Oh yeah, almost forgot...

...can you believe it's been a damned year since the presidential elections?



Wow, that just flew the fuck by.

Well, so how have we fared?
Well, we've gone from the fear mongering of the campaign, to the fear mongering surrounding health care.

Wonder what new flavor of fear we'll have next year.

Oh, such fun..... Read More......

Hope.

Yeah, Obama beat this one to death as a slogan, but let's really look at this.

Hope....yeah, given all the bullshit we have to dig out from under, hope is really hard to hold on to sometimes....

It really is enough to make one despair.

But, when you really look at despair, pretty much all forms of it are some variation on "we're doomed!", and that statement right there says that you think you know how it all will end.

Well, the good news, is no one knows how it all will end.
Only psychics claim that with certainty, and they're totally full of shit.

As Yogi Berra said "it ain't over til it's over".

And just look at all the doom-saying we made it out the other end of.
And when we did, the doom turned out to be an illusion.

All the "duck and cover", shit from The Cold War is a prime example.

And speaking of The Cold War, it was a gloomy conventional wisdom back in the 80's that the Berlin Wall was going to be up for decades to come.

Well, look now, we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of its fall.

Hope?
Hell yeah, we've got plenty of elbow room for it.
Not just in the big picture, but each and every one of us.

When hope is hard to come by, just think of all the other things that seemed hopeless.
Shit, pretty much every big decision anyone had to make when you think about it.

Okay, some people are doomed, some people's lots are hopeless.
Lotta awful shit going on.
Lotta awful shit has gone on.
I'm not claiming that a sunny outlook alone is going to save a death camp internee.

But, by the same token, despair sure isn't gonna help, all despair adds to misery is despair itself.

Despair didn't bring that wall down.
And it is down, isn't it?

Hope.
It's a tricky thing, but it should be erred on the side of whenever possible.
And short of the moment of your murderer sliding the knife in, I'm at a loss to come up with too many practical moments where it's not possible.

Shit, look at all those little kids with terminal cancer that manage to come at life all chirpy.

Hope.
I think it's a good thing, I think it should be subscribed to.
I think we have plenty of evidence for it.

I'm sure an ornery cuss could make a counter-argument.
Heck, I know one who has.
Wasn't impressed.

Perhaps someone will do better.
But it seems to me, that someone would have to be motivated, and despair is exactly the sort of thing that would curtail motivation.
Not many people all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed over the whole pro-despair argument.
No one stable anyway.
I haven't seen one.

But hey, I live in hope. ;)
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AAUGH!

The Slap Chop remix parody has been turned into an official Slap Chop ad!!



Damn you, you crafty advertising bastards!!

(Crafty advertising bastards)
HUUAAAW HAW HAW HAW HAAAWWWW!!!!

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Location blogging #14.

Okay, the wait is over, and I'm all gadgeted up, so back to the navel gazing on what my summer meant.


Whelp, in entry 1, I was gloomily predicting a voyage of the damned through a " tableau of American defeat".

Hmm...all in how one looks at it, I guess.

All throughout, I griped about old places I loved that are gone now, but...they're not really gone...

Bookland was replaced with Borders, Laverdiere's is replaced by Rite Aid/CVS, and comic shops, and the old Wal-Mart is fucking dead, and its horrible mean redneck employees scattered to the four corners of the planet.

And Bookland still exists out in Saco as Nonesuch Books, so there's that.

And Rich's is reincarnated as Big Lots, and the old Biddeford theater never really died.

So, what's gone?
What have I lost?

An old toy store? I'm an adult, I don't need toys anymore.

Oh, well, yes I do. :P

So, okay, the world I thought I'd lost has just rearranged, and morphed, but it's all still there.

And all the people and places I thought were destroyed, what represented "defeat", have just shifted around, and/or gone online.

So, why am I a hermit anymore?

....right...people...

People and their bullshit.

But....how much bullshit do people I contact in daily life really give me?

None, really.

People walking about mind their own business, and people in service jobs tend to be cheery and helpful no matter how rednecky the shop.

So...the only really insufferable criminal redneck pricks I encountered....were on night crews.
Toys R Us, and Wal-Mart.
And ironically, I did night crew to avoid people, to avoid the sort of sociopathy I ended up putting up with anyway.
So...okay, no more night crews.

So, who else gives me shit?
WF, mostly.
Okay, stop going there.
I'm a hermit cuz of assholes, and the assholes in my life are all on a message board that I go to while I'm indoors avoiding people.

Okay, bam, 'nother problem solved.

So, where else is the bullshit coming from?
Okay, our dopey media culture.
But, I found one surefire antidote to that.

So, bam, another problem gone.

And with my remote, and when I get the Dingoo, I'll have to put up with what's shoveled at me even less.

So, what's left?
Phantoms in my head.
Fuck 'em.

And that's one big thing I rediscovered, the "fuck 'em", attitude I learned in the 80's, and didn't used to doubt.
Gotta get back on that wagon, and stay on it.

That "fuck em", attitude was the lens I wrote the last 2 rants in.
(Confidence, accomplishment)

Gotta practice what I preach about defeating fear, and the bullshit that comes from it.

Okay, so what's left?
Any boogeymen?
Whelp...yuppies, I bitched about them a bit (here, here, n' here).
What is a yuppie anyway?
People with money who don't share my tastes?
Big deal.
Get over it, Mikey.
What's the worst a yuppie does? Get snotty about me being white trash once in a blue moon?
Fuck 'em.
It's because they're an asshole as an individual, not because of their bank account.
And how often does that shit even happen?
Can't even remember the last time.
Fuck it.
Shit, lotta my online friends are of that "yuppie class", whatever that even is, so...meh.
Another mental illusion.
Like all teenagers being in a gang.

Paranoid insecurity, I cop to it.

Fine, awareness is the first step.

Gotta let that stupid shit go.

Gotta embrace the world again.

Gotta carve out a damned life somehow.

Well,...I took on the world out there in the location blogs.

Except....in-town Portland....

*Shiver*

(Flash to Portland with a big black cloud monster with red eyes floating over it and laughing)

*Gulp*.....


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Accomplishment.

Okay, my thoughts on this whole deal...


A guy clears a bunch of logs from a downed tree out of his back yard.

When he's done, between exhausted breaths, he says "well, there, at least I got that accomplished".

Another guy at a desk, stamps a pile of papers on his desk, shoves some of them into envelopes, and once the stack has moved to one side of his desk to the other, he says the exact same thing "there, got that accomplished".

Life is full of its little accomplishments.

And we all have them.

Yet something about American society causes some to raise the bar so only things like, say, Trump's phallic buildings count as "accomplishment".

And the raising and lowering of the bar seems to be not only relative, but situational.

It's the kind of cognitive dissonance you only get in a competitive culture.
And it seems to be only a sub-culture.
And it seems to be only a man thing.

And this subculture also seems to buy into "THE American Dream".

But absent what this contradicting dissonant sub-culture thinks, what IS accomplishment, actually?

Is there a consistent definition that can frame, say, the Corporate Warrior as the Übermensch, and the guy in the trailer home as a lower form of life, possibly even fit for passionless extermination like stepping on a bug?

Mmmm, not really....

At least Merriam Webster doesn't think so.

I've thought of this a lot, because it's a word I've seen abused a lot.

A lot of words get abused though.

"Patriotic", "heroism", "miracle", maybe humanity's most annoying problems don't stem from actual attitudes, but from vocabulary.

Maybe the self-help gurus are right, and it really is all a matter of communication.

Here's one little narrative in our popular culture that breaks down rather quickly due to the concepts not being communicated properly.

Raising a family is considered an accomplishment.

Being a deadbeat dad, who's essentially a sperm donor, isn't.

Being an actual sperm donor at a clinic isn't.

BUT, going to a high-end clinic, as a single mom, to get high-end sperm based on a detailed questionnaire for desirable traits, from a pool of accomplished men, is seen as some sort of positive stride.

An accomplishment?

If it is, why isn't the donor's donation?

And if it is, why not the random shlub off the street?
Maybe he's got brilliant sperm, and doesn't even know it.

What transforms it from a negative to a positive?
The act of "measurement", with the questionnaire?

The sperm-daddy still isn't there for his biological children either way.

Maybe it's the "accomplishments", of the sperm daddy.

But then we get into the whole situational cultural mess with that.

How about reality television families?

You got your "Jon & Kate Plus 8", and all the soap opera surrounding those fools.

Then you got your Duggers from "18 and counting".

The Gosselins, no one thinks they're heroes.

The Duggers,...well, not heroes, but they don't have a fucked up marriage, and their little family unit sticks together.

...despite that they're a more than a bit on the creepy-culty side.

So, you have to be there for your kids, no drama, no being a donor and running off, but you can be a donor if you're "accomplished", and can do well on a questionnaire.

Okay, what if you're a good dad, but a shitty husband?

Jon Gosselin fits that mold.

But so too does Donald Trump.

The latter gets more leeway because he's rich.

Being rich trumps "pardon the pun", everything.

...unless you have brown skin, a funny sounding language, and kill people, then you're a damned Arab oil baron.

Well, the killing people thing doesn't seem to be such a big deal, cuz Cheny, and his sidekick Bush did that for 8 years, and a lot of Red-Staters thought that was just jim-dandy.

So, being rich and WHITE trumps everything.

So, be white, rich, christian, (or feign piety in this particular faith), squeeze out some babies that look like you, don't have family drama on a public stage, and don't screw up your kids so they end up on a stripper pole.

...unless you're the Hiltons, and you spawn Paris onto the planet, then money once again trumps everything.

So just be stinking rich.

Do what it takes to get stinking rich.

Even if it's criminal.
Outrun the fuzz long enough, get rich enough, and you can buy your way out of what your crimes were.

Banking, and the arms industry seem pretty bulletproof.

So, be successful in business, especially businesses that kill people, and you can have a messed up family, messed up kids, hypocritical morals, do whatever you want.
Fuck family values, those are for the middle class.

But if you're middles class, then you've got to keep your nose clean, your checkbook balanced, and a Bible at the ready.

And your reward for this is urinating on the lower middle class, and working poor.

And if you're lower middle class, or working poor, and raise a family, and the kids turn out all right, none of them end up on the needle, or the pipe, or the stripper pole, no one gets to call it an accomplishment but you, because the upper-middle, and upper classes are too busy urinating on you to care.

And wonder why people get desperate to chase fame and wealth with lame stunts like the Balloon Boy family...

Course, Balloon Boy's family is messed up, and the dad's a fucking idiot.
But, he's not rich.

So, be an idiot, but a rich idiot, and if you're chasing wealth to be a rich idiot, succeed.

....and that's America's little bit of accumulated wisdom on the accomplishment of raising families.

So what about business accomplishment?

Well, again, the rule seems to be succeed.
Lie, cheat, steal, kill, just get away with it.
And if you don't get away with it, get away with it with lots of money.

Well, it's a cynical morality, but an internally consistent one.
But, it's not the one this culture sells.
America wants to be "shrewd", but idealistic at the same time.

And that's where all the dissonance, and contradictory language seeps in.

And then wonder why all the mis-communication occurs.

Me, I'd rather keep it simple.
You get something done, it's an accomplishment.
I accomplished this blog, I accomplished my stories, I accomplished some yard work, and some fixit work.

Anything above that is an accomplishment of varying big-itude.

It's been working so far, me and my friends can congratulate each other, and there's never any cynical or competitive undercurrent.

Rest of America, feel free to adopt this perspective.
Maybe you'll find it handy.

Or don't.
We'll see how the culture unfolds over the next 10 years or so.

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Confidence.

Another talk I wish someone had given me as a kid.


Look, kid, it's like this. I know you're skeptical of the self-esteemer bullshit they try to pump you with on TV and in school, and I don't blame you.

They say "believe in yourself", as a bald assertion, with no backup reasons, like with "believe in Jesus", or "believe in Santa", and look how that shit turned out.

And in the same breath, they say "be yourself", and when you do, you get a bunch of shit from the shitty little demons you'll be trapped with for the next 12 years.

And on the odd occasion you snap, and smack one of the little fucks, you get a bunch of shit from the dopey adults who fed you this shit to begin with.

And the shit they give you is specifically targeted like a heat seeking missile to undermine the whole "believe in yourself", mess.

Yeah, authority figures specialize in mixed messages.
Their heads were fucked up as kids too.
It's a chain, let's break it.

How?

Well, I'll give you some practical reasons why it's imperative to believe in yourself.

And I won't say it with a bullshit fake zombie grin, or morph into a fucking bee, and sing a prissy saccharine song written by a douche working for a bloodless cynical corporation who have an ominous 3 circles that's supposed to be a fucking mouse for their icon.

First of all, right here...

...see this fuckenasshole?

You think this incompetent, immoral, criminal, baby-eating fuckface ever doubts himself for a picosecond?

Fuck no.

Has this demon done jack and shit to deserve his confidence?
Fuck no.
Think you're gonna knock it down by telling him?
Fuck no.

Well see, the little pricks you go to school with, this is what they pray at night to grow up into.
This is one of those "real Americans", their mommys and daddys think they are, and want their precious hatch-ling to be.

Sick shit, huh?

Still give a fuck about what they think about you?

How about this...

...see this felch-monger?

Another American hero.
Legions of zombies watch his abomination of a reality show drooling over the fantasy of having some of his money.
That's it, that's what they're watching, money.
That's why it's the theme song.
Fish to otters.

How'd he get so rich?
Did he invent a fucking lightbulb?
Cure a fucking disease?
Nope, swapped land with other weasels, and built dick-shaped monuments to himself.
That's it.
This creature produces nothing.

And it has an iron certainty in itself.

Never doubts.

Could strap it to a chair, and pull its face off, wouldn't matter.

Such is the human mind.

And this is the culture you're up against.

While you're busy not believing in yourself, the scurvy little hyenas giving you grief right now intend on being the next generation of these swine when they grow up.

And you're caring what they think?
Come on.

Or, let's look at it another way.

Imagine we take, say, Thomas Edison, pluck him out of the time-stream, and plunk him down in an alternate dimension of fucking morons that don't appreciate the fucking lightbulb.

They spew a few mounds of verbal turds his way, he listens, no lightblub, the world literally plunged into darkness because of morons.

Now, course, you think he would listen?
Hell no, he's Thomas fucking Edison, he'd have an iron certainty in himself, because he'd have the same iron certainty in the lightbulb you and I do.

Thomas fucking Edison would get the lightbulb going, and spread around everywhere in every fucking dimension.

You think he'd get people to listen to him if he was like "um..well..here's this thing that glows..you might like it..or not...eh...nevermind...sorry to bug you"??

Fuck no!!

But that's what it sounds like when you let morons get to you.

Fuck morons, and their obsessive kink for darkness.

Somewhere in you is your lightbulb, believe in that, and you believe in you.

And you'd better fucking believe in you, cuz look at the fucking world when you don't.

Look at the fucking mess we're in.

Get up on your damned feet, and turn on your lightbulb.
And keep it on.
Even if the big people are the ones barking at you to turn it off.
Just remind yourself, people that hate lights tend to be cave dwellers.
They want dark, let 'em go to their fucking caves.

There's your practical reason.

Believe in yourself, because sociopaths already do.
And they ain't even got no fucking lightbulb.

Or, let's really cut right to the heart of it.

See this fella here?

Ooozing confidence off the screen.

Ain't no goddamned angst or doubt with a kitty-cat.
Ain't no evil human bullshit with a kitty-cat either.
They deserve their confidence.

When all else fails, look to a kitty-cat.
They're a walking silent self-help book.

Oh, what? You'd rather listen to Doctor Phil?
Please.
He's a douche-nozzle.
I have an iron certainty of it.

Now excuse me while I snap on the lights, and cross someone's path to get there.
;)

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A Universe from nothing.

Die, solipsism, die.




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