The Mail.

Man, did I fuck up the other day. I sent, yes that's right, I sent an ANGRY MAIL to EVERYONE at work. Pissed off like a cranky, pre-menstrual mother off the happy pill. It was a short “fuck you mother fucking lazy motherfuckers” kind of thing. No, I did of course not use exactly those words, but the message of obscenity was in there. The funny thing was, like, it was so irrational, so goddamned fucked up. I was raving about in my head like a mental patient, like I wanted to be committed into the straight jacket, drugged out of my mind and strapped up in the padded room.

I felt so righteous about it all when I really should have felt ashamed. But you know, it's always afterwards that you figure out that you have, totally, taken a swim in the piss-lake, lost your shinny marbles and stumbled on the path of life. I am by no means a perfect man, so I easily forgive myself for my faults.

But, back to the mail, what was it about? Can you guess? Some of my colleagues did not know how to use a hanger. So I wrote that I understood it could be hard to use the hangers in the morning and that it “do take a MENSA polluted brain to figure it out, how to hang cloths on a hanger”. It was such a build up from all that stupid shit you encounter all fucking week long and I snapped. And you know what, that was soooooo good, to be such a bitch.

It did get some attention among the colleagues, of course, and the boss sent me a mail stating the unnecessary distribution of this mail. I said OK and surrendered right away. Was that wrong? I mean, when you have already pissed your pants, do you need to shit your pants too and throw your sanity away by hollering at the boss as well? My balls ain't that big so I went with the flow of things and joined the "You made a fool of yourself" wave going through the building like a cool breeze.

Did I learn anything from all this? I guess not but I can really recommend it. Maybe it will get you fired, you lucky bastard. I didn't get fired though, it's not a cynical place I am at... let me refrain that, my bosses aren't, but I probably am, cynical to the bone. When at a previous job, where the bastards buying the factory smashed the place up like a fragile house of cards, I also sent a not so happy mail.... does this begin to seem like a pattern? I hope not. I borrowed a little fun from Eminem and directed my anger at the American firm destroying our living. It was:

“Let's get down to business,
I don't got no time to play around, what is this,
must be a circus in town, let's shut the shit down on these clowns,
can I get a witness, {hell yeah}”

But I changed it to “Oh yeah”, my balls ain’t that big.

*Postscript: The mail was written and sent to everybody back in April or whatever, but I didn’t think it would be a good post so I moved it into the scribble folder and picked it up again this week. Like wine it might be a bit richer in flavor over time, or it tastes more like vinegar now. I don’t know, but anyhow, this is it; The Mail.*

Melancholy and self-pitying drama.

I tried to start a post
but all I could type was
some melancholic idiocy.

So what’s the point in that
self-pitying drama.

No, dude, I’ll find a new thing
for tomorrows entry.

Something fun, something totally
unessential shit.

But I guess it will be about
a mail.

Yeah, The Mail it will be.

Dave has computer problems.

Dave thinks the FBI is having him under surveillance. It’s kind of hard to say where this comes from, but Dave is as paranoid as only a genuine Yank can be. We observe his tense gaze at the monitor every morning when the same message appears on his screen; “Send to Bluetooth”. “I don’t send to no phone”, he mumbles to himself. He looks around, trying to figure out where the hidden cameras might be, his eyes wander as he sips coffee and I see his lips are still trying to mumble shit that don’t make sense.

What you need to know about Dave is that he no longer live in his native land. He has emigrated, left the premises, gone AWOL and found a new haven in a Norwegian cave. And Dave sits by his desk thinking the FBI is surveying him like a stray sheep in the wilderness. The Great Force of The Bureau, monitoring every Average Joe trying to blend in with the locales. Yeah, I’d like to believe that, but it sounds more like a bad Will Smith movie than a bite out of reality. But when Dave digs his teeth into reality, chews it a couple of times and spits the awful mess out beside his keyboard, it resembles nothing you have ever seen. It’s like a Picasso SLASH Dali version of the world seen through surrealism goggles, like a world without smell. This little monster of an idea lives inside his skull, manipulating the brainwaves and sending false signals throughout the paths between the parts of his brain. What the signals say? “Send to Bluetooth”.

Suddenly David says something out loud, to himself, and I sit there wondering; What? The message pops up on his screen and teases him like a virtual devil. I try to engage myself in a conversation with my friend, still smoking hot from the trip to the Bayern Sodom, not so much Gomorrah, but his eyes are fixed on the screen. I try to roll my chair over to him but there is snow on the cold shoulder, the breeze of paranoia makes me wanna find the closest sauna and bolt the door shut. I don’t want to sit in this post-Bush infested area. I wanna, like, be in the sun and shit, but what can I do?

The IT guy comes by and Dave shouts his name, making him come over to our little fortress of office walls.

- He needs a new PC, ‘cause it sounds like a lawnmower.
- Send a message to help desk, the IT guy says.
- I’m fine, I start saying before Dave cuts me of.
- No, you’re not. That thing is so annoying.

Our level of fatalism has never been that high, but we do believe it is the Yanks faith to walk blindly into the sun, like any immigrant in this country. We sit here, on office chairs from IKEA, ignorance as our aura and far away from any real danger, and with the impression of the world as a pretty far out place. To the great Dave the world is a place claimed by Team America of USA, aka all the evil bastards from Nixon to Bush, the League of demons, morons and assholes. Everybody else try to fight back, but the axis of evil are as black and white as any Sith-Lords system of belief. Like Patrick Swayze laid it out for us in Roadhouse: It’s our way or the highway. That is probably why Dave is using the paper shredder right now and sweating like a German pig before Oktoberfest.

My God, he is funny, that guy. I’m so glad he is locked in here with me. It would be a pretty boring place without him. My jacket might have beltbuckles on them, but he is freakin’ plugged into the system like a matrix clone and highjacked by the FBI paranoia. “Send to Bluetooth”. Some fuckers way or the Highway. Average Joe is on the loose. I? I am sitting on my IKEA chair and scribbling nonsense like it was news for the CNN. I probably got deeper problems than the immigrant beside me.

The Aulie trawler and the hungry gulls.

Newspapers, that is what they call themselves, but they are a sorry excuse of a media trying very hard to fall down the stairs, telling us what is happening in this world of ours. They are like hungry sharks biting and swallowing whatever is thrown into the sea. Take the Great Peacock Aulie, bless her sweet ass, all she has to do is posting a nude picture of herself on Twitter and the news desks are so hot you could have a barbecue in there. People are getting on the bandwagon and discussing (yea, me to it looks like), arguing, criticizing, parodying, having opinions and what-a-fuck! I mean, the picture is nice, like a fashion shoot. If a famous photographer had taken it and it was Kate Moss or someone in that league posing on that rooftop, it would be claimed as something else than a desperate attempt to get attention. The desperate ones are the “News”papers bored out of their minds, fishing for anything in the lake to show off as a big fish.

Whenever The Aulie trawler is cranking up the engine and heads out to sea, the seagulls are flocking around it, screaming and fighting for presentable scraps. And what does she do? Probably standing on deck laughing her cute ass off. I know I would, ‘cause it’s that easy getting attention and she rocks that boat of hers from side to side, stirring up water, making waves only seagulls flop around in waiting for fish heads to belch down like dishes from a five star restaurant.

I have nothing against seeing her naked, but I wouldn’t say it is newsworthy. A nude picture is anything but news. It is a body without cloths, nipples and a nice shave. Some ribs and high heels. A face with an attitude in a black & white presentation. It’s bait for the gulls and urban nudism. As long as the picture ain’t tacky, I say go for it.

http://www.vg.no/rampelys/artikkel.php?artid=10027455

Bobby at the front door.

When you discover reggae you have a choice, you can either follow Bobby through the door or you can stand on the door mat slapping hands with the biggest man in reggae. Bobby is a great fuckin’ artist, or was (may he rest in peace with Jah), but there are a lot of other great fellas inside that room too.

Me, I followed Bobby through that door and discovered the likes of Max Romeo, Eek-A-Mouse, Barrington Levy, Damien Marley, Clint Eastwood & General Saint, Dillinger, Beenie Man and Xavier Rudd, and let’s not forget the youngest Marley kid Ky-Mani (even though he is more rap than reggae). This is just a few names that I enjoy in the spirit of reggae, but the point is as follows; inside the reggae room there are a bunch of great bands and artists undiscovered by many because of the cherry at the front door. But inside you’ll discover great songs. Sweet feelings. Homophobic, yeah, but the music is not the less great. Every message out there can’t be perfect, but let’s be honest, reggae is a huge and wonderful thing.

Walk through that door, follow the man and keep slapping hands in every direction. Reggae is the freakin’ shit, I’m telling you!

The young Adonis’ and the modern Helen of Troy’s unveiling the world.

I can’t say I read much of what other bloggers write, not that I don’t care, it’s just that I hardly have time to even write anything on my own. So reading blogs is way down on my to-do list. I rather read a book, and I do read a lot in that department. Well, a lot might be an exaggeration, I read about 10-15 books a year, that’s what I have time for. Right now Papillon by Henri Carriere is on my bedside table and that is by far better reading than any blog. That is kind of a backstabbing thing to say for someone filling a webpage with crap himself, hoping that some poor sod will stumble onto it for a quick read. But I have made an observation when it comes to blogging and I have a Q for the people, those few who wander into The Bucket (of waste). OK, here it is, my question of the day: Why are most of the bloggers, or at least the top-bloggers, mostly beautiful young people, preferably girls? What drive readers to the young and beautiful? Are there no… sorry for the expression, ugly chicks on the blog-train?

Do you have to be a young Adonis or a modern Helen of Troy to be readable? Is it the thoughts of the young and beautiful we crave or are the ugly ones just shell-minded people not worthy any attention? I don’t know why this looks like such a weird fact or maybe it’s not, maybe I am so wrong about this, but whenever I encounter a blog mentioned in the newspapers on the web, it is ALWAYS some young hot chick writing about the importance of whatever. The next Q that popped into my mind was; Who read these blogs? I might already be too old to understand this shit, but I’d guess guys would be the answer. Has blogs, facebook and flickr become a substitute for porn surfing? When reality shows are such a huge thing, it looks like people want reality with a screenplay, storyboard and a director. And that is also the case for porn, with Voyeurism and some couple caught on camera and pix of girls gone wild and young drunk whoever caught naked or flashing boobs, being violated on some sleazy web page. Is reading the blogs of these young and beautiful nothing more than a way of masturbating?

I’d like to read the blog of some ugly, fat chick. I’d like to see her on top of the “10 top blogs” list. I’d like to read about her encounters with the world, her latest lay, trip to the movies or what she think is gonna be the next big thing. When young people, good looking or not, writes about something that matters more than shoes, shopping, a crazy in-party or posting pictures of a trip to the park, I say good, post some words for the world that is worth reading. But somehow they always seem to look like cover girls, like they were dumped from the latest video shoot of some new Lady Gaga video. I too like to look at beauty, but when I read, what she or he looks like doesn’t really matter.

So come on, find me a fat & ugly one that writes about the world and I’ll read her or his stuff right on.

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/article3817041.ece

Dave at the Oktoberfest.

David returns from Oktoberfest with an accordion under his arm and the first few hairs of a mustache under his nose, lederhosen in his suitcase and THE hangover thundering inside the alcohol bombarded brain of his. It is easy to say that something has changed in David’s personality. It’s probably the ompa-ompa music that has gotten into his nerves system or it has reprogrammed his brainwaves. Anyhow, Dave is no longer Dave, now he is more like… Fritz or Heinrich or Wilhelm, something like that. It’s like a German clone has returned from Bayern, and the Yankee guy we knew was kidnapped and buried somewhere along the autobahn, under six feet of concrete like a post-war secret hushed down from the heights of the Nazi-era.

Big breasted women yodeling and serving to much beer, throwing Bratwurst and Frankfurters on your table, grilled swine in all its glory; Pork Knuckle, Pork Roast, Wiener Schnitzel and Nürnberger Roastbratwurst, Kasseler Rippchen and Mettwurst. A diet queen would die of instant fat poisoning within thirty minutes of devouring this bonanza of food and alcohol. And who wouldn’t love this? Fat food and rivers of beer, a social gathering fit for a last offering before leaving earth and ascending upon heaven. After Oktoberfest you can die happily and end life with the blast of a German Luger. Go out with a bang, enter the Pearly Gates with the ringing still in your ears. Man, what would St Peter say? What would God say to this massive gluttony, Capital Sin number 3. I’d say he’d have a case of sin number 6; Envy. Or more probably he would transform into a fat German guy and participate, cramming down as many sausages and Giant Mugs of beer as possible. I gotta say I’d like to be Gods sidekick or chaperon that day. A priest wouldn’t do any good on that event. No no, send in the little devils, the demons of gluttony, the fellas responsible for all the obese mountains of human fat walking around the streets of America. Or better, send those fat fuckers in with God at the Oktoberfest and cheat the clergy of the experience.

On David’s return to work after the somewhat special trip to Germany, we observe a huge change in his behavior. Not only is his dialect a new kind of sound, it is also the sound of trying too much at the same time as it gives the impression of being authentic. We have no idea how he pulls this off but when you hear him speak at first you think it sounds fake. Then your brain shifts and make you believe this it actually how a Bayern immigrant would speak. But nature has its tricks and David is definitely pulled out of the magic-sleeve. And David now has a new taste in music, and it pollutes our ears like toxic waste. His desk is filled with stacks and stacks of German ompa music, blasting out of his green and yellow Skullcandy Ti Stereo Headphones. Somehow the music and the headphones do not match at all, it seems wrong in every way. But this is the new Dave, the new man returning for the German Sodom, not so much Gomorrah, and the metamorphosis has left us all baffled, dumbstruck and flabbergasted. When a college comes home as a completely new person, like a computer with a new, strange software, you do feel a bit like the Twilight Zone has hit town.

But Oktoberfest may not be such a bad place. It sure looks like a hell of a lot of fun, like an event you should go to at least once in your life. Why not? It’s food, drink, happy people and maybe some yodeling. A friend sent me a song over Spotify by this Japanese guy named Takeo Ischi, Der Japanische Jodler. If you can get this kind of combination, or alienation, by going to Oktoberfest it must be some powerful shit they got down there. I’ll put this Bayern gathering on my bucket list and go down there when my prostate starts to grow, when my hair is all white, my face is covered in wrinkles, when bushes of hair sticks out of my ears and my eyebrows are like one huge rain gutter and making my face a strange or funny thing. I’ll go there someday, in the great mist of the future. I’ll drink gallons of beer, eat Bratwursts and Frankfurters, Pork Knuckle, Pork Roast, Wiener Schnitzel and Nürnberger Roastbratwurst, Kesseler Rippchen and Mettwurst, with Rotkraut and Kartoffelpuffer on the side, have a bowl of Leberknödel Suppe and drown myself in German milkmaids, I’ll wear lederhosen all week and roll into a river to end my days as happy as an old man can be. Then it will be farewell world and Hello God, how was your trip to Oktoberfest? And he’ll answer; It was just like heaven. Sorry for not believing in you when I was alive. And He’ll answer; That’s OK my son, have a nice journey to hell. Whatta bummer that will be after Oktoberfest.

An old breed is walking into the tar pit like a blind mammal.

Are the publishers the new dinosaurs to follow in the steps of the record companies and face extinction when the digital meteor hit the book market? Or are we, like, gonna witness a grand revolution in the field of book publishing?

Publishers are walking into a field of land mines and they don’t see the craters in the sand from an ancient time when the music business walked along this dying land of dead dinosaurs. Spreading .pdf documents in every direction as the new way of selling books just to be a part of the digital world is like walking into a trap built by your own hands while sleep walking and breaking a leg in the fall, being trapped in your own stupid hole just because you were an ignorant, naive fool. Nobody’s gonna keep their fingers of the Ctrl + C button follow by a push on Ctrl + V button, copy & paste it baby, do it, it’s that easy.

.PDF’s are a product not meant for book publishing but somehow the worst solution was chosen. I mean, how stupid are you? Haven’t you all learned from the music industry? Haven’t you seen what digital products are? It’s easy copying and easy sharing. Don’t even think for a second that people ain’t going to share shit, ‘cause they are.

“Hey man, you got the new Stephen King on eBook?”
“Yeah, just let me make you a copy.”

This conversation may seem a bit weak, but you get the idea. If the new way of selling books is a .PDF based system the product will be treated like an .mp3 file where the users share books among them self, and don’t even try to compare sharing with a library. If the library was giving away copies of a book to everybody that walked through the door you’d get close to what file sharing is.

And who wouldn’t share? Consumers are not faithful towards producers of material, they are loyal to other consumers, to their friends and family. If you ask a friend if he can send you a copy of this or that eBook and he says, like, “no way man, buy it”! You will think of him as a cheap bastard. And who want to be a cheap bastard? But sharing the digital products are not a phenomenon among people knowing each other, The Pirate Bay and its peers/siblings/equals provide the service of Wide Word Sharing. But is there a solution to this?

First of all; stop thinking of digital products as something you’ll get your hands on, start thinking license, start thinking fresh and new or the digital costumers will in time rip away your whole market.

Second step in this process is a system or platform in the realm of Spotify. If people are willing to stream music, they will stream books. iPad with free 3G, a spotifyish kind of platform where you pay a fee to open a license for the title you want to read, that is more likely a way to go. This is user friendly and it protects the interest of the writers.

Well, what can I say about myself? I freaking love books. I love to read, to put them on my book shelf and watch them standing there as a cabinet full of prizes, as a token or symbol of my own fake intellect. Books do that to me, probably, but I love the product, not just the words inside them. That’s why I don’t care much for a red and white adobe-icon on my laptop, or are tempted to by a hand held pad that will cheat me out of my experience with a book. And a lot of people are like that, but the generation growing up and the next will be more and more used to quite other ways of reading.

So, do something now, before it’s too late and find a better way to meet the market in the digital world. The answer it out there, just open your eyes and a new world will unfold before your eyes. Your future depends on it. It’s do or die. Fuck or be fucked. Kill or be killed. Drink from the fountain of prosperity before the meteor hits you in the face like an iron fist.

When this shit is taken care of I too will go digital. Until then I’ll swear to the old ways.