the reign of magneto
So what about life do I find ironic? To begin with, everything. (That’s one of the perks in watching Cameron Crowe movies. You get to hear great one-liners. But he was talking about music in his autobiographical masterpiece Almost Famous. ) Irony is a ubiquitous fact that we have to live with. Not that It’s bad. It’s just too much all over us that we don’t see it stare us in the face every minute. Kinda like the Matrix.
Just think of this article as a dose of the red pill.
We’ll break the ice by talking about one of life’s essentials—music. U2, not the clothing line but the rock group, has been the greatest rock band in the last two and a half decades. They’re numero uno, deities of the rock-and-roll world, and have been standing on their pedestal for so long now that it’s almost ridiculous. Yet they don’t practice hedonistic rituals etched in a stereotypical rock star lifestyle. Drug use, ala Sodom and Gomorra orgy sessions, trashing of hotel rooms, spitting or puking or pissing (All of which were enjoyed by Sex Pistols gig goers) at the audience, getting arrested for being sociopaths, killing of one’s self (Better to burn out than to fade away eh, Mr. Cobain?), etc.
In fact, these four Irish ambassadors of coolness are apparently advocates of love, peace, and good will. Mushy? Nah, just plain helpful.
Great men in history and geniuses of our times are my next cases in point. There are hearsays that Adolph Hitler, the most feared and loathed man to set foot on earth, is gay. He was also rumored to be a stutterer as a child, but became one of the most eloquent speakers in history.
The great Albert Einstein flunked math and was a dyslexic (a person with a cognitive impairment that enables him to understand written symbols), but later on became the greatest physicist to ever live. What’s wrong with this picture? He was a physicist for crying out load. Those guys converse, chat, and argue using written symbols as casually as we talk about traffic on EDSA. We eat fried rice for breakfast, they breathe advanced math from sunrise to sundown.
And what about Mr. John Nash? Another god-mathematician who became a delusional schizophrenic? Russell Crowe made to life this man’s story in A Beautiful Mind. It’s interesting that the brainier these guys were, the more defective their minds got.
We all know the story of Vincent Van Gogh, a gifted painter who was blighted by psychosis. I’m sure there’s lots more similar stories of scientists, philosophers, artists, writers, and musicians. I guess there’s really a fine line between genius and lunacy.
In our local history, Ninoy and Bonifacio have something ironic in common. They were both patriots who were killed by kapwa pinoys. The irony on Erap is the fact that the least competent presidentiable in the 1998 elections was enthroned to the most important job in the country. It sucked.
Let me quicken the pace now.
Muhammad Ali once possessed the fastest pair of hands and mouth within the four corners of the boxing rink, but now can’t even talk nor move fast enough to live a comfortable life. Parkinson’s is knocking him out and it’s sad. Christopher Reeves, the Man of Steel, is now dead. Morpheus, god of the Dream World, was the one who woke up Neo from the “dream world’ yanking him into the shitty real world.
Here’s more. Pops Fernandez, tagged as the Concert Queen, is the most unskilled, melody-swerving, tune-sabotaging singer in the local music scene. Traffic policemen, first-line defenders of the law, accept bribes most often.
And there is the enigmatic psychiatrist. Experts of the mind, the psychological and emotional facets of man, and the one from whom suicidal people seek help. You would think they are the most stable of people. News flash, their suicide rate in the US is ten times higher than the ordinary man.
Want to dig deeper?
How about the theological? I heard in the international news on cable that due to the sprouting of complaints in the past decade, the Catholic Church has generated the most sexual harassment charges in the whole world. For Christ’s sake! If you can’t stand celibacy, then get outa there man! Less you don’t mind burning in hell. So much for advocating morality.
There was a scene in the The Devil’s Advocate where the Devil gave an audacious monologue about God and alluded to a point that struck me right between the eyes, stamped deep in my mind. He said that The Creator endowed man with incessant urges such as sex, aggression, vanity and greed then formulates rules in opposition to them. I must admit, the Devil has got some logic savvy going for him. Tricky tricky old devil.
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And alas, the irony of all ironies. Jesus Christ was considered heretic in his time.
Wheeew! So what’s my conclusion to this world-has-gone-mad observation? Sorry buddies, but just like The Matrix series, I have no satisfactory conclusion. My best guess is this. Irony is not the icing on the cake. That one stands for mug toasts after a job promotion or for getting a brand new car after finishing college.
More appropriately, I think irony is the Tabasco sauce on you pepperoni and cheese pizza or the wasabe on your salmon sashimi sauce. It doesn’t contribute to good taste, but it’s essential to the experience of eating your pizza and your sashimi. It’s something you can’t explain, but definitely makes the taste more interesting.
In any case, Ms. Morissette noticed it years ago.
