form over function

FORM OVER FUNCTION


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Here is a perfectly good example of form over function. I furrow my eyebrows, frown thoughtfully and get a constipated look on my face and everyone assumes I’m deep in thought and conjuring Great Things. In actual fact, I’m just confused, because I can’t remember if I’ve covered this subject before or not. But, it still fooled you, didn’t it? Look overworked, move briskly, and you are a manager. Form over function is everywhere you look. Our President is a complete idiot, but since he looks professional and thoughtful, he gets the front man job of captaining the Titanic. Your paycheck looks respectable and you have a nice car and a house in the proper school district, you are hence the prettiest peacock and attract the high maintenance wife. Of course, it is all from debt, you spend 101% of your paycheck and your job could be outsourced to India at any time. But it looks right, so it must be. Look at the global financial system. Most money organizations are leveraged twenty or forty or eighty to one, and just the failure of one payment in the few millions or billions suddenly requires trillions in Monopoly money to be used in bailouts. The system looked functional until the tiniest problem came along.

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The bridge you drive over every day has structural damage, but it was just repaved and painted, so it looks brand new. Your house has no southern exposure, taxes are 3% a year, without central air and heat it is uninhabitable, but you paid $150k for it so it must be a great house, right? Your car costs half what your mortgage payment is, but you keep a shiny coat of wax on it so people are impressed. Your job is too important for you to spend too much time at the range, but you can afford a top of the line semi auto carbine with laser and laser dot scope and night vision and 90 round mags. You shall simply overwhelm anyone stupid enough to show up to your pimpin gun fight with a substandard wood furniture bolt action rifle. Why, the mere sight of your mighty arsenal will leave your enemies soiling themselves in fear. And after you vanquish your unworthy foes, you shall dine on your luxury freeze dried dinners, their shiny metal cans gleaning brightly from the halogen glow of your bitchin light system powered by your new Honda generator.

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I don’t know who we are trying to impress, but I do know that almost everything you see is illusionary and faked. We descended down the rabbit hole so long ago we think it is normal. We don’t even know that there is a surface reality. The Red Queen rules all. Forget the Red Pill. Surely we all realize how shallow and faked our whole gerbil wheel existence has become? Is our contrived dramatic creations a need to exist for something else even marginally better? Or do we really think this reality is a great deal. Lifetime wage slavery in exchange for shiny plastic beads, guaranteed to break with the slightest effort? This is the great deal we’ve accepted willingly? Eight hours climbing up the colon of a boss that traded common sense for a college degree, sandwiched between an hour commute home each way, washed away by vapid television versions of humor at the end of the night and a twice a month spousal fluid exchange. You hate each other, but since you both look so happy together, so photogenic, what the heck, right? Which of course brings me to the very worst egregious form over function. Fake boobs. There was a day not too long ago that the sight of mighty breasts struggling to free the bonds cheating gravity was a rare and wondrous proof that Baby Jesus himself loved us. Because they were not common place they were special. And, because I love the fairer sex so and wish them nothing but the best, one could hence calibrate the good fortune of the owner of such chesticles since a well paying career in the movies or country singing was sure to follow ( not to take away from the talent of Dolly, but surely her endowment opened the first doors in Nashville ). Although, if you got stupid and let that artificial celebrity go to your head you had a very short career before the Secret Service staged an overdose. Now? Now, everyone with five grand, or more usually a credit line to five grand, can join the other 80% in laughing in the face of God by cheapening what was once a special gift. That can’t end well for them. You don’t mock the gods or fool yourself into thinking you’ve tamed Mother Nature.

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Form over function also ties in with the Corporate vulture devouring the corpse of the country, its last act seemingly to be burying the continent under several yards of cheap broken plastic junk. I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time, and now seems as good a time as any since this article has petered out faster than most and needs a little righteous indignation to spice it up. Except in Florida where the humidity necessitated wearing cloth shoes, and the last half of living in Carson City since I had a wonderful pair of leather boots I trash picked, I’ve usually always worn Payless Shoes brand hiking boots. They were $20-$25 and I usually got them at the buy one get one half off sales. Not only were they cheap, they lasted several years without fail. I even have a half dozen pairs in storage for post-Apocalypse use they were so reliable ( they might be synthetic, without much support, but they worked great for my needs and in a pinch will last me the rest of my short and violent life ). But the last time I went and bought two pairs of shoes at their last BOGO sale, they had changed the shoes on me. I thought nothing of it, and held my nose at the new $35 price. But they changed the shoes. It is made of vastly inferior crap materials. In less than three months, wearing them part time ( I’m wearing the snow boots back and forth to work for the cold weather and slippers at home ), I had the tops start splitting apart on me in several different locations on both shoes. I’ll still wear them until they let in water, but I will never buy another pair of shoes from Payless again. Suck my ass you worthless whoring bastard pukes!

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