That song is best heard in an enclosed space with good bass capabilities and the volume turned up enough that the sermon comes through nice and clear. When the chanting starts up with the drums it’s encompassing. You get your ridiculous and your creepy all at once. Amen.

This. Is. Necessary.
This. Is. Necessary.
Life
feeds on life
feeds on life
feeds on life
feeds on
This. Is. Necessary.

What can I say? Morbid, but true.

It was a blindingly bright post-New Year’s day. The sea was bitingly chill through the neoprene of the wetsuit and every motion and sense amplified by the brisk wind that raised the chop and forced salt-tang down the snorkel.

The blue below shaded to cobalt and striated black, splintered with crystal flashes of anchovy, vision strained to the limit to catch the subtle shadow of prey’s movement. Nothing. The numbing and frustration growing with every kick of a fin. Scanning, scanning, neck ever moving like an aviator searching for the glint of a lower target or death from behind and above. Shark line trailing to float and bamboo skewer, empty. Forearm aching from holding the tension of spear-rubber, ready cocked to avoid frighting the next victim. Chill, cramps, frustration, all heightened by hunting awareness.

A rock on the bottom moves. Twenty meters below, it stretches an arm and then another and pulls itself along. Three breaths, diaphragm tightens and then the stoop; jackknife, fins break surface and spear point leads the way a full body length ahead. Slow, steady kick, murder from above comes to below.

Too big a rock to scoop by hand, no gaff to hook means use the point. A shot! Steel leaps through the neck and the octopus convulses, winding around its tormentor, the point already broken on coral beneath. Ink explodes.

Smooth unfolding, turn to the light, to the hammered mirror high above, kick and let spear-grasp slip to the butt. Stop. Pull, firm resistance and look back; he’s seized the bottom.
Both hands now, plunging the shaft, barbs wide open, he’s gripping tight and even yet flailing to run. Stuck. One breath.

Air. Light. Above. Leave the steel, kick up. Steady finning, thin stream of bubbles trailing, up, up. Air. Stop. Stopped. Tied a body length under the shattered mirror above. Look down; shark line around waist clothes-lined tight straight down, float and skewer hopelessly twisted in the rubber of the spear, steel set firmly in would-be prey, octopus holding fast to rock and coral. One breath. Vain tugging, nothing to set against, cord uncuttable, knife gone somehow, fingers too frozen to untie knots. A reverse puppet on a single string jerking from the grip below.

One breath. Spin, stoop and kick! Back down, all the way! Grab the spear and twist, jerk for all life is worth, nothing! Turn again up, one breath. Again to the limit, up tight, life a few kicks away, the cord now death come at last, a string taut,unrelenting. One Breath… The edges of vision ringing darker, a noise of bees rising. A vision, a vision of a bloated corpse, eye-sockets fish nibbled, bulging distended from tatters of rubber, hovering at the end of rope like some forgotten bit of fisherman’s gear lost over the side and drifting forever. The cinema of the life lived so far and what would be lost, those who would forever look over the sea and wonder…. one breath…. calmness… now truly in a dream, turn and stoop and kick…. the intended bunching below to repel yet another assault. Both feet set firmly on the bottom, now gone to sand as the flight took it, tight grasp once more and TWIST! Steel snaps at the point’s neck. Kick,kick kick one breath….. very quiet now, and the ringing has almost gone. Burst through! Hacking, sputtering,snot spewing bursting forth! A shuddering inhale of half air/half brine, more puking, gobbering …
Kick to shore, carried by the surf as much as by muscle, the grovelling crawl on the hands and knees over the sharp barnacles, shark line dragging clattering steel behind..

which is why you LEAVE THE FUCKING OCTOPUS ALONE!

Humbolt squid eat each other–not to mention human divers–so calamari is still on my list. It’s only fair.

HUMAN DIVERS EAT EACH OTHER!??!? Damn.

My 7 yr old’s favourite show by far andhe has not even got a doughnut shaped brain.

In a heartbeat. What seasonings are available, and is there something I can improvise into a marinade? I imagine adult human’s kinda stringy.

Then I guess it’s okay for you to eat them.

Figure out that one and Zen will be a cakewalk.

Anyway I’m just being a PITA (not be confused with PETA). I’ve always loved cephalopods, and always thought they were obviously intelligent, and that they are above all delicious and nutritious as can be. Ask a shark or a whale: nummers!

-Looks furtively. Whispers.-
As part of a “Fear Factor” for my church when I was much younger, I ate three palm-sized raw octopus. They were briny. I knew that cephalopods were somewhat intelligent, but winner got money donated to their charity of choice / etc / competitive spirit overwhelmed me and they were already dead, so I ate them.

A week later I saw a documentary on cephalopod. Now I can’t even eat calamari.

First of all, that’s the quote of the year. Secondly, understanding evolution is fundamental to the understanding of all bio-sciences.

Broccoli might be more intelligent than most people I meet, but it is still food. And why is intelligence a valid yardstick for predation? Surely plants would judge value by chorophyl efficiency, not intelligence?

Vegetarianism seem like anti-plant bigotry to me.

BLASPHEMY!!!

Burn all scientists.

Am I alone?

Thanks for introducing me to that song! Great :)

Perfect!

Andrea- EEEE! Lemme buy you a drink! I hardly expected to find a fellow Tool fan here… Disgustipated is just one of the songs in which I find myself absorbed, lost. A Perfect Circle, his other project, has a few songs like that, but not nearly so many.

And I cower in shame for having missed the most important part. In all honesty, I was too lazy to write the lyrics myself and grabbed them from a site.

Arkizzle- You are most welcome.

Takuan- That’s amazing. Is it yours, or yet another example of your incredible ability with bringing in relevant material?

Glad you liked it! Sometimes it’s difficult to convince people to give a fair chance to a song called “Disgustipated”. I can’t imagine why.

Because of the disease vector. Really, pigs are almost too close, and monkeys are right out.

Keep in mind, that in an indirect way we all probably eat humans. Once your body feeds the earth, your molecules will cycle back to feed her creatures… which is why embalming and other resource-sequestering burial rites upset me. I want very much to be eaten after my death. First by an oak tree, then as acorns to pigs, and finally to feed a child who will grow to be happy and wise.

I’m trying to avoid breaking into song again….

Second round’s on me, then, because I couldn’t agree more. I like A Perfect Circle well enough, but comparisons are inevitable and they’re just not Tool. Still good to hear Maynard sing, though.

That is amazing that squids have the capacity to do such things as build walls, play with objects and what not.

Science continues to amaze.

Is there some law that says they have to acknowledge evolution in every news release even if it has nothing to do with the story?

Why, yes. In fact, today’s NYT headline reads: “House Republicans tepid toward bailout; Evolution a fact”

I wonder what Jennifer Mather’s opinion is of caddisfly larvae who build a sheath out of stones? Are they as intelligent as an octopus?

Listen up, brothers and sisters
Come hear my desperate tale
I speak of our friends of nature
Locked in the earth like a jail

Vegetables live in oppression
Served on our tables each night
This killing of veggies is madness;
I say we take up the fight!

Salads are only for murderers
Cole slaw’s a fascist regime
Don’t think that they don’t have feelings
Just ’cause a radish can’t scream

(chorus)
I’ve heard the screams of the vegetables
(scream scream scream)
Watching their skins being peeled
(having their insides revealed)
Breaded and steamed without mercy
(burning off calories)
How do you think that feels?
(bet it hurts really bad!)
Carrot juice constitutes murder
(and that’s a real crime)
Greenhouses prisons for slaves
(let my vegetables go!)
It’s time to stop all this gardening
(it’s dirty as hell)
Let’s call a spade a spade
(is a spade, it’s a spade, it’s a spade)

I saw a man eating celery
So I beat him black and blue
If he ever touches a sprout again
I’ll bite him clean in two

I’m a political prisoner
Trapped in this windowless cage
Cause I stopped a slaughter of turnips
By killing five men in a rage

I told the judge when he sentenced me
“This is my finest hour
I’d kill those farmers again
Just to save one more cauliflower”

(repeat 1st chorus)

(irregular)
How low as people do we dare to stoop
Making young broccolis bleed in the soup
Untie your beans
uncage your tomatoes
Set potted plants free
don’t mash that potato-o-o-o-o-o-o!

I’ve heard the screams of the vegetables
(scream scream scream)
Watching their skins being peeled
(fates in the stir fry are sealed)
Breaded and steamed without mercy
(you fat gourmet scum)
How do you think that feels?
(leave them out in the fields)
Carrot juice constitutes murder
(V8′s genocide)
Greenhouses prisons for slaves
(yes your compost’s a grave)
It’s time to stop all this gardening
(take up macrame)
Let’s call a spade a spade
(is a spade it’s a spade it’s a spade)

Live version at http://www.google.com/search?q=arrogant+worms

shout-outs to Huff and the crew of the Rabid Badger

And some people still eat meat. Amazing.

Hey, all the meat on the planet is gonna get eaten by something sooner or later. It might as well be me!

Octopi are all kinds of awesome, but they eat each other all the time. I’m not gonna show more empathy to an octopus than another octopus will.