Category: culture

wake

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My aunt died. I’ve only got two; this is the one on my dad’s side and the one that lives near us.

We’ve spent a fair amount of time with them over the years, the kids were all close, even if I wasn’t particularly with her.

Different styles. She was a teacher, very prim and proper; my family torched her family’s house back during the teetotaler’s movement. We were upset (and probably a little drunk) about their attempts to ban our firewater.

And while obviously, that’s all ancient history, it’s funny how that kind of attitude filters down, even if her love of red wine was almost as great as my own.

In any case, we’ll miss her, but it’s been a long road, post-polio, cancer, all that, and she deserves the rest.

We’ll miss you, Jan. I’m sorry you had to to go through all that. I’m sorry my ancestors burned your ancestor’s house down.

Raise a glass of merlot, then. À la santé, and we’ll see you again.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1397 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magic Kingdom For Sale - Sold!, Terry Brooks
Comics: Brigade v2 14, Youngblood Strikefile 9, Badrock And Company 4, Battlestone 2
Music: Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston (I... have no excuse.  The worst, right?)

thanksgiving

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What am I thankful for?

My dogs. My cats.

My family.

My job, unsteady as it is right now with Carney’s cuts looming.

A world on the brink that hasn’t quite made it there yet.

I can still write.

I am not banned.

I may be in the future.

Fuck ’em. I’d want nothing more than to be censored.

Call me A Clockwork Orange.

Madmenny and a malenky bit of the old in and out, right, me droogs?

Fuck it. Banned books for all.

I am thankful there’s still outrage over that.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1476 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magic Kingdom For Sale - Sold!, Terry Brooks
Comics: Youngblood 9, Youngblood Strikefile 7, Brigade v2 13, Badrock And Company 3
Music: The Very Best Of The Original Dubliners, The Dubliners

priority treatment

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Squeaky wheel gets the grease, they say, just like the loudest, most obnoxious voice in the room always thinks they’re right, because volume is apparently the only measure of correctness, to some.

Personally, the quietest, least persistent voice is the one I want to hear the most.

I’m tired of being shouted down, and I’m tired of loud people who won’t shut up getting the head of the line.

Shut up, asshole, and get the fuck out.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1615 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magician's Gambit, David Eddings
Comics: Team Youngblood 13, Youngblood 8, Youngblood Strikefile 6, Brigade v2 12
Music: A White Sport Coat And A Pink Crustacean, Jimmy Buffett

i’m not a bad person

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I’m just stupid and exhausted.

So, in that sense, I’m a lazy, dumb person, which is pretty well equivalent.

At least, if you’re a MAGA, it is.

Slam, bitches. Thank goodness I’m not.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1516 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magician's Gambit, David Eddings
Comics: Youngblood 7, Team Youngblood 11, Brigade v2 11, Troll II 1
Music: White Crosses, Against Me! (one of the truly great modern punk albums)

creepy

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My daughter just turned on How It’s Made, and it’s about making a fur coat.

This shit is disgusting. Food for sustenance is one thing; we have things that work better than fur now.

What a fucking disgrace.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1505 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Dead To The World, Charlaine Harris
Comics: Team Youngblood 7-8, Brigade v2 8, Bloodstrike 9
Music: Whiskey On A Sunday, Flogging Molly

reconciliation

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I would like to reconcile a lot of things; the question is, how?

Our pasts, personal and ancestral are littered with misdoings and tragedies.

How do we move on? Will we ever reach a point where we can be forgiven?

I’m not sure how to answer that. On one hand, I don’t want to spend my life feeling guilty for things I haven’t personally done, or heartbroken because of the sins of a world past my control.

On the other hand, we can’t just ignore it.

We have to level the playing field, I think.

No more classes; no more bigotry.

When that’s gone, I guess we can lose the last vestiges of shame and guilt and move on to joy and union.

So, a few million years ought to suffice. Where there are people, there will be abuse.

I think the trick is not to blanket the earth in order to deny the sun to the weeds.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1238 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Born For This, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Image 0, Brigade v2 4, Team Youngblood 2, Bloodstrike 4
Music: Where You Been, Dinosaur Jr.

in the weeds now

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I mean, I’m working harder than ever, and tomorrow’s a holiday, so we can sit and think about what we’ve done, which admittedly, is a weird reason for a holiday, and I’m not sure it’s tangible help to native communities, but here we are.

It’s probably better to ask them than me, but I suspect the answer is that we’re not doing enough to reconcile the sins of past with creating a better future for the indigenous.

In any case, not to make light, but I’ve spent the last fifty minutes trying to have a character explain why he’s still consider liberal if he’s opposed to butt stuff.

It’s a hygiene thing, not a commentary on homosexuality.

(The character, not me. You get your freak on, boys and girls. As long as it’s consensual and doesn’t involve children, animals or those not capable of making that decision, then you get on getting on.)

Anyway, life’s weird and horrible things that require solemnity often overlap with the absurd.

I think we’d die if we had to take it all so seriously (which ironically, sums out how we got to our current edge-of-Armageddon political apocalypse). We all got too sensitive, hunkered down, doubled down, doubled down again and instead of letting shit go a little and talking it out, we’re about to have a civil war a hundred kilometres or so to the south of us.

Lighten up, jerks. Drop the militants, and get back to using your words.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1249 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Born For This, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Brigade v2 0, 3, Team Youngblood 1, Bloodstrike 4
Music: Where The Fuck Is The Revolution?, Closet Monster

polarization

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I think the whole thing I’m trying to do with this Bad Neighbours thing is to really explore how absurd the political dichotomy is, and how destructive.

I’m not exploring a third option, and the crazier the right gets, there becomes an increasing need to draw that hard line and say, no.

No more.

No further.

Enough.

And then push back the other way until sanity is restored. The problem is, the rhetoric on that side, so willingly and completely divorced from any kind of reality or genuity, is almost impossible to engage on a conversational level. You can’t argue the points, because they don’t care to listen, and won’t respond in good faith.

There is no argument that will stop this anymore. We need to convince ourselves to take action, whatever action we can, procedural, legal, etc., in order to slow this monster down enough to make it to elections, which at this point, is a question of whether they’ll even happen or whether these fascists will try to find an excuse to suspend them or rig them, because they know in any even remotely just system, they’ll get blown from the water, and then, they’re all fucked.

Basically, every obstruction that can be made, every inch fought for; give up nothing without extreme cost. Make them feel it. Wear them down; they’ve shown a great deal of incompetency.

They will make exploitable mistakes.

Use the bureaucracy against them, especially since you can no longer trust the Supreme Court, and every block at a lower level just gets pushed up to the shadow docket. Plus, even when the court rules against them, they just ignore it and do it anyway.

So, block, obstruct, don’t make it easy. Make them work for every inch, make every yard a Herculean effort.

It’s the only way.

Push back, push back, push back.

And when it’s all said and done, and the extremists have fallen by the wayside, then maybe we can get back to ending the dichotomy.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1313 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sylvie And Bruno Concluded, Lewis Carroll (god, this is shit)
Comics: Lara Croft And The Frozen Omen 4-5, Tomb Raider v3 1-2
Music: Whatever Happened To P.J. Soles?, Local H (quite possible the most underrated one hit wonder ever)

also

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It’s a fact that I’m not technically allowed to watch Bruce Lee movies, in that I get kind of hyped up and destroy college apartments.

But damn, man. So good. He beat up Jackie Chan and broke Chuck Norris’ neck (Chuck, who had a good thing going until he came out MAGA and now, no one thinks he’s invincible; he’s just another asshole).

Anyway, I should probably clean this mess up.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1699 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sloppy Seconds, Tucker Max (somehow even stupider than the other ones)
Comics: Tomb Raider v2 18, Lara Croft And The Frozen Omen 1-3
Music: What Hits!, Red Hot Chili Peppers

rounding down

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I honestly don’t know where to go from here. The situation in the States gets worse and worse; they don’t even pretend to care about reality or facts anymore. They just spout lies.

How long before they just start murdering their opponents? I mean, Virginia Guiffre did not die of suicide – that’s bullshit.

They’re already doing it. The question is, how long before they just fake some charges and start doing it against the people they really want to do it to – senators and governors and journalists and such.

Someone hide AOC.

You know it’s where they’re headed – there will be no election in 2026. Not if they can help it.

You know if there is, and it’s not just a total scam, they’d get blown right the fuck out of office.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1086 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sloppy Seconds, Tucker Max (nascent right wing culture, right here)
Comics: Tomb Raider v2 6-9
Music: A Western Harvest Field By Moonlight, Beck