Bastige Von Curr Columns

BASTIGE VON CURR

DOWN WITH PEOPLE

Published in RW#10, 1998

Hi. Bastige Von Curr here. I'm kind of a jaded and bitter zine hack and I've been told I should do a column for the Reglar Wiglar so I could share some of my pessimistic views and cynical perceptions of life with the rest of the world. I think that idea is absolutely brilliant as did the editor of this zine (not in those words-Ed). So for the first installment of "I Hate Your Band, I Hate Your Zine", I have chosen to address the People Problem. You know, people, and how there's too many of them.

It's no fricking secret that I hate people--can't stand 'em. So when I watch the news and read in the newspapers about all these married couples our there who are goin' crazy with the fertility drugs and the artificial inseminations and the freezin' the egg cells and whatnot, all in an effort to bring yet more people into the world, I cringe. And if this misguided effort to increase the population of this already overpopulated planet ain't enough, there's the biggest slap in my people-hatin' pucker; human cloning! How egocentric are we to think that we need exact replicas of ourselves runnin' around causing problems? We suck I say, and the world is damn lucky that there are only one of us made, for chrissake. One Einstein per century inventing the A-Bomb is one too many, although talk about effective population control, eh? Hey, I know that's heavy, so frickin' sue me. Like I got money.

I know I'm a bitter old fuck (and I'm not even that old) but some people see the goodness in humankind and the benefits of cloning and I say, please, no more people on this miserable planet. You can't have your own kid in a natural way? That sucks, but let's draw the line at the freaky, sci-fi-come-true, evilness of human cloning, It's not the next logical progression in the evolution of the human species you frickin' half-wit. We've evolved way too much already. Back to the caves for us before it's too late. Let's clone fire and roast a wild pig.

And what if you have a kid that is your exact replica? Not the fruit of your loins or the fruit of your womb but, fuck it, it's you! Same nasty habits, same tendencies to be lazy and shiftless and you've got to kick your own ass to get it in gear? Unless of course they figure out a way to get rid of your bad genes, which they probably will. Try living with that, huh? It's you only without your faults. That's worse than you with your faults because it's the you, you could never be. It's the you your parents and friends wished you would have been. They won't have any use for the original you, 'cause lets face it, you suck, but the new and improved, genetically tinkered with you is like a gale force of fresh air for everybody who has ever met you. My head hurts now.

How would you introduce your kid to someone anyway?

"Hey, yeah, this is me, my kid."

Then the other guy thinks to himself, "Wow, two assholes instead of one. Will the miracles of modern science ever cease to amaze?"

But back to my point about how I hate the human race, myself included. Let me tell you something, people, you ain't all that special to warrant the making of extra copies of your stupid ass to litter civilization with. There are too many people like you already and when I say people like you, I mean people in general. To reiterate my point in case you missed it, there are too many people and I hate them.

It's not necessarily our fault that we think we're so goddman special. No. They taught us very early on in our childhoods that we are all of us individuals. We are all of us unique. There are no two people like us made in the whole wide world, throughout all time and in the whole never-ending, ever-loving universe ever, ever, and ever, Amen. To which I must add: bullshit! I don't believe that's true anymore than I believe that no two snowflakes that ever fell to Earth in the last six billion years looked the same. Of course a couple of them looked exactly the same. Don't be silly, and get those probabilities out of my face. Don't give me math. You can bet your worthless ass that somewhere in the past couple thousand years of human history there was another pathetic asshole like yourself walking around the planet making other people miserable. Your friends were probably clubbin' you on the head in 2,000 B.C., buddy. There's millions of you people out there, they're called People and most of you have zines where you can spout off about the same sort of nonsensical drivel that I'm spouting off about now. Ironic, ain't it?

So let's face reality: there are too many people on this planet as of this writing. Sure, we got wars and disease and a shit load of natural disasters and El Nino to stem the tide of the human virus that plagues the planet. So let's get off this incredible ego trip of cloning ourselves. For the love of humanity, no more people! At least not until we get something going on the moon. If we can get a little colony action goin' on up there on the moon or on Mars, then go ahead, clone yourselves and send your other self to private school at Moon Rock University if that's important to you. Let's people other planets with our pathetic human pollution!

Whatever.

So while hospitals here in the US continue to set records for sets of twins born in a day and the Iowa Sextuplets or the Indiana Octuplets or the Pennsylvania Pack of Ten, or whoever, continue to make the news, I will sit here in my room and curse them all and pray for that meteor that will come someday and take us all away and I ain't talkin about Hale Bob and Nike's. I'm talking about a ten million ton rock travelin' at the speed of sound. Then this vain notion of cloning will all have been in vain and I can finally get some peace, I don't know where but somewhere they don't got people. Until next time . . .

BASTIGE VONE CURR'S TIPS ON PROPER PHONE ETIQUETTE

The views of Bastige Von Curr, as right-on as they may be, do not reflect the views of the Reglar Wiglar, even though you would think they do since we are the ones publishing them in this forum, but you know, we gotta say they're not for some reason. At least this is what our lawyer, Jim Willy, Jr., Esq, has advised us to say.

Dialing a Wrong Number

As soon as you've determined that you've dialed a wrong number because the schmuck on the other line is obviously not your buddy, Chet, hang up immediately. You don't need to apologize to some a-hole just because you made a mistake, and there's no need to verify the number to make sure you have the correct one either. F 'em. You can always redial, and if you get the same idiot again you can simply slam the phone down on them a second time. What are they gonna do, cry?

Receiving a Wrong Number

When receiving a wrong number, it is important to hang up immediately. The instant you determine that the call was made in error, whether by the foreign sounding accent of the caller or the fact that they're asking for Joe and your name is Janet (or in my case Bastige Von Curr), you should angrily slam the receiver down and end that bullshit right there. It should enrage you that someone could be so stupid as to misdial or get an incorrect number from a third party. Of course, hanging up immediately before determining the cause of the error will many times force the person to call back to make sure they haven't just dialed incorrectly. This is your opportunity to get further enraged and hang up on this idiot a second and hopefully final time as they will have really gotten the message this time.

Ordering Take-Out

When ordering take out from a restaurant, it's really not necessary to take a look at the menu before you call in your order. There will be plenty of time to decide what you want once you're on the phone. This is especially important when you are ordering for a large group of people. The stooge taking your phone order is more than likely a big loser with nothing better to do than to spend ten minutes on the phone with you while you and your obnoxious buddies figure out what you want. And if you don't have a menu from that particular restaurant, no problem. The poor schmuck will be happy to describe every entree on the menu in great detail. Feel free to ask what their favorite dish is as well as what the most popular menu items are, how they're prepared, with what ingredients, etc, etc, etc. Get a quick run down on the price of each menu item as well. You are entitled to as much information as you demand. Ask how long your order will take. If they say twenty minutes, arrive at the restaurant in five and act all put out and impatient. Say something really clever like, "What are they killing the cow back there?" The restaurant drones will think that this is funny as they will have never heard that joke before. Don't tip them either. They make plenty of money, believe me.

Ordering Delivery

When ordering food for delivery, don't worry about having your credit card ready. Is it upstairs in your other purse? Is it out in the car? That's ok, go get it, they'll wait, after all, they want your business. It doesn't matter that they may be busy. Take your time.

See previous post for Bastige Von Curr's Tips for Ordering Take Out, then apply the following techniques for delivery. After you've finished ordering, but before they have a chance to give you the total, ask for the total. Act all surprised at the price. Ask for a break down then tell them you still don't see how that adds up to the price they've given you. Take your time, let the information sink in. "Ahhh, the tax, I forgot about the tax!!! Because there's taxes on everything these days. HAHAHAHA!!!"

If they tell you that your delivery will be about an hour, repeat that back in a shocked voice, "An hour!?" It's just an estimate of course, and there's no way they can tell you exactly when it will arrive, but tell them that if they could get it there sooner, you'd appreciate it.

They may have said an hour, but don't bother looking at your watch to see when you called. Listen to your stomach instead. If your fat gut tells your pizza should have arrived by now, don't hesitate to call up the restaurant and demand to know where your food is. Be a dick about it and demand to know exactly where the driver is and the exact minute he or she will arrive. What? They don't have a GPS tracking device on your Chinese take-out? They're not tracking your meatball sandwich with a satellite? Assholes! Demand a discount.