“The Rude Guy”
Everyone who is calm and sensible is insane – Rumi

CLICK HERE to listen to The Rude Guy Podcast #33

Rich Zubaty extracts salient ideas from the first 32 The Rude Guy podcasts — his first year of podcasting — and updates Homeless in Hawaii — free food and getting rousted by the cops

or RIGHT CLICK HERE (Apple command/click) then click “Save Target As” to DOWNLOAD the podcast to your computer or playback device

[Rich Zubaty extracts salient ideas from the first 32 The Rude Guy podcasts -- his first year of podcasting -- and updates Homeless in Hawaii -- free food and getting rousted by the cops.]

This is Rich Zubaty, The Rude Guy. Homeless in Hawaii. Welcoming you to the Reality Cult, where I got rousted by the cops at 1 am last night, and kicked off the beach where I’ve been sleeping in my truck. AND, where we break FREE, from the fantasy governments, fantasy schools, and fantasy economies, that eat our brains, and suck our souls dry… and we do it by taking a hard look at what’s really real… Because fantasy is how they control us. All of us. Who’ll win the election? Who’ll win the Oscar? Who’ll win the lottery? Democracy, free markets. Private property… Fantasies brought to you by, VULTURE Capitalists. Human culture is a straight jacket woven from fantasies… But not here. Not us. We’re different. We’re the Reality Cult.

I’ve been doing this podcast for one year. This is show 33, of the 52 shows I said I’d make… and I’m gonna keep on making them as best as I can. However, once a month I get an email from someone who says: Man, I liked such-and-so show so much, I went back into your archives and listened to ALL the other shows. Wow! Keep it up… Or something like that.

As I’ve said so many times before, this is NOT a news show, and if you have not listened to the earlier shows you’ve missed something. Lots of somethings actually, because this is a show about ideas… Not opinions, not issues. Ideas. Plus, just for fun, it’s peppered with lots of really RUDE, political humor.

So… right now, I’m gonna quickly run through the CONTENT of the first 32 shows, to try and PROD you into going BACK into the archives, on the right hand side of therudeguy.com blog page, and, starting with January 2006, listen to some of the earlier podcasts. Or ALL of them. They all contain something of value. If you don’t like God pick a God show. If you don’t like science pick a science show. If you don’t like men pick a men’s show. If you think corporations are a necessary evil, pick a corporations show. You’re guaranteed to learn something. Or just listen to your favorite old show again.

OK… Here’re the summaries:

Podcast 1: Are U.S. corporations directly to blame for the attacks of 9/11? Here we take a look at the greed and arrogance of U.S. Corporations, to see if they might be the root cause of every terrorist attack on this country from Pearl Harbor to The World Trade Center. Podcast 1

Podcast 2: Should we tax stock market transactions? We look at Ralph Nader’s idea of why we should tax stock market transactions, and pay for national health care with the money. And we discuss how IDEOLOGIES have corrupted the political process on both the Right and the Left. Fuck ideologies. Podcast 2

Podcast 3: Does the Democratic Party understand the difference between white men and RICH white men? The Democratic Party has failed us ALL, by emphasizing social issues and abandoning economic issues, and we need to change that right now. Podcast 3

Podcast 4: What IS it with the fragile FEMALE ego? Yes, no surprise to anyone with their headlights on. Women have the fragile egos. Not men. So what can they do about it? How can they make it better? Podcast 4

Podcast 5: What is Populism and what can we learn from it? Americans are intentionally kept in the dark about the role Populist movements have played in our history. During both the American Revolution, and the Populist Revolt of the late 1800s, populism reined in corporate greed and gave us little people some economic breathing room. Capitalism versus Populism. It’s a recurring battle in this nation, and it’s time to close ranks, and fight the good fight, again. Podcast 5

Podcast 6: Does God exist? We look at what our understanding of quantum physics, photons, prayer, and ego, contribute to the mysteries of Faith. Listen to some really good scientific reasons, to permit yourself the joy and solace, of practicing some kind of Faith. Podcast 6

Podcast 7: What is science good for? Readings from Rich Zubaty’s goofy novel, Your Brain Is Not Your Own, blasting the arrogance of scientific buzz words like “instinct” (What IS instinct? What’s its mechanism? Where is it located — in the brain? Do birds and salmon have gears in their heads or something?) No one knows. Instinct exists ONLY as an answer to a biology test question. Nowhere else. It pretends to explain something but, in fact, explains nothing… This riotous novel has been described as a gourmet salad of original ideas, served up on a bed, of radioactive liver sausage. It cannot be explained in a sound bite. It has to be experienced. I think I should have sold a million copies of this book by now. Your Brain Is Not Your Own. Podcast 7

Podcast 8: What is a Christian Communist? A philosophical examination, from Leo Tolstoy to Hugo Chavez, of HOW, historically, Christians have always been communists, not capitalists. Communists. Communalists. Every read the gospels? Share everything, with everyone. Ring a bell? If Jesus came back today, he’d crap all over the fundamentalist Christian preachers, who persist in the perverted, ANTI-christian, brainwashing of their flocks, with capitalist dogma. Christian Communism. Podcast 8

Podcast 9: Why are evangelical Christians, and evangelical Muslims, and evangelical Feminists, the WAY they ARE? The Rude Guy discusses: How sex helps learning. How our brains think. Memes. And what makes fanatics, fanatics? Podcast 9

Podcast 10: Are corporations vampires? NOT are corporations LIKE vampires. But are corporations REALLY vampires?… Did the Rockefeller Family invent the mold for American Corporate Vampires? And…Why worry about the Republicans? They NEVER do any of the things they say they’ll do. None of their vaunted ideologies or programs ever work, for anything, ever. They always wreck the economy by cutting taxes, and bankrupt the government by borrowing and spending money like drunken sailors, and fall from their mountaintop of righteousness, into a toilet clogged with scandals. Podcast 10

Podcast 11: How come rents and mortgages are so much? And how can we lower them… By having the government provide common lands and workers housing that are REMOVED from the real estate market, perhaps? The Rude Guy talks about recovering common lands; how rich people and speculators drive up the prices of rents and mortgages; our natural born human rights to employment, a family, and a home; and the unholy collusion between feminists and huge corporations. Affordable housing. Podcast 11

Podcast 12: Are men the oppressors of women, or are women the oppressors of men? And, are feminists corporate whores?… Excerpts from my book, What Men Know That Women Don’t. The book that pulls the pants off female propaganda. The book that has literally saved the lives, of hundreds of men, if I’m to believe my emails. Podcast 12

Podcast 13: [Continued from the previous show] The Rude Guy invites Rich Zubaty to read from his book: “What Men Know That Women Don’t.” Are women smarter than men? More compassionate? More spiritual? Less materialistic? Better at relationships? Are THEY? Ha ha ha (Rude Guy Laugh) Are women the oppressors of men? (more…)

CLICK HERE to listen to The Rude Guy Podcast #32

Tonga Part Two. Fishing and partying while weird spirits visit Rich in Part Two of his adventures on a South Pacific island, excerpted from his book The Corporate Cult

or RIGHT CLICK HERE (Apple command/click) then click “Save Target As” to DOWNLOAD the podcast to your computer or playback device

[Tonga Part Two. Fishing and partying while weird spirits visit Rich in Part Two of his adventures on a South Pacific island, excerpted from his book The Corporate Cult.]

This is Rich Zubaty, The Rude Guy, welcoming you to the Reality Cult. Where we tell real stories about real things.

This show is a continuation of the last show, Part Two of my adventures on a South Pacific island called Ufo. Excerpted from my book, The Corporate Cult.

In Part One, I mailed some gifts from Chicago to Ufo, to the family of an old friend of mine, Saia, who had died earlier that year. Then I flew a third of the way around the globe, to catch up with my presents, only to arrive on Ufo, and discover I had mailed the gifts to the wrong family. Their father had the same name, and lived on the same island, but he was NOT my old friend, he was a different man. Someone I had never met. So, did I immediately own up to the blunder, and tell everyone the truth? No, I did not. I pretended along with the charade. I pretended I HAD known their father, even though I hadn’t. Because I had already sent them a bunch of gifts, and they had offered to let me stay at their place for no pay, in honor of their deceased father. And I didn’t want to upset the deal that we had in place. Or else, where would I go? So I sculpted my mistake into a lie.

We pick up the story again, a month or so after I arrived. The loose ends of my lie have becalmed themselves, disappeared like chaotic minnows, under the flat waters of the turquoise lagoon.

[gulls]

MY “FAMILY” HAS VOWED to continue one of the great traditions of their dead father. Every New Year’s Eve, Makana put on a huge feast, and fed anyone who wished to come. In island parlance this type of feast is known as a faka afe. It’s a direct cultural relative of the annual Potlatch ceremony, held by Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. The purpose of this annual feast is to, “share the wealth”, and the man whose family puts it on, is held in high prestige, and given greater weight in tribal decisions, throughout the coming year. Plus it’s just a wonderful thing to do — as if Thanksgiving came on 30 different days, for 30 overlapping “families” — spread throughout the year.

But we have a problem. It’s three days before the announced faka afe, and we have no pigs, no fish, no money — no food for the big party. Paké and I decide the only thing to do is go fishing. We get up at 4:30 but it’s raining and blowing hard, crackling the palms leaves, so we go back to sleep. By 5:00 the wind has settled down and it’s getting light, so we pack up fishing poles and roasted breadfruit, and shove off in the outboard. Paké has a plan. He wants to follow a “valu line” that his father had told him about when he was a kid. A valu, also known as a barred mackerel, is a delicious, highly-prized food fish, kin to the wahoo, with jawsful of vicious teeth that make a barracuda look like a chipmunk. A “valu line” is a line-of-sight between two markers — in this case a beach at the tip of one island, and a clump of trees on a distant atoll. By driving on this “line” we can guide our boat over some deep, UNseeable, underwater channels, where schools of valu like to congregate, if they’re visiting this part of the ocean.

We unspool our lines and troll over to Lekeleka atoll, me with a fishing pole, Paké using a 200 lb. nylon handline, he keeps loosely wrapped beneath his foot. We come about at the far corner of Lekeleka, and aim for a clump of trees across the lagoon on the horizon. We’re both trolling blue and silver, six-inch plastic squid. I have NO expectations whatsoever of catching a fish. Most days I fish from shore, casting jigs over the edge of the reef at low tide. I’ve had more luck with that. I’ve trolled back and forth to town, a dozen times, when I was going to market, and never got a nibble, so trolling the lagoon just seems like a waste of gas. But I’m HAPPY to be out early, fishing in the pink and purple dawn. I tie a short piece of rope around my fishing pole to keep it from falling overboard, and began idly sifting through my lures, swaying with the gently rocking boat, as it chops through the waves. The clouds start breaking up, and shafts of yellow, spotlight the bright green islets, scattered around the lagoon.

ZZZZzzzz!

My reel lurches against the rope, screaming for attention. Paké cuts the motor and pulls his handline out of the way. I fight the fish for 5 minutes, as it makes three powerful runs, but it tires quickly. I reel it alongside and Paké gaffs it — a 15-pound valu. We cheer and slap palms. It seems like the “ghost” of Makana, is bringing us luck. Paké starts the motor and puts out his squid.

My squid is shredded by the valu’s wicked teeth, so I tie on a blue and silver Rapala, sinking lure, and let out my line. But when I try to stop my line it keeps on going, the drag is BURNED out, my reel is broken.

“Ika!” shouts Paké. He has a very large fish on his handline, tearing off line beneath his foot. I try to reel in to clear my line out of his way, but the handle just spins, I can’t wind on line. Paké fights his fish for ten minutes, tugging hard with both arms, then releasing line when the fish runs, slashing a nylon arc across the surface of the lagoon. When he gets his fish close to the boat I stop messing with my broken reel, set my rod down, and grab his leader, so he can gaff the fish. He heaves aboard a frantically convulsing 40-pound valu, and beats it over the head with a broken floor board, to kill it before it can chomp our bare legs. It’s a beautiful fish: blue back, silvery sides, sleek head and terrible teeth. Blood and slime have splattered the wooden bench along the starboard gunwale, so I shift to port, and start fooling with my broken reel again. I try to reel in line without the handle, working my thumbs back and forth, inch by inch, on the open spool. Stupid and impossible. By now my lure must have sunk down 50 feet into the dark water.

ZZZZzzzz!

Yow! My line peels off the reel so fast it burns my thumbs. My thumb pads feel like they’ve been stung by wasps. I have to lift them off the spool, as yet another powerful fish surges away — this time on light line with a broken reel.

“Grab the line”, I yell to Paké, who’s clearing his line at the stern of the boat. He swings his arm wide and catches my 40-pound test line, in his bare hand, just as the fish circles back at us. My line is a LOT thinner than his 200 lb. Handline, and he stands a good chance of getting his palm sliced, if the fish takes off.

It DOES — with a taut “thwang” of salt spray. (more…)