MADER'S RANTS The Rock April 16, 2004 - No, not Dwayne. Ya see, this weekend I was reading about the moments and inventions that have changed the history of Man. I was reading about the wheel, fire, penicillin and two-for-one lap dances when it occurred to me that everyone misses a very simple but truly profound event. Come with me my friends as we watch entropy spread his wings. I give you, drum roll please, the first throwing of a rock. Ohhhhhh ahhhhh. You ain’t buying it, are you? Let me explain. You see that one event, the simple picking up and moving of an inanimate object from point A to point B by use of an outside force is perhaps the first step in how we as humans came to affect our environment. It was the first glimmer of abstract thinking. It also is a metaphor for virtually everything that happens in the universe. “Oh poop,” you say? No really. Think about the gun. It is, in simple terms, nothing but a more efficient rock thrower. The bow and arrow are the same thing. More aerodynamic, but still a rock. A missile or the shuttle are basically objects thrown so hard that they don’t fall back to earth. Throw ‘em a little harder and they leave orbit and go to other planets. Well what about biology, huh? What about bodily functions? Pooping, peeing, spitting and ejaculating, all organic rock throwing. Movement of matter from point A to point B with some help from voluntary (and sometimes involuntary) muscle movements. Like the projectile vomit ya get when you have had to much to drink. Funny how the amount of back pressure you can produce is directly proportional to the volume of liquor you have imbibed. Like my days waaaayyyy back in college - after a party, a whole bottle of Vodka, a bottle of Scotch, six pitchers of beer and... errrrrrrr... perhaps I will explain that some other time. My folks read these from time to time... Point being, matter is expelled with force from the inside to the outside to the pavement or your best friends couch. But a car isn’t a rock, and it moves. Au contrer, mon amie. A vehicle like a car actually, at its heart, can’t move without throwing rocks. A combustion engine uses gas which is pumped from the tank to the cylinders and then ignited using a spark plug. It explodes. A very complex reaction which in simple terms cause the molecules (really small rocks of matter) to get agitated, break down and bounce (or thrown) all over the place really, really quickly. They ricochet off the walls of the cylinder super fast, creating heat and pressure that forces the piston of the engine to move down, thus turning the crank shaft. Viola! Your car moves. You wanna have real fun? You can apply this to theoretical physics. Warp theory is basically putting beer goggles on the laws of motion and fooling the poor sucker into thinking a three hundred pound fat chick with a hair lip is a one hundred twenty pound hotty. Ohhh, sure she’s a bit hippy, but she moves like a super model on crack. The analogy applies to human interaction. “Sales” is often called “pitching.” See, we even suggest the idea of throwing in the very word itself. You have an idea. You, of course talk, which means you force air out of your lungs and move molecules (those pesky little buggers are at it again), and create sound waves. Throwing from your mouth to their ears. That’s the mechanics. But on an esoteric level you have an idea in your head, and you upchuck it. It leaves the dark corners of your brain and is shared with the masses. When you sell, you might throw an idea out and see if it sticks. You might lob one over the plate and see if it’s a hit. So you see, that simple action, done by a long dead and distant ancestor, was more important than anything else we have done since. From that moment on, man’s understanding of his place in the cosmos and how he measures it was forever changed. You can send my invitation for the “Ignoble Awards” in care of:       7M Pictures       9461 Charlesville Blvd. #260       Beverly Hills, CA 90212 On a completely unrelated note: I saw ‘Kill Bill: Vol 2” this week, and let me just say that Ethan Hawk is a total all-encompassing idiot. Uma, If ya wanna hang sometime, or ya just have a hankering for a Keebler Elf, drop me a note. You’ve had good looking and pretentious. How about giving cute and grateful a try? ;-) Later, Mader