The Order of the Cockscomb is an irreverent, irreligious, anti-megacult order founded by me - Dr Bruce Long. I received my PhD in philosophy (specialising in the philosophy of information) from the University of Sydney in 2019.
I know, I know - lots of self-declared wise-bodies like to declare that it's bad form and anti-social to attack megacults and so on, but I am pretty sure they're actually just idiots who are just unable to resist existing narrative programming. So onward and upward.
(All of this unfounded reverential reverence for megacults makes me want to call for Huey, to be honest. It's astonishingly boring.)
If you're an atheist with no belief in any kind of imaginary friend (in others words - you're probably sane) and you don't mind mercilessly inferentially ridiculing doctrines, narratives, people, and institutions who demand that you should do what their imaginary friend says: then you're already an honourary novice member of the order, if you want to be.
To become a lifetime member of The Order - buy an Order of the Cockscomb NFT.
You're free to be an unbelieving type person that thinks The Order, or OoC, sucks - but I doubt that you are that uncool. (That's my happy positivity for the day.)
The first order of the day and the first order of business for the order is to ridicule anything and everything to do with megacults, or religions (they're demonstrably the same thing according to both the ordnances of the order, and to common sense and reason) in order to assert they're out of order.
Hey - it's a good and worthwhile hobby. Also – I believe it’s a more than defensible position to hold. If megacults are allowed to invest billions of dollars and even more person-hours, and all of that effort into bullshitting everyone into a state of delusional dissimulation all day long using cockeyed-crazy memetic narratives, then one should be able to expend some fraction of that effort telling them – and their imaginary friends - to sod right off and get cognitive behavioural therapy.
It's only reasonable, really.
You might not like this irreverent disrespect for idiotic memetic narratives about invincible, eternal imaginary psychotic-asshole-friends, and other kinds of nutty spooky stuff, but if so then no one here gives a heated hoot. Well - no one at The Order of the Cockscomb cares. I certainly DGAF - that's for damned sure. That is why I established the Megacult Flaming Brigade, which is dedicated to producing as much ridicule of megacults, and their batshit crazy memetic narratives, as is humanly possible.
Your megacult only deserves disrespect. It is not my fault you’re deeply delusional and confused. Buy some NFTs and begin your recovery. You know that deep down you want to.
The Further Origins, and Other Artist, of The Order of The Cockscomb
I am not quite alone in my efforts in building ‘The Order’ or OoC, but it's - err - complicated.
There are two artists involved. One is the person whom I am in the habit of referring to using the perpendicular pronoun, or yours truly. I am currently completing graduate-postgraduate studies in psychology to add to my existing PhD in philosophy (and background in computer science and mathematics).
The other artist is a Spanish psychologist by the name of Wilson. I think. I mean - I have limited information about them and it might not be reliable. Such is the world of the wide and weird Web.
In fact I have temporarily lost Wilson, but he can probably be found again. Probably. I don't want to say too much about Wilson (If it's even really a him and he's really Spanish. I’ve only met Wilson on line and never seen his/her face or heard their voice! To be honest - fuck knows who Wilson is, as the Generation Y kids like to say.)
You are beginning to see by now, that OoC NFT art collectibles are a worthy investment indeed.
Anywho - If you liked the Unicorn and Frankenstein's monster, Wilson's your - err – guy? The most I can tell you is that, if they're still alive, then he or she is somewhere on earth (I doubt they're an alien, but there's always a possibility depending upon whether you think Neil DeGrasse Tyson is right about the cosmic shooting gallery etc. Go and ask Neil. I am not in the mood.)
There's the astronaut possibility. I guess Wilson could have become a Taikonaut psychologist. It's not a very probable possibility, probably.
Short story long (my favourite kind) if you intend to go full megacult fanatic on him/her like those bonkers loonies did with Salman Rushdie and that French teacher, you're shit out of luck, you rabid nutcase.
I am responsible for some very quasi-professional tweaking of Wilson's original coats of arms, but I have since begun to produce other coats of arms by following the style of the master (in process and yet to be released). The talking godheads, however, are all my own work.
(My High School technical drawing classes served me quite well, as have years of doodling and faking it with graphics for Websites.)
I use mostly GIMP and sometimes Adobe Photoshop - among various scattered tools - to produce the godheads with photographic montages with multiple kinds of morphisms and motifs admixed. The godheads are a somewhat appropriately mad mix-up. I draw a little bit, but not much. Look out for an aesthetic of estranging ethereal luminescence and for the unusual use of light and shadow. There is also a significant amount of postmodern bricolage and pastiche going on.
From the ridiculous to the sublime, but barely divine, dear Watson.
Other Stuff about Me, and about the NFTs, and 'Conclusion'.
I spend much of my time being maligned and defamed (and on more than a few occasions, criminally harassed) by relationally aggressive academics (no really – they actually behave like that) while I write television and movie scripts under a pseudonym, and while I continue to write two books about the philosophy of science and information, and numerous papers in philosophy, the philosophy of science, cognitive science, and the philosophy of psychology. I am published in leading philosophy journals, with more to come soon.
Really however, I think the NFTs are more interesting.
What makes a good NFT? I don't think it can just be good artwork (and let's face it - given the effect of submerged toilets and soup cans on some people, the aesthetic bar is arguably not very high). It has to be the historical, cultural, and social interest and associations of the work. It has to mean, infer, entail, imply, or represent something deeper. It should be connected with significant - or at least quirky and challenging - events or people. Or adventures. Or experiences. Or even tragedy and pain. Or against-the-odds success, which is probably more fun than the pain option.
Put otherwise: just a cartoon of an ape doesn't really do it for me, to be honest. There has to be some kind of depth of cultural capital - involving things like controversy and ideology - behind an NFT.
Some of the OoC godhead collectibles have additional celebrity grist. At one point Roseanne Barr attacked one of my Order of the Cockscomb Twitter posts for being far too disrespectful of dumbass megacult delusions for her taste. She called me an asshole. It was a defining moment in my career and a definite NFT value-add moment (I’ve got screenshots of the darned tweets somewhere, and they're probably still somewhere in Roseanne's Twitter feed, if they haven't fallen off the end of the world.) I don't hold a grudge. She's a super-duper funny lady. However, she has an imaginary friend who is an asshole, so I think that she really likes assholes, to be honest.
In any case, if you invest in Cockscomber NFTs, you're getting some serious value for money in terms of quirky, memorable, infamous personality references. I'm a walking, typing cultural-memetic minefield of value, to be honest. I have even launched a serious bid to run for the upper house of parliament - the senate - in the Australian government. I mean to say - that shit right there is NFT value add. You feel me? One of my policy platforms is to get people with imaginary friends out of parliament and not let them near war powers (the ability to send the Australian Defence Forces to war.)
I mean is that NFT glory-in-potentia, or what?
(Potentia. There's a good possible name for the first female/feminine godhead. I'll have to run a Twitter poll, godheads help me.)
Look at it this way. If you think a bunch of soup cans is enough to make good art, then you won't be disappointed with the godheads of The Order of the Cockscomb and its Megacult Flaming Brigade. Granted - Warhol was eccentric. But dude: I have a PhD in philosophy, am running for parliament on an absurdist ticket, have been actually criminally harassed by actual PhD garlanded academics including professors, have a quasi anonymous lost art-partner, and I have been chewed out on line by Rosanne Barr (who is unlikely to remember the incident at all).
Personally I think that Wilson makes Andy Warhol look like an aesthetic fart (which could - err - backfire, since Warhol might have taken it as a compliment?) I'm definitely more interesting than Warhol at the moment, because he's dead!
(Okay I heard that. Don't be mean. I'm definitely more interesting than a dead guy with a soup can fetish.)
I think that you can see there is likely to be more of the same NFT worthy grist, grift, and gratuitous irreverence from me, and I intend to ensure that it becomes even more stimulating.
I am sure that if you buy my NFTs, there will be even more to come! You definitely should encourage me.
- Dr Bruce Long
