Category Archives: Lucubrations

Dealing with rather a lot today, dearest reader.  Changing plans and altering timelines…good stuff, but a bit intense, and leaving me rather bereft of clever thought for you this evening.  Yesterday was good…must have been a recent record for word counts.  I was still going when I was falling asleep.  During the last half hour or so of consciousness, I was typing on my phone.  I’d start to type a sentence, fall asleep halfway through, wake up, re-read the first half I’d written, write the last half, then go back to sleep.  Then wake up, read that completed sentence, start another one, and fell asleep.  It was actually kind of cool.  I felt pretty good about being exhausted this morning.

N.P.: “Like a Virgin” – Motley Crue

So the President has been totally cleared of any collusion with Russia.  Several friends have pointed out with interest/disgust that much of the public and most of the media are not reacting to this good news as one might expect one to react, but rather, they are reacting with anger.  One might question the priorities at work here.  But I’m not going to discuss that.
Far and away, my biggest issue with all of this has nothing to do with the President, or Russia, or even the election.  My problem is with the American public.  Not you, of course, dear reader, if you happen to be a citizen of the U.S., I k ow your critical thinking skills are fine (you’re here reading this, aren’t you) but the rest of these  bastards…holy shit.  Okay, let me back up…this has been eating at me for years, so let’s catch you up.
In the aftermath of what for some of us was a very predictable election, a significant chunk of the electorate seemed to find themselves in shock.  It was a shock so profound as to demand things like denial and a sort of paranoia as coping mechanisms.  When allegations of direct interference by foreign powers in the elections began being bandied about, I assumed it was indeed “direct” interference…I was thinking that some Russian or Chinese hacker had accessed the electoral computers and altered the numbers, like added a “1” to the front, changing whichever candidates, 6 million votes to 16 million.  THAT would have been not only direct interference, but the sort of egregious direct interference that would have legitimately triggered alarm bells immediately after the election.
But that’s not what happened.  Not even close.  In the weeks the followed, it became clear that the nefarious and insidious “direct” interference was the suspicion that a non- American entity had created numerous fake ads and “news stories” on Facebook.   That’s it.  I was flabbergasted.  It’s been two years and I still don’t know where to start.  so in no particular order:
  • If you get your news or form your political opinions or really base anything at all on what you see in Facebook, you will absolutely get what you deserve.  Surely you must know that 100% of Facebook exists to sell advertising in one form or another.  By voluntarily filling in all the blanks it offers you about who you are, you are providing Facebook and it’s advertisers unbelievably precise and detailed information about who you are, your political and religious  beliefs, and your spending habits.  This information is invaluable to Facebook as it can now sell surgically targeted demographics lists. Knowing that, one should not be at all surprised when it seems like the advertisements you get on Facebook feel almost like they know you.  There is no almost about it…they do know you.  You’ve spent years telling them exactly who, where, what, and why you are.
  • Advertisements have always, always, always, on television and in print, long before the World Wide Web was conceived, been designed solely to manipulate people and their behavior and are therefore not to be trusted.  It does not matter who is paying for the advertising. Take any of the “legitimate,” American-based non-political ads that you see everyday: you you really think that Pepsi, Dodge, or AT&T have your best interests in mind?  Nope.  Your well being could not matter less to them: they are trying to get you to do or buy something.  Charities, no different: Sarah McLachlan with her late-night parade of abused and shivering dogs does not care about you.  They may not care about those dogs.  The purpose of that commercial is, like the ones from GMC or Hershey’s, to get you to send money.  The NFL, MLB, and NBA…all commercials.   You think you’re watching a game that somehow matters in the real world (it does not), but you are really voluntarily exposing yourself to several thousand  branded messages per hour.  All reality shows: commercials.  Glorified infomercials.   Some are more blatant than others, but still, all of them.  But anything you see on the website is going to be far more dangerous than anything on TV because it is so specifically targeted to you.
  • Due to the ad-funded nature of the web, the line between journalism/news and advertising get so perversely blurred 20 years ago, all news sites and stories need to viewed as gloried ad campaigns trying to yes, get your money but also often trying to get your vote through any means necessary.
  • Political ad campaigns are always abhorrent and it has long been common knowledge that candidates  and private organizations associated with those candidates run smear campaigns designed to play on the emotional s or feelings of voters rather than deal with objective facts. Why would we suddenly be upset if the party paying for the smear campaign is Russian? A critical thinker will discount all advertising and conduct their own research.
I could rail against this shit all night, but I don’t have all night. So I’ll cut to the business: you have a responsibility to yourself, your loved ones, and your bank account to develop rigorous and ruthless critical thinking skills.
If I had been super by such a clear and pimp attempt at manipulation, I wouldn’t go around telling anybody about it.  But apparently several million of my fellow Americans were so duped and their reaction was to be aggrieved and blame Russia and the President and anybody else who’s stand still long enough to get a target painted on them.
N.P.: “I’m Not Afraid” – Emigrate, Cardinal Copia

I got to go to a reading of my good friend Mark Steensland’s play “The Deception of Kathryn Vance” today.  Amazing.

I’ve known Mark since God was a boy, and he and his writing have been influential and inspirational to me.  We tend to do very different things, which may be why he is the only other writer I can hang out with.  His style (to me) a brilliant blend of Rod Serling and Clive Barker.  Mark’s got some plays making the rounds, some novels and collections on the shelves…I honestly can’t keep up with his published output, especially the last few years.  IF you able to pick up any of his stuff, you’ll be doing yourself a favor if you do.

N.P.: “Burning Up” – Ladytron

So I was working on something to post here, but it’s not done yet and I don’t want to be premature, particularly with a subject such as this.  So I’m just saying hello tonight.
Hello tonight.
N.P.: “Thieves” – Ministry

I identify as a gay black woman who was born into the body of a straight white man who lives a lie for about 30 years and then begins to transition to his… sorry…her true best authentic self and through a series of surgeries and hormone therapies actually became a gay black woman but then about 10 years later almost spontaneously and suspiciously coincidentally was stricken with late onset vitiligo and spontaneous penis regrowth and an awfully painful sounding breast implant explosion and then decided aw to hell with it and surrendered to the overwhelming power of a cruel universe and set the intention to just live his life in quiet resignation as a heterosexual white male in a heterosexual white male body.
My preferred pronoun remains He.  With a capital fucking H.
N.P.: “On Earth” – Samael

This is what I don’t understand: I was brought up/educated that sexual preference is not a choice, but that it is determined from birth and that it was immutable.  Given that, it is wildly inappropriate and unfair to condemn or criticize a person for their sexual preference.   Given that, things that attempt to “correct” or I’ve even heard the term “deprogram” someone’s sexual preference to better fit with a society’s or a religion’s values is not only wrong-headed but incredibly cruel.  That’s a big part of why I’ve always gotten along swimmingly with all my gay friends, roommates, et cetera.  Fine.
But now I’m being told that gender itself is not a constant, and that one can simply say they identify as whatever they want, so that if a man who has lived his entire life as a heterosexual man decides at age 53 that he identifies as a woman, and a lesbian at that, then he is legally a woman, and is entitled to the feminine pronoun and use of the women’s restroom.  Which, okay, but this creates such alarming logical incongruities as to be problematic to the point of impossibility.  In the interest of brevity (and me maybe getting more than 2 hours of sleep for a change), I will simply list the top two and leave it there for tonight.  Here goes:
  1. i don’t think one can have it both ways: if gender is not a constant, and is not determined by genitals or chromosomes or irrefutable science, then how can sexual preference (which is literally preference and not at all provable, dictated, or detectable by chromosomes or science) not be equally as malleable?
  2. If gender is dictated solely by one’s own choice or how one “identifies,” does that not render all of the struggles for women’s rights, as well as gay and lesbian rights pointless and moot?  For example, why bother with marches and protests and petitions for women to have the same exact rights, freedoms, and opportunities as men if the aggrieved women can simply declare themselves men?  If one half of a lesbian couple suddenly identifies as a man, and the formerly gay couple thus begin living as a straight couple, then what has been the point of the last 60+ years of struggling for LGBT rights?  And is not that grouping itself now problematic, I.e., should the T agenda be grouped with the LGB agenda, or are they not completely existentially different and thus incompatible if the T is variable but the LGB is fixed?
N.P.:”Pretty When You Cry” – VAST

I’ve been seeing a lot of headlines to articles (in admittedly less-than-reputable sources by underqualified “writers.” but still, I’m seeing them) that are talking about introverts “choosing” to be more extroverted.  All of these articles are written by extroverts, although some of them don;t seem to know this,  But no actual introvert is choosing to be so.  It’s certainly not something they can just turn off.

I’ll write significantly more about this in the future, but just now there is drinking to do.

N.P.: “Lightning Strike” – Judas Priest.

In a bit of a mood today (which I suppose is true of most days).  I’m exhausted.  And I was on a bit of a roll there, writing-wise, for a bit.  Going to see if I can pick it up again a bit before I have to collapse.

N.P.: “Run Like Hell” – Pink Floyd

Blah  Meh.  Not sure what to think of today.  Nothing was wrong with it, per se, but nothing was incredibly right, either.  It wasn’t weird enough to be interesting.  Wrote a bit, but not enough.  I mean, never enough, but today wasn’t even close.  And it’s fucking hot.

N.P.: “Cirice” – Ghost

So last summer, July 2018, Disney fired director James Gunn in what has regrettably become a normal, standard politically correct knee-jerk hyperoverreaction because he tweeted some jokes 10 years ago that suddenly someone didn’t like.

Upon his firing, Mr. Gunn issued an apology for the “offensive” tweets, which is not something I would have done.  Then upon being rehired, Mr. Gunn issued a completely pleasant statement humbly thanking his supporters for their support (of which there were many, including yrs. truly), but then expressed deep appreciation and excitement about continuing to make movies for Disney.

I would not have been so forgiving.  Not even close.  Of course, that JG has an extraordinarily successful Hollywood career and thus has to Play the Game.  Which is fine.  That JG is not nearly as vengeful and spiteful as this JG, however,  I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to work with an asshole corporation who fired me without cause a few months ago,  Are we just going to pretend that never happened?  I couldn’t do it.  But that’s just me   Good for Mr. Gunn.

This was, unfortunately, just one of dozens of similar episodes that we’ve had to watch in recent years, where because somebody said something 10, 20, 30 years ago, without incident, they find themselves suddenly unemployed, blacklisted, and virtually surrounded by a mob of pitchfork and torch wielding villagers engaging in feigned outrage manufactured by some entity with an agenda.  This is, across the board, wrong.  And it is despicable.  Evidently Mr. Gunn had been a very vocal detractor of President Trump, and popular suspicions point to the sudden reemergence of these old tweets as politically motivated and implemented.  And there have been numerous similarly contrived outrage orgies demanding if not blood than at least the total ruination of a career.  Any and all sides/parties/people who participate in this nonsense are wrong and malicious.

I don’t understand “being offended.”  I don’t know what that is…is it an emotion?  Does it mean your feelings got hurt?  Doesn’t matter.  I do know that offending someone is not a crime.  Not even close.  So quit treating it like it is.  And if you want to consider it a crime, it’s going to need a reasonable statute of limitations, so shit from 10 years ago would be inadmissible anyway.

This shit makes my head hurt.

Look, here’s the deal: because someone chooses to be offended by something in no way obligates anyone to do anything.  To ask the world to change so it does’t bump up against someone’s fragile feelings is absurd and should be embarrassing.  Sack up, shut up, and do something that matters.

#FuckTheMouse

N.P.: “Mr. Brownstone” – Guns N’ Roses