i'm a cult hero, baby
Today I got in a fight with a LaRouchey.
I've had my fair share of run-ins with cult or semi-cult folks in my day, not the least of which being that time a few summers ago when the Krishna dude on the South Side tried to "give" me a copy of the Gita, which he signed himself but which was, of course, written by the greatest writer of all, God, only to rip it from my paws when I admitted that I couldn't give him much of a donation. But I don't think I've ever actually gotten, y'know, PISSED at someone trying to convert me to her/his belief system. This young man, however, got my goat.
Emma and I were sitting on the wall, munching on our respective lunches, waiting for Laura and Josher to show, when said brainwashed individual approached, after having had an animated conversation with some others down the way a bit (in which he contended loudly that "ANYONE can be a genius, it's not hereditary!") and descended upon us, noting that we looked political, or at least smart. We entertained his questions and contentions for a bit, for lack of anything better to do, and because he didn't give us much of a chance to get out of the situation. Emma argued with him for a bit, I got slightly annoyed when I talked about my media activism and he marginalized it by basically telling me that economics on the international scale is a more important place to focus one's efforts. I took over arguing when Josh showed up and Emma started talking to him. I let on that I was familiar with LaRouche, and he asked me what I thought of him, and I said he was a dude with a couple decent ideas and a personality cult, and that he wasn't ever going to get anything accomplished, which I guess was offensive to him, so he started the smoke-and-mirrors game, telling me about how I didn't know that my philosophy was The Truth, but he investigated his ideas physically and metaphysically and knew them to be The Truth. (RULE OF THUMB: If some dude on the street starts talking about metaphysics to you in order to make a political point, he 1. Probably doesn't know what he's talking about and 2. Is definitely trying to pull something over on you.)
SO, he started spewing about how LaRouche was The Truth because his thinking is in line with Bach and Beethoven, and the great composers' music is mathematically congruent to the arrangement of the planets (I'm not making this up), and Emma finally told him that he wasn't going to get anywhere with us (ten minutes have elapsed since he first rolled up) and he might as well go talk to someone else. AT WHICH POINT, he said "Well, if you're not willing to challenge yourself . . ." and we both basically lost it and told him not to say shit like that to us, and he said that he didn't mean to be rude, and we said well buddy you're being rude, and he then REPEATED his line about us not wanting to challenge ourselves. I was seriously pissed at him in a way that I haven't been pissed directly at another person in a very long time, I guess because he was interrupting my lunch in a public place to insult me. I put on my game face, pointed leeward down the wall and told him he better get moving. His eyes became little slits and he said to me,
"Don't get assy with me."
He then turned heel and retreated to the LaRouche station at the corner, where he conferred with his fellow proselytizers and sulked alone for a bit.
We continued with our lunch and discussed important things like amplifier placement and Laura's harrowing Chicago airport story.
I will get assy with whomever I please, young man. Don't let it slip your mind.
(For a little information about the Cult of Larouche, read this.)
I've had my fair share of run-ins with cult or semi-cult folks in my day, not the least of which being that time a few summers ago when the Krishna dude on the South Side tried to "give" me a copy of the Gita, which he signed himself but which was, of course, written by the greatest writer of all, God, only to rip it from my paws when I admitted that I couldn't give him much of a donation. But I don't think I've ever actually gotten, y'know, PISSED at someone trying to convert me to her/his belief system. This young man, however, got my goat.
Emma and I were sitting on the wall, munching on our respective lunches, waiting for Laura and Josher to show, when said brainwashed individual approached, after having had an animated conversation with some others down the way a bit (in which he contended loudly that "ANYONE can be a genius, it's not hereditary!") and descended upon us, noting that we looked political, or at least smart. We entertained his questions and contentions for a bit, for lack of anything better to do, and because he didn't give us much of a chance to get out of the situation. Emma argued with him for a bit, I got slightly annoyed when I talked about my media activism and he marginalized it by basically telling me that economics on the international scale is a more important place to focus one's efforts. I took over arguing when Josh showed up and Emma started talking to him. I let on that I was familiar with LaRouche, and he asked me what I thought of him, and I said he was a dude with a couple decent ideas and a personality cult, and that he wasn't ever going to get anything accomplished, which I guess was offensive to him, so he started the smoke-and-mirrors game, telling me about how I didn't know that my philosophy was The Truth, but he investigated his ideas physically and metaphysically and knew them to be The Truth. (RULE OF THUMB: If some dude on the street starts talking about metaphysics to you in order to make a political point, he 1. Probably doesn't know what he's talking about and 2. Is definitely trying to pull something over on you.)
SO, he started spewing about how LaRouche was The Truth because his thinking is in line with Bach and Beethoven, and the great composers' music is mathematically congruent to the arrangement of the planets (I'm not making this up), and Emma finally told him that he wasn't going to get anywhere with us (ten minutes have elapsed since he first rolled up) and he might as well go talk to someone else. AT WHICH POINT, he said "Well, if you're not willing to challenge yourself . . ." and we both basically lost it and told him not to say shit like that to us, and he said that he didn't mean to be rude, and we said well buddy you're being rude, and he then REPEATED his line about us not wanting to challenge ourselves. I was seriously pissed at him in a way that I haven't been pissed directly at another person in a very long time, I guess because he was interrupting my lunch in a public place to insult me. I put on my game face, pointed leeward down the wall and told him he better get moving. His eyes became little slits and he said to me,
"Don't get assy with me."
He then turned heel and retreated to the LaRouche station at the corner, where he conferred with his fellow proselytizers and sulked alone for a bit.
We continued with our lunch and discussed important things like amplifier placement and Laura's harrowing Chicago airport story.
I will get assy with whomever I please, young man. Don't let it slip your mind.
(For a little information about the Cult of Larouche, read this.)
posted by andybot at 8:13 PM
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