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Summer’s Last Great Watermelon Smashup
Last night at my house there was a “noise show.” Actually, I don’t know that all of the bands were “noise” bands, necessarily, as I skipped out early to play pool and pilfer day-old bread from the Essential Baking dumpsters. I don’t know if this is typical for concerts of this nature (I’m not into noise… call me old-fashioned), but apparently after we left some guy showed up and smashed a watermelon against one of our living-room walls.
I know, genius, right? It’s like the guy never heard of eating before. You can’t blame somebody if they just don’t know, right? Anyway, he got kicked out, but I wish I had been there to give him a firm talking-to. I would have guilted him so hard about it that he would have been in there licking up the juicy delicious debris and thanking me for it.
I’ve been thinking about this recently: about the utility of public humiliation. Consider the stockades of ages past, for example. Maybe I’m just cruel and unusual, but it seems like if someone is really made to feel like a dipshit for doing something overtly wrong, then - hey - maybe they will think twice again next time. Or maybe not. Epictetus had something good to say along these lines last night. Let me try and find it:
“Govern us as rational beings by pointing out to us what is profitable, and we will follow you; point out what is unprofitable, and we will turn away from it. Bring us to admire and emulate you, as Socrates brought men to admire and emulate him. He was the one person who governed people as men, in that he brought them to subject to him their desire, their aversion, their choice, their refusal. ‘Do this; do not do this; otherwise I will throw you into prison.’ Say that, and yours ceases to be a government as over rational beings.”
Or there is always the stockades and we can just put fruit to the good and right use of throwing it at idiots instead of at walls. I also believe in giving people the space to correct their own mistakes and not holding it against them forever.
I do like this image though: of coming to a party, a gathering of people, and having some kind of feeling that you should do something because it is a special occasion whenever people get together. So you consider maybe buying a bottle of wine or a case of beer, a bouquet of flowers. But then a nice juicy watermelon catches your eye, and makes you wish that summer wasn’t almost over… if only you could just hold onto that feeling for a little while longer against the creeping onset of winter’s oblivion.
So you bring your watermelon to the party, cradling it proudly like a newborn child in your arms, holding within it the sweet threat of a thousand summers come and gone. Was he so inspired by the “noise” that he decided the best possible use of nature’s bounty would be in a glorious shower of seeds and syrup? Or maybe he heard hipsters snickering behind their hairdos: “Did you see that guy with the watermelon? I bet he doesn’t even like good bands!”
I mean, that’s enough to send anybody over the edge, into a Gallagher-esque rage of pent-up watermelon fury. I’m only joking though: everybody at the house last night seemed pretty cool and it’s nice to see this house transforming yet again to match the needs of another brave band of adventurers, sonic and otherwise. I’m just trying to wrap my mind around what makes somebody smash a watermelon at a party and get kicked out when they could have just as easily carved and served it and been everybody’s hero. I mean, at least a minor one. He wouldn’t have won any awards or anything, but hell.
Aside from blowing off steam, I like this as a parable about what I’ve taken to calling intent/action harmony. Mastering it is perfectly simple: it just takes a lot of diligence - as well as not being a jackass. You just have to ask yourself: what am I really trying to accomplish here and is this the best way to accomplish it? Most of us never ask those questions in the first place, never mind consciously changing our behavior when we realize that our intentions and actions, in fact, are not congruent. But as rational watermelon-smashing beings, it really is our duty to take these simple steps towards self-mastery. It turns out being a lot less messy at the end of the day, in any case.
- Is Canada calling us home?
- Serious Education in America
- Favors
- The French-Canadian Diaspora
- You want some wood?
- Prev: Taking Names
- Next: Gathertogetherin/ MAKE LIFE A MUSICAL.
September 9th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
The Garden of Jane Delawney, by 70’s British psychedelic folk rockers, Trees. The first track is my favorite: absolutely beautiful.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1jm6ne
September 9th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Funny post. I know it was a watermelon, but you probably should have expected that kind of thing from a noise show anyway. He probably thought it was pretty goddamn “rock n roll” to blast a big piece of fruit against a wall. Who cleaned it up?
By the way, I only recently found this blog but I like it.
September 10th, 2007 at 1:37 am
I went to a party a few years ago. Back then i was in an awful transition period. Looking back, i guess a part of me wanted to justify the reason why i didn’t like those people by doing something that would incur their ridicule. I am not a hateful person after all, why do i hate them so? it must be because they never accepted who i am in the first place because i am a freak…so in order to prove this theory right, i did something to prove i was a freak….but little did i know i was Wrong and they were Right…they did accept me for who i was because i was acting like a fool so they would treat me like a fool right?…but in realising this, the cartesian point of realisation came to me that their Right was the greater Wrong because forming quick judgements in the face of aberrant behaviour is an incorrect response. The correct response is wonderment at the complexity that human beings are capable of. Quick praise or condemnation is intellectual or moral arrogance. But then again, much chaos and in the hearts and mind of these Shits and consequent sin was the the price of my discovery, so you know, i may just be an evil genius/selfish prick..In my defence though, you can’t make an omelet without smashing a few eggs…or in this a paticular case…a watermelon.
September 10th, 2007 at 3:14 am
WE all deserve public humilation. Its the worst thing we can imagine, so we quietly shy away from it and go to church on Sunday to bow down before the image of God being publicly humiliated on a cross.
We deserve what we get. I was watching the Republican presidential debates today, and it hit me, (via Guliani) what an incredibly demeaning and humiliating thing it is to run for president. People are going for your every personal weakness, and its all fair game while you try to maintain a shred of dignity and talk about insignificant things like your record as a leader.
We are all running for president. That is what we live, desparately trying to announce our record of services and good deeds while the world studies our genitals under a microscope, for evidence of evil.
And we are all hopelessly attracted to scandal. Not real scandal, the kind that involves vast sums of money and is very complex, but the kind that involves cocks and pussies and wide stances in bathroom stalls and watermelons. We are not only attracted to hearing of these scandals, we are attracted to creating them, to being the center of attention, to finally having our facades destroyed and being publicly humiliated for being what we really are. This desparate desire leads us to do irrational things, like smashing watermelons against walls. It is those who must clean up the melon who must decide whether it is truly important to give the smasher what he wants in public humiliation, or to step beyond all the nonsense and recognize the perpetrator as a desparate hungry fool, and refuse to give him what he really wants.
September 10th, 2007 at 10:36 am
I’d watch your pumpkins around this guy a month from now!
September 10th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Great comments guys!
This is so super awesome:
http://britwolfson.com/2007/09/06/hone...-the-fastest-policy-to-enlightenment/
(found by way of Ted)
September 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
This quote has given me great comfort since i discovered it, especially when my aesthetic instincts(or mascohistic perversions. take your pick) smell the encroach of an inauthentic mode of being before my rational mind does:
“Those who belong to this small class have tasted how sweet and blessed a posession philosophy is, and have also seen enough of the madness of the multitude; and they know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight and be saved. Such an one may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts– he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and reflecting that he would have to throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace, and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content, if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good-will, with bright hopes.” - Plato
As David Icke says, people don’t set up inquiries that could destroy them. Which is why when someone does, you can be sure of one of 2 things: they are either fools or genuine truth seekers, and i think in this day and age the one often implies the other…
September 10th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
To the quote above..and this is very applicable to the problems i’ve found myself facing over the years being a “nice” and “spritual” person, I would agree that one should let go when the relationship if it is no longer of any use to one or the other party. There is no point in flogging a dead horse after all. However, i don’t think that being an insensitive asshole(which i think is interchangeable with the word “honest” in that article) would be the way to go. God knows the world has enough angry drunks and road ragers as it is. Also, its most likely that those mean thoughts about other people are the aspects in others we hide from ourselves…
September 10th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Obviously, this is not what he is saying - although I appreciate the distinction you are making. What he is talking about is expressing the Real Truth, so that you are not constantly projecting your hidden thoughts and feelings on other people and wounding them and yourself in the process. If you’re at least up front about “being an asshole” then you’re giving people access to your real self (as well as giving yourself the opportunity to simply let those things go and move on) and empowering other people to use their Free Will. Nobody wants to hang out with an asshole. Shit will quickly clear itself out.
Wrote more about this myself the other day:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007...rds-a-more-sophisticated-gangsterism/
PS. Brit, if you see this, drop me your email address. I couldn’t find it on your site and your comments seemed to be broken! I have a gift for you.
September 10th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
thats not what he’s saying assuming that his assumption was that its the natural state of human beings to be filled with mean thoughts, so i guess if thats the case, then the category of insensitive asshole would be made null and void. I think that is what his saying but i disagree..i think all human beings are born innately good..well assuming there wasn’t some sort of demonic intervention..what happens is mean thoughts get passed around like a virus, at least this is what seems to be the case in my experience. The projecting of hidden thoughts and feelings on other people and wounding them and yourself in the process happens in the presence of 2 conditions:
(1) you identify those thoughts as somehow something innate to you
(2) you have some sort of moral guilt over the having of these thoughts and actively repress them.
Now while getting shit of your chest will undoubtedly save you from wounding yourself, i guess whether it avoids wounding the other all depends upon whether the second party believes that assholism is innate to human nature. If so then, if that second party has any sense of self-worth and half a brain - then no harm done…he/she would mentally note…ASSHOLE…and move on to the next one..However, for those who believe otherwise, and believe in the inherent purity of the human vessel, maybe can even see the cause and effects of where it all went wrong…it becomes harder to let go…they would suffer for other’s sins as they do their own…perhaps, unhealthily taking their sins upon them in addition to their own…thats why i love the quote by plato i put up before…its like a code of conduct for how to drop the extreme cases of assholism, deal gracefully with those who are only social assholes, and perhaps slowly reduce my own assholism.
September 10th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Crowley said something:
59. Beware therefore! Love all, lest perchance is a King concealed! Say you so? Fool! If he be a King, thou canst not hurt him.
60. Therefore strike hard & low, and to hell with them, master!
I’ve learned alot at my job working with mentally disabled people. In our society, we tend to think of people who “can’t take a hint” as being worse off somehow than those who can, but being with these people in the world tells me its not the case at all. They ignore all nuance and hints, and are treated as more, not less, powerful for it. I started to do the same, ignoring “hints” anybody drops and I found it works.
The thing about a king is that they are soveriegn, meaning they just don’t give a shit. And the thing about hints and nuance is that they are about plausible deniability, a cover people use because they are afraid. Its in this cowardly cave of not being able to say what you want that makes the assholism grow. When you are actually forced to abandon hints and say what you mean, you have to really look at yourself. If I have to tell a DD person they stink and to take a shower, the thing that makes it seem cruel is the opinion I have, that they should [i]already know[/i], that they should have the same opinions of me. If a DD person is singing, and it sounds terrible, by commenting on it openly I would be forced to confront my own arrogant assumption that its being done to entertain me, rather than because it makes the other person feel happy.
So yes, we should be an asshole. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves that its for the benefit of the other person, the truth is its for the benefit of ourselves.
September 10th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Perfect. Other people say what I mean so much better than I can.
September 11th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Svenson, being an asshole reveals a lot more about the asshole, than it does about the person on the receiving end. This is the one trinket of knowledge that i use to defend myself against Thier slings and arrows, and to store away for the future should attack be necessary( for me attack is used to enlighten, very rarely to maim further). You will find with introspection that it takes a lot to become a king, and the refusal to take hints on board and or being mentally retarded does not bestow upon one sovereign status. Actually, i’ve just thought of a method by which one can gauge ones level of sovereignty…Cut all your social ties, except with those who you absolutely 100% know is in your corner( what i mean by that is people who are willing to give to you as much as within their power the whole truth and nothing but the truth). Literally cast yourself out into the wilderness and subsist off slain emus like the prophets of old. In that purgatory you will spend your time burning away your impurities and transmute yourself into gold, i.e. attain spiritual power. When the time is right, you descend into the villages below to test your progress, i.e. try to attain material and social power. Try then to identify, the sychophants and the flatterers, the false kings, idols and gods. Try to identify those who tremble before you.