Freakin' Causes

I was listening to NPR recently when I heard a story that made me think about “causes”. It seems that Green Peace in their patchouli smelling and eco-addled brains decided to beat their heads against a wall by building a re-creation of Noah’s Ark on top of Mt. Ararat (the supposed landing zone of the “real” Noah’s Ark). Like, ya know, to like totally raise awareness of like global warming ‘n stuff…man. I just love it when groups decide they need to “raise awareness”. It’s like listening to someone telling you something everyone already knows while jerking their protester comrade off. “Hey man, did you know that like running your car burns gas. Hey, don’t get any in my dreads bro!” Nobody wants to hear it and really nobody wants to have to see it.

Kinda like how PETA has decided to spin its wheels by holding a public protest outside a fur farm in Texas. “Well, what’s so bad about that”, you might be asking; the simple fact that all of them will be naked and covered in red paint. “Again, what’s so bad about that?” Think about it. It’ll be a bunch of malnourished, aging, hairy (because as you know they are pro-fur not anti-fur), angry protesters. Probably with a good amount of dudes in there too, and no one needs to see that.

Remember “Hands Across America”? It was that nationwide stunt that sparked our country into dramatic and everlasting action to fight hunger and homelessness. Yeah, remember hunger and homelessness? Whew, sure glad that we stomped those two things out; now lets all go out for free ice cream. The whole event did about as much good as pissing into the wind.

I just feel that all these groups don’t get it. We all fucking know about “Global Warming”. You doing some stupid, ill-conceived stunt isn’t going to hammer it home anymore. We all know that you morons hate fur. But what you want is for people to join your bandwagon and not just decide that being naked and covered in paint is the surest way to have all your friends thinking you’re “special”. Finally, some notion that you are going to end something (hunger) that has been around since the earth started to spin, just by holding fucking hands is about as nuts as thinking you can slow down time by spinning. I tried that when I was like eight and let me tell you from experience, it will only work for couple of seconds at best.

Still, I felt like there was probably a buck to be made here. I mean how much do you think those Prius’s and Patagonia shirts cost? It’s expensive to be a sanctimonious hippy. So, I handed the job over to my Half-Assed Innovations crew, remember them, to see what they could come up with; and I have to admit they really surprised me.

Let me introduce “The Exercise in Futility: Exercycle”. For the angry protester who wants to fight the causes (to as much effect) from the comfort of their own home. The Futility-Exercycle comes complete with “wheels to spin” to no practical result. Other than maybe the repetitive and possibly brain damaging movement of the plate that will give you the very real sensation of repeatedly “beating your head against a wall”. And lastly, the pedal motion turns a tiny generator that will operate a small, but powerful, electric fan; so that one might bask in the spraying droplets of your very own urine whilst “pissing into the wind”! All components of the Futility-Exercylce are made from recycled nothing. That’s right none of it is recycled at all. The best part of all though is that all of the proceeds go to fighting need. My need! Of stuff like video games and guns and like sports cars.