by Steve Lowe
The problem only kicks in every time the government attempts to redirect taxpayer money into these private institutions, through scams like “faith-based initiatives” or school voucher programs. Listen, conservative America, let’s make a deal: We stop bugging you about the right to bear arms, and you stop trying to eradicate the separation of church and state. Cool?
Things are already worse in the UK, where a quarter of all schools are religious, and Britain’s most worrying new educationalist is evangelical secondhand car magnate Sir Peter Vardy. At his flagship Emmanuel College in Gateshead, pupils have to carry not one but two Bibles, which, even if you’re quite big on the whole Bible thing, does seem excessive.
So how does God influence the teaching? This was spelled out in a controversial document—now removed from the Web site—called “Christianity and the Curriculum,” which reckons science classes should show how “the study of science is not an end in itself but a glimpse into the rational and powerful hand of the Almighty.” Art classes should show how art can “serve the glory of God and celebrate the complex beauty of His creation.” At which point, even the late Bob Ross who painted all those pretty little trees on PBS would start feeling his intelligence being insulted.
The document went on to say—and this is not made up—that history lessons could usefully consider whether, during World War II, Britain was saved from Hitler by God intervening to halt the Nazis at the channel. Meaning that maybe the Battle of Britain film classic Reach for the Skies could more accurately have been called Reach from the Skies with a Big Middle Finger Saying, NOT SO FAST, MR. HITLER!
We personally think it’s a crying shame that no school in the land teaches our own theory of creation: that this whole grand enterprise is merely an imaginative figment of Uncle Mick who smokes a pipe and seems to live entirely on toasted sandwiches. We firmly believe that he dreamed the whole thing up one afternoon while watching bowling, which he loves, and the moment he gets bored, that’s it, we’re all toast, just like one of Uncle Mick’s delicious sandwiches.
We were going to set a school up, but we couldn’t be bothered.
FASHION JOURNALISM
Words to go with pictures of people wearing clothes written by girls with misspelled first names (so many z’s) and double-barreled second ones.
At heart, fashion journalism isn’t about clothes; it’s about being so Now that by the time you’ve finished typing the word Now it’s too late, because by now you’re Then.
Among fashion journalism’s key linguistic traits are:
•Sentences that resemble complicated Google searches: “the Kate Moss/Sienna Miller/Mischa Barton school of Gramercy Park bling-meets-boho laid-back high-chic.” Keep up, ugly losers.
•Casually dropped French terminology—au courant, de la saison—in the style of a yet-to-be-created Mike Myers character.
•Weird boasts. Like “I’m a fashion innovator,” “I take classic Armani pieces and wear them in a modern way,” “I’m an accessories freak.” These are good things, presumably?
•Hyperbole. “Oh Jesus, bite me on the ass these bags of the season are making me so high, they must be a gift from God!”
•Referring to people you have never met by their first names: Kimora, Michael, Lemmy.
•Deification of models. Not just models modeling, but interviews with models about modeling, too! Here’s Karolina Kurkova, a model, on what it’s like to be a model: “It’s not just about being cute. It’s about creating something through light and clothes and expressions. It’s like theater.” This woman was the highest-paid model in 2003, but we should feel very sorry for her: “Modeling looks glamorous from the outside, but sometimes I have moments when I cry.” Yes, us too.
Sometimes fashion journalists get paid to write novels, like Plum Sykes’s excruciating Bergdorf Blondes, a book that has apparently become “a Bible for the fabulously wealthy, the inner circle elite.” And which proves, decisively, that you should never read books by anyone named after a fruit.
FAST-FOOD CHAINS MARKETING THEMSELVES AS “HEALTHY” (AND FEMINIST)
“Hi—we’re McDonald’s, a great big company that would love to come by your house and tell you about how we’re changing.”
In the 1950s, French artist Yves Klein invented his own color, International Klein Blue, which he believed represented Le Vide (the void)—not a vacuum or terrifying darkness, but a void that invokes positive sensations of openness and liberty, a feeling of profound fulfillment beyond the everyday and material. Standing before Klein’s huge canvases of solid blue, many report being enveloped by serene, trance-like feelings.
We feel something very similar looking at the pictures of salads in the window of KFC. Or that surreal meal deal with the plastic bowl of rice. You wouldn’t actually order these items, but their very existence expresses that corporation’s painful identity crisis when faced with a shrinking market. Mmmm. Lovely.
We get similar buoyant sensations by reading the McDonald’s Corporation’s pamphlet (We Thought We’d Come to You for a) Change, posted through mailboxes across the land, which bravely reconfigures McDonald’s as a health-food restaurant and general harbinger of world peace. The tone of a spurned lover who treated you wrong and now sees the error of his ways pervades the whole document: “Hi—we’re McDonald’s,” it begins, “a great big company that would love to come by your house and tell you about how we’re changing. But there are a lot of us and it takes ages to get organized.” That’s a joke (no, really) to show us they have a Good Sense of Humor.
“We’ve knocked the booze on the head and gotten a job. We’ve moved out of our mom’s basement and gotten an apartment: It’s not much, but it’s a home. It could be our home.” (We made that last bit up.)
The pamphlet desperately bids to woo everyone back to their formerly favorite restaurant: There are pictures of cute black children, pictures of cute moo cows, parents lovingly clasping their children’s hands, and a cute child on a swing—all brimming with salad-derived vitamins. In keeping with the identity crisis theme, there’s also a picture of some paunchy dudes watching football in a bar to reassuringly convey the message: Yes, we do still sell shitty burgers that chew your guts up something rotten.
Another section, which contains some of the most remarkable prose ever written, aims to reposition McDonald’s at the head of the feminist market (this is not made up). Headlined “You Go Girls,” the empowering passage claims that “spending time away from the boys is a rare and precious thing. Make the most of it while you can. Take a shopping break, put the bags down and find somewhere fun to eat.” Because, this says, being a carer to men and shopaholic (which, of course, is the very essence of womanhood) is hard work. But where could you possibly have this break? “Yoohoo!—we’re over here.” Ah yes, McDonald’s.
The text—and if you don’t believe this actually happened, you can check it out: We’ve donated a copy to the public library—ends like this: “Girls, before you know it, you’ll be back home and showing the things you bought to the boys, and unless it’s got cars or football on it—they won’t care. So have a great day, have a great salad, and sisters? Do it for yourselves.”
FAUX SWEARING
Strolling past The Shop Formerly Known as French Connection, have you ever been driven to splutter, giggle, tap your companion’s shoulder, and exclaim, “Look, look—it almost says fuck!”? I’m guessing you haven’t.
There is nothing big or clever about pretending to swear. If you want to be big and clever, you need to call your shop Ass-Fucking Tit-Monkey’s Splooging Cockarama and Co. Now that’s swearing.
FAX CHARGES
In the Easiest Living Ever stakes, charging people for sending faxes has narrowly squeaked into second place behind being Stedman Graham, who has topped the poll every year since the late 1980s when he first went on a date with Oprah.
At a dollar for the first sheet, followed by 50 cents for each subsequent sheet, a six-page fax se
ts you back $3.50. With the phone call to send the fax costing about 5 cents, that’s a markup of 7,000%.
Your local copy shop or “fax center” Nazi would say that it’s not just the cost of the call; they also need the “infrastructure”—that “infrastructure” being a very shitty fax machine purchased in 1987.
50 CENT
In April 2005, Reebok launched a TV ad campaign showing 50 Cent sitting on a box in a burned-out warehouse, snarling at the camera and counting to nine while the screen turns slowly red and a crackly newscaster reminds us how “he’s been shot nine times.” Oddly, some thought the ad made getting shot look cooler than it often turns out to be.
It’s certainly not his clever rhyme skills, so the fact that 50 Cent is now among the world’s biggest entertainment figures apparently derives almost entirely from having gotten himself shot up nine whole times—something he doesn’t like to talk about. Oh no, sorry. We were getting mixed up with the singer from Hoobastank. In fact 50 Cent loves talking about shooting and getting shot up; he’s regularly pictured wearing body armor, pointing massive guns at the camera lens wearing an expression saying I’m gonna shoot you up. He called one album The Massacre; he’s always starting beefs with other rappers about who is best at shooting and getting shot up. And so on.
All his bullet wounds were actually attained in one incident, but his image rather portrays someone who has trouble visiting the local bodega without getting himself shot up: “Honey! I got shot up again . . . Oooweee, this one stings . . . got any Band-Aids left or did we run out after last week? Yowza!”
Reebok responded to the complaints by claiming the 50 Cent ad campaign was a “positive and empowering celebration of his right of freedom of self-expression.” And not his “right of freedom” to get shot up.
Of course, this is all null and void now that Kanye West beat Fiddy in first-week album sales. Before both stars’ new releases “dropped,” Mr. Cent swore that if his Curtis CD didn’t outsell Mr. West’s Graduation, he would never record another solo CD ever again. Shucks. Gone so soon. At least you’ll always have your gunshot wounds.
FILM STARS
Hollywood film stars on talk shows: You have to ask—would you let them near small children?
Here’s Tom Cruise (see Tom Cruise): laughing much too hard, slapping his thighs, and hooting at stuff that’s not particularly funny. Who actually slaps their thighs when they hear something funny? Christ, now he’s rocking backward and forward . . .
Oh, and here’s Kevin Spacey: talking and moving as though he’s been glazed, clearly having given the producers the brief that he will only appear as long as he can try to kill the audience to death by boring on about Bobby Darin instead of tackling any amusing anecdotes about his private life and pets.
Oh fuck, here comes Paris Hilton for her brave, tear-filled performance on Letterman: Actually, Paris’s decision to appear on a chat show and not chat was at least fairly radical. She did depart from the whole everyone’s-loving-one-another’s-company form and become a whiny, crying victim instead. So well done, Paris. You big freak.
FILM WARNINGS
What’s a childhood without a few sleepless nights spent haunted by the memory of a grim celluloid bloodbath? Kids love it. Waking up in the middle of the night, sweating, feverishly recalling a zombie slasher hacking at some poor bastard’s innards? That’s the magic of childhood! Sadly, however, some people don’t see it that way and want to deny any potential for trauma with film warnings that seem to get more convoluted by the month.
But really, what kind of person would want to stop anyone from seeing a film that “contains mild peril”? There are, according to some estimates, only seven basic story lines in all human art, all of which contain at least some peril. It’s what makes them stories.
And even “mild peril” sounds fairly pathetic, like “mild action violence” or “mild sensuality.” If a film is going to include peril, action violence, and sensuality—and, clearly, it should—then ideally the usage should not be mild. At the very least, it should be “moderate.”
Who demanded such stultifying detail? There surely don’t exist people who read the movie listings and think, Oh dear God, no! We can’t go and see the new Spiderman film, it’s got one use of strong language and mild sensuality—if little Daisy sees that, she might die. Or is this, perhaps, our nation’s family-centric right extending its icy influence over the listings in your local paper? Hell’s teeth, it’s even got “thematic elements”!
To be truly sensitive to a young person’s individual fears, we should probably detail everything that may cause offense: “One scene takes place in a kitchen, which features a major heat source . . . plus there is one use of a staircase—down which someone might potentially fall. Also involves moderate use of hair and teeth.”
FILMING CONCERTS ON PHONES
You are at the concert. You don’t need to film it. You can download clips live right now—with your eyes and your ears. It is literally right in front of you. They really should put up some signs: NO PHONE-CAMERA JACK-OFFS! NO! NO! NO! AND ALWAYS! NO!
FISH SYMBOLS ON CARS
Early Christians used a fish symbol to identify fellow believers during times of persecution. These days, to let people know they are really into Jesus, many Christians stick a fish sign on the back of their car. Like BABY ON BOARD stickers—but with God.
Apparently, these symbols have caused belief-system-related mayhem. This is because the symbols don’t just mean “I’m the nice sort of Christian who sometimes distributes hot soup to the homeless,” but are more likely to mean: “Science is witchcraft and you’re all going to hell.” To underline the hard-right/anti-science/anti-abortion intent, some fish contain the word BUSH inside, indicating that George W. is “doing God’s work.”
Incensed, humanists created their own bumper fish symbols with the word DARWIN inside hoping to irritate the Christian right. It worked. They didn’t like it. It got nasty. Chris Gilman, the Hollywood special-effects whiz who apparently invented the Darwin fish, said: “Here’s a religion about forgiveness, peace, and love, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard about Darwin fish being torn off of cars and broken.”
The Christians retaliated with a bumper sticker depicting the Darwin fish being swallowed by a larger JESUS or TRUTH fish.
The humanists shot back with a reversed version of the sticker.
Then the Ring of Fire Web site produced a sticker depicting the Darwin fish and the Jesus fish forming “what Shakespeare jauntily termed the beast with two backs” (they were at it like bunnies).
Nothing will wind up a right-wing Christian more than piscine-penetration faith denigration. And so it proved, with yet more parking-lot/highway altercations. Actually, this is possibly a good way finally to settle the evolution/creation debate: a demolition derby on the highway with the losers ending up bleeding in a ditch with bits of car stuck in them.
If the Christians won, they could shout back at the twisted wreckage: “What’s that you said about survival of the fittest? I can’t hear you!”
FOOD COURTS
Dishes from the four corners of the world! Left half eaten, on paper plates, stacked up, on Formica tables.
The food court: the most monstrous part of the already desperate shopping center “experience.” It’s like a horrible accident at an MSG factory. And always, as well as the usual suspects, there are chains that you never see anywhere outside of food halls. Panda Express. The Great Steak and Potato Company. Quiznos. What is that? Who is this Quizno? What is this for? Who are these people? What do they want from us?
FOOT SPAS
At what point did manufacturers decide that people might need something full of hot water to put their feet in that wasn’t the bath? Or, if you must, a bowl? It’s like using the normal sink to wash your hands but having another, special basin just in case you feel like giving your pits a rinse.
Other useless items filling up people’s cup
boards include sandwich toasters and bread makers. We’ve got billions in useless goods under our collective stairs. What amazing fucking idiots we are. Stick ’em all on eBay in one go and we could probably bring down the economy.
Sandwich toasters are foul, satanic tempters. They seem like a great idea right up to the point you produce your first grilled cheese and the cheese is hot enough to kill you and melts a hole in your hand.
Bread makers are just complete and utter bastards. You assemble the eight trillion ingredients and leave it overnight as instructed—to be lulled to sleep by what sounds like someone being beaten senseless by a marine all night long. Look, it was a fucking present, all right, and we smashed it with a hammer and threw it out an upstairs window. We’d advise you to do the same.
FRAUDULENT RACE-AGAINST-TIME DEADLINES ON TV SHOWS
“Hang on, what’s the freaking hurry?”
“Erm . . . well. Nothing, really. Just, you know . . . it makes things more tense. And we won’t be able to shout things like ‘Wow, I can’t believe you painted those seven walls and converted that canal into a home for the blind, all in seven minutes—the drinks are on me!’ ”
“Oh.”
FREE-CD GUNK
You know, that sorta-sticky, sorta-not stuff that holds a free CD or DVD into a magazine ad. What is it? Where do they get it from? Is it bat sperm? Is it hellspawn? Is it mined by infants? We know it has the consistency of nose goblins, but what is it?
FREE MAGAZINES
The ones you have to pay for are bad enough. But then there’s all the free magazines—on trains and airplanes, in shops, coming through your door, from trade unions, from insurance companies.
Supermarket magazines never say things like “Of course you’ll want to get the vegetables for this recipe at the market, where they’re much cheaper”; or “If we’re honest, most of our competitors have a much better selection of wines than us. We tend to just get the stuff with the biggest markups or see if it’s got a pretty label. Sorry about that.” That’s possibly because they’re less about being informative than about trying to sell you their stuff. Hence, we guess, the age-old adage: There’s no such thing as a free magazine.