Bad "Servile" Blood

Last night, I finished reading the not so incredulous story of the Biomedical startup and biggest corporate scam of this century the - Theranos saga in "Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup" by John Carreyrou. 

Though quite engaging, I can’t  say I am very impressed by his style of delivery which at times is more suitable for House and Garden magazine or a woman centric publication with a penchant for describing dresses and mascara. But, on the whole it was a tenacious labour of uncovering the truth behind a corporate scam shielded by powerful men,  weaponized legal intimidation and absolutely unscrupulous promoters. 

A story of how a young blond blue-eyed woman from a privileged background, a Stanford dropout with a fake voice having all the hallmarks of a psychopath and her unlikely partner, a Bombay born, bullying, boastful, uncouth and unscrupulous Sindhi rouge who earlier made it big in the US by a fluke, peddled a non-existing technology and successfully raised hundred of million dollars from VCs. 

With the initial team of experts and technologists leaving or fired by the psychopathic duo, later the venture relied on a small army of scared, servile and sycophantic  Indian minions afraid of losing their jobs and visas. There were also a  couple of lying Chinese, and the company was backed by powerful white and Jewish old men ready to sacrifice their grandchildren to Moloch for their seat on the board in exchange for stock and by the highest echelons of the Democrat party right from the Clintons to Biden and the Obamas. 

So when the shit finally hit the ceiling, VCs learned that they invested in an elaborate scam and lost their money, almost a million people jeopardized their lives with inaccurate tests, the female Steve Jobs wannabe remained unrepentant and is trying to play the role of a victim and the only beneficiaries of this Unicorn to Dinosaur story as usual are the American lawyers.

All too familiar elements for me, fake accents,to  bogus antecedents and reports, political corruption, legal intimidation, old coots gaga for a smart confident young woman, greed, caprice,  tyranny and as an Indian the most familiar of them all : Bullying Indian business owners treating employees and  hired consultants like servants.

Considering people's propensity for listening to and believing in fables, especially those promising them heap loads of money, I have thus started reading "Bullshit & Philosophy" by Gary S. Hardcastle.

I said it FIRST !!

It was way back in February while talking with a respected friend, an ex-senior journalist on the phone, I expressed my views on the emerging so-called pandemic. My exact words were "It doesn't add up, the body count doesn't add up, the facts don't add up, the 24x7 fearmongering by the media doesn't add up, it's all to choreographed not to be preplanned, and all the countries are falling in line with the narrative as if ordered to do so. I think the global economy is being reset using the excuse of a cooked up scamdemic. First they will crash the stock-markets, next the economies. Can't say if it's good or bad, because either way the current consumerist standards of living are unsustainable."

Later, when I shared the same views with a friend who is a banker, he asked me what I was snorting, but a month later he told me that all his investments in the shares market had been wiped away.  

So how did I guess?

 I told him that I snorted facts! Then the Globalist think tank, the  World Economic Forum  let the Cat out of the Bag, and now phrase "The Great Reset" is on many a person's lips. But what nobody is asking is what came first, which is the cause and which is the effect? The great reset as a consequence of a Pandemic or a Scamdemic created to bring about a great reset for a totalitarian Techno-fascist global network of regimes? 

Pity the silent majority still prefers to remain as complacent virtue signalling sheep, muzzled and mum...

Looking around for an image of a mask wearing sheep for this piece, I stumbled on this decal for sale on Amazon one of the tech giants who profited immensely for the lockdown. Guess for Bezos, business is business, and he didn't jump upon the censorship bandwagon like google, the mass media  and the social media behemoths.

On Solitude and Sanity

While I can't claim to be a brilliant eccentric, but being a loner, living alone, I know first-hand how it helps preserves sanity in taxing times. Hence, in the early days of the ScamDemic,  I used to roam around the neighbourhood with a "what me worry" attitude, sans a mask of course, oblivious to being the target of the collective evil eyes. Meanwhile, my neighbours downstairs were lowering down a bag on a rope from their balcony for groceries ordered on Amazon. And my landlord and friend decided to utilize the time to create a walking regime by prancing to and fro on the terrace which alternately made me think of a poor caged feline in the zoo or just gave me vertigo watching him going round and round. That with a park next-door...

So, when concerned friends asked me how I was dealing with isolation and the quarantine, I always replied "Marvellously!!" The thing is I had already self- isolated myself for almost a decade...from needless social interaction and human stupidity that is... Contrary to what Hollywood and the popular culture has been indoctrinating, the real Zombie apocalypses doesn't involve  living corpses thronging the streets, but living people who choose to remain brain-dead, watch TV and  hide in the confines of their homes.

On the collapse of life and civilization by Dmitry Orlov in his book 5 stages of Collapse

Vintage Cars, Elfin Eyes...

 I cancelled my streaming services because I realised binge-watching was even more wasteful and addictive than social media, but except for saving me a bit of money on subscription charges and making binge material a bit less accessible, it has not really eliminated the pastime. I ended up wasting two nights watching a so-called supernatural drama in semi-sepia tones, with 30s era cars and people in period costumes  in a contemporary western liberal (read as US Democrat propaganda) indoctrination series masquerading as a TV serial, only because of a brief flash of flesh in an altogether different film. 

Honestly, I started watching it only because earlier Natalie Dormer gave a peep of her stockinged thigh in the "Counsellor," which I consider as one of the most sexually charged scenes in cinema, paradoxically in a film with the most morbid ending I had ever seen. 

I had neither watched the Game of Thrones, except for a compilation of all the nude scenes in the series, nor the Tudors, where she had acted earlier, so I really had no inkling what to expect from her. One would also be hard-pressed to call her beautiful in a conventional sense, especially without all the makeup highlighting her elfin eyes. 

Yet undeniably Sexy, she is…in Yoda speak!

The serial in question if you have not guessed already is the "City of Angels-Penny Dreadful." I am still quite clueless as to  the connection with the original Victorian-era horror mishmash Penny Dreadful, which I also binge-watched no thanks to being enamoured with Eva Green. Where despite the impressive sets, great acting, the ample nudity, it largely gets my thumbs down solely because it forced me to endure several gay sex scenes as the writer, director and producer John Logan seems obsessed about pushing forth his sexual orientation. The really dreadful part of the series I concluded, was that while nearly everyone from Satan to Dracula and Dorian Gray got to sleep with Vanessa Ives,  Eva Green's character, all except her poor soulmate, the werewolf protagonist - he only got buggered by Gray and well got a consolation prize of a young witch towards the end.

Though set in the late 30s Los Angeles, the City of Angles is a typical modern Showtime production; meaning it's a crime to be white. The Jews are the valiant heroes(a la David vs Goliath, with the wisdom of Solomon), even their gangsters. The Latinos are the poor but joyful  hard-working folks, the victims of racial injustice. The protagonist is a tormented Latino Good-Cop, while his two brothers are both cop-killers (justifiably so, of course) #Latinolivesmatter after all. Quite surprisingly, there are no Blacks or Asians in any role. Again with several (unwelcome for me) homosexual and bisexual scenes imposed upon us, courtesy John Logan and his gay agenda. 

The white characters are portrayed as either sadists, racists, fascists or Nazis, the sole exception being a tragic blond gospel singer, the hero's love interest (diversity politics in love, India they would call it Love Jihad) who is controlled by her hawkish and ambitious, Nazi sympathizer Christian revivalist mother, but who ultimately commits suicide, probably to make space for a Chica in season two, except that they got panned and rightly so.

The role of Santa Muerte, Mexico's Grateful Dead inspired superstar deity and protector of gangsters and drug dealers seemed completely out of place in the 1930s context as the cult rose into prominence only in the late 90s. It's as if the storyline got mixed-up with a contemporary Narcos serial. Or maybe the scriptwriters were just promised a discount on their weekly cocaine stash by the Mexican dealer who demanded the inclusion of his favourite patron saint.

The central figure in the City of Angels is the anti-hero Magda, a multidimensional goddess/demoness of chaos with Caucasian looks, a blend of a Succubus and the Norse trickster Loki. She who thrives on causing mayhem, discord and death played by Ms Flashing Thigh a.k.a. Natalie Dormer in multiple roles, each in a human avatar of the queen of chaos. Can't say she did an excellent job, won't say that she sucked, but yes, she knows how to flash them eye-lashes and stare at you almost supernaturally with those faux elfin eyes.  

She did act like a real bitch at times, well play the role that is, but couldn't be the venomous evil incarnate she was supposed to portray. No personification of madness either, like by Eva Green. And except for the sexless, frumpy secretary  in all her other characters, her acting was overshadowed with her doing what she does best...being Sexy!! 

If Santa Muerte at least has a historical, cultural and contemporary religious significance, Magda is a figment of Logan's imagination, probably inspired by the legions of women who create trouble anywhere they go and for anyone they come across in real life. Believe me they exist,  I happen to know a few, and they don't need Ju-Ju to do their Voodoo!!

With 2020's politically-correct liberal narrative,  Santa Muerte transported back in time and a real lacklustre storyline, it is a guarantee for wasted time...the only saving grace was the Vintage Cars and those Elfin Eyes...

 The end was even more pathetic and straight out of a Biden-Harris electoral campaign with the hero proclaiming, they are building a wall to divide us!!

 Yeah, no nudity as well, unless you consider some Latino guy's arse, but that's John Logan for you!!

The Chinese Mask Torture

With age, a man sheds two things; the hair on his head and so-called friends! The ongoing ScamDemic has had me blocking a few Covidiots who were daily sending me a barrage of scaremongering messages. Likewise, I had to tell a couple of "Maskista" Karens to Fuck-off, also reminding them that I am not their hen-pecked husband to listen to that chiding tone. Which reminds me how fed up with their sermons and pretensions, I used to get rid of my female college mates exactly the same way, and they always angrily retorted back" No wonder you don't have a Girlfriend" as if my single hood and inability to take their Bullshit was interconnected. But, they probably had a valid point!

Without going deeply into the topic of masks, government flip-flops on the subject and over 50 medical (peer-reviewed) papers, which I collected that say that they mostly don't -  the main factor causing this current divisive rift is really about not their effectiveness but the subject of "Virtue Signalling!!"

Its Religious fanatics vs Atheists all over again. For religious whackos it's because their holy book/prophet/guru says so, here it's because governments and their bureaucracy who are always on a lookout for ways to increases taxes and curtail citizen's rights and promote autocracy, say so : “Honey, we have to trust them. This is our government. They’re on our side!!”

 All for public safety of course; protection from communism, terrorism, a venereal or some cooked up disease. This time they have hit jackpot by effectively combined fearmongering against an invisible enemy and people's inherent narcissistic need to display that they are better than the rest. 

Hence, the mantra "I am a better person than you, because I obediently wear a mask for your safety!!" 

Let's face it, Virtue Signalling is endemic everywhere, only in different guises. In India, it traditionally takes on a religious or cultural colour with a clock of drab orthodoxy. I am better than you because I am vegetarian,  more religious, maintain fasts and go on pilgrimages. Many a young Indian woman proudly states that she comes from an "orthodox conservative family" to denote that she is a virgin and sexually unavailable. So don't get any ideas Bozo unless you fulfil my long list of entitled expectations, those of my parents and the society too. Just like her same-age western counterpart would declare that she has a boyfriend  before even saying her name also meaning  "I am not available for you as well, Bozo!!"

Following the election of the Supreme Leader Modi and the masturbatory fervour with which people have been forwarding the ruling party's IT cell's (Fascist India/Indians/Army/Hinduism is great) messages to each other, Virtue Signalling in India now has got  a new nationalistic Hindu avatar. I am virtuous because I claim on Facebook that I worry about our poor soldiers dying on the borders or freezing their arses in the snow!! 

As organised religion is all but dead in the west, at least among the  white-skinned population, Virtue Signalling there has adopted  multiple new forms. Before the Covid masks, it was psalms to scowling Saint Greta of the Holy Church of Climate Change, the poor hungry polar bears, Asian Tsunami victims, suppressed and depressed women of India, Chinese torture victims and so on and so forth...

I remembered Chinese torture victims because that's what a very prim and proper Danish woman I met in Leh claimed she was doing: "Counselling Tibetan Monks who were victims of Chinese Torture." She spoke about it with such earnest sincerity that anyone listening was forced to nod solemnly in appreciation. Though almost 30 at that time, I was still very gullible in the ways of the world and my BS filters were not yet attuned to such western forms of VS. As I was  a journalist at that time, one who had  not yet discarded his "Free Tibet" grab, a month later I emailed her offering to connect her to some relevant people in the Tibetan Govt in exile at Dharamshala. She expressed her gratitude, but she was already in Bali at that time !! Never knew that Chinese torturers didn't even spare the island!!

 I could have guessed that she was just a poser when she kept extolling West African culture and music, all because her ex-boyfriend was from Mali. Now, interracial porn may not be my forte, but again who on earth gushes about a former partner's homeland's cultural wealth irrespective of whether he or she was black, purple or blue!!

Now, I don't need to pick up an African hooker, the kind who hang around the Pastry Palace on the Outer Ring road in Delhi on weekends For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge to appreciate  Youssou N' Dour!!

BTW, the face masks which the various governments, virtuous Karens and countless COVIDIOTS dictate, threaten  or scream at us to muzzle up with, can also be termed as Chinese torture, or even better China's revenge. After all, didn't this charade start when western powers led by the US used the excuse of a seasonal respiratory illness epidemic in China as a pretext to start hybrid economic warfare against the country?

Forcing a temporary economic embargo causing billions of dollars of losses for the Chinese by quarantining their ships, followed by dumping of share in Chinese companies. An assault bolstered by a 24x7 global  onslaught through media channels with theories of lab created chimeras and  recipes for bat soup thrown in for effect. But the Chinese quickly understood the game and gained the upper hand with an even better orchestrated media and PR campaign, while their domestic investors picked up the dumped shares for a song. 

Soon they were forgotten and every political opportunist around the globe starting using the ScamDemic and the lockdown tyranny to further their own domestic gains. The US elections, Brexit, a constitutional referendum, an excuse for demonising Muslims or to justify 6 years of misrule in India and in the process whether by accident or intent, making true the Rockefeller Foundation's prediction about possible future scenarios. One where countries impose an autocratic tyranny and curtail citizen's rights using the excuse of a pandemic: The Lockstep Protocol. 

So till it (Lockstep) is in place, be good and obedient citizens,  keep breathing in those cancer-causing and lungs blocking microscopic synthetic fibres and filaments from those Chinese made facemasks or material. 

But remember, you are undergoing the Chinese Torture in order to protect others!!

Who says I have anything against masks...

You Imposter!! Shame on You...

About 24 years back, after motorcycling across India for 6 months as a voluntary mechanic with an international group (I will skip over the part covering loud rampant sex or riding dead stoned);  I was unable to sit in an office cubicle again. 

So I took up on my ambition of becoming a journalist except that sans an MA degree in English or a Mass Communication diploma, I wasn't going to land a  gig in any local publication even if I had the writing skills of Harold Robbins. 

So I started freelancing to build up a portfolio, which was writing 2000 words for  250 rupees and trying to cram it with at least 3 photographs as I was paid 100 per image. In a few months, my articles became a regular front-page feature on the supplements of the largest local English daily of the region. 

One of my ardent fans was a  professor of Linguistics or was it Folklore, from Gauhati University who always complimented my pieces whenever he met me. One day he asked me from where I got my Mass Comm degree. 

"Nah, I don't have one" I replied smugly, expecting awe and praise. 

"Not even a Diploma" he exclaimed!! "Then how come they print you?" 

From that moment, I became a blasphemy to his world-view and whenever we bumped into each other he looked the other way and never spoke to me again.

Complementing the learned professor in his ignorance was a distant uncle whose  daughter was as fair-skinned, pretty and  glamorous as he was ugly and condescending. 

"So what are you up to?" He once asked me in a manner which belied that he already knew that it was nothing good. So I told him that I was freelancing and  listed the names of  newspapers and magazines where I was regularly printed.

"Oh, so you still haven't got a job" he snorted. My daughter passed out of Delhi School of Economics (a blatant lie) and she earns about a lakh a month (no clue if it was true and wouldn't care less).

I still face similar situations, especially in technical meetings and hear, "how come you are so immersed in the subject, you are not even an engineer." 

I really want to tell them about young engineers who I shooed out of my room for being ignorant about the basic tenants of engineering or mechanics, or those Yi-Yi-Yi-Ts and Yi-Yi-Yi-YMs graduates I came across peddling fast-food for MNC corporations or even better, as vice-President Logistics of a Pizza franchise.

Only now, a bit more restrained and mature, I just reply…"yeah strange isn't it !" 

Cherchez Le Femme

The Russians love to use the French phrase "Cherchez Le Femme" made popular by Hugo, which implies that most trouble directly or indirectly is caused by women. Their ladies too use it with equal fervour, because beyond the facade of female solidarity they actually all hate each other. 

In my case, these words should  be embossed on the walls, mirrors and my coffee mugs. 

As  most of the women I had met as an adult in my last 28 years, collectively inspire me to write a Punk Rock version of the Rod Stewart classic - "Some Guys have all the Luck." 

Only my punk anthem would start with "Some Dudes get Blow jobs, others get to deal with whack jobs, no prizes for guessing where I belong..."

Misogynism, a case of sour grapes? Trapped by unwanted pregnancy and bamboozled by child support payments? Did ex-wife grab it all? False rape accusations…

Nooo... Sirs!! it's far more insidious!!

I could of course go on for hours ranting about a recurring theme with women in my life : "I rejected you earlier to sleep/hookup/marry someone else, now please feel sorry for me." Some turned up the next morning, others after 10 or even 20 years. 

Not my cupboard nor my skeletons... I was just opening the front door. So why me...??!!

A more benign but no less infuriating episode took place when I first relocated to Delhi. My friends, a couple introduced me to one of their friends, a runty little female with a large pumpkinesque head and beady eyes, but who seemed intelligent, was quite friendly and witty. A few drinks here and there, a walk in a mall, and all of us ended up at her place.

At some point, she called me aside asking my help to replace a light bulb in her bathroom which had burned out. The new one also instantly burned out. She gave me a damsel in distress act (I didn't know that it was her forte at that point), about having to leave for work early, coming back late, the electricians being uncouth chaps, her living alone and so on.

Tipsy and gallant, I offered to help her out if she couldn't find anyone to check the wiring.  

I did call her once after a day asking if she managed to get it fixed only because I promised her to do so; a max 30 secs call in which much to my relief she told me not to worry. 

Next, I knew, my friend's wife was bitching to him how I am harassing (sexually of course) the poor woman under the pretext of helping her out with the light, and they ended up having a big fight, while frankly, I was a bit shell shocked by the allegation. 

Later,  my friend claimed that he exacted revenge on my behalf by uploading a photo of her sitting on someone's lap during a party on Facebook for her husband who lived in another town to see...

As for his wife…well let's just say we stopped being friends...