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Our Nemesis: Emesis?

You can say what you will, but the misfortune of others can be profoundly funny. Why? I don't know. Perhaps it's one of those "there but for the grace of god go I" kind of things. Perhaps it's because we're all born with a bit of moral twist and perversion. Or perhaps it's one of those irreducible things that can be observed to be true, but whose explanations miss the point of the exercise entirely and fall rapidly into the trap of Greedy Reductionism.

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Trying to unravel why other people's embarrassment, pain, and suffering can cause us to guffaw, to spew milk through our noses, or to otherwise convulse involuntarily most likely misses the point. The fact is easily observed: we--you and I, the common man, the average joe--DO find it funny. Cathartic, even. And frankly, I don't really care what the reason is. After all, I don't need to hear an infinitely detailed physiological description of an orgasm to fully EXPERIENCE an orgasm, and to know (and I mean really, truly KNOW . . . beyond a shadow of a doubt) that the Big O is one of the most powerful motivating forces in all of human existence. Do you?

I didn't think so.

And so it is with Schadenfreude. There should be no debate. Laughing at the often radical mishaps which befall other people isn't "crass" or "uncivilized" or "improper" or indicative of some foul flaw in our collective character. No. It's the norm. We all experience it, though there is certainly a threshold at which the misfortune moves into another, darker, realm of involuntarily elicited social response. At the mildest end of the spectrum, we've got America's Funniest Home Videos (and its clones in a dozen other languages and countries) to prove just exactly how liberating it is to watch our fellow human beings get kicked in the groin, fall off their bikes, or trip over a bench and fall face-first into their own triple-decker wedding cake while 250 people look on (many of them--Shock of Shocks--ROTF LTAO). At the other end, well beyond that aforementioned threshold, we've got cult classics like Faces of Death, or whatever it is that happens when we drive past the scene of a deadly automobile accident, or oft-viewed YouTube compilations of tragedy and carnage. Our discomfort with our own fascination clearly grows stronger as we move from AFV to FOD, yet still . . . we move.

Let's leave for some later date the darker end of this story, because TODAY what we're really here to talk about is vomit. Yes. I did say 'Vomit.'

Puke.
Emesis.
Tossed Cookies.
Technicolor Yawns.
Ad nauseam (hahahah . . . aren't I such the punster today!)

Vomit is, simply put, funny. So long as you aren't the one vomiting and the vomitor (or vomitatrix) isn't hurling on YOU, or into the backseat of YOUR car. Or, for that matter, your airplane. Which naturally brings me--at long last--to the genesis of today's post: airplane vomit.

During a wonderful, spring-like, beautiful saturday afternoon of skydiving, I was drawn forth from a bit of mealtime reverie by the sound of laughter coming from the Skydive Dallas hangar. The laughter was originating from several of my friends, who were unceremoniously gathered around the monitor of an inconspicuous laptop. Their laughter was intense, exceptionally loud, and interspersed with involuntary groans. At least two viewers had tears in their eyes. Being more hungry than curious at the time, I remained in my seat but, when quizzed later, one of the crying divers told me that they had been watching a YouTube video involving a hapless passenger on a small 4-seater aircraft who . . . well . . . let's just say she was having some problems keeping down parts of her surely-nutritious, largely digested dinner. And let's also say that the pilot, rather than acquiescing to her predicament, decided to go for broke.

I was curious, and so this evening I decided to hunt down the video and show it to my favorite Nurse amongst Nurses, the Valerina. It was rather easy to find. When, near the end of this pithy, 17-second video, the pilot decides to take his aircraft into a nosedive and treat his passengers to a couple seconds of Zero Gs, Yours Truly was reacquainted with his inner sadist. I laughed until I was having muscle spasms. I laughed until I was red-faced, sweating, and gasping for air. Why? I dunno. I don't care. Watching the Airsick Bag get filled, and then re-empty itself in the completely unexpected and explosive way that it does, is completely and totally wrong. As in "oh my god, that was sooooooooo wrong!"

It's also hysterically funny.

And then there's the TV Interview Vomit, which is funny, but less so. Why is it less funny? Because somehow, I think, it's less "wrong." Unlike the poor, innocent victim in the airplane, you get the feeling that this guy--who obviously showed up hung-over (or perhaps still intoxicated) to plug his ridiculous film festival--deserves what he got. Fortunately, the reporter's reaction is perfect: just the icing that this particular cake needed.

If you think this is just the PseudoLatino pulling wild theories out of thin air, consider this:

A 30-second advertising spot in yesterday's Super Bowl cost a whopping 2.7 million dollars. According to TiVo, Inc, the MOST WATCHED ad that aired during the game was created by E-Trade, so I'll just step aside and let the $90,000 per second advertisement speak for itself. (Do any of you actually think E-Trade is gonna spend about $270,000 of their $2.7 million for a punch-line that the overwhelming majority of the estimated 95+ MILLION PEOPLE who tuned in would find distasteful? I didn't think so)

Your Advocate for Upchuck,
Your Spokesman for Schadenfreude,

---the PseudoLatino

Posted by earwicker at 11:59 PM

Most Tellurick Tom

There is truly no way that I--nay, not even I--can do justice to that which, in fits and starts and my own ignorance unyielding, I have just managed to "read." That would be Thomas Pynchon's most indescribably brilliant, intricate, unfathomably dense and hysterically funny Mason & Dixon. For although I have listed other books in my recent posts--quite marvelous creations to be sure--there is not one amongst them that compares to this freakishly nuanced, never-ending riff upon themes Sacred and Profane (The Sacred and The Profane generally being precisely the opposite of that which one might presume). Fuck You, Tom . . . for the shameless Inducement of many an Insomniackal Night.

---the PL

Posted by earwicker at 11:59 PM

Still More Whores for Gloria

*sigh*

Would that Yours Truly had time to do naught but read . . . and read . . . and read and read and read. And read some more.

Year 2008 Non-Resolution #7: Increased Reading, continues to move forward satisfactorily.

The downside to this success is that, like most drugs worth taking, every high just increases the desire for the next fix. So much to read. So little time! And, appropriately for that particular choice of metaphor, today's eight-ball was served up by none other than William T. Vollmann, through the vehicle of his 1991 novel Whores for Gloria. It's a short, simple read, full of heart-breakingly sad, tender, sometimes violent and stomach-turning tales of street prostitutes in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco.

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Many of the stories are lifted verbatim from Volmann's interviews with these women, some of which he includes, in fragmentary form, in one of the book's Appendices, "Profile of the Tenderloin street prostitute (1985-1988)." As he points out there, and elsewhere, "the unpleasantnesses of her profession are largely caused by the criminal ambiance in which the prostitute must conduct it." Those who read that and think "well, there's an easy way out of that 'criminal ambiance' isn't there? Quit doing it! It's disgusting and wrong, anyway!" are cordially invited to kill themselves now. No, I'm not kidding. Not a joke. Please kill yourselves now.

[pausing for the host of ritual suicides that Your Intrepid Guide to Meaningful Morality prays are now underway]

Some other time we shall have to go into the subject of why prostitution should be completely legal everywhere in this moralistic, ignorant and intolerant philosophical backwater we call the United States of America, but not today. And naturally we'll follow that up with an essay on the moral and social necessity of decriminalizing ALL drug use, without exception (please note that I didn't say "legalizing," and do a little research if all the big words are confusing you). But . . . let's not push our luck just yet. M'k?

M'k.

When I first read Vollmann's Whores for Gloria, along with his Rainbow Stories and Butterfly Stories, back in 1994, I was amazed. Not only by his writing, but by the topics that he had chosen to write about, and which he had addressed with absolute compassion and complete authority and authenticity. Of course, it didn't hurt that his was the correct point of view . . . dare I say the christian point of view (small 'c' required) . . . and that it remains the only workable point of view in the real world. Nope, that didn't hurt at all. It was also rather fantastic that he was addressing many themes directly which existed peripherally (or were simply taken for granted as true) in the works of other authors I was completely immersed in at the time: Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow), James Joyce (Ulysses), and John Barth (Giles Goat Boy), just for starters.

I highly recommend these works of Volmann, with whose more recent works (and he is a prolific writer) I am sadly not yet conversant.

Peace Out (and next time you see one, Hug a Hooker for Jesus!),
---the PL

ps

Here is a little bit of insight into Volmann, from an older interview which can be found online here:

. . .

AL Why do you write so much about prostitutes?

WTV Why I'm interested in prostitutes is because they have everything interesting in life all together: there's love, sex, and money. What more do you want? I feel comfortable around women. Paying for sex is always an easy way to get into a woman's life, if she's a prostitute. It's always great for me when I travel some place. If I really want to know what life is really like in one of those countries, just pick up a prostitute and live with her for a while. I see life as she sees it. I feel like I'm doing something and knowing something real fast. In a week, you learn as much as you would if you stayed in a hotel for a year. It's really great.

Whores For Gloria is not autobiographical. I'm not an alcoholic or a veteran. I did go around in the Tenderloin asking prostitutes to tell me stories. I'd ask them to tell me happy stories, and they'd try. They'd always end up being sad stories. It's always sad when you see other people unhappy. It's not that prostitution is bad. I think that many prostitutes in Bangkok and Thailand have a pretty good life: they get boyfriends, husbands, they can go out of it when they want. Over here, there's all this shame we have about our bodies. So when someone becomes a prostitute, she becomes ashamed of herself. And then, it's a criminal thing. It's easier to get hooked on drugs. There's nothing wrong with taking drugs occasionally, but if that's all you do, it's easy to end up on your way out. So that stuff is sad for me to see.

There's one story in Thirteen Stories, Thirteen Epitaphs that I wrote about a guy who goes to Bangkok and marries a prostitute. He would have done anything to stay with her. She felt bad that she wouldn't stay with him. There was a language barrier. She really couldn't explain to him why she wouldn't. Actually she married a couple of people, and kept doing her thing.

AL Is observation as good as raw experience?

WTV I think it depends on what's observation and what's participation. I started doing the crack stuff because these ladies that I was working with were smoking crack.

AL We've talked about writing, research, observation, and so forth. Some people have accused the photographer Joel- Peter Witkin of exploitation. What is the difference between observation and exploitation? This is a culture that pays models 500 dollars an hour for their pictures, yet pays nothing to the poor or the destitute.

WTV That's a good question. When I was writing Rainbow Stories, there was a piece on prostitutes in the Tenderloin called "Ladies and Red Lights." I was very concerned about exploiting them. I'd ask them questions. I'd always pay for the interviews. It was not actually that good a piece. It was a start of getting into that world. It was the best that I could do at the time. Since then, I've realized the best thing to do is that you try to become that person's friend. You do something for them. They do something for you. And everybody's happy. If you write a story about somebody, but in the meantime, she's puking in the sink because she needs her fix.... So you give her some money, and she can get fixed. She thinks you're the greatest. And you think she's the greatest too. You're both helping each other. I have some long-term relationships with some of those people. I feel like I've done good for them. I also feel grateful to them for letting me hang around and share their lives with them. So I don't think that I exploit anybody.

But that's the kind of thing: it's always a matter of opinion. I was interviewed by somebody in Davis a few days ago. She kept telling me "What gives you the right to play God?" She thought I was kind of awful. All I could say was "You can believe it if you want."

For instance, I'm going over to Burma to get this sex slave. I guess they have really young girls there: eight or nine year olds. They raise them like animals. Then they ship them out to whorehouses. Sometimes the Japanese want virgins and they don't want to use rubbers. So it's ideal for them to get one of these young girls. So I was interested to see how the process works, of buying a human being. Once I bought this person, I would have some kind of responsibility for her. I would try to set her up with a fruit stand, or a cigarette stand. I don't see anything wrong with voluntary prostitution, but I think that involuntary prostitution is pretty bad.

So this woman said "Well, you're giving her a taste of freedom, but probably she'll just end up the same way as she was before or worse. You're not doing her any favors." But I disagree. I figure you can't help anybody, but you can give them a chance to help themselves. If they take it, then that's great.

. . .

Posted by earwicker at 11:59 PM