Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit?

by Steve Lowe

  FUNKY, THE WORD, AS APPLIED TO ANYTHING EXCEPT A MUSICAL GENRE

  A yuppie being shown around a sleek urban bachelor pad, on spying a particular feature, will say: “Nice, funky. Okay.” A stripped-pine bar-club filled to bursting with vacuous douchebags will call itself The Funky Monkey. A new handbag with a slightly unusual buckle? That’s funky. So, too, is a reasonably colorful mug.

  So forget any earlier associations (adj. from the French funquer, meaning “to give off smoke” through to “being enticingly odorous” and on to “being rhythmically badass”). Now we must presumably imagine James Brown backsliding across some varnished floorboards holding a chrome tea press and going: “Urrgh!” With Funkadelic all sitting on little stools behind the breakfast bar.

  And how “funky” is that?

  G

  GADGET BORES

  William Morris said you should have nothing in your home that is not either beautiful or useful. So we wonder what he would make of boring bastards crapping on about their new sat-nav handheld spaz-top.

  GADGET BORE: Look, it shows you all the streets and tells you where to turn.

  WILLIAM MORRIS: BUT YOU’VE BEEN DOING THAT JOURNEY EVERY WEEKDAY FOR FOUR YEARS. YOU ALREADY KNOW THE WAY. ALSO, THIS WALLPAPER’S SHIT.

  GADGET BORE: SHOWS YOU WHERE THE NEAREST SHOE SHOPS ARE. YOU KNOW, FOR IF YOU NEED, ERM, LACES. DO YOU WANT TO SEE MY IPOD PLAYLIST?

  WILLIAM MORRIS: COBBLERS TO YOUR IPOD PLAYLIST. THAT IKEA TABLE? IT’S BOLLOCKS.

  If further proof were needed that electronic gizmos are just a way of filling the void, it is that the magazine for gadget bores is called Stuff. That’s not even a proper name. What are you interested in? Stuff. That’s just stupid.

  Mecca for gadget bores is Tokyo’s Akihabara, or “Electric Town,” which the guidebooks describe as a dense maze of neon straight out of Blade Runner with electronic widgets so amazing you will probably want to sign up to be turned into an android. However, if you go to Akihabara, you will find it’s more like a really, really big branch of Best Buy where everything is in Japanese. The mutating neon may as well carry the slogan NOTHING TO SEE HERE. New mobile phones that aren’t out here yet? Guess what: They look just like mobile phones that are out here yet. That is not, at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, very interesting at all.

  Later, emerging into a dimly lit side street, you will almost be run over by what looks like a Japanese Nick Cave driving the smallest car you have ever seen.

  GEOGRAPHICALLY INACCURATE RACISM

  At a middle school somewhere, an Iranian kid is being called “Saddam”—several letters and one very long war away from accuracy.

  If people do have to be racist, do they also need to be so droolingly brain-dead that they can’t tell which ethnic group they are rabidly insulting? Maybe they should make special racist maps.

  GLOBAL WARMING SKEPTICS

  If you’re worried about global warming, you must be some kind of pussy. The ice caps aren’t melting. There aren’t more forest fires or old people dying in heat waves. The seas aren’t getting substantially warmer—and even if they are, which they aren’t, the fish are absolutely loving it!

  We know this because of a small cabal of scientists who believe in big business more than life itself and who, funnily enough, often receive funding from Big Oil. These “skeptics” get everywhere: by the president’s ear; near big business; on news programs keen to stir up “debate” and show they’re not biased against frothing nutjobs.

  In 2004, Myron Ebell, a director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the British media that global warming fears were “ridiculous, unrealistic and alarmist” and that European countries were “not out to save the world, but out to get America.”

  In 2005, White House official—and former oil industry lobbyist—Philip Cooney was found to have filed reports on the link between greenhouse gases and climate change with dozens of amendments that all exaggerated scientific doubts. That was before he left the White House for a job with . . . Exxon Mobil! Could you make it up? Probably, but there’s no need.

  All this despite the fact that virtually all other climatologists—the ones without links to the fossil fuels industry—now predict that even a conservative rise of 2.1 degrees will probably result in tens of millions of people losing their lives. Even a suppressed Pentagon report warned of a danger that far outstripped terrorism, mega-droughts, famine. Thanks to a newly submerged Gulf Stream, by 2020 the British climate could rival Siberia’s. Thankfully, President Bush responded immediately. By standing proud alongside the British prime minister and declaring: “We need to know more about it.”

  More about what? You can see how this thing will develop in years to come . . . But Myron, I’ve just put a page of A4 paper in sunlight and watched it spontaneously combust. “Sheer alarmism—we’ve always had hot days!” But Myron, a herd of gazelles has just elegantly pranced past the window of our Manhattan studio. “Er, yes, they’re mine. I brought them along with me. That big one—he’s called Dave and he likes nachos.”

  And Myron, now you’re being swept into the skies by a freak tornado. “What a funny thing you are! I see nothing extraordinary in this turn of events . . . It’s great up here! Hi, George, good to see you! Pretty breezy, I know! You what? You want to know more about it? It’s okay, I’m on it!”

  GOOD AND EVIL AS DEMONSTRATED IN THE MARKETING OF AUTOMOTIVE TRANSPORT

  Now, more than ever, we need a firm moral compass to guide us through our treacherous age. Let us be thankful, then, for car ads.

  It might not have escaped your notice that many of the ads are car ads. And you might well admire the way many cars embody very distinct moral attributes. Some cars are repositories of goodness that make you feel honest, real, and true—like getting emotional about the memory of Brokeback Mountain while sitting in a hedge.

  Other cars, very different cars, make you feel dark, cruel, and sleazy, like you’re eating a dirty burger for breakfast in preparation for a day’s gunrunning.

  Very much in the former camp, the new Nissan Note understands that having kids is the greatest adventure in the world (it’s not, though—skydiving is: it’s over quicker, and people don’t clam up when you talk about it). Billboards show this vehicle of virtue speeding through the countryside with a kite flying behind in the clear blue skies. It’s wholesome, pure, and pure, like Coldplay’s Chris Martin, fresh from having a bath, smelling a fragrant meadow at dawn.

  Alternatively, if the idea of going on holiday with children makes you feel nauseated, there’s the infamous ads for the European Ford SportKa, which gained worldwide notice for showing a sentient hatchback decapitate a cat with its sunroof. Seriously. All to brag that this car is—again, no joke—the “evil” alternative. All that was missing was the tagline: You’d better be one sick puppy to drive this baby. Ford SportKa.

  Or you might prefer something closer to nature. “Go Beyond,” says Land Rover. Appreciate nature, the hills, the beaches, the misty forests . . . by driving through a misty forest, in a Land Rover! Because the Land Rover is the only off-road vehicle that naturally occurs in nature. Land Rovers are actively beneficent—like sharing cherries with an Eskimo would be good. Maybe the Eskimo has never had cherries before, and you’ll laugh and laugh and laugh.

  Or you might prefer batshit crazy. In which case, enjoy the VW Polo. A controversial viral Internet ad shows a Middle Eastern suicide bomber driving up to a café in the Polo—but when he triggers the bomb, the ensuing explosion is contained within the Polo. Why? Because the Polo is that tough! It is the only car that can contain terrorism! If you love freedom and dead bad guys, buy VW!

  So the choice is clear: You can drive a car that’s truly at one with the cosmos, that will make you feel like the Buddha on a mellow tip. Or you can drive a car that thirsts for blood. At least until these two eternal opposing forces come crashing together in a final titanic struggle that will see the skies rent asunder, the
ground shake, and the seas get decidedly choppy. At this point, the lamb will lie down with the lion. The shepherd will lie down with his flock. It will rain cats and it will also rain dogs. The beetles will lie down with the monkeys. The Green will lie down with the Black. Everyone is lying down. Brm brm.

  GRAVITY-DEFYING CREAM

  Clinique’s Anti-Gravity Firming Lift Cream is marketed to women as preventing the inevitable downward effects of the aging process: “A lightweight oil-free formula [that] helps firm up skin instantly and over time [helps] to erase the look of lines as it tightens. Anti-Gravity Firming Lift Lotion by Clinique restores supple cushion to time-thinned skin.”

  Of course it does.

  Things known to science to defy gravity: airplanes, missiles, space rockets. Things known to science to not, generally speaking, defy gravity: magazines, cookies (not even very light wafers), pants, cream.

  GRAVY TRAIN, THE

  Transport for bastards, laid on by The Man.

  Not to be confused with: the gravy boat, which is transport for gravy, by Your Mam; “Love Train,” which was laid down by the O’Jays.

  GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS, THE

  Genuine Guinness world records include making the World’s Largest Dog Biscuit or constructing the Fastest Thirty-Level Jenga Tower. Why not just go for the World’s Single Most Pointless Individual Obsessively Engaged in a Heart-Sinkingly Futile Act?

  The Guinness world record for holding the most Guinness world records is held by Ashrita Furman of New York—including Longest Milk Bottle Head Balancing Walk. This fucking freak walked eighty miles with a fucking milk bottle on his empty fucking head. Furman also holds the Milk Crate Balancing on Chin record, the Fastest Pogo Stick Jumping Up the CN Tower record, and the Orange Nose Push—Fastest Mile record (24 min. 36 sec. Woo! Woo!). Since the 1970s, he has set more than eighty Guinness world records. As of November 2004, he held twenty: This means that people see these pointless records and then aspire to break them, presumably saying things like, “434 games of hopscotch in a 24-hour period? Ea-sy!”

  Ashrita puts his amazing success down to his daily meditation regime. After discovering the spiritual teachings of Sri Chinmoy, he renamed himself Ashrita in 1974. His real name is Keith (you couldn’t actually make this up). GuinnessWorld Records.com explains: “Ashrita is on a spiritual mission and uses his inner spirit to perform the record-breaking feats. Under the instruction of his guru he says he’s been able to attain a new level of self-transcendence—meaning he can overcome the physical pain and mental anguish of his testing record attempts.”

  Didn’t fancy using your “inner spirit” and “self-transcendence” for, say, the attainment of world peace then, Keith? At least Furman merits inclusion in the book. So many people are setting world records that many don’t even get a mention. Imagine that: You’ve just set the record for the Longest Jack-Off in a Bath of Beans, and it’s not even in the book. How are you going to feel then?

  The book—the best-selling copyright title of all time, at more than one hundred million copies (haven’t all these people considered going for a walk or something?)—was set up (in the 1950s) and edited by Norris McWhirter (with his brother Ross), who was not far off being a fascist. He was forever funding strike breakers and defending sportspeople who went to South Africa during apartheid. A rabid anti-European, McWhirter was caught altering the 1975 edition book proofs just before they were sent to the printers, adding: “World’s Worst Country: the Krauts.”

  H

  HANDBALL

  People would take the Olympics a lot more seriously if they didn’t include handball. They’re just throwing a ball to each other like a bunch of kids. It’s just stupid. And if you win, how do you look, say, the marathon gold medalist in the eye?

  HANDBALL GOLD MEDALIST: What did you get your gold for?

  MARATHON GOLD MEDALIST: I RAN TWENTY-SIX MILES IN EXTREME HEAT.

  HANDBALL GOLD MEDALIST: GREAT. I THREW A BALL BACK AND FORTH FOR A BIT WITH SOMEONE ABOUT TWO FEET AWAY FROM ME. THEN I HAD A BATH.

  MARATHON GOLD MEDALIST: GO DIE, ASS-CLOWN.

  HARE KRISHNAS

  Hare, hare krishna

  Hare hare

  Hare bullshit

  Bullshit

  Bullshit krishna

  Hare bullshit

  Bullshit hare

  (REPEAT)

  TERI HATCHER, PHILOSOPHER

  As Bertrand Russell once noted: “Philosophy bakes no bread.” This is true: Philosophy is no baker. And bread has never been especially beneficial to philosophy. But that all changed when one modern philosopher was struck by inspiration while thinking about bread. Toasted bread. Toast, in fact.

  The philosopher in question was, of course, Teri Hatcher, philosopher, whose subsequent treatise Burnt Toast: And Other Philosophies of Life expanded upon her belief that, when presented with burnt toast, women often eat it rather than throwing it away and starting again. The thing is, it’s not just about toast—the toast is a metaphor, you see. For all poorly prepared breakfasts. Not that Teri Hatcher seems to ever eat breakfast, what with her looking so thin and all. Or, indeed, a PowerBar.

  Anyway, what follows is a kind of aphoristic free-for-all reminiscent of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. For instance: “When my waters broke with Emerson, I was in the middle of cooking dinner. I called the doctor who told me to come straight to the hospital. I asked her if I had time to blow dry my hair. She said, ‘What?’ ”

  And: “When I hung up the phone I burst into tears. That motherfucker. I opened myself up and what did I get? Scorched. I rallied a couple of girlfriends for burn-victim treatment.”

  And: “When we’re kids, our instincts are raw and untempered by all the pros and cons and second-guessing that take over our adult lives. But we suffer the consequences. I kept the cat. Kitty was her name.”

  Fairly soon, you realize that the desperation is no act, that Hatcher really is that desperate—for truth! Among other things.

  We wonder what Eva Longoria’s great philosophical investigation will reveal. She’s certainly due her own “eureka” moment sometime soon. What with all that sitting around in the bath.

  “HAVING ONE OF THOSE DAYS?” ADVERTISING

  Having one of those days? Someone at the office dumping their work on you? Got rained on at lunch? Hair? Him? And that?

  Don’t worry, girls. Just relax on a big, snuggly sofa with a steaming mug of hot chocolate (lo-cal, natch!) and think about crummy guys, etc., etc. With ads for products aimed primarily at females aged 20–35, you can virtually hear the brains of lumpen creatives filling in the cliché boxes with a big lazy tick: okay . . . vulnerable, likes snuggling up, “having one of those days?,” shake it all off with . . . bubbles, thinking about crummy guys, lo-cal hot chocolate . . . pamper pamper, more hot chocolate, mmmm, steamy and warm, mmmm, bubbles, luxuriant bubble bath absolutely everywhere . . . “having one of those days?” . . . more bubbles. Candles!

  HEALTH-FOOD ENTREPRENEURS

  Wholemeal breadheads.

  HEDGE-FUND BOYS

  In a get-rich-quick world, hedge-fund boys get rich the quickest. How they spend their cash influences whole lower stratospheres of vacuous consumption. Currently, hedge-fund boys prefer to splash their cash ordering bottles of every liquor under the sun, ostensibly opening their own lounge-side bar within the bar.

  If professional watchers of the super-rich are to be believed, these “lords of havoc” (so dubbed by the UK’s New Statesman) drive the tastiest motors, eat at the fastest restaurants, swim in the wettest pools, and stalk London and New York like Knights of the Bastard Table. The Sunday Telegraph estimated that in 2005, around 200 to 300 UK hedge-fund managers carved up $4.2 billion of pure profit among them. In 2005, according to the U.S. Institutional Investor magazine, the top twenty-five hedge-fund managers earned an average of $251 million each. The amount of money the world’s hedge funders handle could be as much as $1.5 trillion.
<
br />   So how do they do it? Well, it’s tricky. Even people who understand economics do not understand hedge funds. These secretive, privately owned investment companies are massive—if they were a country, they would be the eighth biggest on the planet. But it would be a country you could not visit or even see: Hedge funds, of which there are reckoned to be eight thousand in the world, mostly based in the United States, “fly under the radar” (CNN) and cannot be regulated—mainly because regulators don’t understand what’s going on, even though hedge funds may be responsible for over half the daily turnover of shares on the London stock market alone. After looking into the matter, the Financial Services Authority, Britain’s regulatory body, said: “Fuck it.” It’s very much like Deal or No Deal: People claim to know what’s going on, and superficially there would appear to be some logic, but actually they’re making it up as they go along.

  We’ve looked into it and have to say it sounds a lot like Internet gambling for the super-rich. Investors must place a minimum of a million dollars into a fund; at enormous risk, the fund managers take these tax-haven stashes and place stakes on anything and everything—FTSE 100 companies, commodities, options, stocks in developing countries, anything that might shoot up in price or can be made to. Often they will take the tax-haven cash and borrow against it—that is, borrowing money in order to gamble it; which is exactly the sort of responsible activity that should remain unregulated. When the hedge funders lose their shirts (one Japanese fund lost $300 million in a week), it’s okay because they’ve got more shirts. But often, other losers—like Colombia or Egypt (both of which saw their stock markets slump after the hedge funders parked their mobile casinos in them)—don’t have any more shirts. Which makes riding with hedge funders quite a bare-knuckle ride, with no shirt on.