Nobody loves a hero.

I could be a pop singer; I was always interested in it. But unfortunately I wasn't very good at it. I could also be a mathematician; I was always good at it. But unfortunately, I was never interested in it. So this writer thing feels alright. It's like being a pop singer, but it's more exotic, more rebellious, more intellectual, more perverse.

I'm starting to realize that it's absolutely impossible to go through this life without feeling absolutely ridiculous. If you let embarrassment and fear take control, they will, because everything is embarrassing. Your body makes its own humiliating decisions and there's not much that you can do about it. You fail and you fail and you fail and you fail and you FAIL. Living looks ridiculous. Eating looks ridiculous. The words coming out of your mouth are ridiculous. The truth is usually ridiculous. Even walking down the street is fucking ridiculous.

Ultimately, there's only one thing left to do. You can say fuck you.

Fuck you, fear! Fuck you, humiliation! Fuck you, embarrassment! Fuck you, shame! I'm gonna be so completely and systematically ridiculous that ridiculous suffers an inflation and turns into beauty and bravery.

This is me.

I was watching Spider-Man 2 where Peter Parker decides to give up being Spider-Man. I watched him walk down the streets after the decision. He looked so happy and relieved. I paused.

Maybe I could do that, I thought. Maybe I could give up. I've been trying to save the world, I've been trying to be a hero, but maybe I'm simply destroying myself. Maybe the world is never going to get better, maybe it will get better even without my help, maybe somebody else will change it. Maybe I could give up. Would it make me happier?

I could stop this madness. Stop writing these insane books. Stop fighting back. I could get an education, find a job, find a girlfriend and a fulfilling hobby. No more fear. No more fire burning my entrails. It would be easy.

But: I would not be happy. Not really. Living without a sense of purpose, however painful that purpose may be, would feel like throwing away my only chance. That only chance is everything. This life is everything, I won't get another one. I am Spider-Man, and I realized that a long time ago. I'll always be Spider-Man. And that's it.

Everybody loves a hero, Peter Parker's Aunt claims. No they don't. People don't love heroes. People love heroes only when they're not part of the problem themselves. People love heroes when they know that they're not contributing to the violence the hero's fighting. Save a child; they'll love you. Save a pig; you're making them uncomfortable.

But the greatest form of heroism is social independence. Something people like Anthony Bourdain haven't realized: Do the right thing, even when the right thing is the least cool thing you could ever do. Do the right thing, even if they'll ridicule you for it. Even if they'll try to destroy you. Do the right thing, even if there'll be nobody cheering for you. Some day there'll be someone who sees you for what you were, but for now, keep trying and failing and getting up in the morning.

In the past 12 months, one of the weirdest parts of my life has been the unofficial Morrissey fan forum, MorrisseySolo. I've been trying to get rid of it, leave it behind, because I hate it, but then I always find myself going back and learning something important.

The strange thing about MorrisseySolo is that it's populated by people who fiercely refuse to call themselves Morrissey fans. In fact, MorrisseySolo is full of people who spend significant amounts of their time thinking about a pop singer that they claim to hate.

There are creeps and actual nutjobs on MorrisseySolo, such as someone named 'Benny-the-Butcher', but they're not the point here. The people I'm talking about are something very different. These people are smart, good and wonderful. But they're possessed. They claim to be disappointed in Morrissey ("but I don't really care, he's just a pop singer"), but instead of moving on and finding something else to do, they stick around and live for this person they're disappointed in. Sometimes I have conversations with them. People like Johnny Barleycorn (hi!) and BrummieBoy (hi!) are such decent souls, yet their behaviour is absolutely insane.

And I understand them very well. Morrissey is not just a pop singer. There's something more to him. Once you let him in, you'll never be able to walk away (without your arse hurting). Because the more you try to ignore him, the closer he gets.

It's easy to hate Morrissey. He's intensely imperfect and difficult and his behaviour is often irrational and infuriating. And this is why we love him. Johnny Barleycorn and BrummieBoy may claim that they want Morrissey to change and become a more likeable character, but really, if he did, what would they do? What would we do? We'd simply step back and walk away.



Morrissey is a lot like Snape. They could explain themselves, but they're not even trying. They don't want to be liked, yet that is the only thing they've ever wanted. It's easy to hate him, and it's easy to love hating him, because when you look at him, what you see is hate. It takes some effort to realize that hate is just the surface. If you look closer, you'll understand that the only thing that drives him, the thing that has always driven him, is love. Hate is just the reaction to seeing what you love being destroyed.

To understand what Morrissey has always been about, you only have to listen to Yes I Am Blind. This could be the most beautiful and painful song Morrissey's ever written:

Little lamb

on a hill

run fast if you can.
Good Christians, they wanna kill you
And your life has not even begun
You're just like me, you're just like me

Oh, your life has not even begun
You're just like me, you're just like me
And your life has not even begun
You're just like me, just like me

And your life has not even begun
You're just like me, you're just like, just like me
And your life has not even begun.

I know. And it hurts so much. It doesn't matter whether you take 'little lamb' literally or not; this is what Morrissey's always been trying to say. We could listen, but maybe we don't want to.

__________________

And now, the next step is shutting up. I HAVE TO SHUT UP. I still have a book to write. And I really wanna finish writing it. I really have to abandon everything else for a while. So, goodbye, I'll try to stay away. Let's see how this works out.

I hate dill. Dill destroys everything.

Neal Cassady

It's 5.30 in the morning. Five hours ago I visited the spot where my book's protagonist wakes up after committing suicide. It was dark and the city was bright and there was another bright city on the surface of the sea. It's impossible to feel really happy without feeling slightly sad at the same time, and it's impossible to be sad without a grain of hope.

He's not Sherlock Holmes. I am. I know so much about everybody, and they know nothing about me.

I know that the fact that I love you causes you unbearable pain, and I'm very sorry, but I'll never be able to stop.

My sense of humour is too nonsensical to be properly British.

I left the shore and kept on walking, like I always do, and it was so fucking beautiful, everything was so incredibly beautiful, and I ended up on a highway. That's how I roll nowadays. I'm constantly finding myself on highways and in forests and everywhere I shouldn't be. I kept walking, hopped over a couple fences, and ended up in this very dark place.

There was solid rock under my feet, and above me was a lightless universe. And then, beside me under the universe, there was this huge fucking mushroom. Now, I don't know much about these things, but I'd say it was some sort of antenna. It was bigger than buildings.

So, turns out it was the water tower of Lauttasaari. Silly me. In the dark it looks like something that has to do with aliens. Actually, in the daylight it looks that way too.

This is how the Lauttasaari water tower looks from the inside. Hallelujah. I'm mildly sorry for stealing other people's photo art.

Anyway, it was dark and unreal and beautiful. If I personally knew one of the girls that I love, I would take her there in the nighttime. We could drink tea. It would be wonderful. Darkness is good. Darkness allows you to adjust your genitals.

I listened to Hideous Towns and wow, it's a beautiful thing.

I got out of the darkness and found myself in a neighbourhood where a lot of people probably live. Now, they were asleep. I was awake. I kept walking, arms behind my back like I was a Japanese grandpa. I stared into a nightly health center. I really need a friend who knows how to steal cars.

Humanity at its worst

Once again, I watched a documentary. It was called Hunted in Russia. It was the most disturbing thing I have seen in a while.

The documentary reveals the way lgbt people are treated in Russia. There are several gangs that are hunting down gay people for fun. The documentary introduces a red-haired chick who's formed a group called 'Occupy Pedophilia'. (Apparently, most of the gangs go under the name of Occupy Pedophilia.) The group consists of her and a herd of sociopathic boys.

The strangest thing is that what the group does has absolutely nothing to do with pedophiles. The groups deliberately refuse to see the very obvious difference between active homosexuals and active pedophiles, so that they can harass homosexuals and pretend that they're teaching pedophiles a lesson.

This is how 'Occupy Pedophilia' operates: they lure lonely gay boys into fake meetings. Then they humiliate and assault them, sometimes even murder them. They force the boys to rape themselves with bottles. They 'interview' them and force them to give out all their personal information. They film everything and put the videos on the internet in order to destroy the boys' lives.

They refer to these operations as 'safaris'.

Disturbing stuff: The police and the public are quietly supporting this. It's acceptable behaviour in the culture of modern Russia. In fact, it's even illegal to publically protest this violence, as that would be considered 'gay propaganda', which is illegal. The red-haired chick with her herd of sociopathic boys actually think that they're doing the right thing, as they've got the public support behind them.

More disturbing stuff: Many people in Finland are quietly supporting it too. When the Finnish Minister for Culture and Sport travelled to Russia and waved a rainbow-coloured flag, several people in Finland were 'outraged': how dare he do such a thing! Apparently, they think that Russia will stop talking to us if we refuse to support their violence. Sorry, but human rights are infinitely more important than the money flows between Finland and Russia.

On the other hand, it's very easy for us Westerners to condemn the collective insanity of Russia and happily absorb our own forms of collective insanity.

Perhaps the most revealing detail in Hunted in Russia is a sentence that the British journalist's voice keeps repeating: "In Russia, gay people are treated like animals." He's probably not aware of it himself, but what he's actually saying is this: this violence would be totally fine and normal if the victims weren't humans.

It's easy to condemn the violence of other socities, and support the violence of the society around you. Really: if you want to make this world a less violent place, you're going to have to start with yourself. Painful. I know.

Here's a fact: the same psychological mechanisms that are allowing Russians to treat homosexuals the way they do are allowing us to treat non-human animals the way we do.

Now, somebody would say: "It's different! Violence towards animals is natural!" Oh no, guess what: so is violence towards humans. If you hear yourself starting to come up with these rationalizations and justifications, stop and consider the fact that a homophobic person in Russia would come up with almost identical rationalizations. If you wouldn't accept their reasons, let go of yours.

And now, somebody would say: "Well, at least protesting for animal rights isn't illegal here. At least we're better than the Russians in that sense." Maybe. For now. But several Western nations (the USA, especially) are creating laws to make it illegal to film the meat industry. (In order to protect profit; you see, if people knew how the animals are treated, they might want to boycott the industry.) Pretty soon, animal activism may be illegal. Sigh.

It's easy and fun to be fucking insane, if everybody else is. And then point your finger at other people making your mistakes and yell: those people are fucked up!

Now is now

I was watching a documentary on Billy the Kid:



Then I stopped, and for some inexplicable reason, during the documentary I had realized something: life is about dreams. Dreams are the point. Fear and embarrassment are temporary. Dreams are something that last. Something that can create something that remains even when you're gone.

So: live for this. Live for your dreams. In the end, they are the only thing that make any sense. The more huge, the more ridiculous, the more insane, the better. Find your dream and make it reality. Be fearless. Fear is useless from now on. Keep dreaming, keep running, make plans, forget them, make better ones, sing, dance, stand up, save lives, turn everything around. FUCK YEAH and ROCK'N'ROLL.

It's curious how in the springtime, for some reason, all the previous springs that you've lived are suddenly present again. And that makes you happy and sad and nervous all at the same time.

Hello, animal activism!

I'm starting to realize that the most effective thing I can do as a writer and an animal activist is giving myself and the other animal activists a solid plan. The era of moaning and mourning has to end. The era of action is getting closer and closer.

Because I do have a plan: I know how we can make animal liberation happen in reality. Not just in theory, but in reality, in this world. Animal rights – not just animal welfare, but animal rights – will become a mainstream thing and ultimately, something that the vast majority of people agree with, if we play our cards right.

Here's the goal:

A society that acknowledges animal rights; a society that acknowledges that non-human animals have a right to life without pain, harm or death consciously inflicted by human beings.

Here's the key:

A person who feels that the declaration of animal rights would take something away from their lives is not going to agree with animal rights. But if a person knows that they won't lose anything by granting animals rights, they will support the idea. Humans have an inherent tendency to 1) care about animals, 2) identify as good people.

Here's the trick:

Psychological liberation of humans. We have to create a society where as many people as possible feel that they are not responsible for animal exploitation – in other words: a society where as many people as possible feel that they would not lose anything if animal rights became a reality.

There are two main ways in which regular people take part in animal exploitation:

1) Eating animals and funding the meat industry.
2) Hunting and fishing.

(Psychologically, things like the fur industry are highly secondary, and vivisection doesn't seem to count. For some reason, it seems that most people don't really link themselves with animal testing; for example: more than 50 % of young people in the USA identify as people who oppose vivisection. So apparently, this isn't important here.)

Here's an encouraging fact: the majority of people (in the developed world) do not participate in hunting or fishing. Ever.

So: if more and more people stop eating animals and replace them with cultured animal products, we'll have more and more people who are open to the idea of animal rights. The ~10-40% who identify as people who hunt or fish will be a minority, and the number will probably start going down steadily as the general attitudes start changing.

For the psychological liberation of humans, the most important tool are cultured 'animal' products. A vegetarian revolution is very unlikely at a global level. Cultured animal products have to become as mainstream as possible. The change in attitudes will follow.

Here's the challenge:

Right now, approximately 20 years before cultured animal products are going to become a reality, the vast majority (about 80%) of people are against the idea of 'lab-grown meat'. They find the idea icky. They just simply can't understand why they should stop eating animals and eat cultured 'animal' products instead.

We'll have to tell them why they should stop eating animals and eat cultured animal products instead. There'll be a lot of very powerful people trying to keep animals in cages. Our voices will have to be as loud, informative and effective as possible. We'll have to be smart and articulate and explain what we're looking for. Our arguments will have to be clear and powerful.

We'll have to tell people why factory farming – and the meat industry in general – and eating animals in general – is the icky thing. Animal expoitation is icky as hell – not the cultured steaks, not the cultured tuna, not the cultured yogurt.

And then: the change in attitudes will follow. Eventually, when we'll ask the public whether they agree that non-human animals "should have a right to life without pain, harm or death consciously inflicted by human beings", a lot of people will say yes. No "but plants have feelings too!", no "but lions eat animals too!", no "but meat tastes good!" Just a simple, easy, solid yes.

And wow: we've actually turned a lot of people into vegans. With meat. This is magic.

Yeah, overcoming the ick factor will be a challenge. But it'll be fifty times easier than trying to make the entire humankind adopt plant-based diets. This boring ick factor is not culturally nearly as deeply rooted as the act of eating meat.

The vast majority of people are not holding on to animal abuse or animal exploitation; they don't want that; they are holding on to the act of eating meat. We can separate animal exploitation from the act of eating meat. 'Meat' will stop meaning animals. We will stop eating animals. We will stop exploiting them.

I'm pretty sure that these are our cards.

Let's play them right.

What am I doing.

Peter Dinklage.

Every now and then, PETA does things right.

If there's something systematically good about PETA, it's that they are some fearless bastards.

An interesting detail in the comment section:

MrTayvis. And fish and carrots.

At this point, probably the most powerful way to advocate for fish welfare is to educate people about the fact that fish are not stupid. The pain debate is getting old, and it clearly isn't working, so let's try this.

I am mildly sorry that this blog has gone so vegan hagrid. Trust me, I enjoy writing about ridiculously unimportant stuff way more than I enjoy writing about this depressingly important stuff.

Severus... please

Avada kedavra.



Light has a funny tendency:

to win.


I had a really long dream. It was very strange and curiously down-to-earth at the same time. First, I 'went out' with Harriet Wheeler. It was fucking horrible. Then I renamed this blog. The new name was "Vegan Hagrid". Yes: Vegan Hagrid. veganhagrid.blogspot.com. Then I gave some sort of interview. They asked me something about Richard Dawkins, to which I replied: "Yes. Richard Dawkins is absolutely fabulous."

Jesus Christ, why has this post suddenly appeared among the most popular posts? Wow. Last September, I was a hilarious jerk!

People who think that Richard Dawkins is Satan actually exist.

Hitchhiking with slaughterhouse workers.

I was sitting on a train on my way from nowhere to somewhere, when I realized that I was immensely sad.

I watched as the city went by. And I had tears in my eyes.

"Why the hell am I so fucking sad?"

Well, I have literally billions of reasons to be sad. Apart from certain souls and certain corners, this world consists of things that I find violent, heartless and unjust. The vast majority are suffering, for nothing.

I sat on that train, and how many other people sitting on that same train would have agreed if I'd stood up and said that a pig is morally comparable to a little child? How many would have agreed if I'd said that animals need rights – and not just the cute mammals and birdies, but also the ugly and mysterious ones; that even fish need rights?

How many people on that train would have agreed? Maybe somebody. Maybe 3.

This is the reality today.

I have billions of reasons to be sad.

And I'm choosing not to be sad.

I'm choosing to look at it this way: Okay, the world is still far, far from what it should be. Things haven't changed yet. But they tend to change. They will change, and I'll just have to wait. I'll do what I can do, but I won't change everything, not by myself; all I can do is all I can do, and it's okay to breathe. It's okay to wander. It's okay to hitchhike. It's okay to laugh. It's okay to sleep and spend days doing absolutely nothing.

The thing is: if I had to go back in time and continue my life in a time where slavery was still the norm and widely accepted – would I spend all my time crying over the fact that I'd have to exist in a time that came before the abolition of slavery? No, because I'd know that it's all temporary. It'll stop. The good guys will win.

The darkness is still in the room. Yes. But eventually, the light is winning. Don't be sad.

Would I refuse to communicate with the people around me? Would I refuse to talk to anyone else because they'd fail to see anything fucked up with slavery? No. I'd understand that the people around me are products of their times. They are not bad. They are not evil. They are simply human, and this is how humanity functions.

So, why wouldn't I look at the people around me now the same way I'd look at the people of the past?

I'd achieve nothing by refusing to communicate with the rest of the world. I'd achieve nothing by deciding to avoid everything I want to do and everywhere I want to go, just because there's always the constant danger that I'll run into people that are contributing to the dark sides of this world.

So, I'm choosing... love. I'm choosing it over hate and fear. Yeah, I'll run into people that I won't be able to understand, and I'll run into people that won't be able to understand me. And I'm going to be able to smile with them.

So, if one of these nights I'm hitchhiking and end up in the same car with a slaughterhouse worker... or a bunch of people on their way to go catch and release fishing... I'll try to laugh with them. I'll try to smile. I'll try to be kind. I'll try to remember that it's all temporary. It'll stop. The good guys will win.

And even the bad guys... they're so full of light. The people around you are products of their times. They don't necessarily understand what they're doing. Future generations would probably understand you significantly better, but for now, you can do your best to see the good sides of the bad guys. The bad guys are not evil. Most of them care. And they write such beautiful songs, tell such beautiful stories, make such wonderful friends.

Vegan bakery table in Beijing.

Humans are abusing other animals pretty much everywhere, so to avoid certain places in order to save myself from seeing things that I don't want to see wouldn't make much sense. Besides: things are slowly getting better everywhere. Meat consumption is on the rise, but so is concern for animal rights. For example: people usually like to think that the animal rights situation in China is a nightmare, when in fact, animal welfare issues are getting more and more coverage in Chinese press and social media, and more and more young people in the big cities are going vegan. There are about 50 million Chinese vegetarians in the world. Funny, isn't it.

Actually, in terms of animal rights, Japan seems to be a LOT worse than China. For some reason, in Japan, people simply aren't grasping the idea of animal rights at all. There's fish in everything, and vegetarianism, let alone veganism, is terrifyingly rare. They don't even know what it means. But this doesn't mean anything yet. Japanese people tend to love animals (like people in general do) and I think it's only a matter of time before the animal rights movement reaches Japan. (Cultured fish could help start a revolution.) The point is: things are bad everywhere, and there's lots of hope everywhere.

I was born into the world at this particular point of progress. Refusing to accept this reality would not help anyone, save anyone. It would only hurt me. Quite soon, cultured animal products will become a part of this reality and that'll make activism two hundred times easier (once we just overcome the boring 'yuck' factor). But until then... I want the beacon, not the bacon.

Happiness for me: a long-distance bus

Today, Jack Kerouac is the only person I understand

I'm... hmm... pretty good.

Interesting. This is actually how I've been acting for the past six months:

I'm the most solution-oriented activist I know.

Jag älskar oss

Fucking Åmål is the only thing that makes any sense to me. Everything else is shit.

 

Fucking Åmål is also the solution to the problems I've had with my ghost book. Fucking Åmål and the Elin-Agnes-relationship will be the glue that connects the different wonderful pieces of this story and ultimately, makes everything work.

As weird as it sounds.

Watch

+

=

animal liberation.

It is this simple. It is really this simple. Let's do this.

I'd love to try indecent behaviour

Sometimes when I wander around the city in the nighttime and come across another human being, in the harbour or at a nightly gas station, I wonder if I could just go to them and say to them:

"Don't ask any questions. I am mildly insane, but I'm also mildly interesting and would you like to come with me? Let's go someplace. I really have to talk to somebody. Somebody has to look me in the eyes. Somebody has to touch my genitals. Otherwise I'm going to explode very soon. Come with me. I'll show you the universe."

Of course I couldn't. Or could I? Probably not. But what would happen?

Finally, for the first time in the history of Hollywood: vegan propaganda

This is a historical moment.

As far as I know, for the first time in the history of mainstream movies, questions about meat-eating and our treatment of other animals are taken somewhat seriously.

So far, the official idea of a vegan has been this:

At the end of the story, the vegan has always been punished for not being normal. Or at least a sane person has come and showed them the light. Or they've died, or gone crazy, or exploded. In the ending scene of About a Boy (^), the crazy vegetarian woman's son is seen smiling, wearing normal clothes and carving a turkey. He's finally been liberated from his mother's insane ideas of compassion and nonviolence.

That was 12 years ago. Now it's 2014, and this time, the vegan looks like this:

Yes, Darren Aronofsky's Noah is dealing with such themes as speciesism and veganism. It even equates meat-eating with evil. (Very rad.)

I saw the film yesterday (or the day before that, my life is slightly chaotic) and it was a strange experience. It's a very weird movie. Anyway, I'd like to go and hug Darren Aronofsky for being the first mainstream filmmaker to take these questions seriously.

It's not so much about the movie itself. It's about what it represents. Something is changing. I've heard that in the past, every movie with a homosexual character had to either kill, punish or convert them in the end. I don't know what movie was the first one to refuse to do that, but Noah is for animal rights what that movie was for gay rights.

Did I just dream that?

One more IQ point and I'd be virtually disabled.

I have forgiven Miley Cyrus. I was initially disappointed when I realized that her rebellion is hollow and meaningless, that she isn't trying to say anything at all, but now I'm actually kind of liking it. Yes, there's no point, Miley Cyrus is just a crazy bitch for the sake of being a crazy bitch, and that's great: in fact, 'crazy bitch' is one of the greatest things a human being can be.

Of course, a significant part of Miley's insanity is just marketing, but I want to believe that under all that, a little piece of Miley Cyrus is genuinely insane and fucked up. Wouldn't that be beautiful!

Whatever it is that Miley Cyrus is doing, it takes some balls and poker face. What I'm going to do will take balls and poker face. I'll just have something to say.

I love Bruce Springsteen. Did you know that Bruce Springsteen is a vegetarian? Would you want me to tell you about Jesus?

Flesh

Anonymous: Could you give a brief summary of Flesh?

Q: (Hey! Who's asking?)

There's this young man. His name is Oskar Blom. There's nothing fleshly about him. He's asexual and just generally so completely apathetic that he doesn't even see the ghosts haunting him.

One night he's lying on an empty beach and he meets this girl who's pale as a ghost. He ends up meeting the girl for multiple times. The girl's forgiven everything.

Then there's this man named Jeremy Witt. (I hate this name.) He's abnormally handsome and charismatic. His father died two decades ago, but used to be one of the richest people in the country. After his father's death JW virtually disappeared, but now after many years he's returned and he's giving insane speeches to thousands of people in dark rooms under the ground, which has quickly made him very famous.

JW's about to give his Last Set of Speeches. They're going to be about flesh; animal flesh, meat, you get the point. For quite absurd reasons Oskar Blom ends up meeting Jeremy Witt. Oskar Blom becomes Jeremy Witt's PERSONAL ASSISTANT.

Then there's this morbidly angry and very ugly man named Matias Sulka. (He's virtually Severus Snape. I was 16 and inspired by The Deathly Hallows.) Oskar Blom meets Matias Sulka briefly and accidentally and finds out that he hates, hates, HATES Jeremy Witt for unknown reasons.

So anyway, Oskar Blom has become the Personal Assistant. Very soon he realizes that Jeremy Witt doesn't seem to give a shit about anything any more than he himself does. It becomes clearer and clearer that there's something out there that wants to kill and destroy JW, and JW couldn't care less.

So, if JW is as numb and indifferent as OB, why does he even BOTHER?

Who is Jeremy Witt? Who is Oskar Blom? Who is the pale girl? Who is Matias Sulka? They are all leaving things systematically out. This makes their communication a lot of fun.

And after all, This Beautiful Creature Must Die.

Was this brief?

I'm very aware of the fact that this sounds so ridiculous that nobody's taking me seriously.

Yet.

Because the fact is that it is ridiculous, but it's also fucking brilliant. Those two things often go well together.

What a morning

I was reading an article without any problem when I suddenly realized that it was in Danish. So wow, apparently I can read Danish. When it's spoken, I don't understand a thing (it sounds painful and chaotic), but written Danish is another story.

Sometimes I come across a random YouTube video and start reading the comments. It's always a shocking thing to realize: wow, people are not smart. When most people express their inner life, it actually comes out looking like this: "yea fkn fagot lol haha :P!!! miley cyrus is afkn whore!!!! i kno right, fkn fagots haha lol" Most humans are actually highly unintelligent. At least compared to those who aren't. There are corners of the Internet where people are generally pretty smart and educated, and if you spend too much time looking at these corners and then return back to the rest of the Internet, it's a culture shock.

I was standing in a Subway restaurant surrounded by normal people when it hit me: people are never going to go vegan. It's just not going to happen. The people around me ordering chicken sandwiches, questioning absolutely nothing, analyzing absolutely nothing, communicating through sentences like "yea fkn fagot lol haha :P!!! miley cyrus is afkn whore!!!! i kno right, fkn fagots haha lol" are never going to start eating plant-based diets. The act of eating meat has so much cultural, symbolic value that only the smartest, strangest, rarest and mentally strongest ones are capable of consciously boycotting it, or even questioning it. We have to find a way to work around this. We have to find a way to liberate the animals without having to waste our time trying to turn the Normal People into people they'll never be.

So, when they actually start selling in vitro meat, I'm going to buy a lot of it. Then I'm going to consume so much meat that it'll give me a fucking heart disease. I'm going to buy as much in vitro meat as humanly possible and support it in every possible way. If I sell millions of books, I'm going to give the money to people working on this technology (and people telling the public why they should eat this instead of animals). This is the way we're looking for. Some day we'll have everybody behind us. Even the ones communicating through sentences like "yea fkn fagot lol haha :P!!! miley cyrus is afkn whore!!!! i kno right, fkn fagots haha lol"

I keep seeing Joan Jett everywhere. Where the hell did this Joan Jett thing even come from? Yesterday I passed this old drunkard and she made me think warmly of Joan Jett. Here we go again.

Vegan Sidekick is one of the most intelligent and ingenius things I have ever seen. The guy behind it is fucking extraordinary. Wow.

I exposed my ass to a strange woman. The moment was very peaceful, almost holy.

Boys do not cry

I am Kaspar Hauser. This is my message in a bottle. I'm sending an SOS to the world. Some day someone will get the message. And then things will start happening.

I keep stretching my hand out toward the world. So far, the world's been ignoring me systematically, but that's okay, it's part of the game. You're already out there and you know what I mean. Giving up on me would be a lethal mistake. Babe.

Trust me. I'm as ambitious as Satan.

Do you feel it too?

What the hell is this? Why, why, why is this? Harriet Wheeler's is the kind of beauty that I tremble before. I don't know why. I can't locate it. Is it the voice?

Sometimes I've seen people refer to Harriet Wheeler as some kind of female Morrissey. No way. She lacks the essential hate and anger completely. That's beautiful but also somehow intimidating. After all, who knows, I know nothing about Harriet Wheeler, it's funny, maybe she took a job in a slaughterhouse after leaving the Sundays and one day she'll write a public announcement: "I would like to tell that crazy boy to stop liking me immediately"

Yeah. Sometimes I'm happy and the world is such a wonderful place. It happens quite regularly, actually. Slowly and unsteadily, I'm learning to ignore all the dark and idiotic stuff, and focus on the sun. The next step is to learn to let it blind me, every once in a while.

Whenever I see a pretty, unstable-looking girl, I think of Rebekka. Whenever I see a young man dressed in ugly childish clothes, I think of Oskar Blom. Whenever I see a tall businessman, I think of Jeremy Witt. (I don't know why, because Jeremy Witt is not really a tall businessman; anyway, seeing their face is always a disappointment; they always lack the essential intensely bored or boredly intense look)

On good days almost everybody seems like an adventure.

The other day I was sitting on a bus when some sort of teenage Lady Gaga, a child who looked like an alien, a middle-aged hardcore punk rocker and Benedict Cumberbatch* got on.

* By this I don't mean that B. Cumberbatch is constantly on my mind, nor am I trying to say that I know anything about the current BBC Sherlock phenomenon. Well, I do know something about the phenomenon, but I've seen half an episode of the actual series and it was a lot lamer than I expected (so I gave up and decided to judge the whole thing). I realize that every intelligent teenager should be all over this Sherlock thing.** I think I should give it another try, especially since the hobbit man playing Watson is some sort of almost-vegetarian. (This criteria doesn't have to be rational.)

I HAVEN'T BEEN TO BED WITH NOBODY

It seems that the heart of the phenomenon is the vaguely homosexual relationship of Holmes and Watson; I get it, but based on that one half of one episode, it's just not enough for me. It doesn't go deep enough. It's boring. If I'd written the series, the psychological level would be a lot more interesting, and in general, everything would just rock so hard.

** Why do even intelligent teenagers have to be clones of each other? I get it not, no. For example: tumblr seems to be the place where the Intellectual Youth come together, but when you look at them, they're all almost identical to each other. They share a collective tumblr personality. Seriously, there must be more to them. Why is everybody behaving and communicating and writing sentences just. like. everybody. else? Why do people have this instinctive tendency to turn into people around them?

Wow! Am I fucked up. I got no motorcycle I got no girl. (I hope you're dying) BECAUSE I AM.

I will shut up now. I've got a book to write.

Towards the light, man, slowly and unsteadily, towards the light.

One of the most intriguing things about Morrissey is this: first, he forms a band with three regular meat-eating boys from Manchester and then suddenly a few months later, they've become his soldiers on a tour titled "Meat is Murder". After that, he's done the same trick repeatedly. He's got this weird Messiah-like charisma thing going on.

Hell yeah

I have this vision and it is me and now I have to make others believe in it.

The best thing about Joan Jett:

The eyes. The disturbingly innocent, honest, well-meaning, almost feral eyes. All the badassness and those eyes are a strange combination.

The bitter lovechild of James Dean and Kevin Spacey

"My food eats your food."

Really? I never knew factory-farmed animals ate seitan burgers.

I am falling in love with falling in love with you

I'd be a magnificent lyricist.

What light breaks through yonder window

Fuck this shit.



I'd like to make one thing clear: I'm tired of all this. I'm tired of writing about important things, I'm tired of getting stuck with unimportant things. I'm tired of thinking about things that matter more than anything else, I'm tired of thinking about things that shouldn't matter at all. I'm tired of animal exploitation, I'm tired of animal activism, I never want to hear the name of James D. Rose again, and why on Earth isn't pukexskywalker giving me any reaction? Dude, I handed you a challenge, stop picking fights with everybody else and crawl out please.

But really, what difference does it make? Revolutions are not going to happen here, not quite yet, and if they did, I'd be too fed up to participate. I'd like to stop thinking and planning and imagining what living could be like; instead, I'd like to start living.

I'm tired of saying that I'm going to start living the day after tomorrow; I want to say that I'm going to start living right now. I'm crawling out.

The reason why I'm keeping this blog in the first place is that if I do make it as a writer, a lot of people are going to read this crap. Good luck with that.

Seriously: all I can do is all I can do. All you can do is all you can do. One of the most soothing sentences I've ever come up with. And Joan Jett is my best friend.

James D. Rose #2.

At the moment, the debate about "Do fish feel pain?" looks something like this:

[Wait. Does blogger make this picture look hellishly blurry? To see the picture in its original quality, click here.]



It's so childish that it's really made me re-think my relationship with science. I've always tried to use my own head, but this case has really proven that science is people: quirky, shitty, unreliable people with their own motives and oddities. They probably have these ideas sitting on the toilet.

We're silly little monkeys. Believe in us, but don't always trust us.