Category: culture

spiralizer

Posted on by admin

I use it mostly to create zucchini noodles, but sometimes, it likes to take up residence in my head, and spin me out of control, akin to a piece of fluff floating on top of a bath, that’s being rapidly drained out.

Where does all that water end up? The sewer?

Am I a piece of fluff, doomed to hang out in the shit the rest of my life?

I used to think I’d like to aspire to living in a cardboard box, but it’s a hard life, feeding yourself and begging for enough money for booze and drugs. Too responsible.

Then, I thought I’d like to be super rich, but rich people are always fighting off scavengers for their money, and there’s a disconnection and cruelty that festers beneath the freedom, and that’s not who I’d like to be.

Plus, there’s all you have to do to get there. You have to, at least, go to the convenience store attached to the gas station and buy the lottery ticket.

There’s no escaping responsibility.

The only way out is through.

Or death, but that’s a whole other topic.

Target: 600 words
Written: 725 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Five Weeks In A Balloon, Jules Verne
Comics: Monstress 35-38
Music: VU, The Velvet Underground

i know it’s been dark

Posted on by admin

I feel like Allin, desperately trying to hold on to the last bit of possibility, as a nightmare drains me.

I am trying to find the light, the tunnel, the way through, but man, this is a hard, cruel, unfair world, and all the odds are stacked against anyone not born to privilege.

What a life it must be, when frictionless glides replace mob burns and quicksand feet.

Target: 600 words
Written: 339 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 25-28
Music: Voodoo Lounge, The Rolling Stones

welcome back to emotional destitution

Posted on by admin

I know people don’t care and they sneer at people when they’re suffering, the whole “suck it up, princess” thing and sometimes, that’s a valid requirement for getting out of the shit, but sometimes…

Fuck you. Sanctimonious fucks.

Those same people often rip open their chests to show us their bleeding hearts when the sum total requirement of their action and empathy is a post on social or an off-hand comment about those poor people.

But when it counts?

When it’s people they might actually have to deal with in their lives, rather than just people they can posture around? When the reality comes in?

Suck it up, princess.

Useless.

Eye rolls.

“They just want drama.”

Absolute dismissal.

If your empathy and ability to understand the struggles and needs of those around you ends with a couple of lines on Facebook or an off-hand comment about how hard someone has it to friends to forgive behaviour that doesn’t affect you in the slightest?

You’re not empathetic. You’re not compassionate. You’re not an open-minded person who wants to help people. If you can’t hold that same empathy and understanding for the people actually in your life, whose behaviour influences your world?

Well, then, fuck you. You’re just another self-important prick, more interested in looking good than being good.

Target: 600 words
Written: 369 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 13-16
Music: Volume 2, CKY

last man

Posted on by admin

Okay, so it’s not the first time I’ve read Y The Last Man, and it may not be the last.

It was made to be on TV, which is what makes the fact that the first time it’s adapted, it gets cancelled after one season, so damn sad.

I haven’t had the heart to sit down and watch it, but I gather they strayed from the subject matter heavily enough to make their built-in audience tune out. I heard rumblings that the show seemed overly concerned in not offending the trans community and making them a much larger part of the universe (which is fair, in a sense, because transitioning doesn’t remove the Y chromosome, so it would makes sense that trans men would play a large role as the only remaining males).

Indeed, if there’s a fault in the original, it’s that it doesn’t really explore that particular narrative very heavily, and that’s likely a product of the times, as gender reassignment surgery has mainstreamed much more heavily in the decades since its publication.

But still. Forward thinking – in our current era, with as many people transitioning as there are, it would make sense for it to be a much larger part of the world. All the men who’ve transitioned to women would be dead, given the plague’s targeting of a Y chromosome, but the other way around? Being a trans man would make one highly sought after, I would think.

I think the issue is that delving so far into that drew away from the main thrust of the book, which is Yorick and his merry band’s travels around the world. It’s like spending the Matrix movies focused on Dozer’s relationship with his brother Tank, instead of Neo, Morpheus and Trinity. It’s a nice sideline, and it can impact the main storyline, but it’s bumper on the table, not the ball we need to keep from guttering.

Target: 600 words
Written: 530 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 57-60 (that moment with Ampersand at the end... literal tears down my face, every time)
Music: Volcano, Jimmy Buffett

silence from the censorship party

Posted on by admin

I guess censorship doesn’t require a response in Wattpad’s world. It’s been over a week now since I filed an appeal with them regarding Get Back Again, and crickets.

What a nice world they must live in, to pull any story they feel like or don’t understand, and then just ignore the cries of the creator.

I’m a lefty McLefterton (with caveats), and in my world, the censorship of art is a no-fly zone. I know Wattpad thinks it’s protecting people from outrage and offense, but to not even respond to their own appeal process?

That’s straight authoritarian bullshit, and anyone with a true desire for freedom and justice would never engage in such tactics. Do something wrong, then pretend like it never happened, while maintaining the new status quo? That’s some cowardly energy right there.

Avoiding the consequences of your ill behaviour is not a becoming trait, supposedly forward thinking company.

Target: 500 words
Written: 570 words, novella: The Mungk

Read; High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 25-28
Music: Violent Femmes, Violent Femmes

one hundred

Posted on by admin

A hundred days into this year and we’ve already had multiple collapses, blood issues and a totality.

Sometimes, I’d like there to be a totality inside me, either to end it all or to burn away all the shit. Blind it with a shining aura, a brilliance unendurable except with the darkest glasses.

But the world keeps turning, a disturbing number of people think a man who thought it was intelligent to stare directly at an eclipse is a genius and hate seems to creep further into our lives each and every day.

We need another revolution. Another love-in.

Where’s our John and Yoko? Our sexual revolution appears to revolve around people making sex tapes, where wearing bikinis on your social media is a viable career path.

Where’s our screaming punk? Where’s our Kurt Cobain, hitting the nerves of a generation so raw that it changes entire cultures?

Where’s logic? Where’s freedom? Where are hearts and connection and compassion and a basic understanding of kindness?

Where’s the less ineffectual left? Where’s the sober right?

Where the fuck is everybody?

Social media is madness. Our world is mad.

This has been your daily agonized howl into the void, unable to stand anymore.

Target: 500 words
Written: 191 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 21-24
Music: Villains, The Verve Pipe

some music

Posted on by admin

Some music just moves you. I just finished writing and while James Brown and Night Train was cool, I definitely funked out more to Modest Mouse and Steam Engenius, because SO. FUCKING. GOOD.

My tastes range, and it’s fine. I don’t mind following up Minor Threat with Rihanna or Dean Martin with Henry Rollins. There’s nothing wrong with an Eminem and Beatles mix, or Pink Floyd and NOFX.

It’s all about being open, and enjoying the moment. Falling into it and letting it happen, letting it be what it is and letting go of whatever else is happening.

Music is the most powerful presence creator; there’s a reason we love it in all its forms. It speaks to something primal within us that just wants to live. Here, now, forever in the groove, connecting and commiserating with our fellow humanity, free from all the rest of the world’s shit.

Target: 500 words
Written: 209 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 5-8
Music: Vespertine, Bjork

censored?

Posted on by admin

Well, this is a first. I wish I could say it was unexpected, but I knew Get Back Again straddled a line I wasn’t sure I hadn’t crossed.

I mean, it’s a story told from the perspective of a right winger who has been murdered by his liberal girlfriend. I mean, I thought it was clear that the right winger was the bad guy, but I knew that to tell it properly, I would have to hew more tightly to the man’s anger and prejudice than I would normally be comfortable with. I actually made notes to myself during the revision hoping that it would be taken as it was meant, and not become some kind of right wing manifesto.

Wattpad’s a pretty liberal place, which is part of the reason I like it, even though most of the literature posted there isn’t exactly my jam. I mostly followed Cory Doctorow there. If he thought it had value, it must not have been terrible, because you know… Doctorow. He doesn’t suffer tech companies lightly.

Of course, left-leaning places such as Wattpad also mean the kind of people whose outrage tends to not think before it blasts nuclear waste out into the atmosphere.

(And don’t get me wrong, the right is pregnant to bursting with outrage, only they don’t realize that they’re not actually pregnant, just morbidly obese with self-inflicted unhealth).

It appears that’s happened to me.

Either that or Get Back Again wasn’t as clear as I hoped (and I know it was opaque).

So, yeah. I’m anti-censorship for any reason. It’s one thing to know something is immoral and not want to read it; it’s another thing to say to everyone else that reading it is bad. Things can be learned even from things you vehemently disagree with.

If they allow it back, I guess we’ll have to put a disclaimer on it. Trigger warning and a brief explanation: hey, the racist, homophobic misogynist threatening violence against women and minorities?

He’s a baddie.

Duh.

Target: 500 words
Written: 203 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 1-4
Music: Very Proud Of Ya, AFI

no longer cool

Posted on by admin

It appears I’m not cool anymore. I mean, I was never really cool, but at least, I knew where the edges were, where the hip things were happening, even if I didn’t give a shit about them.

Now, I don’t care, more interested in exploring the expansive stuff of whatever scene I missed out on by virtue of era, location or the fact that I wasn’t cool enough to be invited in.

Or didn’t care enough to join.

Trends, fashion, these sorts of things never interested me. While a million morons rushed out to buy Stanley cups, all I could think is it’s not THE Stanley Cup, so who gives a shit?

Trends come and go so fast now online that the only way to stay on the bleeding edge of popularity is to spend all one’s time online, which is boring.

Plus, who cares? Spending time and money on shit that no one will give a fuck about tomorrow is just a good way to create clutter and miss out on time one could have spent actually enjoying one’s life.

It’s nothing more than a hyperspeed version of keeping up with the Joneses.

Fuck the Joneses. Who the fuck are they to set the standard?

Who are they to tell you what’s interesting or important in your life?

That’s the great thing about a real scene, real art, real cool – it remains that way no matter the age because it speaks to something fundamental inside us.

Cool is timeless; iconic is not just every random little thing; it’s the truly epic, the truly transcendent and emblematic. It’s crossing the bridge in Selma, it’s the Gettysburg Address. It’s the Velvet Underground. It’s Freddie Mercury at Live Aid. It’s Marilyn Monroe. It’s Caesar crossing the Rubicon. It’s Gretzky kicking his foot out as he lifts the Cup.

It’s real fucking Stanley, not some bullshit fad.

Stop using it for every little thing. It ain’t iconic if it’s old news tomorrow. Iconic is a state of being that speaks for itself, not a label for something you’ve been told is cool.

Target: 500 words
Written: 509 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris
Comics: Rat Queens v2 20-23
Music: The Very Best Of The Smiths, The Stones Roses, The Who and Violent Femmes, by The Smiths, The Stone Roses, The Who and Violent Femmes (in which these are all separate albums by their respective bands and technically, the Who one is called My Generation: The Very Best Of The Who).