I had an uncle who used to scratch his nether parts rather frequently. While most people agree that alleviation of this sort should be done in private, he’d go at his crotch without mercy while standing in the dining room. He knew he was doing it. “I worked my balls off today” he’d declare as if clawing his nuts and capitalism were connected.
Of course he was correct about this but not in the way he thought. The man simply had jock itch and loathed his job. “I worked my balls off” was code for “I’m about to drink my face off and you best take cover.” “I worked my balls off!” Vodka. And guzzling. After many snorts he’d go out to the barn and toss heavy metal objects around while howling.
I have no desire to moralize. He was unhappy. He drank. He was unintentionally funny. Then scary. Even as a boy I liked the man.
Mark Fisher writes: “Capital is an abstract parasite, an insatiable vampire and zombie maker; but the living flesh it converts into dead labor is ours, and the zombies it makes are us.” (Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?)
Uncle M was resisting zombie-hood. He’d scratch his nuts like a bonobo.
Karl Marx wrote: “Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.”
I don’t know how this relates to my uncle.
Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University
