The useless list

Bandana's are cool

Dear Yuval,

I am being accused of uselessness. Just like that. With a few general strokes I am painted over. Now I love me a bit of bodypainting now and then —both ways— but here I draw the line. When being accused and convicted without trial, put on the list of the to be deported something stirs in me.

What list? The list of names, groups, ways, activities, materials, types, species, businesses...I could keep going but let's stop for now. These are the lists of useless that gave been made again and again, but seem to now have reached a level of stupidity that is unfathomable to my feeble understanding.

Because I am an expert in these matters. I have made plenty of useless lists.

The 80-20 rule is being applied, twice. All good, I think they are not far off. A big fat fuckingly impossible ninety-six of every hundred is sort of useless. Like the sex position. 96. Pretty useless. In every hundred, there are ninety-six useless wives, toes, tomatoes, guitars, days, years, skirts, clients, writers, books, films, musicians, humans. And if you are by chance in more than one category you are soon to be fuckled in more than one h.....

But let's not go there. Let's focus on the useful, shall we? I hate negative energies anyway, I always kick'em out, first sign.

Useful, let's see. The four percent. That's better. Less noise, more space. Nicely decluttered. Glad we're doing this. Now real progress is made. Improving the mix by a long way, upping the average to a new level. Isn't it nice to be among ourselves. Like-mindedness obliterates the friction. Reduce to four percent. Down to four. That's the credo.

Down to four.

We have asked Paul McCartney to be the role model. It wasn't easy. Even for him. But he's down to four. That's twenty-seven songs. The rest is deleted, gone. A good start. And he promised to never again first write ninty-six useless songs before he gets to the good ones. Such a waste of of talent.

What else? It speaks for itself doesn't it? It's not complicated. Only slightly bitter. You know good medicine and all. Talking about health. We will only keep the good and healthy. Fight disease.

No more viruses, aging, oldness, bacteria, decay and stuff like that. Dustfree lives. Without shit. Clean. No more hairs in the drain, no more flies, musquitos, ants, or anything that bites, or stings, or crawls. Or looks ugly. Revulsion is so useless. And librarians, Belgian shepherds, rain-puddles, hairy armpits, invalids, French, Diesel-engines, grandparents over ninety, aunts over forty, weeds, cows, conifer trees, screenwriters, electronics older than.... all useless. All on the bench of the go-row.

How will we handle cows for instance. They are in seventeen categories with the verdict, go. Of all the animals that we can do without, cow is a definite go. But in the category funny, speckled, they are a keep. Then again speckled itself is in the go pile. So, I am confused. And this is just one example on a long list. How can a cow be both useful and useless at the same time?

Down to four. We were going for clarity. Pure and straightforward. And now this.

• Fathers; keep.

• Cis male; go

• Fish; go

• Tuna sandwich: keep

• Runny nose; go

• Runny sex; keep

• Smell: go

• Pheromones; keep

(God, this is useless. I do promise a top four percent post next time. In roughly nine-five weeks....)

No, but serious. There really is a class of people making lists of the useless. Defining each with neat little lines. And they also have the much shorter guest list of who can come and stay at 'their' place.

Have they lost ninety-six percent of their braincells?

Because it is widely known, there are two basic rules concerning list-making.

1. A list is basically useless a soon as you finish it.

2. Every list has the four percent rule.

For the above 69 symbol shortlist this means its usefulness comes down to a bit less than three letters. Not very useful.

You simply can't have the four percent without the ninety-six doing the cleaning and the cooking! If anything, list-makers are the most useless of all.

Bandana’s are cool…