Little Billy
01-15-2007, 12:18 AM
You’re all a bunch of freaks. Each and every one of you.
Now, before you get all upset with Little Billy, let me explain that statement. A freak is, by definition, abnormal…and these days, that’s a good thing. For what does normal mean, in these dark days in which we find ourselves?
It means the “real man”…he’s a tough dude, tough enough to stomp a homosexual, for no apparent reason…but not tough enough to change a full diaper. It means the “normal woman” who disapproves of everything her neighbors do, even though she does – or wants to do – the same thing, when nobody is looking. It’s the regular kid, who is willing to stomp the crap out of anyone who has the audacity to be different, just as he has been taught to do.
Yeah, Little Billy has very little patience with “normal” people, and prefers to hang out with the freaks…the people who are actually awake enough to realize that maybe there’s more to life than the 9 to 5, more to life than making sure little Brett gets to his soccer practice on time. It isn’t the “normal” people that will set the world on its ear…no, they are adamantly opposed to change, of any kind. Their worlds are perfectly static, and they like it that way.
The problem is, of course, that their ways aren’t working. Look around you…the world’s population is doubling every fifty years…which means by 2057, there will be 13 BILLION people on Earth, with even less resources available than we have right now. Liberty is in decline, massive corporations own more and more, while you and I own less and less. General literacy is a thing of the past, and schools now teach math using money, so that Little Dickie can ease into his new job as a retail clerk with little difficulty. Something has to give, and at the rate things are going, that something is YOU.
You won’t be saved by politicians, because, let’s face it…they find this sort of thing desirable. An uneducated nation enslaved to the television is an easy nation to control. You won’t be saved by the Free Market™, because the Free Market™ has a vested interest in shoving your face into the mud. Hell, just look at what they call you…Words have power. What you are called is what you are, sooner or later. Corporations used to call you a “Customer”. Now you’re a “consumer”. Your purpose in life is to consume their product, and beg for more. Politicians used to call you a “citizen”. Now you’re a “taxpayer”, or a “voter”. Your purpose in life is to pay your taxes, and vote for Suit A or Suit B, whichever one is on “your team”. As if that made any difference whatsoever.
You won’t be saved by religion, either, because religions are far too concerned with their own petty agendas to notice that the world will soon be choking on its own waste. While the world slides into a cesspool of overcrowding, wars, ignorance, and poverty, most brand name religions are obsessed with abortion, gay marriage, the fact that the other brand name religions differ 2% in dogma, the evils of pornography, etc. In fact, two of the world’s biggest religions, and many smaller ones, forbid birth control. What BLITHERING IDIOTS!
Have you ever noticed that there is a distinct lack of the freaks and mutants that we USED to have? Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Einstein? You haven’t seen a Thomas Jefferson or a Theodore Roosevelt recently, either, have you? Why is this? What is different about today? What has changed since, oh, 1945 or so, when the last of these deviants grew up?
That’s right, the television…the best training tool ever devised. With this invention, you are trained to be a docile servant of the powers that be (more on THEM, later). Next time you stare at the pretty phosphor screen, try actually listening to what it is telling you. Seinfeld teaches you that cruelty and humiliation are funny; the news tells you to BE AFRAID ALL THE TIME (“Think it’s safe to tie your shoes? Don’t miss our Special Report on the dangers of blah, blah, blah”), and the commercials…ho ho! The commercials…
What DO commercials tell you? They tell you MANY things, and ALL of them are designed to help turn you into a drone. Watch one, some time…REALLY watch one…”If your body betrays a HINT of your natural biological processes, you will be a pariah!”, “Oh my GOD! You’re getting OLD! Buy our skin cream!”, or just “You NEED this.”
But do we REALLY need all those products they are pushing? Do all those SUVs and plasma TVs give anyone joy? When you look at that SUV, are you filled with happiness, or misery at the monstrous car payments and fuel costs you have saddled yourself with?
This is all kind of gloomy, I realize, but these are gloomy times…and I am not here just to tell you how buggered up things are, but to offer some solutions.
First, embrace your inner freak. As I said before, the “normal” people are making the problem worse, so it is on us to find a better way. You AREN’T normal, and why the hell would you WANT to be? You’ve been blessed not only with brains (even the normals have those), but with the inclination to USE them. Fer Chrissakes.
It doesn’t matter what KIND of freak you are, either. Are you a Loki worshipper with a penchant for laughing til your guts bleed? Great. Make some normals laugh, too. They could use it…and feel free to cheerfully shovel sand in the gears of society at any opportunity. More details on this in future articles.
Or maybe you’re an Emo kid, whose world has just come to an end because Nightwish won’t be playing your town this tour. That’s okay, too...Little Billy isn’t here to judge you. Simply ask yourself this: How can my outlook on life be used to smite those that are begging for it? Martha Stewart is your natural enemy…start there.
Now, don’t be fooled…not everyone is the next Martin Luther King. Ask yourself this, though…where would Doctor King have been without the horde of decent people that stood behind him? Same goes for Gandhi. A single pebble can start a rockslide, and a single loud noise can begin an avalanche.
Doesn’t sound like much, does it? Well, fear not…for we have one HUGE advantage: normal society doesn’t take us seriously. Hell, most of them don’t even realize we exist. The average Joe thinks of Pagans/Magic practicioners as a few Goths and a Satanist, who hang around cemeteries and drink Absinthe while reciting bad poetry (and for those of you who ARE like that, thanks for the camouflage). We are under the radar of everyday society…this allows us to act with near impunity. So long as we exist in the shadows, we can accomplish amazing things, if we actually get off of our asses.
The one thing you should NOT expect is unity of message. This is actually another advantage, as it makes the source of any problems really hard to pin down. Some of you are meat eaters, and some of you are vegans, for example. Promote YOUR message, which will be all the more effective because you BELIEVE in it. Do NOT commence hectoring random passers by with your message…all that will do is turn them off (on the other hand, it is hilarious to badger people with OTHER people’s messages. I’ve been doing the Pat Robertson bit for YEARS, and probably cost him hundreds of converts).
Instead, try approaching things from another angle. For instance, if you disapprove of the way corporate farming treats animals, buy a Big Mac during the lunch rush, and then loudly say that it “tastes funny” in the dining area. Then claim you are ill, and rush to the bathroom. Ham it up, the more the better. Odds are, at least one or two people won’t be eating there in the near future, and one in a hundred may decide that burgers are no longer their thing.
Another method that works is the Discordian “guerilla ontology” approach, which consists of leaving odd signs here and there. An example of this is bumper-stickering police cars with a small sign saying “Obey” (crack and peel 8.5X11 inkjet paper can be easily obtained at office supply stores). The effect that it has is small, but if you are persistent (and if there are at least a few of you), you can seriously disturb more than a few people. After all, most people WILL obey the police under any circumstances, but they REFUSE to be TOLD that they have to. They’ll become (slightly) more rebellious towards “authority” out of pure spite. Leaving “Union NOW” leaflets in Wal-Mart is also a hoot, and a great way to spend a slow Saturday.
These suggestions may sound frivolous, or even a bit silly. However, they are the best weapons we have. You can NOT beat the Machine™ by violent methods (that’s what it does BEST, after all, and it has all the big guns), nor can you “educate” most people. They may be sympathetic, but they simply don’t have TIME for a lecture, because they have SO many things to do (mostly involving television).
Now, by this point some of you are saying, “Damn, Billy, I’m just a Wiccan! I didn’t sign on to be a revolutionary!” Well, unfortunately, as the religious right gains momentum, you will be left with little choice. Some of these people want you DEAD, just because you don’t follow THEIR God, or if you do, you are just as guilty for not following him the way THEY do. You have only two weapons…humor and – when appropriate – ridicule. Face it, zealots are FUNNY. The general population just needs to be reminded of this.
I’d like to close with a final thought:
We’re on our own. If we want to make any kind of difference in the way the world is heading, we’re going to have to do it ourselves. What kind of difference is up to each individual (whattaya think this is…COMMUNISM?) We MUST act, and we must act NOW, while we still can! An invisible, leaderless army that will SMITE those that need smiting, HEAL those that need healing, and finally BOIL FORTH FROM THE COFFEE HOUSES AND “WITCHY” SHOPS, LIKE AN UNSTOPPABLE TIDE OF WRATH AND RETRIBUTION!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !
Or kill me.
Now, before you get all upset with Little Billy, let me explain that statement. A freak is, by definition, abnormal…and these days, that’s a good thing. For what does normal mean, in these dark days in which we find ourselves?
It means the “real man”…he’s a tough dude, tough enough to stomp a homosexual, for no apparent reason…but not tough enough to change a full diaper. It means the “normal woman” who disapproves of everything her neighbors do, even though she does – or wants to do – the same thing, when nobody is looking. It’s the regular kid, who is willing to stomp the crap out of anyone who has the audacity to be different, just as he has been taught to do.
Yeah, Little Billy has very little patience with “normal” people, and prefers to hang out with the freaks…the people who are actually awake enough to realize that maybe there’s more to life than the 9 to 5, more to life than making sure little Brett gets to his soccer practice on time. It isn’t the “normal” people that will set the world on its ear…no, they are adamantly opposed to change, of any kind. Their worlds are perfectly static, and they like it that way.
The problem is, of course, that their ways aren’t working. Look around you…the world’s population is doubling every fifty years…which means by 2057, there will be 13 BILLION people on Earth, with even less resources available than we have right now. Liberty is in decline, massive corporations own more and more, while you and I own less and less. General literacy is a thing of the past, and schools now teach math using money, so that Little Dickie can ease into his new job as a retail clerk with little difficulty. Something has to give, and at the rate things are going, that something is YOU.
You won’t be saved by politicians, because, let’s face it…they find this sort of thing desirable. An uneducated nation enslaved to the television is an easy nation to control. You won’t be saved by the Free Market™, because the Free Market™ has a vested interest in shoving your face into the mud. Hell, just look at what they call you…Words have power. What you are called is what you are, sooner or later. Corporations used to call you a “Customer”. Now you’re a “consumer”. Your purpose in life is to consume their product, and beg for more. Politicians used to call you a “citizen”. Now you’re a “taxpayer”, or a “voter”. Your purpose in life is to pay your taxes, and vote for Suit A or Suit B, whichever one is on “your team”. As if that made any difference whatsoever.
You won’t be saved by religion, either, because religions are far too concerned with their own petty agendas to notice that the world will soon be choking on its own waste. While the world slides into a cesspool of overcrowding, wars, ignorance, and poverty, most brand name religions are obsessed with abortion, gay marriage, the fact that the other brand name religions differ 2% in dogma, the evils of pornography, etc. In fact, two of the world’s biggest religions, and many smaller ones, forbid birth control. What BLITHERING IDIOTS!
Have you ever noticed that there is a distinct lack of the freaks and mutants that we USED to have? Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Einstein? You haven’t seen a Thomas Jefferson or a Theodore Roosevelt recently, either, have you? Why is this? What is different about today? What has changed since, oh, 1945 or so, when the last of these deviants grew up?
That’s right, the television…the best training tool ever devised. With this invention, you are trained to be a docile servant of the powers that be (more on THEM, later). Next time you stare at the pretty phosphor screen, try actually listening to what it is telling you. Seinfeld teaches you that cruelty and humiliation are funny; the news tells you to BE AFRAID ALL THE TIME (“Think it’s safe to tie your shoes? Don’t miss our Special Report on the dangers of blah, blah, blah”), and the commercials…ho ho! The commercials…
What DO commercials tell you? They tell you MANY things, and ALL of them are designed to help turn you into a drone. Watch one, some time…REALLY watch one…”If your body betrays a HINT of your natural biological processes, you will be a pariah!”, “Oh my GOD! You’re getting OLD! Buy our skin cream!”, or just “You NEED this.”
But do we REALLY need all those products they are pushing? Do all those SUVs and plasma TVs give anyone joy? When you look at that SUV, are you filled with happiness, or misery at the monstrous car payments and fuel costs you have saddled yourself with?
This is all kind of gloomy, I realize, but these are gloomy times…and I am not here just to tell you how buggered up things are, but to offer some solutions.
First, embrace your inner freak. As I said before, the “normal” people are making the problem worse, so it is on us to find a better way. You AREN’T normal, and why the hell would you WANT to be? You’ve been blessed not only with brains (even the normals have those), but with the inclination to USE them. Fer Chrissakes.
It doesn’t matter what KIND of freak you are, either. Are you a Loki worshipper with a penchant for laughing til your guts bleed? Great. Make some normals laugh, too. They could use it…and feel free to cheerfully shovel sand in the gears of society at any opportunity. More details on this in future articles.
Or maybe you’re an Emo kid, whose world has just come to an end because Nightwish won’t be playing your town this tour. That’s okay, too...Little Billy isn’t here to judge you. Simply ask yourself this: How can my outlook on life be used to smite those that are begging for it? Martha Stewart is your natural enemy…start there.
Now, don’t be fooled…not everyone is the next Martin Luther King. Ask yourself this, though…where would Doctor King have been without the horde of decent people that stood behind him? Same goes for Gandhi. A single pebble can start a rockslide, and a single loud noise can begin an avalanche.
Doesn’t sound like much, does it? Well, fear not…for we have one HUGE advantage: normal society doesn’t take us seriously. Hell, most of them don’t even realize we exist. The average Joe thinks of Pagans/Magic practicioners as a few Goths and a Satanist, who hang around cemeteries and drink Absinthe while reciting bad poetry (and for those of you who ARE like that, thanks for the camouflage). We are under the radar of everyday society…this allows us to act with near impunity. So long as we exist in the shadows, we can accomplish amazing things, if we actually get off of our asses.
The one thing you should NOT expect is unity of message. This is actually another advantage, as it makes the source of any problems really hard to pin down. Some of you are meat eaters, and some of you are vegans, for example. Promote YOUR message, which will be all the more effective because you BELIEVE in it. Do NOT commence hectoring random passers by with your message…all that will do is turn them off (on the other hand, it is hilarious to badger people with OTHER people’s messages. I’ve been doing the Pat Robertson bit for YEARS, and probably cost him hundreds of converts).
Instead, try approaching things from another angle. For instance, if you disapprove of the way corporate farming treats animals, buy a Big Mac during the lunch rush, and then loudly say that it “tastes funny” in the dining area. Then claim you are ill, and rush to the bathroom. Ham it up, the more the better. Odds are, at least one or two people won’t be eating there in the near future, and one in a hundred may decide that burgers are no longer their thing.
Another method that works is the Discordian “guerilla ontology” approach, which consists of leaving odd signs here and there. An example of this is bumper-stickering police cars with a small sign saying “Obey” (crack and peel 8.5X11 inkjet paper can be easily obtained at office supply stores). The effect that it has is small, but if you are persistent (and if there are at least a few of you), you can seriously disturb more than a few people. After all, most people WILL obey the police under any circumstances, but they REFUSE to be TOLD that they have to. They’ll become (slightly) more rebellious towards “authority” out of pure spite. Leaving “Union NOW” leaflets in Wal-Mart is also a hoot, and a great way to spend a slow Saturday.
These suggestions may sound frivolous, or even a bit silly. However, they are the best weapons we have. You can NOT beat the Machine™ by violent methods (that’s what it does BEST, after all, and it has all the big guns), nor can you “educate” most people. They may be sympathetic, but they simply don’t have TIME for a lecture, because they have SO many things to do (mostly involving television).
Now, by this point some of you are saying, “Damn, Billy, I’m just a Wiccan! I didn’t sign on to be a revolutionary!” Well, unfortunately, as the religious right gains momentum, you will be left with little choice. Some of these people want you DEAD, just because you don’t follow THEIR God, or if you do, you are just as guilty for not following him the way THEY do. You have only two weapons…humor and – when appropriate – ridicule. Face it, zealots are FUNNY. The general population just needs to be reminded of this.
I’d like to close with a final thought:
We’re on our own. If we want to make any kind of difference in the way the world is heading, we’re going to have to do it ourselves. What kind of difference is up to each individual (whattaya think this is…COMMUNISM?) We MUST act, and we must act NOW, while we still can! An invisible, leaderless army that will SMITE those that need smiting, HEAL those that need healing, and finally BOIL FORTH FROM THE COFFEE HOUSES AND “WITCHY” SHOPS, LIKE AN UNSTOPPABLE TIDE OF WRATH AND RETRIBUTION!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE !
Or kill me.