- Published on
Today I got a note taped to my door. It said simply, "No one will love you like Jesus".
And... of all of our friends, and strange neighbors -- I couldn't place who the sender may have been. I pocketed the mystery, and told my wife later that evening that I thought I should begin to refer to myself in the third person like the great detective Hercule Poirot, who often describes overlooked facts at the Scene of the Crime with phrases like, "Poirot could plainly see that our killer would miss the detail of the letter in a dwindling fire". Naturally my wife thought I was nuts, and begrudgingly but indulgently asked me hyperbolically, "(and),...Why will you be referring to yourself in the Third Person forthgoing?" So, I explained that, "With all the lunacy of pronouns these days, taking back sovereign command of language was tasked to every story teller, and that It may also make me seem more interesting. (I also was thinking about the mystery of the "Jesus Note" And wondered if perhaps thinking like one of literature's best detectives, couldn't hurt to uncover the sender). So from now on, I could use my own name instead of saying "I would like to order the Walleye", I would say, "Monsieur will have the Walleye"... Perhaps this snazzy literary convention would command authority, sharpen my language skills, and even help to expose the mystery of the Person who'd taped the note to my door.
What is the Messiah's Favorite sport?
In spite to the smoldering intellectual fire I've surely become -- From today forward I will identify as a compelling (smart) Belgian Detective, and solve these mysteries.
There was of course the possibility that Jesus him<them>self placed that note -- But to what end? Was I to find this phrase inspirational? I mean if Jesus wanted to reach out, could they not have texted, rang the bell, or just shown themself in?
I thought about the mystery phrase "No One will love you like Jesus", its holy type font, plain paper, and even their choice of cellophane tape -- And I thought this was all standard issue Jesus-grade office supplies. (modest, efficient, effective). Whereas in my heart, I thought the better of this note having been the hand of God -- I knew that deep fakes were everywhere, and that the Lord being quite clever, needn't troll "Truth Social" with A.I. generated deep fake clips to reach me. Jesus does after all identify as the Messiah right?
As a kid I thought it odd each time someone at Church would mention "The Mystery of Life". I recall contemplating this strange "mystery" phrase repeated throughout a service as antithetical. What was "the mystery", when will it be solved. We all seemed quite textural, and tangible. Does this "mystery" make the Pastor, Priest, or Rabbi, a detective?
If everyone sees Life as a mystery, then aren't we all detectives like Scooby and Shaggy, or Fred and Daphne? What about Velma?
What of the Mystery Machine? Was this slick Custom Van, the vessel of the big mystery of life? A Tardis? I coveted a carpeted custom van when I was a kid, but we drove a rusty station wagon. Today I still covet a Chrysler Pacifica, but cant afford one.
Today I thought that while it may be true that Jesus could 'love me the best'..., I'm sure he says that to everyone, by way of encouragement -- but it's a nice thought.
Jesus. #TheRealMessiah, has a shit-ton of Instagram followers.
So the very next day, I'd considered what Agatha Christie's great detective Poirot would say on the matter, "The Little Grey Cells" ...and I began to think like I was a smart detective, while keeping a Shaggy self-image affixed in my head.
"No one will love you like Jesus" ...At least those girls in college would leave me alone the next morning.
As far as great minds go, I knew that mine had already fizzled, and could use a resurrection. But this is why I soon drifted off topic to thinking about God, The Lord's favorite food, (should he be dropping by again), The Messiah's favorite book, beverage, game -- And even contemplated Jesus' favorite sport -- which segued me to an obvious, serene, and even sleepy sport one could command atop fluffy cloudscapes, and I arrived at Golf.
I thought that If Jesus were hanging around just before the holiday, wouldn't he be out Golfing, rather than dropping hints at my door?
"The Messiah Prefers to golf".
And what about this sport, Golf? Would it be one of his proudest accomplishments, or recanted as a wasteful backdrop for non-church weddings, sipping bourbon, smoking cigars, and generally running out the clock on humanity at large?
Popular as it may be, Golf is a rather elitist sport, meant to burn up time away from family, and so it follows that Jesus may have preferred a more condensed common-place sport such as Soccer or Surfing. Which is why I then tried to think a bit harder like the Great Detective to reason what sport Jesus would be hungry for, when he rolled away the stone.
Hunters: 96.4% white 55.7% male
PGA Golfers: 91% white 96% male
Popes: 99.99999% white 100% male
By the numbers More women Hunt, than men that Golf, but women don't factor much in the liturgy. In spite of our less advantaged population finding 140 acres per Golf course to be an abhorrent waste of land and resources... only 5,440,960 acres of nitrogen dumping algae blooming closely cropped grass is dedicated to Golf.
Golfers do blow nearly 2.81 Billion on new clubs and shoes each year, when they all know in their heart that practice & fitness would shrink their strokes, literally, and caring for themselves would please Jesus. What will not save a mediocre golfer's soul is a fatter sweet-spot on a new driver the size of a cantaloupe.
Americans alone spent $902,356,259. just for "legal" hunting tags in 2020. And although I doubt that Jesus would have completed the Colorado Hunter safety course, he is also not likely an avid hunter. One may assume shooting all the shit your Dad invented would be bad press.
Jesus, (the one who left me the nice note) shared lessons of love, and reconciliation, Jesus invented so many modern conveniences like: "Reply All" "Gender Neutral Bathrooms" (Thanks Velma), and as many mysteries, like "Marshmallow Peeps" "NA Beer", and "Line Dancing".
So as amateur detective, in the "Mystery of Life" I feel it fair to assume that the Jesus wrote me that note, ...likely not be a Gun Owner -- but would perhaps prefer a line caught trout with pasta when he next visits.
And... of all of our friends, and strange neighbors -- I couldn't place who the sender may have been. I pocketed the mystery, and told my wife later that evening that I thought I should begin to refer to myself in the third person like the great detective Hercule Poirot, who often describes overlooked facts at the Scene of the Crime with phrases like, "Poirot could plainly see that our killer would miss the detail of the letter in a dwindling fire". Naturally my wife thought I was nuts, and begrudgingly but indulgently asked me hyperbolically, "(and),...Why will you be referring to yourself in the Third Person forthgoing?" So, I explained that, "With all the lunacy of pronouns these days, taking back sovereign command of language was tasked to every story teller, and that It may also make me seem more interesting. (I also was thinking about the mystery of the "Jesus Note" And wondered if perhaps thinking like one of literature's best detectives, couldn't hurt to uncover the sender). So from now on, I could use my own name instead of saying "I would like to order the Walleye", I would say, "Monsieur will have the Walleye"... Perhaps this snazzy literary convention would command authority, sharpen my language skills, and even help to expose the mystery of the Person who'd taped the note to my door.
What is the Messiah's Favorite sport?
In spite to the smoldering intellectual fire I've surely become -- From today forward I will identify as a compelling (smart) Belgian Detective, and solve these mysteries.
There was of course the possibility that Jesus him<them>self placed that note -- But to what end? Was I to find this phrase inspirational? I mean if Jesus wanted to reach out, could they not have texted, rang the bell, or just shown themself in?
I thought about the mystery phrase "No One will love you like Jesus", its holy type font, plain paper, and even their choice of cellophane tape -- And I thought this was all standard issue Jesus-grade office supplies. (modest, efficient, effective). Whereas in my heart, I thought the better of this note having been the hand of God -- I knew that deep fakes were everywhere, and that the Lord being quite clever, needn't troll "Truth Social" with A.I. generated deep fake clips to reach me. Jesus does after all identify as the Messiah right?
As a kid I thought it odd each time someone at Church would mention "The Mystery of Life". I recall contemplating this strange "mystery" phrase repeated throughout a service as antithetical. What was "the mystery", when will it be solved. We all seemed quite textural, and tangible. Does this "mystery" make the Pastor, Priest, or Rabbi, a detective?
If everyone sees Life as a mystery, then aren't we all detectives like Scooby and Shaggy, or Fred and Daphne? What about Velma?
What of the Mystery Machine? Was this slick Custom Van, the vessel of the big mystery of life? A Tardis? I coveted a carpeted custom van when I was a kid, but we drove a rusty station wagon. Today I still covet a Chrysler Pacifica, but cant afford one.
Today I thought that while it may be true that Jesus could 'love me the best'..., I'm sure he says that to everyone, by way of encouragement -- but it's a nice thought.
Jesus. #TheRealMessiah, has a shit-ton of Instagram followers.
So the very next day, I'd considered what Agatha Christie's great detective Poirot would say on the matter, "The Little Grey Cells" ...and I began to think like I was a smart detective, while keeping a Shaggy self-image affixed in my head.
"No one will love you like Jesus" ...At least those girls in college would leave me alone the next morning.
As far as great minds go, I knew that mine had already fizzled, and could use a resurrection. But this is why I soon drifted off topic to thinking about God, The Lord's favorite food, (should he be dropping by again), The Messiah's favorite book, beverage, game -- And even contemplated Jesus' favorite sport -- which segued me to an obvious, serene, and even sleepy sport one could command atop fluffy cloudscapes, and I arrived at Golf.
I thought that If Jesus were hanging around just before the holiday, wouldn't he be out Golfing, rather than dropping hints at my door?
"The Messiah Prefers to golf".
And what about this sport, Golf? Would it be one of his proudest accomplishments, or recanted as a wasteful backdrop for non-church weddings, sipping bourbon, smoking cigars, and generally running out the clock on humanity at large?
Popular as it may be, Golf is a rather elitist sport, meant to burn up time away from family, and so it follows that Jesus may have preferred a more condensed common-place sport such as Soccer or Surfing. Which is why I then tried to think a bit harder like the Great Detective to reason what sport Jesus would be hungry for, when he rolled away the stone.
Hunters: 96.4% white 55.7% male
PGA Golfers: 91% white 96% male
Popes: 99.99999% white 100% male
By the numbers More women Hunt, than men that Golf, but women don't factor much in the liturgy. In spite of our less advantaged population finding 140 acres per Golf course to be an abhorrent waste of land and resources... only 5,440,960 acres of nitrogen dumping algae blooming closely cropped grass is dedicated to Golf.
Golfers do blow nearly 2.81 Billion on new clubs and shoes each year, when they all know in their heart that practice & fitness would shrink their strokes, literally, and caring for themselves would please Jesus. What will not save a mediocre golfer's soul is a fatter sweet-spot on a new driver the size of a cantaloupe.
Americans alone spent $902,356,259. just for "legal" hunting tags in 2020. And although I doubt that Jesus would have completed the Colorado Hunter safety course, he is also not likely an avid hunter. One may assume shooting all the shit your Dad invented would be bad press.
Jesus, (the one who left me the nice note) shared lessons of love, and reconciliation, Jesus invented so many modern conveniences like: "Reply All" "Gender Neutral Bathrooms" (Thanks Velma), and as many mysteries, like "Marshmallow Peeps" "NA Beer", and "Line Dancing".
So as amateur detective, in the "Mystery of Life" I feel it fair to assume that the Jesus wrote me that note, ...likely not be a Gun Owner -- but would perhaps prefer a line caught trout with pasta when he next visits.
Myself, not being an avid Golfer, and being clumsy on the pitch, I'd prefer to imagine my own personal Jesus (who is prolly pretty good at every sport BTW), was reaching out just to let me know that with Easter break right around the corner... he'd make time for me, should I wish to hook up in Morocco, or Nicaragua for a long weekend with some tasty waves.
"The Mystery of Life" and "The Good News" (strange concepts when I was young) -- Later unsurprisingly I'd learned that major mythology, fables, leaders, & religions regularly repurposed resurrections to re-kindle their base. History shows that just as modern churches are often built upon pagan temples, (good real-estate will always be changing hands in dispute driven by religion) -- Pagan-esque fables also proudly featured resurrections throughout history, but the award for The Most Staying Power goes to Christians for using Resurrection as "good news" for millennia. I'd have to say that if you are ever really tanking on social media, you should be super careful how you and your friends arrange your resurrection stunt.
The Easter Bunny seems to also come and go, and I'm sure Jesus Knows that I am not a practicing Catholic, and a shit detective... but because I do live beside a massive Basilica -- I've checked my door several times for notes. I've compulsively combed through the mail, and still... nothing more from Jesus.
I may never solve the "Mystery of Life", nor even this simple note; ...so I scrounged up some paper, a pen, and tape, and Today I left a note on the front door of the neighboring church, that said,
"J.C., Thanks for your note, P.S. Monsieur has Good Friday off, if you're free to surf."
"The Mystery of Life" and "The Good News" (strange concepts when I was young) -- Later unsurprisingly I'd learned that major mythology, fables, leaders, & religions regularly repurposed resurrections to re-kindle their base. History shows that just as modern churches are often built upon pagan temples, (good real-estate will always be changing hands in dispute driven by religion) -- Pagan-esque fables also proudly featured resurrections throughout history, but the award for The Most Staying Power goes to Christians for using Resurrection as "good news" for millennia. I'd have to say that if you are ever really tanking on social media, you should be super careful how you and your friends arrange your resurrection stunt.
The Easter Bunny seems to also come and go, and I'm sure Jesus Knows that I am not a practicing Catholic, and a shit detective... but because I do live beside a massive Basilica -- I've checked my door several times for notes. I've compulsively combed through the mail, and still... nothing more from Jesus.
I may never solve the "Mystery of Life", nor even this simple note; ...so I scrounged up some paper, a pen, and tape, and Today I left a note on the front door of the neighboring church, that said,
"J.C., Thanks for your note, P.S. Monsieur has Good Friday off, if you're free to surf."
- Published on
Go ahead and hash this out, but the only thing that will make this fair, is to not fucking do this.
Leave your 44 cm bar at home and No one gets hurt.
If I were to say that I am "All for Inclusion" -- That would be a lie. I do (of course) always welcome a good argument on "diverse" topics, but I generally draw the line on Biology.
More specifically the Biodiversity of Bullshit. In cycling events there are a few hard rules we agree to follow to keep things safe, and 'fair'. When athletes sign up for amateur races, they have to sign a waiver, stating that they won't sue the sponsors if they crash. They also generally tell the truth about their age, and gender so they can compete somewhat fairly against other people in far better physical condition, but with similar birthdates and chromosomes.
And May the Better Man Win
These are reasonable social constructs which make participation in an event exciting, and worth the entry fee.
Wherever you reside on the totem pole of ability -- It is generally only your fault that you didn't medal, or (gasp) didn't finish (DNF).
What happens when you sign up for the men's elite category 46-55, and with a reasonable chance of success in your age range, you are beaten outright? No trophy, No medal, No prize money... Just roll your bike off the course, and onto your hitch-rack -- Start your engine, and seek consolation in a cheeseburger.
"He's Going the distance... He's going for Speed"
If I were to say that I am "All for Inclusion" -- That would be a lie. I do (of course) always welcome a good argument on "diverse" topics, but I generally draw the line on Biology.
More specifically the Biodiversity of Bullshit. In cycling events there are a few hard rules we agree to follow to keep things safe, and 'fair'. When athletes sign up for amateur races, they have to sign a waiver, stating that they won't sue the sponsors if they crash. They also generally tell the truth about their age, and gender so they can compete somewhat fairly against other people in far better physical condition, but with similar birthdates and chromosomes.
And May the Better Man Win
These are reasonable social constructs which make participation in an event exciting, and worth the entry fee.
Wherever you reside on the totem pole of ability -- It is generally only your fault that you didn't medal, or (gasp) didn't finish (DNF).
What happens when you sign up for the men's elite category 46-55, and with a reasonable chance of success in your age range, you are beaten outright? No trophy, No medal, No prize money... Just roll your bike off the course, and onto your hitch-rack -- Start your engine, and seek consolation in a cheeseburger.
"He's Going the distance... He's going for Speed"
It is fine to feel upset. It's understandable to feel disappointment..., but it's your own dumb-shit fault for thinking you could ever win against a woman, right?
You are 5-foot 2-inches, 101 lbs, of lean muscle, who worked the better of two years training for this race. Two weeks ago the race organizers mailed you your race number, and today it's pinned and ready to get filthy. You signed up for this Elite Women's race 6 months ago, having tracked great successes winning 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, and 1st in your last five races, and you know statistically that you stand a great chance of winning this one. Before the gun goes off, you sweat the starters at the line whom you have raced against many times, but now (today) beside you is a 219 lb, 6-foot 2-inch 40-something man in a pink bunny-skull body-suit smiling coyly at you like a gay bartender from the love-boat, and smelling quite ripe.
Your pulse quickens, and your ears get hot... Your initial thought is to second guess you are in the right race time. It's 2:00. This is the right slot.
Then you blush, and your mouth goes dry. You are surrounded by your people, true... you know many of them, and you have raced against several you see now, and then there is this dude who's nut-sack is straddling a 58 centimeter bike beside you. He is sporting a Three-o'clock shadow, adjusting a barrette before adjusting his helmet.
Cheater's Pre-Race Checklist:
- 44 cm handlebar
- Men's size 12 Shoes
- Men's 58cm Carbon frame
- Men's shorts
- Adam's Apple
- Nut-sack
- Scratchy face
- Pink Fucking Helmet
- Teal eye-shadow...
"He won".
'He won', is all that repeats in your pounding head. Your eyes go to pin-holes, your heart throbs, and your face heats crimson. A dark mute tunnel-vision besets as you stand beneath this fucker at the podium. Second Place. Your family and friends in front of you fractal into a kaleidoscope of broken shards.
Second Place.
"He Won the Women's race today"
" Thomas went from “a total beginner to the elite level in just 5 years.”
In response to the criticism, Thomas wrote on Instagram on Thursday that “my two best friends are just as strong as me, I just happened to have a better day on that particular day. They will assuredly beat me at future races.”
Last week, Hannah Arensman, a 35-time winner on the national cyclocross circuit, said in an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court that she retired from her sport when she finished in fourth place between two male-bodied “transgender” athletes at a competition (via the Supreme Court of the United States):
I have decided to end my cycling career. At my last race at the recent UCI Cyclocross National Championships in the elite women’s category in December 2022, I came in 4th place, flanked on either side by male riders awarded 3rd and 5th places. My sister and family sobbed as they watched a man finish in front of me, having witnessed several physical interactions with him throughout the race.
Additionally, it is difficult for me to think about the very real possibility I was overlooked for an international selection on the US team at Cyclocross Worlds in February 2023 because of a male competitor.
Moving forward, I feel for young girls learning to compete and who are growing up in a day when they no longer have a fair chance at being the new record 20 holders and champions in cycling because men want to compete in our division. I have felt deeply angered, disappointed, overlooked, and humiliated that the rule makers of women’s sports do not feel it is necessary to protect women’s sports to ensure fair competition for women anymore.
In response to the criticism, Thomas wrote on Instagram on Thursday that “my two best friends are just as strong as me, I just happened to have a better day on that particular day. They will assuredly beat me at future races.”
Last week, Hannah Arensman, a 35-time winner on the national cyclocross circuit, said in an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court that she retired from her sport when she finished in fourth place between two male-bodied “transgender” athletes at a competition (via the Supreme Court of the United States):
I have decided to end my cycling career. At my last race at the recent UCI Cyclocross National Championships in the elite women’s category in December 2022, I came in 4th place, flanked on either side by male riders awarded 3rd and 5th places. My sister and family sobbed as they watched a man finish in front of me, having witnessed several physical interactions with him throughout the race.
Additionally, it is difficult for me to think about the very real possibility I was overlooked for an international selection on the US team at Cyclocross Worlds in February 2023 because of a male competitor.
Moving forward, I feel for young girls learning to compete and who are growing up in a day when they no longer have a fair chance at being the new record 20 holders and champions in cycling because men want to compete in our division. I have felt deeply angered, disappointed, overlooked, and humiliated that the rule makers of women’s sports do not feel it is necessary to protect women’s sports to ensure fair competition for women anymore.
- Published on
Social Distancing Hats
I’ll bet Vampires and Vampire bats often bite their tongues. I know I do, even when I'm supposed to be resting. But most often when I'm deliberately thinking about chewing on something.
The medical definition of “Long COVID” is: A post viral "Condition" wherein people would rather reminisce about real or imagined suffering, and other sucky stuff, than getting the fuck on with it.
Symptoms may include malaise, headaches, shortness of breath, anosmia, parosmia, ageusia, muscle weakness, low-grade fever, cognitive dysfunction, and behaving like a total dumbass twat. Estimates of the prevalence of long COVID vary based upon definition, but are somewhere between nil, and everyone in the whole world.
The hard science demonstrates that what ends when you "recover", is different for everyone, but mostly split down party lines. e.g. Those who like to party, and those who still spray Lysol all over the fucking place.
The medical definition of “Long COVID” is: A post viral "Condition" wherein people would rather reminisce about real or imagined suffering, and other sucky stuff, than getting the fuck on with it.
Symptoms may include malaise, headaches, shortness of breath, anosmia, parosmia, ageusia, muscle weakness, low-grade fever, cognitive dysfunction, and behaving like a total dumbass twat. Estimates of the prevalence of long COVID vary based upon definition, but are somewhere between nil, and everyone in the whole world.
The hard science demonstrates that what ends when you "recover", is different for everyone, but mostly split down party lines. e.g. Those who like to party, and those who still spray Lysol all over the fucking place.
OK... In truth there is no literal or other correlation between this Beer Brand and that Smart Monk.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities (like a virus) must not be multiplied beyond necessity" - William of Ockham (not the beer brand, but a monk, beer brewer, and avid beer drinker just the same)
Or better paraphrased: The philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should prefer the one that requires the fewest assumptions. Which of course means that all else being equal, having a cold beer, may be the better plan; Or, when trying to decide why you just can't clear your head long enough to say something clever, it could be the beer. Or... That when looking for people to blame for your incapacity to get free of 24 months of self imposed captivity, it may not be COVID, but you.
Have a beer.
Some feel that the real effects of long COVID are primarily psychological — that it is cognitive in nature. Whilst other experts, (and your dumb-shit friend) estimate that true long COVID symptoms include a whole host of enduring physical maladies, including laying about in dark interiors, weak pupillary dilation from Netflix legal weed, & profusely sweating out spicy takeout under a California-king-size Snuggie, sporting a filthy tracksuit.
And so I suppose "Long Covid" is why so many people still say, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"
Most experts agree that while definitions of all these medical complications are difficult to pinpoint — Long COVID doesn’t tend to adversely affect otherwise cheerful effective, healthy individuals, who maintain a real social calendar, and who seek treatment in the great outdoors.
In Chicago, where Polish is a native tongue, and Polack is still a venomous pejorative... there is a ready remedy which comes recommended by prudent Polish physicians and philosophers alike, and that is simply a pale lager, called Okacim. Although when people say, "less is more" they are totally mis-quoting William Of Ockham and Okacim, (both beer dynasties). Because we all know that's not a law or anything.
This is not to diminish the true seriousness of medically ascribable symptoms to that ominous bat inspired Chinese lab diamond 💎, which upended our otherwise miserable lives -- But well… if you've got that shit, survived that shit, and pushed past that dreadful shit - wellness should be your next milestone. Should it not.
Or... Perhaps it will elude you, while you wax nostalgic about federal handouts, napkin ass-wipe, mask-acne, and that piquant stench of isopropyl substitutes.
Or better paraphrased: The philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should prefer the one that requires the fewest assumptions. Which of course means that all else being equal, having a cold beer, may be the better plan; Or, when trying to decide why you just can't clear your head long enough to say something clever, it could be the beer. Or... That when looking for people to blame for your incapacity to get free of 24 months of self imposed captivity, it may not be COVID, but you.
Have a beer.
Some feel that the real effects of long COVID are primarily psychological — that it is cognitive in nature. Whilst other experts, (and your dumb-shit friend) estimate that true long COVID symptoms include a whole host of enduring physical maladies, including laying about in dark interiors, weak pupillary dilation from Netflix legal weed, & profusely sweating out spicy takeout under a California-king-size Snuggie, sporting a filthy tracksuit.
And so I suppose "Long Covid" is why so many people still say, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"
Most experts agree that while definitions of all these medical complications are difficult to pinpoint — Long COVID doesn’t tend to adversely affect otherwise cheerful effective, healthy individuals, who maintain a real social calendar, and who seek treatment in the great outdoors.
In Chicago, where Polish is a native tongue, and Polack is still a venomous pejorative... there is a ready remedy which comes recommended by prudent Polish physicians and philosophers alike, and that is simply a pale lager, called Okacim. Although when people say, "less is more" they are totally mis-quoting William Of Ockham and Okacim, (both beer dynasties). Because we all know that's not a law or anything.
This is not to diminish the true seriousness of medically ascribable symptoms to that ominous bat inspired Chinese lab diamond 💎, which upended our otherwise miserable lives -- But well… if you've got that shit, survived that shit, and pushed past that dreadful shit - wellness should be your next milestone. Should it not.
Or... Perhaps it will elude you, while you wax nostalgic about federal handouts, napkin ass-wipe, mask-acne, and that piquant stench of isopropyl substitutes.
Just a moment, now... cough for me, we have an APP that can diagnosis if you are full of shit or about to perish.
Correcting for the prior chaos, where we were extorted for so many daily use items, like tissues & coffee... should we not desist the habit of exhorting payroll funding from the lay public in an un-subtle touch-screen paywall beginning at 22%. Quick! how much was that coffee? $4., plus default tip = $9.50. Dreadful, and so the Long COVID remains as we are gouged to pay the "Cost of living tax" and even the millennial crowd ponies up for this lunatic tip rate. ??
Sure, I get the whole “critical employee” concept. And we really appreciate those “Essential Workers” who risked life and limb to pour coffee, scan my Funyuns, and pass my crumbling scone through a prison food slot. But while these “essential beings” were postponing their viral baptism and subsequent deliverance, all that masking (which seemed sensible at the time), merely delayed 'our' inexorable exit through the COVID gift shop.
The thing is… as everyone will agree — once you've had that shit, you just didn’t give two shits any longer, and this lead to the greatest amount of contagion.
Once you’d gathered your own precious antibodies like postcards from the kiosk on the way out of that ludicrous exhibit — you’d no longer felt the same urgency, panic, dread, and isolation — Which being a "COVID virgin" had brought. And a great green globular sigh of relief was fully expressed as you tipped everyone something like twenty-eight percent for two years..
In light of the bullyism which surrounded being chastised for masking incorrectly, coughing into one's hand, and touching the grab-bar on public transit, IS still rather fucked-up. But today, having just recovered from what is best described as a "Good Ol' Fashioned Head-Cold" -- (the lunatic long covid v.2.0 version of me) enjoys thinking back to the precise moment when "that one fucker" coughed directly upon me, and my unwitting mucous membranes. Of course I don't know his name, Let's Call patient zero, "Typhoid Jerry" and as random strangers go, Jerry, (not his real name) deserves my full affection, and rage. Of course It's not a Bronson Film, where I get to drive long nails through a baseball bat, and seek revenge. It is an elegant study in 2.0 humility to recollect my thoughts at the moment, with Jerry that went something like this, "Oh Fucking Great Man!, you fucking child... What tha?!" ...And so the clock began to chime the hours and days until my nose and eyes would become as crimson, and tattered as this Jerry guy. And for what it's worth, the entire incubation period for the latest strain of 'C-dat1FkR' virus to become fully vested, and mess up my month is about 3 full days. Then the fun begins.
Once again it goes without saying that I'm no medical professional, nor an "Essential Cafe-Worker" but I do know that I'd have preferred a third blast of "COVID19" Formerly known as "The Wuhan Virus" to "C-dat1FKR".
Anyway, cheers to all those woke fuckers, who's names I'm forgetting in my thank you speech, (perhaps because they no longer exist), who'd chastised people for not properly wearing a mask, or for berating barbarians believing a bandana was adequate, or those half-moon sniffly fuckers who needed to be reminded to wear them things over their "NOSE AND MOUTH". Today, everyone is just sneezing, coughing and spitting on every fucking surface, ...and so I suppose we are back in the wild west of cave bats and loose mask protocol.
Now would be a great time to peel up all those "Stand Here" foot prints, scrape off all those "Mask Required" signs, and roll back that digital tip-jar to something reasonable, such as 5, 10, 15, 20%. Or better still, round up to the next dollar. It's Coffee after-all. It has gotten to the point where finding the text line called "Custom Tip" behind the back pressure of a line of coffee-crazed zombies, is almost as difficult as finding the micro-font to opt out of an email.
Oh, hey! and While we are at it... could we not make a sign which states clearly what Occam so cleverly intended by the mis-quoted "less is more" anachronism:
"Kindly Stop Coughing Into that Guys Face".
Long COVID is real, and I know because I have these spells when I write the stupidest of trash, and even say things which are medically unfounded, morally unbridled, and wholly irreverent -- All of which are (of course) attributable to "Long COVID". And while I try to receive federal money to offset my "illness", I also have not been able to smell in earnest since Mid-May 2020, which certainly helps on public transit. I understand that others may not appreciate the lark of laughing at "Long COVID" nor it's sustaining effects or upside accomplishments. In deference of anyone grieving a loss, and I know it's raw, and too soon to say, but, Perhaps we could make a list of all the fuckwits, whom we'd wished would have been euthanized by COVID, and lament those sucky persons who are still with us.
And then get on with the fun.
Sure, I get the whole “critical employee” concept. And we really appreciate those “Essential Workers” who risked life and limb to pour coffee, scan my Funyuns, and pass my crumbling scone through a prison food slot. But while these “essential beings” were postponing their viral baptism and subsequent deliverance, all that masking (which seemed sensible at the time), merely delayed 'our' inexorable exit through the COVID gift shop.
The thing is… as everyone will agree — once you've had that shit, you just didn’t give two shits any longer, and this lead to the greatest amount of contagion.
Once you’d gathered your own precious antibodies like postcards from the kiosk on the way out of that ludicrous exhibit — you’d no longer felt the same urgency, panic, dread, and isolation — Which being a "COVID virgin" had brought. And a great green globular sigh of relief was fully expressed as you tipped everyone something like twenty-eight percent for two years..
In light of the bullyism which surrounded being chastised for masking incorrectly, coughing into one's hand, and touching the grab-bar on public transit, IS still rather fucked-up. But today, having just recovered from what is best described as a "Good Ol' Fashioned Head-Cold" -- (the lunatic long covid v.2.0 version of me) enjoys thinking back to the precise moment when "that one fucker" coughed directly upon me, and my unwitting mucous membranes. Of course I don't know his name, Let's Call patient zero, "Typhoid Jerry" and as random strangers go, Jerry, (not his real name) deserves my full affection, and rage. Of course It's not a Bronson Film, where I get to drive long nails through a baseball bat, and seek revenge. It is an elegant study in 2.0 humility to recollect my thoughts at the moment, with Jerry that went something like this, "Oh Fucking Great Man!, you fucking child... What tha?!" ...And so the clock began to chime the hours and days until my nose and eyes would become as crimson, and tattered as this Jerry guy. And for what it's worth, the entire incubation period for the latest strain of 'C-dat1FkR' virus to become fully vested, and mess up my month is about 3 full days. Then the fun begins.
Once again it goes without saying that I'm no medical professional, nor an "Essential Cafe-Worker" but I do know that I'd have preferred a third blast of "COVID19" Formerly known as "The Wuhan Virus" to "C-dat1FKR".
Anyway, cheers to all those woke fuckers, who's names I'm forgetting in my thank you speech, (perhaps because they no longer exist), who'd chastised people for not properly wearing a mask, or for berating barbarians believing a bandana was adequate, or those half-moon sniffly fuckers who needed to be reminded to wear them things over their "NOSE AND MOUTH". Today, everyone is just sneezing, coughing and spitting on every fucking surface, ...and so I suppose we are back in the wild west of cave bats and loose mask protocol.
Now would be a great time to peel up all those "Stand Here" foot prints, scrape off all those "Mask Required" signs, and roll back that digital tip-jar to something reasonable, such as 5, 10, 15, 20%. Or better still, round up to the next dollar. It's Coffee after-all. It has gotten to the point where finding the text line called "Custom Tip" behind the back pressure of a line of coffee-crazed zombies, is almost as difficult as finding the micro-font to opt out of an email.
Oh, hey! and While we are at it... could we not make a sign which states clearly what Occam so cleverly intended by the mis-quoted "less is more" anachronism:
"Kindly Stop Coughing Into that Guys Face".
Long COVID is real, and I know because I have these spells when I write the stupidest of trash, and even say things which are medically unfounded, morally unbridled, and wholly irreverent -- All of which are (of course) attributable to "Long COVID". And while I try to receive federal money to offset my "illness", I also have not been able to smell in earnest since Mid-May 2020, which certainly helps on public transit. I understand that others may not appreciate the lark of laughing at "Long COVID" nor it's sustaining effects or upside accomplishments. In deference of anyone grieving a loss, and I know it's raw, and too soon to say, but, Perhaps we could make a list of all the fuckwits, whom we'd wished would have been euthanized by COVID, and lament those sucky persons who are still with us.
And then get on with the fun.
- Published on
"First, we kill all the lawyers"... -Shakespeare
If we Killed all the old Politicians would Wars end?
What may come, is the end of aging dogmatic war fetishists. Oh, and you'd have to apply a little common sense pre-cog shake-down for would-be dictators too, like lil' Elon. He is after all, seemingly unhinged. If one madman merely combined his broken auto-pilot, his corrupted A.I., with a few of his erstwhile Rockets... fuel that with a twitter-tirade — well, you can see where that may land. Thinking outside the box here, really... anyone over 63 cannot really represent e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y right? So maybe we nip that bud early with a fresh law against old fellas running shit? Let's just start with a 26-58 range, and see where it gets us, no?
Surely a $BB$-Bitcoin hit out on warmongering daddy-o would do the trick, right?
It's fact that true leaders are generally chosen for wisdom — (one may envision a noble 'Village Elder', settling disputes) But Politicians are not ipso-facto leaders, even if popularly chosen. This is because of what it takes to be ordained. You begin with helicopter parents, and never being told "No", perhaps you were told NO, but you did it anyway. Apply some "Hard Knocks", but more likely a school where everyone passes, lectured by a pedigree of bad and ancient ideology and then starve them of any meaningful friendships, (the peers who would tell them they are being stupid) Douse them in bad faith and whack religion such that they choose to napoleon-up towards political aspirations "just to show them"..., and then course correct them by letting them off for a few minor offenses which would land a peaceable person of color in prison — Then stir this mixture until you get the penultimate petulant prick man-child— what you end up with is Well... Putin, Ping, Trump, Jong Un...
In fact the reason that everyone wants to open their homes, wallets, and minds up to Ukraine is because their humble leader isn't a total D-bag, and their people are not represented by a dickhead. Now think back to travelling internationally under Trump's Reign. Canada Flag patches were out of stock, and I couldn't cop a believable New Zealand Accent. Whoa, Just woe.
"When Two Tribes go to war, one is all that you can score" -Frankie
The choice between two entitled douche-bags with bad-money fueled agendas, always leads to the lay-public being squeezed, and the clash of their single ideology "To Win at any cost" is the same B.S. dogma that wrapped us all in that stinking wet blanket we called the Cold War.
Actual Leaders in fact, are most often those who rail against the system which is clogged like a fiery bowel with sand and bile
History Lesson A ' La Wiki: Ketchup or catsup is a table condiment with a sweet and sour flavor. The unmodified term ("ketchup") now typically refers to tomato ketchup,[1] although early recipes used egg whites, mushrooms, oysters, grapes, mussels, or walnuts, among other ingredients.[2][3]
Main article: Mushroom ketchup
In the United Kingdom, ketchup was historically prepared with mushrooms as a primary ingredient, rather than tomatoes.[7][8][9] Ketchup recipes began to appear in British and then American cookbooks in the 18th century. The term ketchup first appeared in 1682.[10] In the United States, mushroom ketchup dates back to at least 1770, and was prepared by British colonists in the Thirteen Colonies.[11] Excerpt c.o. -Wikipedia
If we Killed all the old Politicians would Wars end?
What may come, is the end of aging dogmatic war fetishists. Oh, and you'd have to apply a little common sense pre-cog shake-down for would-be dictators too, like lil' Elon. He is after all, seemingly unhinged. If one madman merely combined his broken auto-pilot, his corrupted A.I., with a few of his erstwhile Rockets... fuel that with a twitter-tirade — well, you can see where that may land. Thinking outside the box here, really... anyone over 63 cannot really represent e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y right? So maybe we nip that bud early with a fresh law against old fellas running shit? Let's just start with a 26-58 range, and see where it gets us, no?
Surely a $BB$-Bitcoin hit out on warmongering daddy-o would do the trick, right?
It's fact that true leaders are generally chosen for wisdom — (one may envision a noble 'Village Elder', settling disputes) But Politicians are not ipso-facto leaders, even if popularly chosen. This is because of what it takes to be ordained. You begin with helicopter parents, and never being told "No", perhaps you were told NO, but you did it anyway. Apply some "Hard Knocks", but more likely a school where everyone passes, lectured by a pedigree of bad and ancient ideology and then starve them of any meaningful friendships, (the peers who would tell them they are being stupid) Douse them in bad faith and whack religion such that they choose to napoleon-up towards political aspirations "just to show them"..., and then course correct them by letting them off for a few minor offenses which would land a peaceable person of color in prison — Then stir this mixture until you get the penultimate petulant prick man-child— what you end up with is Well... Putin, Ping, Trump, Jong Un...
In fact the reason that everyone wants to open their homes, wallets, and minds up to Ukraine is because their humble leader isn't a total D-bag, and their people are not represented by a dickhead. Now think back to travelling internationally under Trump's Reign. Canada Flag patches were out of stock, and I couldn't cop a believable New Zealand Accent. Whoa, Just woe.
"When Two Tribes go to war, one is all that you can score" -Frankie
The choice between two entitled douche-bags with bad-money fueled agendas, always leads to the lay-public being squeezed, and the clash of their single ideology "To Win at any cost" is the same B.S. dogma that wrapped us all in that stinking wet blanket we called the Cold War.
Actual Leaders in fact, are most often those who rail against the system which is clogged like a fiery bowel with sand and bile
History Lesson A ' La Wiki: Ketchup or catsup is a table condiment with a sweet and sour flavor. The unmodified term ("ketchup") now typically refers to tomato ketchup,[1] although early recipes used egg whites, mushrooms, oysters, grapes, mussels, or walnuts, among other ingredients.[2][3]
Main article: Mushroom ketchup
In the United Kingdom, ketchup was historically prepared with mushrooms as a primary ingredient, rather than tomatoes.[7][8][9] Ketchup recipes began to appear in British and then American cookbooks in the 18th century. The term ketchup first appeared in 1682.[10] In the United States, mushroom ketchup dates back to at least 1770, and was prepared by British colonists in the Thirteen Colonies.[11] Excerpt c.o. -Wikipedia
So you see that Ketchup was basically invented by imperialist white conquerors, and needs to be put down alongside dad, as precisely what it is... A vegetable with a penchant toward bloodshed (fake blood anyways) and diabetes.
The idea of sitting through yet another real-life Cold War fire-drill, is asinine. I Mean Reagan, and Ketchup, and School Lunch, and Under the desk drills, and all this could end, if we only put our heads together and found something else to do with Dad.
And now we have Roger Waters (the geezer) hanging out with Vlad (the Impaler) Putin?
Regardless of one's political POV, it would seem that we are heading for a collision of one to one headstrong ideology, again....
To Win.
The fallout shelter will most assuredly stock plenty of tomato ketchup (the vegetable and the condiment) -- Alas, the red stuff spewing from peoples eyes and shrapnel wounds isn't the tomato version. ...And yet, it is so simple to imagine a Billion Dollar Bitcoin ransom wired to anyone who "takes care of" any aging fellas who look not unlike my dad, and are still in office.
Ding! Ding! What does it really take to oust a dictator, such as Dad?
Ping, Putin, DeSantis, all have been in the game too long. agreed?
Find me a young fresh idealistic (if ineffectually nubile, and inexperienced) College grad and I'll Give you good odds on your future.
The trouble with rich zealots and their inseparable kinfolk — (world leaders) is not (necessarily) their differences, it's their fucking age, and their affinity for the red sticky stuff. (are we talking ketchup?)
Factoring for the entire age skew of the world population is it not fair to say that a leader closer to say 28, is more aligned with the interests of the whole?
We dwell in a patently different world than any of these old fucks comes from, so tell me why we are all walking in their Orthopedic inserts.
Instead of proposing term limits, should we not simply call a spade a spade and impose an ageist limit for who can serve as leaders? The ransom by the way would be far cheaper albeit less sexy than another 300 Tom Cruise Missiles.
Squabbles about bitcoin, being bad, and Daddy's Dollars being good, or Mayo vs Ketchup on your fries, are fair arguments within a sub-set of this broad age pool, but for many reasons, I don't want to swim in that adult pool with Putin nor Biden nor Xi. So it's fundamental that while they don't understand "our" snacking future -- We can find another task for them.
Being Old and privileged doesn't make you wise, nor a good leader, just like mum and dad answering the question "Why do we do it this way?" (Ketchup on our Meatloaf?)
Comes an answer like, "Because we always do it this way" ..." This way" is fucked!
Ketchup anyone? Reagan said Ketchup was a vegetable when served for school lunch, and this explains a lot about his foreign policy. And Reagan basically hosted MTV and the Cold War for the Martha Quinn years right?
I'm no anarchist, nor a historian but I can find a bit of space in my heart for a new condiment currency, (cheese fries) even a new sauce to dip my french-fries in, but I can't help but think that if we don't gather up every old fart who hasn't had an original thought since they learned to ride a bike, and remove them from office..., then we will of course be talking War Games for another generation.
Forward thinking the world's next existential condiment threat, Some hearty ideas which you could throw the kitchen sink at, (even if the aioli is merely mayonnaise), help to lubricate the mechanism for change. Railing against the establishment of old fucks, and the ketchup they invented is only natural.
Poutine is that deep-learning Lycée Français pool I'd dive my progressive French-Fry into, and the other Putin is that foggy circular thinking which keeps us at ketchup. Some generic off-label catsup with a shared spoon. ... Or worse still the British mushroom version in a tub.
Kiddie Pool anyone?
Perhaps, We really do need to kill all the lawyers for defending these ancients.
Then we need to oust the aged from pretending to "lead", and put them out in the garden with a basket and a spade.
Fuck Man, what do we do with dad? "Kiddie Pool indeed"
The idea of sitting through yet another real-life Cold War fire-drill, is asinine. I Mean Reagan, and Ketchup, and School Lunch, and Under the desk drills, and all this could end, if we only put our heads together and found something else to do with Dad.
And now we have Roger Waters (the geezer) hanging out with Vlad (the Impaler) Putin?
Regardless of one's political POV, it would seem that we are heading for a collision of one to one headstrong ideology, again....
To Win.
The fallout shelter will most assuredly stock plenty of tomato ketchup (the vegetable and the condiment) -- Alas, the red stuff spewing from peoples eyes and shrapnel wounds isn't the tomato version. ...And yet, it is so simple to imagine a Billion Dollar Bitcoin ransom wired to anyone who "takes care of" any aging fellas who look not unlike my dad, and are still in office.
Ding! Ding! What does it really take to oust a dictator, such as Dad?
Ping, Putin, DeSantis, all have been in the game too long. agreed?
Find me a young fresh idealistic (if ineffectually nubile, and inexperienced) College grad and I'll Give you good odds on your future.
The trouble with rich zealots and their inseparable kinfolk — (world leaders) is not (necessarily) their differences, it's their fucking age, and their affinity for the red sticky stuff. (are we talking ketchup?)
Factoring for the entire age skew of the world population is it not fair to say that a leader closer to say 28, is more aligned with the interests of the whole?
We dwell in a patently different world than any of these old fucks comes from, so tell me why we are all walking in their Orthopedic inserts.
Instead of proposing term limits, should we not simply call a spade a spade and impose an ageist limit for who can serve as leaders? The ransom by the way would be far cheaper albeit less sexy than another 300 Tom Cruise Missiles.
Squabbles about bitcoin, being bad, and Daddy's Dollars being good, or Mayo vs Ketchup on your fries, are fair arguments within a sub-set of this broad age pool, but for many reasons, I don't want to swim in that adult pool with Putin nor Biden nor Xi. So it's fundamental that while they don't understand "our" snacking future -- We can find another task for them.
Being Old and privileged doesn't make you wise, nor a good leader, just like mum and dad answering the question "Why do we do it this way?" (Ketchup on our Meatloaf?)
Comes an answer like, "Because we always do it this way" ..." This way" is fucked!
Ketchup anyone? Reagan said Ketchup was a vegetable when served for school lunch, and this explains a lot about his foreign policy. And Reagan basically hosted MTV and the Cold War for the Martha Quinn years right?
I'm no anarchist, nor a historian but I can find a bit of space in my heart for a new condiment currency, (cheese fries) even a new sauce to dip my french-fries in, but I can't help but think that if we don't gather up every old fart who hasn't had an original thought since they learned to ride a bike, and remove them from office..., then we will of course be talking War Games for another generation.
Forward thinking the world's next existential condiment threat, Some hearty ideas which you could throw the kitchen sink at, (even if the aioli is merely mayonnaise), help to lubricate the mechanism for change. Railing against the establishment of old fucks, and the ketchup they invented is only natural.
Poutine is that deep-learning Lycée Français pool I'd dive my progressive French-Fry into, and the other Putin is that foggy circular thinking which keeps us at ketchup. Some generic off-label catsup with a shared spoon. ... Or worse still the British mushroom version in a tub.
Kiddie Pool anyone?
Perhaps, We really do need to kill all the lawyers for defending these ancients.
Then we need to oust the aged from pretending to "lead", and put them out in the garden with a basket and a spade.
Fuck Man, what do we do with dad? "Kiddie Pool indeed"
- Published on
A shimmering silver pool-floatie passes overhead and by dumb chance two in two hundred and fifty million children happened to be looking up, as its shadow darkens a patch of grass and then over a garage. There is never enough time in the day to look up from one's glowing screen, and who the fuck cares really if a higher intelligence from a far away galaxy were to pay a lunch visit whilst you were thumbing ranch-dressing on your display. Who the fuck gives a shit, if this was really an angel? -- Or if angels and aliens were both made by god. Then, well -- they would look sexy as shit, and not have bulbous heads, and elongated hands and such. If Aliens & the CCP were smart, they'd send some glowing round-yon-virgin angel shit over the Midwest, then over Montana & Nevada, where all them crazy fuckers live, and and perhaps be on its way down to Brazil where the Pope still calls the shots..., and then really get to inspiring people with some grace, and awe. Nothing gets people in line like religious expletives, such as "Holy Fucking Shit" "Did you see that?" "Fucking Miracle Man!"
I suppose that actual angels come in many forms, from thin and sexy to John Travolta. They say that we all need a bit more "AWE" in our lives, to humble us, to center us, and to inspire. They, also say that cathedrals were built to blow the average Bronze-age minds. This is why there are so fucking many Christians, So goes the same with the Mosques, and with the Mormons. It turns out that fancy fables of romantic encounters with sacred stones, housed under big tall domes, (also made of stone) have a way of awakening our stoner imaginations. We all get stoned far more than we'd intended. Just like Meeting space aliens in Brazil, these "close encounters" are the perfect opportunity for tiny earthling brains to have their spongy untapped mind's blown... But, sadly we all happened to be looking down at snap-chat the very moment of inspiration.
What do they call this 'Close Encounter' of divine inspiration? Epiphany?
So it comes as no surprise that the Extra-terrestrials and the Angels (or whatever) -- Come and go freely now and again, and NORAD don't seem to care much whether it be Santa or research Inflatables, (pronounced: Weather balloon) -- lest we miss another episode of "Survivor".
I suppose that actual angels come in many forms, from thin and sexy to John Travolta. They say that we all need a bit more "AWE" in our lives, to humble us, to center us, and to inspire. They, also say that cathedrals were built to blow the average Bronze-age minds. This is why there are so fucking many Christians, So goes the same with the Mosques, and with the Mormons. It turns out that fancy fables of romantic encounters with sacred stones, housed under big tall domes, (also made of stone) have a way of awakening our stoner imaginations. We all get stoned far more than we'd intended. Just like Meeting space aliens in Brazil, these "close encounters" are the perfect opportunity for tiny earthling brains to have their spongy untapped mind's blown... But, sadly we all happened to be looking down at snap-chat the very moment of inspiration.
What do they call this 'Close Encounter' of divine inspiration? Epiphany?
So it comes as no surprise that the Extra-terrestrials and the Angels (or whatever) -- Come and go freely now and again, and NORAD don't seem to care much whether it be Santa or research Inflatables, (pronounced: Weather balloon) -- lest we miss another episode of "Survivor".
In 1999 Avon, (a pyramid beauty distributor with a waning grip on the middle-class feminine beauty market) Introduced a 'limited edition' angelic Barbie complete with a white dove boomerang. Whether this slender vapid alien-esque figure could toss her dove companion like a scimitar and make magic happen, is anyone's guess -- But her sliding grasp on a core market of insecure Christian zealots sold a crapload of idyllic beauty queens to inspire the next gen house-wife to be subservient to a male mono-culture whose invention hoped to keep her in check for another millennia or so. Much like beauty conventions and most other organized religions.
If you woke up in your AirBnB, and saw this Angelic Barbie on the nightstand, would you do a double take?
So it doesn't surprise me that the "Angels" we occasionally do encounter, whether they appear as Bobble-headed aliens, with impossibly pale and frail features, or vapid coke fueled fashion models, resembling these aliens -- is of little importance.
If you woke up in your AirBnB, and saw this Angelic Barbie on the nightstand, would you do a double take?
So it doesn't surprise me that the "Angels" we occasionally do encounter, whether they appear as Bobble-headed aliens, with impossibly pale and frail features, or vapid coke fueled fashion models, resembling these aliens -- is of little importance.
Zero. Nothing sexy about big headed aliens nor Barbie.
So we spot yet another UFO floating in our stratosphere, all shimmery and silky, and say something like, "Holy Fucking Shit!" "Is that a UFO?"..., "Or an angel?" No, sorry it's not Space-Alien Nicole Kidman, the holy virgin huntress -- It's just another Chinese Spy Balloon taking some pix of Mormon Tabernacles, Baptist Churches, and oh... Military Missile Bases. Aliens, Like the Chinese Communist Party Elite seem to be asking, "What do we do with all the white people when alas we take over the planet? and do we even want to take over this shit? Do we keep the NBA?, the NFL?, and Hollywood? -- And what about Jay Z?
Waaaay back in 2018 China tested a spy balloon with Hypersonic Glide Missiles that floated on a similar lazy (Oops, My bad!) 'weather balloon trajectory', and then dropped some warheads, like candybars.
Rapture?, please! I mean... What more could the Chinese need to learn about us. don't they ship us all our personal surveillance devices anyway? We are emphatically cool as Fonzie, as a cultural meme, True! -- But "Americans" (besides R Kelly, and our former racist-in-chief who we offer as an olive branch) offer what?, in terms of intel?
It seems like 'Knowing' too much about another person or culture is what leads to envy or resentment, and both tend to be deleterious to the marriage when one becomes tired with what the other has become. So what could an Angelic Barbie, a shimmering Inflatable Pool-floatie, and the Rapture do to juice the agenda of a foreign state actor / actress?
OK, so everything tends to appear similar, (if alien) beyond 40,000 feet, and dirigibles floating over ones enemies is so 1640; but can we all agree that being able to criticize our dickhead leaders (here in the US), is a birthright? Aren't we all silver tongued children playing with beach-toys in full awe of nothing whatsoever anyway? So, pretend you are 80 years old, and I showed you a real alien at a distance of say two blocks away, Could you identify it correctly?, or would you think it was an angel, or a fucking "weather balloon". No pressure man!
Any given 20-something stands a 1 and 4 chance of answering a yes or no question correctly, and when wrong, a 1% chance of accepting they're wrong. Fairy-Tales, and Foreign Actors, may all be disguised Angels delivering a message, but imagination is often blind. This confirms that, just because you can imagine it, or "think you saw something", doesn't make it real.
Oh, and by the way, there is no such thing as French Vanilla, because the French don't give a shit about tasteless crap, and a bit less about the Barbie affair.
Anyway, espionage is such a loaded term, and in the end gathering intel about the weather is cool, right? So why worry about a hovering pool-toy? What is there to gather about Americans?
What we have to offer is rather cool music, crappy TV dramas, shittier take-out food, two kinds of diabetes, and first person shooter drills. Oh, And lame-ass twerking stripper fashion, falling beltless hip-hop pants, sexy Halloween tropes... and Racist Cops. But in truth the majority of our list comes from China, so could they not cut to the chase, and start dropping our Amazon blimp orders from 68,000 feet? And what of the trail that went cold as I tried to track my package somewhere off the Carolinas?
You're right Marjorie... Shame on Biden for shooting down my Jordan's.
Waaaay back in 2018 China tested a spy balloon with Hypersonic Glide Missiles that floated on a similar lazy (Oops, My bad!) 'weather balloon trajectory', and then dropped some warheads, like candybars.
Rapture?, please! I mean... What more could the Chinese need to learn about us. don't they ship us all our personal surveillance devices anyway? We are emphatically cool as Fonzie, as a cultural meme, True! -- But "Americans" (besides R Kelly, and our former racist-in-chief who we offer as an olive branch) offer what?, in terms of intel?
It seems like 'Knowing' too much about another person or culture is what leads to envy or resentment, and both tend to be deleterious to the marriage when one becomes tired with what the other has become. So what could an Angelic Barbie, a shimmering Inflatable Pool-floatie, and the Rapture do to juice the agenda of a foreign state actor / actress?
OK, so everything tends to appear similar, (if alien) beyond 40,000 feet, and dirigibles floating over ones enemies is so 1640; but can we all agree that being able to criticize our dickhead leaders (here in the US), is a birthright? Aren't we all silver tongued children playing with beach-toys in full awe of nothing whatsoever anyway? So, pretend you are 80 years old, and I showed you a real alien at a distance of say two blocks away, Could you identify it correctly?, or would you think it was an angel, or a fucking "weather balloon". No pressure man!
Any given 20-something stands a 1 and 4 chance of answering a yes or no question correctly, and when wrong, a 1% chance of accepting they're wrong. Fairy-Tales, and Foreign Actors, may all be disguised Angels delivering a message, but imagination is often blind. This confirms that, just because you can imagine it, or "think you saw something", doesn't make it real.
Oh, and by the way, there is no such thing as French Vanilla, because the French don't give a shit about tasteless crap, and a bit less about the Barbie affair.
Anyway, espionage is such a loaded term, and in the end gathering intel about the weather is cool, right? So why worry about a hovering pool-toy? What is there to gather about Americans?
What we have to offer is rather cool music, crappy TV dramas, shittier take-out food, two kinds of diabetes, and first person shooter drills. Oh, And lame-ass twerking stripper fashion, falling beltless hip-hop pants, sexy Halloween tropes... and Racist Cops. But in truth the majority of our list comes from China, so could they not cut to the chase, and start dropping our Amazon blimp orders from 68,000 feet? And what of the trail that went cold as I tried to track my package somewhere off the Carolinas?
You're right Marjorie... Shame on Biden for shooting down my Jordan's.
"On February 17th 2023, high above Canada’s Yukon territory, the pilot of a $150 million U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor, acting on orders from the leaders of both Canada and the U.S., fired a $472,000 AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at a small unidentified cylindrical object flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet, resulting in a confirmed air-to-air “kill.” What NORAD still hasn’t been able to confirm, almost a week later, is what exactly was blown out of the sky on February 11.
Since then, members of the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, a club of high-altitude-balloon hobbyists, have been waiting to hear from K9YO-15, the group’s $100 silver mylar “pico” balloon.
Pico balloons are small antenna-and-tracker-equipped circumnavigational balloons that typically cost less than $200 to build. K9YO-15, which had been airborne nearly 124 days and was in the middle of its seventh circumnavigation of the globe, sent its last signal on February 10, just southwest of Alaska, as Aviation Week reports:
The club’s silver-coated, party-style “pico balloon” reported its last position on Feb. 10 at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska, and a popular forecasting tool — the HYSPLIT model provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — projected the cylindrically shaped object would be floating high over the central part of the Yukon Territory on Feb. 11."
NIBBB said in a blog post that, as of Tuesday, K9YO-15 was officially “missing in action.”
Full News Credit for this Excerpt comes from the brilliant Chas Danner of the Intelligencer:
Titled, SPY BALLOONS UPDATED FEB. 17, 2023 Did an F-22 Blow Up an Illinois Club’s Hobby Balloon? https://nymag.com/intelligencer
Since then, members of the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, a club of high-altitude-balloon hobbyists, have been waiting to hear from K9YO-15, the group’s $100 silver mylar “pico” balloon.
Pico balloons are small antenna-and-tracker-equipped circumnavigational balloons that typically cost less than $200 to build. K9YO-15, which had been airborne nearly 124 days and was in the middle of its seventh circumnavigation of the globe, sent its last signal on February 10, just southwest of Alaska, as Aviation Week reports:
The club’s silver-coated, party-style “pico balloon” reported its last position on Feb. 10 at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska, and a popular forecasting tool — the HYSPLIT model provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — projected the cylindrically shaped object would be floating high over the central part of the Yukon Territory on Feb. 11."
NIBBB said in a blog post that, as of Tuesday, K9YO-15 was officially “missing in action.”
Full News Credit for this Excerpt comes from the brilliant Chas Danner of the Intelligencer:
Titled, SPY BALLOONS UPDATED FEB. 17, 2023 Did an F-22 Blow Up an Illinois Club’s Hobby Balloon? https://nymag.com/intelligencer
- Published on
"The Olden Days" When you held your balance at the Track
Ezekiel 25:17 -- "The Path of the righteous is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men"
My Friend John Says that I'm old, and this is why I cannot get over the "Best Times" (the course record) on my bicycle trainer. Not to feel outdone by younger stronger faster cyclists -- But, as far as that goes, it is absolutely true that no legitimate rider has finished that Passo Valparola Climb in 26 minutes. Especially if my best time is 42.51 minutes.
John 20:22 -- also says that I shouldn't be embarrassed if I can no longer clean an Ollie Kick-flip. (largely citing my advanced age) I've decided that instead of dismissing his blaspheme outright -- That it may be good advice to give up on some things which in principle are impractical or empirically un-useful.
I cannot ask my apostolic friend Paul for his (always expert) advice, because I'm pretty sure he has moved away, and never mentioned it to me. The true cost of Covid's spiky wrecking ball is to dismantle established relationships.
Today, (These Days), the subtle interstice between moving away, and crawling deeper into one's more comfortable cave-dwelling relations, is indistinguishable, save the moving expense. One has to ask oneself lots these days, and unfortunately the first question seems to be, "Who can you save?, and should you even try"?
I shaved 11 minutes off of my best time for Passo Pordoi summit in Italy, and 4 minutes from my best time climbing out of Nice up to Col d' Eze -- But this doesn't make any damn difference to anyone but me, as an antidote for gray January Blahs. What IS kind of important is one's sovereign right to imagining one's best self, still striving toward goals both real and imagined. One goal I had this year, (and the year is yet young) is to get back some friends long taken by Covid (Excuses). Friendships once punctuated with nuanced dialogs diminish from Sartre, Aristotle, and Vinyl Collections, to the discourse of Netflix, shitty Take-out food, or even Jell-O. Wherever your line was drawn, you are likely clinging to the myth that it's not worth contacting some of those you feel you have lost to "Covid" (Excuses). It's likely not your friend Paul's Fault that you are a dickhead, or was (at least) at some point behaving badly, c. 2020-2021. Laying about in your PJ's well past midday, and staying home both Friday and Saturday night... But those you've lost to Covid, wont return your calls because they have re-shaped their new efficient lifestyle, and there is no room in top pander to brats, and home-bodies.
So-what, if the weekend is no longer a real tangible distinguished part of your week? So-what if you don't go out to the bar to catch a band with a few friends... anymore? What IS most important is that you are right most of the time. You are of course always right and this seems to be where "we" (The collective post-pandemic "WE") have landed.
My Friend John Says that I'm old, and this is why I cannot get over the "Best Times" (the course record) on my bicycle trainer. Not to feel outdone by younger stronger faster cyclists -- But, as far as that goes, it is absolutely true that no legitimate rider has finished that Passo Valparola Climb in 26 minutes. Especially if my best time is 42.51 minutes.
John 20:22 -- also says that I shouldn't be embarrassed if I can no longer clean an Ollie Kick-flip. (largely citing my advanced age) I've decided that instead of dismissing his blaspheme outright -- That it may be good advice to give up on some things which in principle are impractical or empirically un-useful.
I cannot ask my apostolic friend Paul for his (always expert) advice, because I'm pretty sure he has moved away, and never mentioned it to me. The true cost of Covid's spiky wrecking ball is to dismantle established relationships.
Today, (These Days), the subtle interstice between moving away, and crawling deeper into one's more comfortable cave-dwelling relations, is indistinguishable, save the moving expense. One has to ask oneself lots these days, and unfortunately the first question seems to be, "Who can you save?, and should you even try"?
I shaved 11 minutes off of my best time for Passo Pordoi summit in Italy, and 4 minutes from my best time climbing out of Nice up to Col d' Eze -- But this doesn't make any damn difference to anyone but me, as an antidote for gray January Blahs. What IS kind of important is one's sovereign right to imagining one's best self, still striving toward goals both real and imagined. One goal I had this year, (and the year is yet young) is to get back some friends long taken by Covid (Excuses). Friendships once punctuated with nuanced dialogs diminish from Sartre, Aristotle, and Vinyl Collections, to the discourse of Netflix, shitty Take-out food, or even Jell-O. Wherever your line was drawn, you are likely clinging to the myth that it's not worth contacting some of those you feel you have lost to "Covid" (Excuses). It's likely not your friend Paul's Fault that you are a dickhead, or was (at least) at some point behaving badly, c. 2020-2021. Laying about in your PJ's well past midday, and staying home both Friday and Saturday night... But those you've lost to Covid, wont return your calls because they have re-shaped their new efficient lifestyle, and there is no room in top pander to brats, and home-bodies.
So-what, if the weekend is no longer a real tangible distinguished part of your week? So-what if you don't go out to the bar to catch a band with a few friends... anymore? What IS most important is that you are right most of the time. You are of course always right and this seems to be where "we" (The collective post-pandemic "WE") have landed.
'Being right all the fucking time is legitimately exhausting, mostly because it forces one into isolation where friends matter less, and doing shit went down the toilet. All of that alone time at home bracketed by stale air, bad carryout, and loathing contemplation, built a tunnel so long that emergence from your igloo is a far away goal, not worth endeavoring. You probably never noticed your confines so much in say 2006, when you didn't spend more than sleeping-time at home. But its not as though you became neater and tidier for it.
Last week, you said to yourself after a walk by the lake, "Wow!, I should do this more often"... And then (sadly) -- you don't.
It's OK to no longer be able to pull of some sweet skating tricks from your youth, but it is not OK to say you can't pull off those sweaty nacho-cheese coated Pajamas and give it a try.
My Friend John is also embarrassed by my "Track-Stand". He says that old dudes who cling to such youthful balancing acts to prove they are "less old" is an affront to those with the dignity to not try. This indignant boasting is a tough distinction to thread. I mean -- If I can be forgiven for not pulling off a clean Ollie-Kick-flip... but I've been at it for a few weeks on and off, blaming the trucks, or the wheel durometer, or some such... Then it cannot also be true what they are telling me, that I should give up the self effacing Track-Stand, for the benefit of those who can no longer pull them off gracefully at every stop-light.
...And I get the whole potential embarrassment of a broken hip, like this one old dude in my neighborhood who at fifty, hangs out at the school playground cursing each time his shove-it or manual lands with a clack!, and his maple ply skates away solo. [We call him "Angry SK8R" and he is alright. Afterall, If one cannot land a good clean ollie, One has no business doing a track-stand right? Well...
It IS however, incumbent that one who attempts to do a track-stand at every fucking stop-light, should not be that shaky tree. Because dipping left, leaning right, and on a fixie no less..., with flat pedals is not "Pulling It Off" gracefully -- Wheel cocked sideways, with two full sleeve tattoos that began whilst working for a messenger service in the early 90's? Gracefully, or in the least graciously pulling this off is imperative. The ink may have dried, and the slogans improved, but the fixie track-stand on flat pedals, is bullshit. ...Because, why?
Last week, you said to yourself after a walk by the lake, "Wow!, I should do this more often"... And then (sadly) -- you don't.
It's OK to no longer be able to pull of some sweet skating tricks from your youth, but it is not OK to say you can't pull off those sweaty nacho-cheese coated Pajamas and give it a try.
My Friend John is also embarrassed by my "Track-Stand". He says that old dudes who cling to such youthful balancing acts to prove they are "less old" is an affront to those with the dignity to not try. This indignant boasting is a tough distinction to thread. I mean -- If I can be forgiven for not pulling off a clean Ollie-Kick-flip... but I've been at it for a few weeks on and off, blaming the trucks, or the wheel durometer, or some such... Then it cannot also be true what they are telling me, that I should give up the self effacing Track-Stand, for the benefit of those who can no longer pull them off gracefully at every stop-light.
...And I get the whole potential embarrassment of a broken hip, like this one old dude in my neighborhood who at fifty, hangs out at the school playground cursing each time his shove-it or manual lands with a clack!, and his maple ply skates away solo. [We call him "Angry SK8R" and he is alright. Afterall, If one cannot land a good clean ollie, One has no business doing a track-stand right? Well...
It IS however, incumbent that one who attempts to do a track-stand at every fucking stop-light, should not be that shaky tree. Because dipping left, leaning right, and on a fixie no less..., with flat pedals is not "Pulling It Off" gracefully -- Wheel cocked sideways, with two full sleeve tattoos that began whilst working for a messenger service in the early 90's? Gracefully, or in the least graciously pulling this off is imperative. The ink may have dried, and the slogans improved, but the fixie track-stand on flat pedals, is bullshit. ...Because, why?
Ollie Kick-flip Sequence
A clean track-stand is not done for an audience; Rather it is a holdover from a by-gone era of chrome toe-clips with leather straps which when pulled tightly wrapped the whole foot against a slot in the sole such that getting one's foot free required reaching down to pop the buckle whilst raising the foot to step out. Just as it has taken 30 years for the Snow board to begin to engineer a real clipless option, the legs remain attached for most of one's sport. A clean track-stand is not wandering about an intersection edging into traffic, because one drank too much the evening prior, and now is justifiably off kilter. Doing a track-stand involves no more or less than 1/4 bike length to maintain uprightness. A sense of pride of ownership, comes with staying put, but should not be attempted glibly as one may attempt an Ollie Kick-Flip. Because a skate trick is a 'trick,' and a Track-stand is just part of growing up.
Late this fall, I was hit whilst riding home from the typical 50 mile loop, to some shitty coffee shop with mandatory tipping, bad staff, and overpriced drinks served by smug shade-grown children. I was only 3'ish minutes from my garage coming upon an emerging green light when a bike shot through his stop-sign and there was no room to stop. I veered, and he veered, but I hit him just the same broad-side at about 21 miles per hour. He flew from his Hybrid, spilling into the street, before a busy intersection, backpack landing somewhere near his bike, while he slid the other direction. No Helmet.
The typical potent chemistry flashed through my brain, Bike OK?, Wheel OK? Bars Straight?, Tire Sealed? Holy Fucking Shit! Everything seems fine. What was particularly unusual was not the fact that No rage welled up in me as would have certainly frothed were this a "car's fault". What was uncanny, was that I was still standing on my pedals, in a track-stand, more or less lording over the lesser lucky rider, before casually unclipping and reaching down to help gather the unlucky person I'd struck.
Late this fall, I was hit whilst riding home from the typical 50 mile loop, to some shitty coffee shop with mandatory tipping, bad staff, and overpriced drinks served by smug shade-grown children. I was only 3'ish minutes from my garage coming upon an emerging green light when a bike shot through his stop-sign and there was no room to stop. I veered, and he veered, but I hit him just the same broad-side at about 21 miles per hour. He flew from his Hybrid, spilling into the street, before a busy intersection, backpack landing somewhere near his bike, while he slid the other direction. No Helmet.
The typical potent chemistry flashed through my brain, Bike OK?, Wheel OK? Bars Straight?, Tire Sealed? Holy Fucking Shit! Everything seems fine. What was particularly unusual was not the fact that No rage welled up in me as would have certainly frothed were this a "car's fault". What was uncanny, was that I was still standing on my pedals, in a track-stand, more or less lording over the lesser lucky rider, before casually unclipping and reaching down to help gather the unlucky person I'd struck.
I leaned his bike, and mine against two trees, and helped my fellow cyclist to rest on a porch step, while I gathered the items spilled from his backpack. No helmet, just a knit winter cap -- seemingly no concussion, just a bit off balance, and the quick onset of some stiff aches.
"Track-Stands", I'd thought... I was standing fully upright, and attached, with meaningful balance above the victim of circumstance whose bad choice to run the stop-sign, would make him later still for work today. I never unclipped. I was unharmed, and my bike was undamaged. I stood in this track-stand winding down my heartrate from a roll to a subtle back- beat. I was lucky -- He..., less so.
We all know that scene from Pulp Fiction when the cowering kid with the pistol springs from the bathroom as Vincent and Jules wax philosophically with his cheeseburger -- Bullets fly, as he unloads the clip into the wall behind his un-scathed adversaries.
"Unscathed", I thought... "A Miracle, perhaps?" "the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men doing track-stands.
"Track-Stands", I'd thought... I was standing fully upright, and attached, with meaningful balance above the victim of circumstance whose bad choice to run the stop-sign, would make him later still for work today. I never unclipped. I was unharmed, and my bike was undamaged. I stood in this track-stand winding down my heartrate from a roll to a subtle back- beat. I was lucky -- He..., less so.
We all know that scene from Pulp Fiction when the cowering kid with the pistol springs from the bathroom as Vincent and Jules wax philosophically with his cheeseburger -- Bullets fly, as he unloads the clip into the wall behind his un-scathed adversaries.
"Unscathed", I thought... "A Miracle, perhaps?" "the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men doing track-stands.
- Published on
Biz Markie Likely Wearing his Dosimeter Properly
I got to wondering about Biz, lately -- (actual business, not this guy), I considered climate change, the universe, and possible nuclear annihilation.
...Any way I decided that if one could endure this entire video, That we'd all be fine.
We just need the right protective pendant necklace.
Anyway, Good Luck.
...Any way I decided that if one could endure this entire video, That we'd all be fine.
We just need the right protective pendant necklace.
Anyway, Good Luck.
Biz Markie Vintage Dosimeter Pendant c/o Etsy c. 1989
- Published on
Grimace Wasn't Real, Nor was your "Flat Bar Gravel Bike".
QUOTE: “Every single time I ride my gravel bike past a group of hikers, one of them will ask about my “hybrid” road bike with fat tyres. They ask because they think it’s cool as hell that I can ride a bike from my house to the trail. But “serious” cyclists don’t see the term hybrid that way.
We’ve valorized bikes often favoured by beginners as lesser than. Well, it’s time to put that to bed, and if it takes a $2,600/£2,600 flat bar gravel bike to do that, then that’s fine by me.”
-Some Dumb-shit writer from Cycling Weekly
It’s fucking hard to stand up here and cheer on my favorite “flat bar gravel bike”.
Cough! (HYBRID) Cough Cough!
It’s tough to stand in front of everyone and, behind some mental ideology your gut knows is myth, maligned and marginalized by bad faith, piss-poor politics, and a false prophet, such as 'Grimace'.
My “Flat Bar Gravel Bike” is my best friend and I love her. Sob, sniffle,
Absolutely Sure of my resolve and confident, of my conviction, I delve deeper into insanity every day, insisting that my “Flat Bar Gravel Bike” isn’t a “Hybrid”. …And everyone else just doesn’t understand me.
I think I’ll strap a comfort animal to the bars, and parade that shit around proclaiming adjectival injustice, and pronoun prejudice.
I had this stuffed animal as a kid — A small rabbit with soft fur and a stitched nose. I dragged it around over dirty pews and ledges, into the bathroom, and she lay with fellow dust-bunnies beneath my bunk-bed, never assigned a gender. I never wanted a stuffed bunny, but as easter faded, I thought I really loved her. I wanted comfort, through rough patches, and something to clean, care for, and rub when I felt insecure. She was NOT a doll, but a hybrid solution to bridge the gap between my infantile need for comfort, and restless greed for acceptance, (if by a stuffed friend) -- Down the bumpy road toward adventure. A token, I'd strapped it to my handlebars, as I practiced kick-turns, skids, and wheelies. She was filthy, & comforting, but it was far too late for me to keep her, and keep my peer-group..
We’ve valorized bikes often favoured by beginners as lesser than. Well, it’s time to put that to bed, and if it takes a $2,600/£2,600 flat bar gravel bike to do that, then that’s fine by me.”
-Some Dumb-shit writer from Cycling Weekly
It’s fucking hard to stand up here and cheer on my favorite “flat bar gravel bike”.
Cough! (HYBRID) Cough Cough!
It’s tough to stand in front of everyone and, behind some mental ideology your gut knows is myth, maligned and marginalized by bad faith, piss-poor politics, and a false prophet, such as 'Grimace'.
My “Flat Bar Gravel Bike” is my best friend and I love her. Sob, sniffle,
Absolutely Sure of my resolve and confident, of my conviction, I delve deeper into insanity every day, insisting that my “Flat Bar Gravel Bike” isn’t a “Hybrid”. …And everyone else just doesn’t understand me.
I think I’ll strap a comfort animal to the bars, and parade that shit around proclaiming adjectival injustice, and pronoun prejudice.
I had this stuffed animal as a kid — A small rabbit with soft fur and a stitched nose. I dragged it around over dirty pews and ledges, into the bathroom, and she lay with fellow dust-bunnies beneath my bunk-bed, never assigned a gender. I never wanted a stuffed bunny, but as easter faded, I thought I really loved her. I wanted comfort, through rough patches, and something to clean, care for, and rub when I felt insecure. She was NOT a doll, but a hybrid solution to bridge the gap between my infantile need for comfort, and restless greed for acceptance, (if by a stuffed friend) -- Down the bumpy road toward adventure. A token, I'd strapped it to my handlebars, as I practiced kick-turns, skids, and wheelies. She was filthy, & comforting, but it was far too late for me to keep her, and keep my peer-group..
“Man…, I’m never going to talk to those guys again.
I’m the one who got Arnold and Dave their jobs in the first place”. -Brad
Today I’m a “grown-up” and I’ve long forgotten when I discarded my faux comfort animal, but she taught me that make-believe works only up to the point when it no longer fits the confines of one’s cliché, and someone beats your ass for having imaginary friends.
Through the end I’m sure that I held tightly to my bunny and resolve that my aim was true, and my faith was sound and well reasoned. And when its not convenient I developed a “fuck them if they can’t understand” monologue which I'd repeated to my self (perhaps to this day), to guard against having ever been mistaken in my convictions. Of course I’m right about my politics, my faith, and my opinion., I’m always right… And Fuck Dennis Taylor
My first bike was as a Schwinn Pixie, the top tube was removable, attached at the seat collar and Headset, for quick conversion to a “Girls Model”.
My gender ambivalent two wheeler — the equal of a non-conforming Bathroom, was dark green, with scars of rust, and a rattly paint-matched chain guard. The solvent applied white decals (complete with pin-stripe star), were near illegible. The stripped seat-bolt was one turn away from the dark path of the vice-grip. When I outgrew the Metal Flake Green pixie, the top tube was withdrawn for my Sister’s to ride. She would be the fifth kid to inherit my gender non-conforming bike. I suppose you could say that resting mid-way between the Feminine pronoun, and a “Boy’s Bike” made this a Hybrid. Someplace in the netherworld — Neither XX nor XY. “But Serious Cyclists don’t see the term ‘Hybrid’, that way” -Dumbass
Your Stuffed Rabbit is exactly that; A stuffed rabbit. If you later see it zip-tied to the grille of the garbage truck, dangling from a trailer hitch, or upon your lap at the dinner table, It's a stuffed rabbit... Should you expect differing reactions, whether hanging like filthy balls from a snowy trailer-hitch?, or from the bar on your first two-wheeler -- Certainly!
..but it’s a stuffed rabbit. Nothing will change the Rabbit's Gender into a Flat Bar Gravel Bike. No magic spell will make Grimace less creepy, and that Kid from school cannot be a TeleTubby.
Scientifically speaking, If I’d prematurely removed the top-tube from my Schwinn Pixie, then it’s gender would not have conformed to my chromosomal skew, and I may be teased, or even beaten. And YOU should also be teased for defending what is clearly a “Hybrid” — This stuffed rabbit you are rolling upon is most certainly NOT a “Flat Bar Gravel Bike”. Yeeesh!
I’m the one who got Arnold and Dave their jobs in the first place”. -Brad
Today I’m a “grown-up” and I’ve long forgotten when I discarded my faux comfort animal, but she taught me that make-believe works only up to the point when it no longer fits the confines of one’s cliché, and someone beats your ass for having imaginary friends.
Through the end I’m sure that I held tightly to my bunny and resolve that my aim was true, and my faith was sound and well reasoned. And when its not convenient I developed a “fuck them if they can’t understand” monologue which I'd repeated to my self (perhaps to this day), to guard against having ever been mistaken in my convictions. Of course I’m right about my politics, my faith, and my opinion., I’m always right… And Fuck Dennis Taylor
My first bike was as a Schwinn Pixie, the top tube was removable, attached at the seat collar and Headset, for quick conversion to a “Girls Model”.
My gender ambivalent two wheeler — the equal of a non-conforming Bathroom, was dark green, with scars of rust, and a rattly paint-matched chain guard. The solvent applied white decals (complete with pin-stripe star), were near illegible. The stripped seat-bolt was one turn away from the dark path of the vice-grip. When I outgrew the Metal Flake Green pixie, the top tube was withdrawn for my Sister’s to ride. She would be the fifth kid to inherit my gender non-conforming bike. I suppose you could say that resting mid-way between the Feminine pronoun, and a “Boy’s Bike” made this a Hybrid. Someplace in the netherworld — Neither XX nor XY. “But Serious Cyclists don’t see the term ‘Hybrid’, that way” -Dumbass
Your Stuffed Rabbit is exactly that; A stuffed rabbit. If you later see it zip-tied to the grille of the garbage truck, dangling from a trailer hitch, or upon your lap at the dinner table, It's a stuffed rabbit... Should you expect differing reactions, whether hanging like filthy balls from a snowy trailer-hitch?, or from the bar on your first two-wheeler -- Certainly!
..but it’s a stuffed rabbit. Nothing will change the Rabbit's Gender into a Flat Bar Gravel Bike. No magic spell will make Grimace less creepy, and that Kid from school cannot be a TeleTubby.
Scientifically speaking, If I’d prematurely removed the top-tube from my Schwinn Pixie, then it’s gender would not have conformed to my chromosomal skew, and I may be teased, or even beaten. And YOU should also be teased for defending what is clearly a “Hybrid” — This stuffed rabbit you are rolling upon is most certainly NOT a “Flat Bar Gravel Bike”. Yeeesh!
A Gravel Bike
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating, that all the ludicrous pandering to pussies for non-conformity — All of our erasure of curbs, and leveling of the hills, will create that Vanilla Pudding Khaki Dockers, banner waving prejudice who’s weight becomes unbearable, who’s trajectory un-sustainable, and who’s damage to mores irreparable. We have curbs in place so the sewerage stays in the street, and the cars off the sidewalk, and we build bridges to connect both sides of the tracks, so commerce, and continuity will persist. Siloing every precious thought-bubble in a padded mauve comforter, will yield one singular failure… The failure to engage.
“What does little ‘XXY’ want for lunch today?” This question alone will eventually cost us trillions in mental health, confusion, suicide, listlessness, productivity, and a flat GDP. Bygone is the day when you ate what was served, and you wore what came in a box from your wealthier cousins, and you experimented with gender rules when you hit HighSchool.
Today, without an inkling of what you may aspire to.., Everyone wants to be a fucking Teletubby.
A mountain Bike has a flat bar and knobby tires for patently obvious reasons.
A road bike has a gorgeous curved bar blending near perfect form, and function, with lithe tires.
A gravel bike is a road cyclist’s opportunity to continue where the sidewalk ends. (see also Cyclocross).
A Schwinn Pixie, works to keep you from getting your ass beat for non-conformity (when that mattered).
A Hybrid Bike is neither a Mountain Bike, nor a Road Bike, nor a Pixie. It is neither good for hills, nor for trails. A Hybrid bike resides in the margins with your incompetent SUV, and a purple non-conformist diabetic monster. A Hybrid generally rests in the garage 11.875 months out of the year with flat tires.
A hybrid bike is the Beige Cotton Dockers, and UnderArmour Polo shirt of the discontented comfort-class.
As a child I asked my parents, and siblings about the only un-identifiable character in the play-lot — A giant purple non-conformist called Grimace. Grimace was introduced in 1971, as a thieving pair of purple monster arms who drank Shakes, and stole Cheese-burgers. Like all "Quazi-Bad-guys”, Grimace needed no gender, even when they/them moved from monster status to cheerful dolt. Grimace became the Hybrid Bike, the Schwinn Pixie of the Play-lot. Grimace was welcoming, non-judgmental, and flat out fat, and Grimace made it OK to not give a fuck about what you looked like, or which side of the gender question you landed. Grimace was my fucking filthy rabbit. A scape-goat. The brunt of every joke. Fodder for fun-poking.
Grimace is your fucking hybrid bike. Neither monster, nor angel -- Neither patron protector, nor nemesis.
Grimace rides poorly up-hill, descends like a fridge, and cannot hold a line in single-track. Grimace laughs at all the wrong jokes, and can neither make up its mind on where to go, nor how to send it, because Grimace’s parents have been doing that for they/them for forever.
Grimace is your fucking Hybrid “Flat Bar Gravel Bike”, and Grimace will eat you one day.
“What does little ‘XXY’ want for lunch today?” This question alone will eventually cost us trillions in mental health, confusion, suicide, listlessness, productivity, and a flat GDP. Bygone is the day when you ate what was served, and you wore what came in a box from your wealthier cousins, and you experimented with gender rules when you hit HighSchool.
Today, without an inkling of what you may aspire to.., Everyone wants to be a fucking Teletubby.
A mountain Bike has a flat bar and knobby tires for patently obvious reasons.
A road bike has a gorgeous curved bar blending near perfect form, and function, with lithe tires.
A gravel bike is a road cyclist’s opportunity to continue where the sidewalk ends. (see also Cyclocross).
A Schwinn Pixie, works to keep you from getting your ass beat for non-conformity (when that mattered).
A Hybrid Bike is neither a Mountain Bike, nor a Road Bike, nor a Pixie. It is neither good for hills, nor for trails. A Hybrid bike resides in the margins with your incompetent SUV, and a purple non-conformist diabetic monster. A Hybrid generally rests in the garage 11.875 months out of the year with flat tires.
A hybrid bike is the Beige Cotton Dockers, and UnderArmour Polo shirt of the discontented comfort-class.
As a child I asked my parents, and siblings about the only un-identifiable character in the play-lot — A giant purple non-conformist called Grimace. Grimace was introduced in 1971, as a thieving pair of purple monster arms who drank Shakes, and stole Cheese-burgers. Like all "Quazi-Bad-guys”, Grimace needed no gender, even when they/them moved from monster status to cheerful dolt. Grimace became the Hybrid Bike, the Schwinn Pixie of the Play-lot. Grimace was welcoming, non-judgmental, and flat out fat, and Grimace made it OK to not give a fuck about what you looked like, or which side of the gender question you landed. Grimace was my fucking filthy rabbit. A scape-goat. The brunt of every joke. Fodder for fun-poking.
Grimace is your fucking hybrid bike. Neither monster, nor angel -- Neither patron protector, nor nemesis.
Grimace rides poorly up-hill, descends like a fridge, and cannot hold a line in single-track. Grimace laughs at all the wrong jokes, and can neither make up its mind on where to go, nor how to send it, because Grimace’s parents have been doing that for they/them for forever.
Grimace is your fucking Hybrid “Flat Bar Gravel Bike”, and Grimace will eat you one day.
- Published on
Josh Hawley says real men value courage. Not many in Trump’s party clear the bar.
Reprinted with Full Credit to the Author JOHN F. HARRIS Editor & Co-Founder of Politico
07/07/2022 04:30 AM EDT
Reprinted with Full Credit to the Author JOHN F. HARRIS Editor & Co-Founder of Politico
07/07/2022 04:30 AM EDT
America, many conservatives believe, is facing a masculinity crisis. The general drift of modern culture, the argument goes, has merged with the anti-patriarchal agenda of the radical left to create a climate in which boys and men are made to feel that there is something inherently suspect or even shameful about their sex. Little wonder, asserted Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri in a widely publicized address last year, that many men have lost their self-confidence and no longer represent “the traditional masculine virtues — things like courage, and independence and assertiveness.” Hawley’s speech did not take note of how thoroughly masculine virtues, under this definition, have been diluted within his own Republican Party during the Trump era. Nor did he cite the figure who is the most vivid counterexample. The person who is the most credible answer to the GOP’s manhood problem is a woman: Liz Cheney. Liz Cheney: ‘Republicans cannot be both loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution’
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Play Video Wyoming’s lone congresswoman is widely loathed by acolytes of Donald Trump. Certainly Hawley has not sought to join her in confronting the former president or demanding accountability for the ways his claims of election fraud led to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. But it would be hard to argue that Cheney does not represent “courage, and independence and assertiveness.” Many people will be uncomfortable viewing these admirable qualities through the prism of gender. Standing firm on principle, and doing the right thing even when there may be a high cost to doing so, are qualities anyone should aspire to — no matter whether they are male, female or reject binary gender categories altogether. The important point, however, is that many conservatives are comfortable linking gender and personal traits like toughness. Liz Cheney is plainly one of those conservatives. Recall her rejoinder to Sen. Ted Cruz, after the Texan accused Cheney last year of suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.” Cheney mocked Cruz for groveling toward Trump even though he has in the past attacked Cruz’s own family members. “Trump broke Ted Cruz,” Cheney told CNN. “A real man would be defending his wife, and his father, and the Constitution.” Recall also a Cheney aide’s taunt of Rep. Matt Gaetz, a camera-loving Trump warrior, who traveled to Wyoming to urge voters to reject Cheney and demand her resignation: “Gaetz can leave his beauty bag at home. In Wyoming, the men don’t wear make-up.” As it happens, an instinct to sneer at the failed manhood of fellow politicians is one place where Cheney and Trump are aligned. In the recent book This Will Not Pass, authors Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns reveal that Trump in the closing days of his presidency began calling House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy “a pussy” because he perceived that he was not backing him with insufficient fervor. McCarthy, who for a moment had seemed ready to break with Trump over the Jan. 6 riot, quickly fell back in line, “more or less setting out to prove [Trump] right.” Liz Cheney's Jan. 6 Committee full opening statements
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Play Video All this points the mind back to Hawley’s speech last fall to the National Conservativism Conference. It reads as if he flirted for a while about making a serious comment on the state of modern culture and then decided that was too much trouble for too few rewards. He eschewed precision in favor of bombast: “The left is telling America and its men, you’re evil. You’re terrible. You must apologize and submit to your government masters to be reformed.” And his logic was murky: Even if he can find some campus leftists who believe “it seems logical to hate men,” why are they principally to blame for the fact that many men, in Hawley’s telling, refuse to get off drugs and off the couch? MOST READ
Kate Bedingfield is leaving the White House The Southwest is bone dry. Now, a key water source is at risk. Shadow 2024 race: Newsom vs. DeSantis Liz Cheney Wins the GOP’s Manhood Contest Questions arise over Warnock’s use of campaign funds to fight lawsuit But just because parts of Hawley’s speech were frivolous does not mean all of his argument was. The virtues of self-restraint, self-sufficiency and, above all, meeting the responsibilities of parenthood belong to both sexes. But it is reasonable to believe that the failures to live by these ideals are more common among men, and the societal consequences more severe. It is a reasonable assertion also that individuals make choices based on the examples they observe — whether fictitious examples from classic stories or real examples in the news. American entertainment has produced many classic male archetypes. There are laconic tough guys like Clint Eastwood (“Do you feel lucky, punk?”). There are self-effacing characters like Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, who reveal their true mettle when tested by extraordinary circumstances. There is the brooding, too-sensitive-for-this-world type like the characters played by James Dean. There is the cocky self-dramatist like Tom Cruise in his Top Gun incarnations. But all these diverse types have one trait in common: a willingness to defy convention, and stand up to a crowd and refuse to go with the flow when faced with a core question of right vs. wrong. Some questions for Hawley the next time he tackles the masculinity crisis: Who among current American political figures (no easy out by naming Volodymyr Zelenskyy) best represents these virtues? And explain the ways Donald Trump meets your standard of “traditional male virtues” and where he falls short? Meanwhile, Cheney has slightly complicated her bid as the GOP’s most traditionally masculine figure. In a speech the other day at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, she said she “came to this choice” to stand up to Trump above all “as a mother,” and portrayed her willingness to risk her political future by standing up to leaders of her party as a triumph of traditional feminine virtues. In the modern Republican Party, perhaps Cheney is the equivalent of a single parent — she needs to be mother and father for the sake of the kids. Or perhaps when it comes to the obligations of public life, virtue is a perfectly good noun without any adjective — not masculine or feminine.
- Published on
Same as it ever was, same as it EVER was…
The thing about death, is that you cannot entirely die from it -- If people are still talking about you.
The Bold, may mistakenly become rock stars, perhaps unwitting (when they die), that the world was actually ending.
People used to bring flowers to the graves of long passed loved ones, grand-parents, Elvis and such, buried long in graveyards. cut splays droop in the heat, as a custodian tosses hundreds of rancid bouquets into the trash. Today we bring flowers, pictures, protest banners and candles to makeshift vigils for those shot in schools, grocery stores, and concert venues.
Today, we remember the fallen, taken too soon by racists, maniacs, and broken teens weened on porn, processed food, Red-Bulls, Rock-Stars and first person shooter games.
Today we recognize political protest movements as nothing more than a gathering of untapped potential -- Like a street fair, a concert event -- lolla-fucking-palooza. We wave a banner, don a charged up T-shirt, shot-gun a half dozen piss warm beers, and march around taking awkward queues from two or three people who've read the news, and then we go home and sleep it off.
Although David Byrne would later refer to “Wartime” as a loose memoir about living in alphabet city, — “Life During Wartime” commemorates what many listeners consider context for a middle-class apocalypse. A clear analog for humanity’s ritual homicide -- “Wartime” captures the context of a changed urban landscape, where surreality shifts from comfortable consumerism to simple survival. A napkin sketch of human-kind's ongoing fascination with destruction — Cautiously, distrustingly on the vanguard of an insurgency.
As kids, we’d practice cowering under desks well before “active shooter” became a thing — A child's macabre preparation for that ultimate shit-storm of nuclear winter. Every cold war kid was trained to imagine themselves humming nervously, crossed-legged beneath one’s desk — followed by a brief flashing X-ray of small bones, before our bodies vaporized snugly below chrome, melamine, and melted chewing-gum.
I could count my age on two hands, when "Life During Wartime" began to play on the radio. I recall it playing from the Zenith Kitchen radio as I dissolved a packet of Kool-Aid into a cancerous plastic pitcher, pouring tepid July tap-water into Tupperware. "Where does that Highway Lead to?" ...Melting granulated sugar with red dye number 5, watching pale powder, turn deep crimson. Kool-Aid coated the corners before bubbling bright red staining upward into a froth.
Just like Wartime.
"Got some groceries, some peanut butter, but I -- Ain't got no records to play".
Well before MTV, We watched Cartoons, and Cronkite, as blood spilled only occasionally on TV, (always someplace else), while a soundtrack by cultural heroes named David kept time. David Byrne, David Bowie, David Gilmour… filled in all the gaps glazed-over by TV news. With 'the Davids', we’d soon become more watchful, mindful, mournful, maudlin.
When I first heard Life During Wartime, I understood that things would change with age. I knew right away that becoming an adult meant I’d need to pay attention to such things, (even the news), and then I stopped stirring Kool-Aid twisted the ice-cube tray, and hummed, before the song changed to something aloof by Eddie Rabbit.
We dwell in a snow-globe, a sealed bubble where tiny figures with weighted lungs, struggle in silent scuba flitting about through downy ash in slow motion, unable to escape heavy gravity.
When we bother to tune into the drama, an oppressive atmosphere cloaks us, connects us, and prevents our free movement. Within this liquid biome, we consider our weight as war stories slow our timeline to a stand-still. Shooters now punctuate our weeks with Silence and outrage, of what we've come to accept as normal. With nothing more to consider than the name of some small town nobody's ever heard of -- Before gunshots rang out. Then there is the piercing ringing, of explosions.
An atom bomb to a soundtrack of Rage, and Punk Rock. In my youth the end game was nearly never a shooting.
Our lungs contract before we capture our first charred breath of the new air, and the smell of burnt hair. We are all complicit in allowing this new wartime to unfold, because we teach it every day. We no longer aspire to anything more than stuff, screen-time, and virtual notoriety. Momentary mute anguish betrays the strange context of our bullshit hindsight. We've enabled this plague of hatred as a generation of Love gave way to callous conceit. It's noteworthy that we were always well behind the enlightened child who saw it all coming. The meek kid who communed with trees, rocks and butterflies, and who knew that so and so, was up to something shitty. It is precisely our confinement to our homes, ourselves, and our planet that's capped our ability to imagine anything more important than the self. Our shared experience which makes us human, has also hit a technical ceiling. We've run out of cloud storage -- Run out of space to express oneself in any way other than Online.
Nobody eats a meal without snapping a photo first.
No one enjoys a moment without comparing it to another's.
No human who is loved shoots people.
But do we really need to share the same world with psychopaths?
Our collective life during wartime, may seem a stale rerun. Being baptized by fire, pandemic, or a hateful shooting does not bring out the best in people. The adage "whatever doesn't kill you..." is an absurd nursery-rhyme scripted by those still sporting 1950's nostalgic machismo.
The Greatest Generation (the one which convinced every American male to resolve disputes with a bullet) has been long buried, along with their infantile fantasies of Bomber-Jacket Super-hero's. Their legacy however, left in its wake, the Bronson-esque bravado of a billion guns. What fantasy fiction remains of your granddad's rusty rifle, wears a catheter bag in a Hogan's Hero re-run sponsored by Geritol. Today, we can be proud of the past thirty years only because we managed not to blow ourselves up yet. The joke is that the cold war was also led with the same exuberant blunt instrument. The leading strategy for conflict resolution -- "bullet or bomb", became 80's religion to keep the masses in line. When our fright finally shifted from fear-mongering about Bombs and Bullets to Pandemic, neither bullet nor bomb became back-seated. We simply swallowed a full mouth-full of madness, and stocked up on N95's, Bullets, and Sniper Rifles.
It is our unshakable connectedness in misery at times of crisis which makes us less well equipped to make good judgements. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you more likely to give up and suffer an existential mind-fuck. In the Eighties, when fear, loathing, and recession took a good person with it -- at least it was a quiet suicide. Write a note, and pick your poison.
In Highschool, playing 8 bit video games, Eight of my friend's Dads took their own life. Quiet and ashamed... None of them tried to take anyone with them.
Today, the latest first person shooter Game is writ live by broken humans in small towns, as cowards spend their "final life" in a rageful suicide by cop. This is our new life during wartime.
As for my ten-year-old brain's inability to imagine what life during wartime feels like, I knew for certain that fear and the sense of being wholly changed would never leave anyone baptized by bullets and bombs.
In my cold war youth, (living under oppressive recession, failed middle-class aspirations, widespread layoffs, factory closures, and rampant suicide) -- I came to know that every day may be my final moment. The unknowing of which made me a piss-poor planner, a worse saver, and anything but a morning person.
It wasn’t until ’84 when watching "Wartime" performed in "Stop Making Sense", would resolve two better perspectives: 1. A far better sense of what it meant to share our snow-globe with some truly talented and some truly evil fuckers. 2. Preparations for the apocalypse would be punctuated with Punk Rock to get a handle upon the color shift of a globe evolving from black-and-white, to technicolor, and then to gray.
"...And you may ask yourself.. How do I work this?
Sewn into the seams of my messed up youth, will always be this awkward art school geek standing, shaking, wiggling, trying like a four year-old in a horror film to wake his dumb-ass parents. They “just don’t fucking understand!” There is a Hush, of complacent comfort, of smug solace, and then the globe shatters, liquid spills from mute ears, and we hear loudly the shots, or the screaming in-bound missile.
So..., what’s about to land? — because it’s quiet now, and it's calm — As the spring breeze blows, a dog whimpers, and then… BAM! the bomb kisses the earth, and a millennial wartime struggle ensues.
There will always be War, as well as the peaceful geek who is “tapped-in” -- And this one kid knows what you are clearly missing, Overlooking, Are too stupid to notice. Being marginalized is part of the human experience, and your digital world is not full of human beings, but robots.
LOOK, MOM, DAD… the thing is… we kids have an actual idea how this goes down, and it doesn’t end well for the unadaptable. Oh, and by the way, you may want to duck right-the-fuck-now; As stray shrapnel and mid-caliber metal riddles the stillness, all with a laugh-track, whilst you watch YouTube.
As “End of Days” soundtracks lent meaningful context to my fucked up youth, I emerged in the world wholly unprepared for digital hijack. I feel it is OK to tap one point. Your digital meta-verse, has one glaring red flaw, which Andy Warhol may have also promoted. Wherever he heard it first..., "Fifteen Minutes of Fame" became (a)merican entitlement -- But this surely is not your fucking birthright.
Ever since the 80's, the digital world has taught humans to claw their way up the belt of some moving walkway, promoting the promise of (P)opularity for EVERYONE. Even if your mom didn't groom you for beauty pageants, and even if you were never popular in school; your meta-verse seemed to promise you a shot. Quick math reveals that most of you poor fuckers will need to sit on your hands, because there are not enough minutes in the day for every bench-warmer to feel special. We are not only out of cloud storage, and I.P. addresses, ...but we are also out of time.
You are simply not entitled to becoming famous. Not by your Instagram, Your Reddit post -- Not by your food photo, not by the pen, nor the sword, nor the bullet or bomb.
It is precisely when we feel entitled that we behave badly. It seems some internal clock ticks away, while others appear ahead of us on the meta-beltway, and so (when time seems to run out), we act badly. Whether it is for a lack of feeling special, or by false exceptionalism --This dead-end is what kills.
Punk rock, like D&D and other analog games, taught generations of disenfranchised kids to make believe for a bit. Whether slamming into each-other in the mosh pit, or re-inventing themselves as a fictional bad-ass, the fact that we the ordinary are mired in mediocrity, can be ameliorated with a touch of fiction. One can slam into a few hundred angry youth without bloodshed, without a single bullet, and without the fictional promise of punching above your pay-grade. It's OK to be ordinary, to feel un-entitled, and to rest a while offline.
It may be less important to tap the artist’s recollection of a song’s origin, and far more helpful to use great sound tracks for reflection as we would any classic poem, or painting — When pen hits paper it is generally the initial impact which becomes the full measure of meaning — And not the talk-show interview. Given a long enough time-scale, a great song will outlive whatever the artist told the press it meant in 1978.
Successful people don't share every nuance of their private lives in hopes that someone will pay them attention. Great artists don’t spoil their story recounting every detail -- But by sketching broad strokes styling a background often without an eraser, or edits. New applicants discover seemingly by mistake, that the rule book for human behavior is rife with rewrites and plagiarism. I've argued that there are far too many people on earth and far too few human beings. But I know for certain that becoming a human requires being present for yourself, and for others.
If "Life During Wartime", became an 'adultish' anthem for war-orientation, Then "Once in a Life-time" defines the malaise of three decades of America's blahs. "And you may ask yourself -- Where is that large automobile?"
As witness to four decades of American un-exceptionalism, we can confirm our pretense of world leadership, is at best trial and error.
David Byrne explained his lyrics for "Once in a Lifetime": denying that they address yuppie greed... He said this song was about the unconscious: (as adults) "We operate half-awake or on autopilot and end up, whatever, with a house and family and job and everything else, and we haven't really stopped to ask ourselves, 'How did I get here?"
During your wartime life, you can actually die, and have no fucking idea how you got there, nor what the fuck just hit you, and then… it's silent -- So it's probably best to make an effort to become well remembered.
The thing about death, is that you cannot entirely die from it -- If people are still talking about you.
The Bold, may mistakenly become rock stars, perhaps unwitting (when they die), that the world was actually ending.
People used to bring flowers to the graves of long passed loved ones, grand-parents, Elvis and such, buried long in graveyards. cut splays droop in the heat, as a custodian tosses hundreds of rancid bouquets into the trash. Today we bring flowers, pictures, protest banners and candles to makeshift vigils for those shot in schools, grocery stores, and concert venues.
Today, we remember the fallen, taken too soon by racists, maniacs, and broken teens weened on porn, processed food, Red-Bulls, Rock-Stars and first person shooter games.
Today we recognize political protest movements as nothing more than a gathering of untapped potential -- Like a street fair, a concert event -- lolla-fucking-palooza. We wave a banner, don a charged up T-shirt, shot-gun a half dozen piss warm beers, and march around taking awkward queues from two or three people who've read the news, and then we go home and sleep it off.
Although David Byrne would later refer to “Wartime” as a loose memoir about living in alphabet city, — “Life During Wartime” commemorates what many listeners consider context for a middle-class apocalypse. A clear analog for humanity’s ritual homicide -- “Wartime” captures the context of a changed urban landscape, where surreality shifts from comfortable consumerism to simple survival. A napkin sketch of human-kind's ongoing fascination with destruction — Cautiously, distrustingly on the vanguard of an insurgency.
As kids, we’d practice cowering under desks well before “active shooter” became a thing — A child's macabre preparation for that ultimate shit-storm of nuclear winter. Every cold war kid was trained to imagine themselves humming nervously, crossed-legged beneath one’s desk — followed by a brief flashing X-ray of small bones, before our bodies vaporized snugly below chrome, melamine, and melted chewing-gum.
I could count my age on two hands, when "Life During Wartime" began to play on the radio. I recall it playing from the Zenith Kitchen radio as I dissolved a packet of Kool-Aid into a cancerous plastic pitcher, pouring tepid July tap-water into Tupperware. "Where does that Highway Lead to?" ...Melting granulated sugar with red dye number 5, watching pale powder, turn deep crimson. Kool-Aid coated the corners before bubbling bright red staining upward into a froth.
Just like Wartime.
"Got some groceries, some peanut butter, but I -- Ain't got no records to play".
Well before MTV, We watched Cartoons, and Cronkite, as blood spilled only occasionally on TV, (always someplace else), while a soundtrack by cultural heroes named David kept time. David Byrne, David Bowie, David Gilmour… filled in all the gaps glazed-over by TV news. With 'the Davids', we’d soon become more watchful, mindful, mournful, maudlin.
When I first heard Life During Wartime, I understood that things would change with age. I knew right away that becoming an adult meant I’d need to pay attention to such things, (even the news), and then I stopped stirring Kool-Aid twisted the ice-cube tray, and hummed, before the song changed to something aloof by Eddie Rabbit.
We dwell in a snow-globe, a sealed bubble where tiny figures with weighted lungs, struggle in silent scuba flitting about through downy ash in slow motion, unable to escape heavy gravity.
When we bother to tune into the drama, an oppressive atmosphere cloaks us, connects us, and prevents our free movement. Within this liquid biome, we consider our weight as war stories slow our timeline to a stand-still. Shooters now punctuate our weeks with Silence and outrage, of what we've come to accept as normal. With nothing more to consider than the name of some small town nobody's ever heard of -- Before gunshots rang out. Then there is the piercing ringing, of explosions.
An atom bomb to a soundtrack of Rage, and Punk Rock. In my youth the end game was nearly never a shooting.
Our lungs contract before we capture our first charred breath of the new air, and the smell of burnt hair. We are all complicit in allowing this new wartime to unfold, because we teach it every day. We no longer aspire to anything more than stuff, screen-time, and virtual notoriety. Momentary mute anguish betrays the strange context of our bullshit hindsight. We've enabled this plague of hatred as a generation of Love gave way to callous conceit. It's noteworthy that we were always well behind the enlightened child who saw it all coming. The meek kid who communed with trees, rocks and butterflies, and who knew that so and so, was up to something shitty. It is precisely our confinement to our homes, ourselves, and our planet that's capped our ability to imagine anything more important than the self. Our shared experience which makes us human, has also hit a technical ceiling. We've run out of cloud storage -- Run out of space to express oneself in any way other than Online.
Nobody eats a meal without snapping a photo first.
No one enjoys a moment without comparing it to another's.
No human who is loved shoots people.
But do we really need to share the same world with psychopaths?
Our collective life during wartime, may seem a stale rerun. Being baptized by fire, pandemic, or a hateful shooting does not bring out the best in people. The adage "whatever doesn't kill you..." is an absurd nursery-rhyme scripted by those still sporting 1950's nostalgic machismo.
The Greatest Generation (the one which convinced every American male to resolve disputes with a bullet) has been long buried, along with their infantile fantasies of Bomber-Jacket Super-hero's. Their legacy however, left in its wake, the Bronson-esque bravado of a billion guns. What fantasy fiction remains of your granddad's rusty rifle, wears a catheter bag in a Hogan's Hero re-run sponsored by Geritol. Today, we can be proud of the past thirty years only because we managed not to blow ourselves up yet. The joke is that the cold war was also led with the same exuberant blunt instrument. The leading strategy for conflict resolution -- "bullet or bomb", became 80's religion to keep the masses in line. When our fright finally shifted from fear-mongering about Bombs and Bullets to Pandemic, neither bullet nor bomb became back-seated. We simply swallowed a full mouth-full of madness, and stocked up on N95's, Bullets, and Sniper Rifles.
It is our unshakable connectedness in misery at times of crisis which makes us less well equipped to make good judgements. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you more likely to give up and suffer an existential mind-fuck. In the Eighties, when fear, loathing, and recession took a good person with it -- at least it was a quiet suicide. Write a note, and pick your poison.
In Highschool, playing 8 bit video games, Eight of my friend's Dads took their own life. Quiet and ashamed... None of them tried to take anyone with them.
Today, the latest first person shooter Game is writ live by broken humans in small towns, as cowards spend their "final life" in a rageful suicide by cop. This is our new life during wartime.
As for my ten-year-old brain's inability to imagine what life during wartime feels like, I knew for certain that fear and the sense of being wholly changed would never leave anyone baptized by bullets and bombs.
In my cold war youth, (living under oppressive recession, failed middle-class aspirations, widespread layoffs, factory closures, and rampant suicide) -- I came to know that every day may be my final moment. The unknowing of which made me a piss-poor planner, a worse saver, and anything but a morning person.
It wasn’t until ’84 when watching "Wartime" performed in "Stop Making Sense", would resolve two better perspectives: 1. A far better sense of what it meant to share our snow-globe with some truly talented and some truly evil fuckers. 2. Preparations for the apocalypse would be punctuated with Punk Rock to get a handle upon the color shift of a globe evolving from black-and-white, to technicolor, and then to gray.
"...And you may ask yourself.. How do I work this?
Sewn into the seams of my messed up youth, will always be this awkward art school geek standing, shaking, wiggling, trying like a four year-old in a horror film to wake his dumb-ass parents. They “just don’t fucking understand!” There is a Hush, of complacent comfort, of smug solace, and then the globe shatters, liquid spills from mute ears, and we hear loudly the shots, or the screaming in-bound missile.
So..., what’s about to land? — because it’s quiet now, and it's calm — As the spring breeze blows, a dog whimpers, and then… BAM! the bomb kisses the earth, and a millennial wartime struggle ensues.
There will always be War, as well as the peaceful geek who is “tapped-in” -- And this one kid knows what you are clearly missing, Overlooking, Are too stupid to notice. Being marginalized is part of the human experience, and your digital world is not full of human beings, but robots.
LOOK, MOM, DAD… the thing is… we kids have an actual idea how this goes down, and it doesn’t end well for the unadaptable. Oh, and by the way, you may want to duck right-the-fuck-now; As stray shrapnel and mid-caliber metal riddles the stillness, all with a laugh-track, whilst you watch YouTube.
As “End of Days” soundtracks lent meaningful context to my fucked up youth, I emerged in the world wholly unprepared for digital hijack. I feel it is OK to tap one point. Your digital meta-verse, has one glaring red flaw, which Andy Warhol may have also promoted. Wherever he heard it first..., "Fifteen Minutes of Fame" became (a)merican entitlement -- But this surely is not your fucking birthright.
Ever since the 80's, the digital world has taught humans to claw their way up the belt of some moving walkway, promoting the promise of (P)opularity for EVERYONE. Even if your mom didn't groom you for beauty pageants, and even if you were never popular in school; your meta-verse seemed to promise you a shot. Quick math reveals that most of you poor fuckers will need to sit on your hands, because there are not enough minutes in the day for every bench-warmer to feel special. We are not only out of cloud storage, and I.P. addresses, ...but we are also out of time.
You are simply not entitled to becoming famous. Not by your Instagram, Your Reddit post -- Not by your food photo, not by the pen, nor the sword, nor the bullet or bomb.
It is precisely when we feel entitled that we behave badly. It seems some internal clock ticks away, while others appear ahead of us on the meta-beltway, and so (when time seems to run out), we act badly. Whether it is for a lack of feeling special, or by false exceptionalism --This dead-end is what kills.
Punk rock, like D&D and other analog games, taught generations of disenfranchised kids to make believe for a bit. Whether slamming into each-other in the mosh pit, or re-inventing themselves as a fictional bad-ass, the fact that we the ordinary are mired in mediocrity, can be ameliorated with a touch of fiction. One can slam into a few hundred angry youth without bloodshed, without a single bullet, and without the fictional promise of punching above your pay-grade. It's OK to be ordinary, to feel un-entitled, and to rest a while offline.
It may be less important to tap the artist’s recollection of a song’s origin, and far more helpful to use great sound tracks for reflection as we would any classic poem, or painting — When pen hits paper it is generally the initial impact which becomes the full measure of meaning — And not the talk-show interview. Given a long enough time-scale, a great song will outlive whatever the artist told the press it meant in 1978.
Successful people don't share every nuance of their private lives in hopes that someone will pay them attention. Great artists don’t spoil their story recounting every detail -- But by sketching broad strokes styling a background often without an eraser, or edits. New applicants discover seemingly by mistake, that the rule book for human behavior is rife with rewrites and plagiarism. I've argued that there are far too many people on earth and far too few human beings. But I know for certain that becoming a human requires being present for yourself, and for others.
If "Life During Wartime", became an 'adultish' anthem for war-orientation, Then "Once in a Life-time" defines the malaise of three decades of America's blahs. "And you may ask yourself -- Where is that large automobile?"
As witness to four decades of American un-exceptionalism, we can confirm our pretense of world leadership, is at best trial and error.
David Byrne explained his lyrics for "Once in a Lifetime": denying that they address yuppie greed... He said this song was about the unconscious: (as adults) "We operate half-awake or on autopilot and end up, whatever, with a house and family and job and everything else, and we haven't really stopped to ask ourselves, 'How did I get here?"
During your wartime life, you can actually die, and have no fucking idea how you got there, nor what the fuck just hit you, and then… it's silent -- So it's probably best to make an effort to become well remembered.
