Krystal Meth

Seize opportunity, people. Make decisions that count.

I did not do that this weekend when i sheepishly turned down a chance at the State Fair to be contestant number 6 in a prelim Krystal Square-Off, a two minute mini-burger inhaling contest.  If I hadn't just eaten my share of a smoked turkey leg my zest would have been riper, but I looked within and couldn't see a burger-victor in there.

As I begin my application ditch-crawl for graduate school,  I am tasting the real mud and earth of a resume's richness... or should I call it a "CV?"  That resume will always be one line shorter due to my ignorant shyness at the Tennesee State Fair.

(Patrick Hayden's resume will also be forever short if he doesn't fucking call me.)

I do not yet know what MFA programs will have me, and yes, it's possible some miserably PC liberal institution would have seen my competitive relationship with regional fast-food to be a sign of impurity and a misplaced life-ethic.  They would be correct in letter but not spirit.

You see, we're living in 2006, and both sides of the political spectrum have ossified their collective response tactics into a "baby with the bathwater" dynamic. Do you know how long GW Bush waited to whip out the word "fascist" on Islam?  Do you know how fucking ignorantly elitist Wendell Berry is to think if we all had rakes and homegrown tomatoes we'd be a family of man again?  Well, if you think not eating fast food is conquering the machine, then you grew up in the 90's. 

I love Paul Newman's tasty philanthropy!  I love organic carrot juice.  But if you think making those decisions can be equated with pro-active politics, then you've already bought into the trad-GOP "I vote with my wallet" horsebroth. Buying Organic is still conspicuous consumption.  Leah and I did a blind taste test between Purity milk and Organic.  Organic won by leagues.  They didn't even taste like the same liquid.  It is a better product on many levels.  I will continue to buy organic milk, and I will continue to eat Krystal.

I DO believe the only meaning left in our situation is political.  But I don't believe that all professed political decisions are meaningful.  Pearl Jam dissing ticketmaster is not meaningful if they're still on Epic; it's a ploy to gain fake street-cred.  (no offense beej) When Andrew WK set up a fake "Mothers Against Noise" music website listing his name amongst the top ten "perpetrators" he was actually devaluing the political stance of the movement in order to increase the "use-value" of his now major-label subsidized product.  Shopping at Wild Oats is certainly not a very meaningful political action.  And neither is eating fast food.  They are BOTH ineffectual redirections of political dissatisfaction.  Consumption on both fronts is consumption, and petty decisions within typesets and modalities of consumption prove the extent to which commodity has usurped identity.  As the frog economist Jacques Attali wrote back in the stone-age 1980's: The consumer dedicates a significant percentage of his time to selecting products introduced almost haphazardly, the usage of which is very difficult to differentiate, except by rankings determined by mysterious processes in which the consumer is led to believe he participates through simulacra of voting.  "Krystal Lovers Like It Steamy."

Yes, I know.  I contribute to the stereotype of liberalism by furthering the notion of "plenty to criticise, little to solve." But knowing is half the battle.  Who wants a body massage?

Comments

[Andrew]

What about blackmarket products like the vayne? Buying that shit is making a difference in America, right? Maybe that's a political choice with impact. Really, vayne competes with food/booze in my monthly budget. So, the paycheck is not going directly back into the system. So, in some way, i'm developing my own economy. what's your feeling, here? If there were more blackmarket consumers like me, would that qualify as effectual redirection?

[Ben]

Nice to see some gritty salvos from Bob Digital. Here's my favorite example of ineffectual '90s "anti-system" posing: Rage Against the Machine.

Krystal Mothra

[Ben]

P.S. My new blog is languishing without your enlightened comments. (that includes Kyle and everyone else, too) Also, see Jordan's blog. It's the Skeletor. I like reading all these blogs.

[Nick]

Good one Roberto, I wish to God I could have seen you up there wolfing down the grease sloth, instead of that dude I saw on the Austin news (which surprisingly is just as bad if not worse than the OKC & Trashville news) whose face is probably more covered with grease on a regular day than during the contest. Ditto on the Pat deal, I'm going on about 4 years now (hooptie's gonna get an ass poundin next time I see him). So once again sarcasm is the only way out of the system, you got that one nailed (in a good way) as is the Vayne which I'm seeking before I see Ween @ the totally corporate ACL Festival this weekend. At least I can be comfortable in the fact that I only bought tickets for one day, and will likely sneak in at least one of the other days.

-Nron

[Barry]

You say Pearl jam was dissing Ticketmaster for street cred. They claimed it was so their fans could attend affordable concerts. What makes you right? I doubt PJ was trying to make a "meaningful" statement by filing an anti-trust suit. I think they were looking for *action*.

As it turns out, it was a complete failure: Congress wasn't interested in the least in their lawsuit, and their "Alternative Ticket Agency" they used afterwards couldn't book shows in most major cities because ticketmaster owned rights to all the venues.

Here's to trying (empty glass raised).

[rob]

i hear you barry. I don't actually have anything against pearl jam; they are musicians trying to push a world through the medium of their music practice. I don't blame them completely, I blame people who read their actions as more significant politically than they are. then they have great advertising. Folks certainly did read that as a very political move, and I'm just sick of how accepting people are of appearances. There isn't a single major label band that I know of that really does very much "for the fans" that isn't somehow still about their own product getting more accessibility. That doesn't mean I don't want it, or still don't try to sift my own meanings out of a mess of other people's meanings. Any good Deadhead has dealt with that snake before! Thanks for calling me on my audaciousness barry. i need more of that! I'll toast that empty glass with my own.

[Barry]

I feel you, dog. I wasn't thinking of what other people make stuff once it's been done. Someone cuts the string, and the sword falls down comically swift.

In other news, I have to teach 4 labs this "quarter," and am getting paid almost nothing. Unions are starting to sound pretty good.

[William]

You're absolutely right, Robert...Knowing IS half the battle, so to speak - moreover, knowing you like Krystalburgers sounds to me like a sound strategy to do combat with, no doubt. Perhaps it's an uphill battle, indeed, but everyday's a battle (cliche), in a sense - and knowing what your rank is can be an important thing (I liken myself to be a commander of a legion of chili-cheese pups, or perhaps a colonel leading a phalanx of Krystal Sunrisers)...It's just like Duane "The Rock" Johnson said, "Know your role!" As for me, I'm perfectly happy to eat Krystal burgers as the day is long...I even hear they make the bricks for each new Krystal restaurant out of the powdered bones of old, dead, academic Marxists.

[Rory]

of note: Rob, on your Islamic fascist comment about Bush's finally using the term. Read an interesting bit about that today in a profile in, what else, the new yorker, about Christopher Hitchens, who actually long-ago coined the term (or so folks say) "islamic fascist". Through his recent migration to being, in part, a neocon, and his new alliance (on some issues) with Paul Wolfowitz, the term finally showed up in a Bush speech.