The Church of Porterism: An Angry Man's Guide to Living in the 21st Century

My Love Affair With Overreaction

porterism — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 11:12:00 +0000

I realize that I may be construed as a little ‘odd’ at times, but I find that I’m okay with that. I don’t need the sheen of respectability about me, in fact the times in my life when I was respected and admired turned out to be nothing but trouble. In a nutshell, I’m creepy, but respectable. But considering what turns up when you Google “donkey sex”, I think I’m pretty tame and normal. Sure, I live the life of quiet desperation that Thoreau so accurately pointed out, but at least I’m in touch with the darker corners of myself.
On that happy note, I love it when people overreact to perfectly normal circumstances. Overreaction has a long and storied history within the human race and I just want to share with you two of my favourites:

The War of the Oaken Bucket (1325-1337):

In 1325, soldiers of the Italian city-state of Modena invaded the neighbouring city-state of Bologna to… steal a wooden bucket. The victorious soldiers of Modena succeeded in winning the bucket (and killing thousands of Bologna citizens in the process). Undaunted Bologna launched a counterattack against Modena and after 12 years and thousands dead, Bologna was defeated and Modena kept the prized bucket. It was never clear what was so special about the bucket that would warrant such a slaughter, but I doubt that any excuse would make sense. Good job!

Desperate Father (2006)

I love it, and I mean I love it when people set themselves on fire. Self-immolation is the way to make a statement in this world. No matter how kooky your idea is, people will at least believe in your conviction. It’s no good to shoot yourself, cut your wrists, or swallow pills. Where’s the drama in that? Lighting yourself on fire is the 4th of July of self-destruction.

And really, lighting oneself on fire has been at the forefront of popular culture. Consider this image:

This is one of the most enduring and haunting photographs of the twentieth century and along with Huyn Cong (Nick) Ut’s photograph of the fleeing naked girl, one of the defining images of the Vietnam war. In no small part, these images helped to shape public opinion about the war and its effects on the native population.

Carrying on this fine tradition is one Nicola De Martino, a father’s rights activist who while appearing on an Italian news show with the son he hasn’t seen in 12 years, douses himself with lighter fluid and attempts to “flame on” as they say. Sober people would think maybe there was a good reason why he’d been kept away from his son so long. And while he didn’t actually succeed in lighting himself on fire, I think sometimes it’s the effort that counts. I say bravo!

Pussification: A Response

porterism — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 11:04:00 +0000

I’m glad this issue was finally brought up, because it’s certainly a valid one. I think we’re seeing the folly of an experiment of the last 20 years to convince boys and men to drop their traditionally masculine traits in favour of a blended feministic and non-offensive masculine dynamic. I read with eagerness what this lone voice had to say about the issue and left shaking my head in disbelief. “The Pussification of the Western Male” has been a popular essay on the Internet the past few years. If Kim du Toit is our representative of masculinity, then we are in serious trouble.

First of all, he suggests that giving women the vote was a bad move, because the involvement of women in politics has weakened the stance of a once aggressive nation. It’s a nice daydream, but it’s a false one. Mr. du Toit states that “there was a time men went to war because we recognized evil when we saw it, and knew that it had to be stamped out.” But oddly enough, in both World Wars, American politicians before the widespread “influence” of women were slow to recognize that evil had to be stamped out, judging by their late entries in both wars. American foreign policy was a clear one: let Europe fight its own battles and we’ll stay home. It is only in the latter half of the twentieth century did Americans change their stance in foreign affairs and subsequently engaged in conflicts not rooted in morality but political wrangling and economic issues. The two engagements in Iraq for example are all about regional economic interests and not about ridding the world of the hideous Saddam Hussein. As someone who revels in the idea (but not the actualities) of warfare, Mr. du Toit should be happy with the course of politics in the last fifty years. Far from putting down the guns and staying home, Americans have rushed headlong into conflicts with reckless abandon. And all of this has happened with the increased visibility of women in the political arena.

This leads me to believe that Mr. du Toit does not object to the role of women in politics for any specific reason except that giving women power and equal footing in the decision-making processes of society makes him uncomfortable and insecure. His issue of social security is a smokescreen. Any good society helps people who have fallen on hard times and protects people from the “tyranny of the majority”. This is not a free pass for people to milk the system. Trust me, I hate those people as much as anyone. But to me, being a real man means helping out my fellow citizens when they need it (not necessarily when they want it; there is a difference), not turning my back on them. And all this nonsense about “nanny laws” have little to do with women; they are a reaction to sue-happy Americans who abuse the legal system to get corporations to cough up when they are the victims of their own carelessness. This is not caused by women, but by the greedy.

I do wholeheartedly agree with his analysis of men on television today. I will give him no arguments there. The typical portrayal of men today is that of a slovenly, slow-witted buffoon who thinks of nothing but beer, cars and sex, and “needs” a woman to keep him grounded and stable. This to me is just as offensive as the idea of past decades that women need men to be complete and that there sole purposes is to act as a brood mare and to feed their men and keep their houses clean. “Now you be a good Maxwell House wife… or you’ll walk the plank!” says a husband to his wife on a boat in one Maxwell House coffee commercial in the sixties. But Mr. du Toit’s alternative? Let me list them.

1. “Men are taught violence is bad.” Personally I agree that if someone breaks into my house, I perceive them as a threat to my family and I will do what it takes to render them incapable of harming my wife and child, up to and including killing them. But I believe in using violence judiciously and in most cases, as a last resort. Mr. du Toit? He believes in using violence… whenever he feels like using it, hiding under the umbrella of “that’s the way real men are.” Not really. Real men know how to use their fists, certainly. Real men also know when to use their fists, and when using them is not appropriate. Sure, I loved a good brawl… and then I grew up.

2. “… men are, by and large, slobs.” No, we’re not. Taking care of yourself, and taking care of your home and your possessions is the mark of a real man. Women don’t change this “ideal”, it is either taught to us or it isn’t. This idea that women are responsible for eradicating slobbish behaviour is completely without logic. If Mr. du Toit has ever spent any time in the armed forces, he would know that one of the most masculine institutions in the world has zero tolerance for slobs or slobbish behaviour.

3. “…Tim Allen’s excellent comedy routine on being a man…” What the fuck? Tim Allen’s comedy routine on being a man is indicative of what Kim du Toit is pissed off about in the first place… men not being taken seriously in our media. Tim Allen’s routine of the grunting man playing with power tools and screwing up and looking like Neanderthals is merely poking fun at what Mr. du Toit holds dear… and he doesn’t get it. It’s no surprise that Home Improvement is the way that it is, because it’s what Tim Allen’s routine was about all along. Men’s simple-mindedness and needing women to solve their problems. The Man Show was lampooning the same things, just in an unabashed sort of way.

4. “Warning labels are indelibly etched into gun barrels.” Women didn’t do this. Gun manufacturers did this with the advice of their legal departments because America is the Land of the Lawsuit… something men are just as responsible as women for. It has nothing to do with a Mother Hen figure wagging her finger at the government.

5. “…our President, who happens to have been a qualified fighter pilot, lands on an aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit, and is immediately dismissed with words like “swaggering”, “macho” and the favorite epithet of Euro girly-men, “cowboy”.” First of all, President Bush may have been a qualified air pilot, but we all know the “champagne brigade” status of his unit and his shenanigans within the unit itself. du Toit does not consider Al Gore a “real man” but keep in mind Gore actually served in Vietnam. So did John Kerry. Why didn’t George W. “real man” Bush serve in Vietnam? du Toit doesn’t really get around to that question because it’s inconvenient to his position. I don’t know, but I’d trust the opinions of Gore and Kerry when it comes to war over Bush. They’ve been there; Bush, by conscious choice, wasn’t. Period.

Bush was dismissed with words like “swaggering”, “macho” and “cowboy” for two reasons. First of all, he is the President, and as such people expect him to act with a little bit of class, especially when his (non-combat) military service is highly questionable. Second, with the “mission accomplished” banner behind him (which would be screamingly funny if it wasn’t for the fact that thousands of American troops have died in this fiasco of a war), most people knew the whole thing was a pile of crap… and I include most conservatives, whether they want to admit to it or not. The President with his swagger and his drawl ended up once again looking foolish.

While I think Kim du Toit has several valid points, he clearly has a lot of trouble understanding what in fact does make a real man. The real problem is he is using “masculinity” and “macho” interchangeably. And that is the very same problem that has plagued our society in the last 30 years or so in regard to raising our boys. So-called “male” traits were deemed harmful and frowned upon in our media and education system. They lumped competition and bullying together, the idea that competing for something and winning it is wrong, because the loser feels bad, instead of teaching the winner to win gracefully and fairly and the loser to analyze their mistakes and try again. They taught that aggression is wrong and replaced it with “assertiveness”, instead of teaching boys how to use their aggression in a wise and focused manner. Things got so bad that the education system have rewritten their curricula to be advantageous to girls. I have nothing against teaching so girls have an equal footing when it comes to learning (and yes, boys and girls do learn differently), but boys were sacrificed in this process, and it shows today… dropout rates for boys are substantially higher than that of girls. Rates of boys pursuing higher education has dropped steadily, to the point that some educators are calling it a crisis in the making.
During the most idiotic phase of feminizing boys, suggestions like taxing men because men are responsible for the vast majority of crime and traffic fatalities were seriously discussed. As Mr. du Toit mentioned, playing cops and robbers has been deemed bad and eradicated without a second thought about the long-term effects this might have. It is playing these games that teaches boys the tangible value of right and wrong in terms that can be understood. Same with comic books and movie heroes. Where Mr. du Toit and myself part ways is that Mr. du Toit implies that vigilantism is not only okay, it should be encouraged. I disagree. Vigilantism is frowned upon for a very good reason: too many innocent people wind up dead. We have a legal system and due process for good reasons, because common sense fails us more often than we like to think. Turning suspected wrong-doers over to authority is not an act of weakness; it is an admission that an individual should not have the authority to determine who lives and who dies, even if that person may be a lawbreaker. The individual is sometimes wrong and even sometimes unscrupulous.

But despite all the efforts of people to stamp out masculine behaviour, it has simply cropped up in increasingly idiotic ways. In the past ten years or so, not coincidentally with the rise of the Internet, unfocused “macho” behaviour is making increasingly intrusive strides into our mainstream culture. Gangsta rap is the most extreme example of this and I completely agree with Mr. du Toit that this music is unabashedly packaged, marketed and sold to suburban white boys as fantasy fulfillment and generally not “an honest representation of life in an inner-city ghetto” which is the usual justification. The same ethic applies with the meteoric rise in popularity of pro wrestling, underground fighting videos on the Internet and “literature” like Maxim magazine. All these institutions cater to a man’s machismo, or the negative connotation of a man’s masculinity, but does nothing to nurture masculinity and its responsible use for the betterment of himself, his loved ones and the society that the man lives in. What we wind up with is a generation of men in a constant state of arrested development, unable to handle the responsibility that society requires of positive masculinity and instead takes pride in slovenly and oafish behaviour disguised as “real manhood”. That is not to say that men can’t take a break and do things like ogle strippers and get drunk, but the real man understands that his life can’t be lived around such things.
What amazes me about Kim du Toit’s rant is that he wants to be able to do what he wants according to his own sense of masculinity (and apart from “shooting criminals” and “driving fast”, nobody is stopping him) but routinely denies the same choices to his fellow men. In his world, it’s his way or no way. A “real man” in his eyes is mostly a ficticious one, gleaned from inaccurate history books and Hollywood. It’s interesting how often Mr. du Toit refers to characters rather than people when telling us who “real men” are, the most laughable being when he quotes John Belushi: “Did we quit when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” I have to remind Mr. du Toit that:

a) a character that John Belushi portrayed in a movie uttered that line, not John Belushi, the person
b) the line satirizes people who don’t think before they act

I could take “The Pussification of the Western Male” a little more seriously if Mr. du Toit doesn’t constantly contradict himself. He wants individuality… and yet wants everybody else follow his blueprint of life. Perusing a sampling of some other essays on his site, he lauds individualism because he believes in the goodness of most people. And yet much of his writing reeks of paranoia and fear of his fellow citizens and the world at large. What Mr. du Toit really wants is the right to act like a moron. I don’t wish to deny him that right. He can act in any manner that doesn’t interfere with me. But don’t confuse his ideals with the true ideals of masculinity; responsibility, duty, wisdom, hard work, looking out for your fellow man and sacrifice. Actually, it’s not much different than the ideal feminism. It’s just that men reach these ideals in different ways. That is what I object to. I don’t wish to achieve maturity via what is traditionally feministic, because I’m not wired that way. I don’t feel the need to constantly communicate my feelings, I enjoy rough and violent sports, I am polite and cordial, but cross the line with me and I’ll plant my foot square in your ass, and yes, I enjoy a good smoke after a meal… I just don’t smoke in the presence of my son… because a real man would make that sacrifice for the health of his children.

I have a feeling that “Pussification” is acting out whatever is perceived as manly simply because Mr. du Toit is uncomfortable with the alternative; everyone having a say in the direction of their nation, including women and so-called “girly-men”. One of the principles that the United States was founded upon was the exact opposite of what Kim du Toit proposes. Real men shouldn’t be afraid of women, they should be concerned about the ineptitude of those in authority by both sexes.

I object to the metrosexual revolution as much as Mr. du Toit does, but for different reasons. Metrosexuality has been around for centuries. We used to call it foppishness or dandyism. Now we call them metrosexuals. What I object to is not that some men are like that, but that I am being told by the commerical culture steamroller that in order to be a “modern man”, I have to be that way as well.

I don’t. And I’m comfortable with that. Let my neighbour be who he wants to be and I’ll do the same. Only an insecure fool would want otherwise.

The Parable of the Wanter

porterism — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 10:45:00 +0000

I’m not the kind of guy who gets all hung up on sin. Yes, I think that there are things that are right and wrong, but who am I to say anything to the good or bad about it? People who are a lot smarter, more eloquent, and a lot more motivated than I will ever be have been trying to get the world to fall under an umbrella of moral direction for centuries, and have only marginally succeeded. As far as the world has come, we can honestly say that most of us, some of the time, feel bad about war. That’s actually not to bad for a species of voracious omnivores with a biological predisposition to kill anything in its path.

But that’s not for me. I’m not really telling people to do anything good or bad. But there are a couple of things I want to touch on, and one of them has to do with want.

Want is an insidious disease that permeates the mind. There are either two things to do with want: fulfill it or stop wanting it. Keep in mind that want is different from need. There is no way I would expect someone to stop wanting to eat or be loved. What I’m talking about are these petty, day-to-day rambling, idle wants that stops people from reaching their full potential. And besides that, want is fleeting, and can often change depending on the circumstances.

One day, there was this guy. Let’s just call him… “Mike Desaulnier”. All day long, he would be unhappy because his want was unfulfilled. The source of that want was a friend of his, who wouldn’t update his blog. This friend, wise and caring as he was, decided to show “Mike” the error of his ways and how hollow his sense of want really is. So he stabbed him in the package with a sword. Not only did Mike immediately see that his idle want was fleeting, but he never said anything ever again. He was probably contemplating his new want in life… living for another five minutes, preferably with his junk intact.

Want is a useless, and even a dangerous thing to have. Want is really simple… if you want something, take it. If for some reason, you can’t have it, learn to stop wanting it. There are some people who will tell you that unrequited wants is a key component of the human condition.

Tell those people to talk to Mike.

Contexts and Assholes: The Paradoxes of Porterism …

porterism — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 20:01:00 +0000

Contexts and Assholes: The Paradoxes of Porterism

When someone asks me if I really believe that chainsaw fights will aid in saving humanity, I tell them that yes, it is something that I truly believe. When people question my sanity, I question theirs. What is the difference, I ask them, between pitting people against each other with chainsaws, then say, driving pollution-spewing vehicles that run on a dwindling supply of fossil fuels that are the basis of a major war halfway around the world? One of those scenarios, they reply, have a practical purpose. Vehicles transport people and goods around. Chainsaw fights have no practical purpose other than entertainment.

But, I reply, if the end result for the first scenario is global warming, unbreathable air, worldwide economic collapse, famine, disease and war, how is my vision of the world any more vitriolic? If you divorce yourself from the planet entirely and look at things objectively, how sound is the course we are currently following? All I am saying that there is no difference between my vision of the world that I am open and honest about, and the current course of human events that most people simply choose not to see.

I truly want to save humanity, since I am human and all, and I think the best place to start with that is to be open and honest when it comes to our most basest of desires. Chainsaw fights are horrific. But they are something that people would watch. Why would I want to showcase them? Because it is an extreme way of showing ourselves what we do to each other already, if not in the actual physical sense, then in spirit. What is the difference between hacking someone to death with a chainsaw and rendering his environment uninhabitable with our behaviour? In the long run, nothing. The fellow is just as dead as he would have been by plunging a chainsaw blade into his neck. The only difference is that the other way is bloodless and distant, and therefore, more dishonest.

People often ask me what I hope to achieve with Porterism. The answer is I don’t know really. But if I had to give an answer, it is just to get people to see both the larger picture and the details of life. I’m not all hung up on rules. It pained me to write the three laws of Porterism. In the human being exists both the killer and the healer. Instead of denying one and embracing the other, I think it is time to figure out how to use both to our best advantage. When I am asked what is a Porterist, I have to answer is being a Porterist is working with everything that makes you who you are. It is a process that I am working on, and I think ultimately everyone is, but we constantly lose sight of ourselves and our place in the world. One of the methods is exaggerated humour. Other times I am more objective and analytical.

I love it when people preach to me. They talk about Jesus or Save the Whales or hundreds of other things. I smirk a little and tell them that merely existing oppresses many other people and unless we are ready to abandon progress and return to nature’s womb we are a species of users. But it is not the manifest destiny of mankind to return to nature (at least not by conscious choice). Mankind is blessed/cursed to walk the perilous lip between enlightenment and doom. It is doubtful that mankind will succumb to either fate, but will keep plodding along staying one step ahead of doom and one step behind enlightenment. I could even argue that enlightenment would only result in our doom anyway, since I believe that mankind’s ultimate purpose is in the actual solving of the problem, not in the solved problem itself.

Ah, what a cursed fate for our species.

Porterism Law #3 There aren’t a lot of laws to Po…

porterism — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 02:27:00 +0000

Porterism Law #3

There aren’t a lot of laws to Porterism for a couple of reasons, first of all because I don’t think that a lot of things don’t need to be said. If you need to be told not to kill, then I don’t think that anything that I’m going to say is going to change your mind. Besides, there are times when you have to kill, either for self-defense, or defense of your ideals (when you go to war, for example), or sometimes even for fun. Hell, if you can’t kill someone now and again for kicks, life ain’t worth living, that’s what I say. But if you take down nothing else from what I have been talking about for so long, then take down this.

NO FUNDAMENTALISM!

Fundamentalism is repugnant, and completely without logic. If I tell you that everything I say is the do-or-die truth, then it stands to reason that I don’t have to tell you anything, since it is already a self-evident truth. In other words, why do I have to convince you of anything if I am right about anything? Why would I give a shit? I think you all know me well enough by now that I don’t.

I am confident that I have some good and valid arguments about some of the things I write about, even some of the more obviously outrageous things. For example, when I say that setting someone on fire and killing him is better than setting him on fire and letting him live, I mean that. Some people might say that it is best not to set him on fire at all, but I probably didn’t hear that; I was too busy looking for matches. Besides, how do you know that not setting a man on fire (or stabbing him in the balls or throwing him off a cliff) is the “best” scenario? You don’t. You just assume that harmony and non-violence is the best policy without any evidence to back it up. I’m not condoning violence. I’m just saying that violence is always an option.

Is this the best thing for this guy? Who knows?

But getting back to the fundamentalism thing. Fundamentalists never fail in one key thing: making themselves look stupid. When the fundamentalists proclaimed the Earth flat look what happened. When the fundamentalists claimed the sun revolved around the Earth, look what happened. Now when the fundamentalists claim that we didn’t descend from cavemen, what are we supposed to say? Now I know we were wrong about the Earth and all that, but I swear absolutely this time we got it right. Bullshit. Nobody has it right. Not you, not me, not anyone. Nor should we always have it right. If we knew everything, our humanity would cease. Chasing down mysteries is what makes us who we are. If I think that I have all the answers and I exist just to regurgitate them to you, trust me, I wouldn’t be writing this blog to a few of my co-workers and some rednecks in North Carolina. I’d be hanging from the business end of a noose.

Never assume that I’m right. Just accept that I’m interesting.

Porterism Law #2 I make most of my keenest observ…

porterism — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 02:31:00 +0000

Porterism Law #2

I make most of my keenest observations when I am out and about amongst people, because you can say anything you want about the average person, but you can’t learn a lot from them until you watch them in action.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the bus stop, waiting for my bus and sipping on a cup of coffee from the tobacconist shop inside the mall. I go there because the husband and wife behind the counter are very friendly, the coffee is good and I don’t have to wait in line like I would if I went across the street to Tim Horton’s.

So I’m sitting there with my coffee, minding my own business when this woman comes up to me and says “I’m here to give you shit!”

“Huh?” was the most intelligent reply I could muster.

“I saw you with a cup of coffee and I don’t have enough for one. How can you drink that shit? I only drink Tim’s coffee.”

I look at my cup and shrug. “Tastes all right to me.”

“Well, I only drink Tim’s coffee… they’re a Canadian company and I support Canadian companies.”

“No they’re not.”

“What?”

“Tim Horton’s is not a Canadian company. They’re owned by Wendy’s, which is an American company.”

She gave me a look as if I had just slapped her in the face. “No it’s not!”

“Actually,” a third woman who joined the conversation added, “I’m afraid he’s right. Tim Horton’s is owned by an American company.”

She stormed off. Was she pissed!

And I know why she was pissed. She believed in the multi-million dollar advertising campaign that brands Tim Horton’s as an icon of Canadiana. And not just her. Many people do. Tim’s is something we all grew up with, and we identify it within ourselves. When the Bank of Canada issued the Remembrance Day quarter, it wasn’t banks that were charged with issuing the coin to the general public. It was Tim Horton’s, because Tim’s presence was many times that of any bank. It was Tim Horton’s that opened a location at the Canadian Forces Base in Khandahar in Afghanistan. But the Tim Horton’s of today hardly resembles the Tim Horton’s of twenty years ago. The difference here is that Tim’s is an American company branding itself Canadian. And just about everyone swallows it.

As a Porterist you will not believe everything that you read, even if I write it. You will QUESTION EVERYTHING.

As an aside to the usual fare, I am now officially ordained as a clergy member in the Church of Spiritual Humanism. Among other things, I am authorized by the Church to perform marriages, funerals and other religious services. If anyone would like to be married or have their funeral services performed in the Porterist manner, please contact me for details. Restrictions apply, and my services may not be available in all areas.

This notice hereby confirms that:

XXX Porter
XXX XXXXX XXX Ave.
XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
Canada

is an ordained member of the clergy of The Church of Spiritual Humanism

Date of Ordination: July 24, 2006
Ordained by R. A. Zorger, President
http://www.SpiritualHumanism.org

The Church of Spiritual Humanism is happy to inform you that your ordination request has been reviewed and approved, and you are now an officially ordained clergy member. You are now entitled to all privileges and courtesies normally offered to ordained members of the clergy. The record of your ordination has been entered into the official permanent records of the Church of Spiritual Humanism. Ordinations by the Church of Spiritual Humanism are for life, and are awarded completely free and without monetary charge. Please print or otherwise preserve this notice for your records. As an ordained member of the clergy, you are hereby authorized by the CSH to officiate religious rites and ceremonies, including marriage, baby naming, funeral services, invocations, and holiday ceremonies, as permitted and subject to the laws and regulations of your country, state, and municipality. It is important that before you officiate any civil ceremony (such as marriages), you know and comply with all laws governing your locality. The Church of Spiritual Humanism promotes religion based on reason. As a member of the CSH clergy it is your charge to strive to base your actions on, and influence others to be motivated by, deliberation and reason and not the irrational, emotional, or subjective. Furthermore your responsibilities are to peacefully follow the proper course of action, and to avoid infringing on the rights of others. You alone are responsible for your actions as a member of the clergy.

Thanks for helping make the world a better place,

R. A. Zorger,
President Church of Spiritual Humanism

Porterism Law #1 It struck me that Porterism shou…

porterism — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:32:00 +0000

Porterism Law #1

It struck me that Porterism should have some binding guidelines to it, to help differentiate a Porterist philosophy to a non-Porterist philosophy. This philosophy is by no means fundamental, and you may interpret it as you wish. I’ve been toying with the idea of three laws to help guide people to the spirit of Porterism, and a general suggestion of what a Porterist is.
The first law has something to do with what I saw on the bus today, so I’m going to recount the story as I saw it…

I was taking the bus, engaging in one of my favourite activities, people watching, when this girl got on the bus, which I’ll refer to as Punk Rock Political Girl (or PRPG). You know the type of person I’m talking about: Dyed black hair, shaved on the sides, 10 pounds of mascara, smeared dramatically as if she doesn’t care how it looks as opposed to people who apply makeup that do care, black tank top, black pants, black canvas shoes, spiked wristbands and a dozen or so piercings and tribal tattoos. She stalks down the aisle, scowling at other women who dress like sluts or like they have jobs. Her tank top and low-rise black pants that expose her belly, cleavage and the crack of her ass are worn because she is a woman and proud of how she looks, so any man better not look at her body because that will make him a sexist pig. Other women are half-naked because they want to attact men. She dresses that way because it is a powerful statement on how she can choose to dress that way, not to attract the attention of men.

Her hair is dyed black because blond women obviously aren’t feminists. Neither are women who smile or laugh, because there is nothing funny in this world when white men own and dominate everything. The piercings and tattoos are there because only edgy, hardcore people wear piercings or tattoos. The other 80% of the population who have them are posers, they aren’t really edgy at all… they’re just trying to look edgy and hardcore, but none of them have the guts to wear all black or a Misfits t-shirt.

There’s no doubting her political stance because she has patches sewn onto her backpack, one anti-racism patch, one feminist symbol with the word WOMYN under it, and one for some punk band or another that’s so original and different from all the others because they have mohawks, are against the war and hate George W. Bush.

Her stance on race is clear because she is willing to go as far as sew a patch on her backpack to advertise her views. Nevermind the backpack, the clothes she’s wearing, the MP3 player she’s listening to and just about everything else was made by people who aren’t her race for wages that she wouldn’t bother to pick up off the sidewalk if she passed by it.

She’s no doubt a feminist because she uses the degendered form of woman, “womyn”, which sounds exactly the same as woman, but fogs the mind a lot more. When the woman in front of her tried to close her window, she opened it again with a defiant scowl on her face. Nobody was going to bully her… she’s a strong, confident woman which is clearly evidenced by being rude to perfect strangers on the bus.

She never listens to music produced by the big record labels, because they are a bunch of greedy whores. She only listens to bands from smaller, independent labels that are owned by big record labels.

I don’t mean to specifically pick on PRPG, but she is a good example of what I’m talking about. The way she dresses, her mannerism, her choices are all a part of her uniform. In Porterism, there are no uniforms. There are no identifiable ways to distinguish yourself as a Porterist, because when you wear a uniform, you adopt a narrow way of thinking and presenting yourself to the world. This will not do if you want to be a Porterist, because Porterism requires you to be as neutral as possible in front of other people.

You will not dismiss other people simply because they don’t look, act, or talk like you do. You will not be a fundamentalist. You must be prepared to abandon a tenet of Porterism when it no longer works, except for this one: NO UNIFORMS, NO FUNDAMENTALISM

Dead to the World By now, with the cock-knock…

porterism — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:29:00 +0000

Dead to the World

By now, with the cock-knocking robots and the chainsaw fights and the absence of traffic laws, people should be ready for just about anything. And what they should be ready for is zombies.

For God’s sake, we can put a man on the moon, build a nuclear bomb, clone a sheep, but we can’t re-animate the dead. Somebody is not doing their goddamn job.

Or are they? It has already started, as evidenced by this article on news.com. I admit it is a good start, but are they really going to use this technology to benefit mankind? What on earth for? Aren’t there any vindictive scientists left in this world?

Think of it this way… what do people collectively fear the most? Death, of course. But when the dead come crawling out of their graves, that instills a much greater fear than anything we could ever possibly imagine, because that throws our whole notions of afterlife, religion, and morality into flux. Dying is bad enough… but dying and then returning to mindlessly feast upon your loved ones? Hot damn.

The real question of course, is what kind of zombies? George Romero, the godfather of modern zombie folklore is very clear… slow-moving, rudimentary intelligent beings that can only die via injury to the brain. This is satisfying for me, although at least a few of the zombies should resemble the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, fast moving, strong, ready to eat anything that gets in its way. Anything to keep you guessing.

It’s fair to note that I don’t think every dead body should be re-animated. Maybe one out of every ten or so. Let’s not try to make the odds insurmountable, the idea is to have a constant presence of zombies around at all times… not because of any specific reason, but just because zombies are way cool, and we as a species will finally have a united stance against something. No more fighting each other, we’re hip deep in the flesh-eating undead!

Clarifying Chainsaw Fights: An Appendix It seem…

porterism — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 03:23:00 +0000

Clarifying Chainsaw Fights: An Appendix

It seems that my last article generating some inquiries about the mechanics of my proposal to make chainsaw fighting a national sport. In short, they felt that some decisions need to be made in regards to what type of chainsaws can be used, how many can be used, and so forth. Here I intend to make some clarification of the rules.

Richard, (or BDR to some of his friends, which is short for Big Dick Rick. How he got that nickname is unclear to me, but I have heard he sports one of the biggest penises in the world. I can neither confirm or deny this, although the women in the French quarter have taken to nicknaming him “the baguette”. That, and he nods in a knowing, self-satisfying way whenever his dick is brought up in casual conversation, which is surprisingly often. That kind of confidence can only be achieved in a grotesquely long meat stick.) had asked: Can I have two smaller chainsaws rather than one long one?

I’ve thought about this, and I really don’t have a problem with that, so yes. Watching a guy fight with two chainsaws, although it would take a fair amount of practice, would rock.

Can pole saws be used?

In case you don’t know what a pole saw is, it is a chainsaw attached to a long (8 ft or so) pole for a person to trim branches etc. Whether or not they can be used, I would say yes. Anyone stupid enough to bring one of these to a chainsaw fight, however, deserves to die. It is hard to wield effectively, and can be easily parried by a regular chainsaw, or a person can simply maneuver around the sweeping arc one would be forced to make with it. For entertainment value, we could have a few exhibition matches with pole saws, but I think that as a weapon for mortal combat, it is a little too impractical.

Is there a way to avoid the national draft to choose people for the matches?

As I have already said, anyone who is free of any major disability. I class a major disability as someone who is rendered incapable of free movement (ie: people in wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, cerebral palsy, some types of respiratory illness) that would impede their ability to attack and defend effectively, or the severely mentally handicapped who would not understand what it was they were getting into. Other than that, no.

How often would there be fights?

Three fights once a week, under the three different formats discussed in the last article.

How much would fighters be paid?

I haven’t really thought about it, since I would think that winning your life would be sufficient payment. But in reality, lots of people who will die will leave families, so they should be fairly compensated. Winners should get something, if for no other reason, to encourage them to keep fighting.

What about other tools or implements?

What about them? The sky’s the limit! Use your imagination!

Any additional questions or suggestions are of course warmly welcome. I will print updates in future articles.

Death Sports: 1970s Visionary Cinema to 21st Cent…

porterism — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 14:49:00 +0000

Death Sports: 1970s Visionary Cinema to 21st Century Porterist Reality

It is fairly obvious to most of you by now where I am going with all this. But cock-knocking robots and the abolishment of all traffic laws are only warm-ups designed to sharpen us up, get us into shape, so to speak. Those with determination, intelligence, savvy and drive will thrive. Everyone else will not. That is the way the world is supposed to work, and that is the way the world generally did work until we organized ourselves into civilizations. Then we felt obliged to help those who weren’t going anywhere. Before we let them fall into tar pits, fall off of cliffs and get eaten by tigers because we were too busy worrying about ourselves. As a result, we are plagued by a glut of people who may be nice and sweet, but are going absolutely nowhere and hold the rest of us back like blood in a clogged artery.

Our popular literature is filled with the concept of death sports, dystopian futures where people fight to the death for the amusement of others. What an idea, and an idea whose time has come. I’m willing to bet my paycheque that if you put a death sport on prime time network television, you’d have at least 50 million viewers. Because people want to see it. They don’t want to admit it, and that’s okay, but I guarantee you that death sports would be a smash hit. So here it goes:

CHAINSAW FIGHTS

Here’s a good idea that is way overdue. We are already fascinated by the chainsaw as a killing tool, as it has been the popular implement of death since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out in 1974. The chainsaw is profound. It makes a guttural growling noise as it revs up, reminding us of beasts of past lore that would snarl before tearing us to shreds and eating us. It is also a powerful symbol of industrial advancement, of the machine’s intrusion into nature (and the torsos of unwary teenagers). It is time to put chainsaw fights on television.

THE RULES

1. Fights will be to the death. No exceptions.
2. There will be three classes. Average everyday person vs. average everyday person over the age of 21, free of major disability and chosen by national draft; Average person (chosen by draft) vs. person selected by television viewing audience vote; Two people or two groups selected by audience vote.
3. Persons are allowed to wear light torso armour. No helmets or protection for the arms, legs and groins.

THE ARENA

UFC-style octagon, large enough to allow free movement, and small enough to make prolonged evasion difficult.

It will take a few weeks, but professional leagues will form, and people will get good at wielding chainsaws. There will be champions and favourite fighters signing endorsement deals with Stihl for millions of dollars. Training schools would open up and different theories would develop on offensive and defensive techniques.

The next chainsaw champion of the world?

SOME IDEAS FOR FIGHTS

The cast of Friends: Wouldn’t you love to see this? I, for one would. Watching these six dorks stumbling around taking pathetic stabs at each other until they realized that their only escape would come from eradicating their foes in the cage. Then you’d see some fun. It would be interesting who would emerge as a bloodthirsty savage, gleefully ripping into limbs and heads and bathing in the fountain of blood that would spew forth. Maybe Joey would throw caution to the wind and plunge his chainsaw into Monica’s neck as he screamed and howled the way his ancestors did when they took down a mastodon. Or Rachael would have a breakdown and start lopping off Chandler’s limbs one by one, hamming it up for the cheering audience by throwing the severed limbs to them as souvenirs. The real point is that five of the six cast members would wind up dead, and that would rule.
CEOs: I guarantee you 98 percent of people would vote their bosses into the cage. But CEOs would be particularly tricky to get to fight, because they view aggression as an asset only in the business world. They destroy families, neighbourhoods and environments from their offices with their pens. In the real world, they’re a bunch of puling pussies. You’d have to impose a special rule… for every minute of inaction in the cage, the offending CEO would lose ten percent of his entire assets. Since money is the only thing these pricks really care about, it wouldn’t take long before you’d see heads and limbs flying.

Presidential Candidates: What better way to elect your leader? The candidates enter. The one who leaves, leaves as president. Anybody who can survive a chainsaw fight has my vote.

Of course, the possibilities are endless. And it need not stop at chainsaws. But it’s a start, and a start that is long overdue.