DON’T FEED THE ALGI

Categories: Stream of consciousness about all sorts of shit. (This is not a poem.)

Sometimes it’s all a person can do to just go with the flow, but when – despite the best efforts to remain buoyant – the flow is blocked, we need a purgative. On account of a perpetual problem with the blocked and leaky lavatory in my rented house (lots of rain, plant roots, ‘a mass of matter’ stuck in the bendy bit of the pipe) I have been in a crappy mood. My continuous rants to my friends about it revved up my algorithm and flooded my Instagram feed with scatology. GOOGLE DOES SPY ON US!

Anything scatological is “off-color” or a bit offensive, typically because it refers to excrement. It’s often funny, hence the term ‘toilet humour’. One friend sympathized with my lavvie troubles by telling a story of his own about a buoyant log the size of a KFC Twister he once encountered in the latrine as a houseguest. Revolting, but hilarious. Another friend texted me about her mortifying dilemma with ‘a dead crocodile’ in a toilet in her youth. Every girl I know has had a first sleepover at a new boyfriend’s house and experienced trauma when the loo wouldn’t flush. You have to take your hat off to plumbers. They say that AI will never replace the plumbing profession. Anyway, my algorithm caught the scat because of my blocked bog pipes.

A gobbet about musical scat: Originating in vocal jazz, scat singing or scatting is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all.  In scat singing, the singer improvises melodies and rhythms using the voice solely as an instrument rather than a speaking medium. This is different from vocalese, which uses recognizable lyrics that are sung to pre-existing instrumental solos. Scat is a doublet with shit, and both come from a root that means “to cut” — (think “turd cutter” or “pinching a log”). But like a lot of doublets, the usage and connotation between the two word forms varies considerably. In this case scat came to be seen as much less vulgar. [See my footnotes, I don’t want to digress.] Because it’s mimicking the non-linear way our brains work, stream-of-consciousness narration in music or writing includes a lot of free association, looping repetitions, sensory observations, and strange (or even nonexistent) punctuation and syntax—all of which helps us to better understand a character’s psychological state and worldview. [1]

Don’t feed the Algi.  DO NOT FEED THE ALGORITHM! Before long, my complaints about the unsinkable KFC Twister in my pipe lead to unsolicited information on my laptop and phone screens. It came in droves of scat; the most expensive coffee in the world is made of cat shit, and next a story in my Instagram feed about a new sex fetish involving letting poop ferment in pottery jars and then sniffing the fumes to obtain a psychedelic rush similar to amyl nitrate and then doing the seggsy bizniz. Good Lord! There are some gorgeous jars though, some had gold glazes and everything – so probably an expensive hobby. Anyway. My algorithm was going berserk and started spewing all sorts of stuff about plumbers and KFC, and I suddenly remembered that one time back in my old life, twenty years ago when you still read newspapers and got movies from the video store…

…..I read in a newspaper report that the majority of teenagers watch pornographic footage, either on DVD, their cell phones or on the internet. This completely mystifies me; I don’t quite see the point of watching other people have a go at seggzy bizniz. In the interests of being in the swing (as it were) with modern trends, I went along to the local video rental place and asked the fellow at the counter for one of these naughty flicks, which he fetched from the back room.  Even the cover made me blush! With a nice cup of tea and some ginger snaps, I settled down in my lounge to watch the show, but had to stop quite early into the footage to put the dogs out, as the on-screen noises were making them howl and growl. Back then to the lounge and the story, which commences with a girl (implausible breasts and French, it later emerges) surveying a flooded kitchen and moving to a telephone on the wall, where she makes a call. (No dialogue, elevator music). Immediately, her doorbell rings and she opens the door to admit The Plumber. (Looks like Jason Mamoa, but blonde). The Plumber fiddles under the sink for a while and – before he can open his toolbox and haul out his plunger – the girl is naked on the floor and so is The Plumber and off they go! This is all very alarming as they have not even formally introduced themselves, and it soon becomes apparent that there is a language barrier and that the girl is very thirsty (or perhaps concerned about all the water on the floor).  She keeps crying out “Eau! Eau! Eau!” and the daft man just keeps answering “Yes! Yes! Yes!” OBSERVATION: The continuity girl on the crew should be fired: at one point the camera goes to a close up of the plumber chap eating what appears to be a pomegranate, the camera pans back to their rutting bottoms and the viewer clearly sees that the cast and crew have left their lunch leftovers on top of the washing machine and it’s just KFC boxes and chicken bones and stuff all over the place. Anyway. The camera now moves to a lady (next door neighbor, alerted by the noise?) peering in at the window. This lady rushes into the kitchen to help, tearing off her clothes (it’s a flood for heaven’s sake, not a fire?!) and leaps onto the writhing pair, also shouting “Eau! Eau! Eau!” The maid came into my lounge and I had to switch off, so I don’t know if they get married in the end, I will watch it after lunch…

I never finished watching that movie, now that I think of it, but fancy me once having had a life with a maid and time to watch rude films in the daytime. Anyway, the plumber arrived in present-day Bathurst, and I blushed a bit on account of having just been thinking about the episode with the rude movie all those years ago. Our bloke doesn’t look anything like the plumber from that video, he looks like a friendly accountant in casual resort wear. He got straight to work on my pipe and was quite polite about not mentioning the KFC Twister floating there like a swimming pool ornament.

Caustic soda and effluent bubbles happened, loud and stinky. I told the plumber it looked like pain au chocolat, and I told him about those biscuit jars and poppers on Instagram. He said knew about it already, he said there’s even worse muck out there. We agreed it was a nasty thing to contemplate. I asked him if he gets sick and tired of shit, and he said no it’s a good life and he can’t believe he was once young and foolish and wanted to be a writer, and he is so glad he chose a successful career instead.

All I can think of right now is a KFC Twister. What the hell??? I am soooo hungry right now! See what happens?

Don’t feed the Algi!

Pic Credits:

https://www.change.org/p/kfc-bring-back-the-kfc-twister-6900a42c-aee6-4a6a-9049-005ea86ff4fc

https://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoon?searchID=CS157856

[1] https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-stream-consciousness#:~:text=Because%20it’s%20mimicking%20the%20non,character’s%20psychological%20state%20and%20worldview.

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