripped from a young maiden’s throat, or the front tooth of a gunfighter. Nobody has to remind you to rinse out and sort your used gold. (To quote an old drinking buddy of mine, “jeez, what are we going to do with that hunk of scrap gold we have in the basement?”) I think the only gold we throw away is the flakes in Goldschlager (a potent schnapps that actually contains 24K gold foil, although I think Goldschlager is part of some bizarre Nazi plot to smuggle gold into the US. I think there are agents in the sewage department straining the gold out of Wrigleyville toilet pipes).
I’m tired of being told what to do by environmental experts. I
have no faith in their heathen beliefs. If they told us that a volcano
was erupting because the gods were angry, they would be laughed out of
society. But when they tell us that we had a cold spring and frigid
winter because of Global “Warming”, their opinions are published on the
front page of USA Today, and accepted as fact. They claim that global
warming will cause the Arctic ice cap to melt, oceans will rise, and flooding
will ensue. This exemplifies the scientific ignorance of environmentalists.
The Arctic ice cap is floating on the ocean. Float an ice cube on
a cocktail. How much does the level rise when the ice cube melts?
Satellites over Antarctica have been photographing a growing hole in the ozone. Some scientists have speculated that this hole is caused by caused by fluorocarbons(CFCs) used in refrigerators and air conditioners. It accepted as fact in most parts of the world. Forget that we’ve only been able to photograph the ozone layer for the past ten years or so. We really have as much authority to speculate on its relevance as a primitive man might speculate on the significance of a solar eclipse he is seeing for the first time. To him in his limited understanding, such a celestial event is unique, and caused by an angry god. Centuries later, after continued study and documentation we learn that eclipses are as natural as the phases of the moon, and can be predicted quite accurately. In the meantime thousands of virgins were sacrificed to the sun god to appease his appetite for blood, and let light return to the earth.
Right now we are doing the same for the god of Ozone. Our Environmental priests are telling us that he is very angry at our use of air conditioners, and will strike us down with a plague of melanoma. We have passed laws forbidding the production of the sinful CFCs. Because of its resulting scarcity, the cost of Freon has skyrocketed from about $50 dollars/bottle to over $900. Air Conditioner recharging has been priced out of the range of the poor and elderly. Last summer in Chicago, we had 700 deaths attributable to heat exhaustion. Many of those deaths were the responsibility of the environmental priests. The Ozone god must be appeased with the blood of the elderly.
So do your part for the environment. I however will continue to enjoy 20th century packaging, the convenience of modern waste disposal, and the refreshing comfort of air conditioning. If that still makes you angry, don’t persecute me, just say a prayer to the earth goddess for me.
Hello to all my readers and welcome to all new enlistees. I want to thank you all for you continuing support. First of all I would like to point out that this issue is neater than my previous issues. That is because I finally found the both side justify command on my word processor. I can’t believe that with all the geeks out there nobody ever thought to tell me I could do this. I’ve also acquiesced to all those of you who were complaining about eye strain, and enlarged the type a point.
Apologies for the late arrival of this edition. It is actually the second newsletter I wrote, but the last one had to be left unpublished. I was in a pretty dark mood, and the last couple articles weren’t even funny. I know some of you would have enjoyed the hell out of them, but the majority would have figured I had finally gone off the deep end. Maybe if you pester me enough, I might release them someday.
A very special thanks to all those who took time out of their busy schedule to attend the taping of my next video “Nation of Criminals” Post production is in progress, The tape looks great and I couldn’t have asked for more fabulous audiences! I was planning on a July 1st release, but due to my procrastinic nature, I probably better count on a Fall release.
Slagle/Naughton Live! is a go. Tom Naughton and I will be performing skits from our very popular radio show on weekends in August ‘96 at the ImprovOlympic Theater on Clark Street just three doors south of Wrigley Field. David Pasquesi of the upcoming Fall series “Common Law” directed the transformation from radio to stage. During the week of the Democratic Convention (August 27- September 1) we will be there every night. If you are planning traveling to the city this Summer, make sure and let me know so I can put you on the mailing list.
Michigan gun owners can see me at the upcoming Brass Roots rally in Lansing Michigan. I have been contracted to host the event on September 8th of this year. I will also set up a booth there to sell tapes and other paraphernalia. If you’re not doing anything, stop by the booth and say Hi.
This might be the last issue you receive before the election so I’d better give my press endorsement right now. If you think you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, don’t vote. It is still voting for evil. I would like to see an election day when nobody showed up at the polls. Unfortunately, most of us cannot sit still for that long. If you must vote, please vote for Harry Browne and any other Libertarian candidates you see on the ballot. For more information about the Libertarian Party, call 1-800-682-1776.
Happy rest of summer everyone. See you on the beach!
QUOTH
A garden is done the day after a gardener dies. -Thomas Jefferson
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