Category: culture

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

sunshine and puppies

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And beer. The local Barks ‘n’ Brew, always for a good cause, and a good time.

Beats yardwork, which is all I did this morning, after editing. I could use the break.

Every day seems more than a marathon, it’s a car chase, a manic Daniel Radcliffe running around with guns taped to his hands, a sprint with obstacles that goes the half-circuit.

I’m way too out of shape for it.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1347 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: SNAFU, Ed Helms
Comics: Tomb Raider v2 2-5
Music: West Coast Vs. Wessex, NOFX/Frank Turner (oh my god, Turner turning Fat Mike into a lyricist with his beautiful arrangements?  I love me some NOFX, but whoever would have thought?  Too bad the NOFX covers of his songs were... less good.  The second half of this album is brilliant.)

shocker

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The shooter’s not a lefty. He’s a right wing nut for whom the man who wants to stone gays and take away women’s right to vote isn’t extreme enough.

Shocker. Colour me shocked.

And yet, still, MAGA rages on, vowing war and retaliation against the left, who, once again, had nothing to do with the violence.

That is, as it has been and will continue to be, exclusive to the realm of fascists and bigots.

AKA – the modern right wing.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1402 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Carpet People, Terry Pratchett
Comics: Tomb Raider 50, Monster War 1-3
Music: We're Outta Here, The Ramones

rants that went the wrong way

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But were still somehow kind of right? Like, it’s the stuff you don’t want to say out loud, because it’s the kind of thing that a good and just society would never say or do, but ultimately, knows sometimes needs to be done?

I mean, I’m not saying anything in particular. In this case, it’s a part of Bad Neighbours, a peak point where things have gone off the rails and the main character has made a certain decision that ultimately, is the wrong decision, but also, kind of the right decision, in the way that we’d all like to ignore Nazis and let them have their little hate parades and such as long as they’re just out there playing pretend and don’t have any actual power and aren’t physically hurting other people.

But the second they do that? Well, I mean, I know how Jack Kirby would have seen it: see a Nazi, punch a Nazi, and certainly, the second there’s violence, it’s up to us to oppose it. I truly believe in the Tao concept of entering a fight like a funeral, with the same solemnity, and the intent to simply end it as quickly and peacefully as possible.

But then, what do I know? I’m a lifelong pacifist who has never actually been in a fight ever, beyond some wrestling with my older brother as kiss. I don’t think I’ve ever been punched in the face.

Then again, maybe that’s because I’m not a Nazi.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1826 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Captain Paul, Alexandre Dumas
Comics: Tomb Raider 33-36
Music: Welcome To My Dream, MC 900 feat. Jesus

reverse schrodinger’s cat

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I had this in my notes about the nature of “alternative facts” and how conspiracy theories, no matter how insane, can go viral and I thought: that’s exactly the mentality the right takes towards reality.

Schrodinger’s cat is basically a thought experiment where if one puts a cat in a box, so one can’t see or hear it, one doesn’t actually know if the cat still exists.

The idea is that the fact of the cat’s life or death is entirely unknown, until the box is opened and facts are gathered. Until that point, the cat is neither dead or alive, but could simultaneously be either.

In right wing land, the opposite is true. As facts are revealed, the right wing becomes increasingly convinced that the entire proposition, whatever it is (the economy tanking, concentration camps, the illegality and immorality of masked men abducting people off the streets in the name of “law”), is entirely false.

However, the fewer facts there are, in this land, the more likely a right winger is to believe a thing is true (Haitians eating dogs in Springfield, the Bowling Green Massacre, 2020 election bullshit).

Basically, in a right winger’s mind, the fact that you can’t see the cat is proof of its existence – the cat must be alive. Ironically, opening the cat and showing it as it is, either way, dead or alive, is proof that the cat does not, in fact, exist.

I mean, it’s not a perfect theory, but you get the gist.

The stupider and less proven a conspiracy is, the more likely it is to be true, according to the right wing. See: Pizzagate.

The more logical and factually proven a conspiracy is, the more likely, in their minds, to be utterly untrue, a total cover-up, entirely fictional: see, Trump and Epstein, or any of the various grifts that piece of garbage has run on the American people.

One can only hope at some point that reality asserts itself, but the reality of their unreality is currently shaping the direction of the rest of our reality, creating an insane cognitive dissonance between where to draw the lines of real and unreal, which is what they want.

You can’t fight insanity with logic, and you can’t fight bullshit if you don’t know where to draw the line of truth.

I mean, we all know where the line is, and what’s bullshit, but we’re not the ones that need to be convinced.

Reality will come for us all, but whether it’s the reality of reality crashing down on their heads, or their unreality going scorched earth on our disbelief, either way, it won’t end well for somebody.

Or anybody, really.

Fuck.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1349 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Magician: Apprentice, Raymond Feist
Comics: The Sacrificers 12-13, Grommets 6, Napalm Lullaby 7
Music: We Built This City, Closet Monster

mary, mary, quite contrary

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I’m a contrarian. I don’t do it on purpose. There’s just something in my brain that hears an opinion or a thing accepted as fact and can’t help but play devil’s advocate and ask: what if it wasn’t?

It’s an absurd desire to see the other, that I can’t quite avoid. I used to call it opening worlds, and that’s a good an explanation as any, but it comes down to this. Whatever the view is, I want to see the other one.

Or another one. There’s rarely just two. It means constant growth, and it avoids dogma, but it does tend to put one on the outs with everyone else.

Always asking the question: what are the other ways to look at this? What if it’s not?

What if there’s another way?

What if there’s a hundred?

What about a thousand?

What if it’s infinite?

It’s taken me a long time to get used to the idea that this will never end, that there can be no end to perspective and questions.

And if puts me at odds with humanity, well, so fucking be it.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1026 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Hammered, Elizabeth Bear (finally, enjoyed it, but too much interference)
Comics: The Sacrificers 6, The Holy Roller 2-4
Music: Wasting Light, Foo Fighters

introspective return

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Being up north, as frustrating as it can be at times (family, am I right?), always leaves me introspective, and as we wound back down highway 11 toward home, I could help but think:

Has chastising someone for saying something politically incorrect ever actually worked?

My mom said Indian; my sister-in-law barked INDIGENOUS at her, with vitriol, like my mother was some raging bigot who wasn’t just stuck in the habit of saying Indian for over seventy years.

I see this all the time online and every time, I think, and you wonder why people radicalize away from you?

One could say, “I think they go by indigenous now,” in a nice, non-condescending tone, thereby sparking a conversation and education that ends amicably with at least one party elevated with an updated viewpoint, to hopefully, do better the next time around. If that party still resists at that point, and won’t listen to an updated viewpoint, well, then, yeah, okay. Maybe you got a bigot.

But most people aren’t that bad, and by escalating so quickly, and implying that they are horrible people right off the hop, well, you’re invalidating everything they are in favour of a label of bigot, fascist, whatever other horrible thing you’d like to use, over something that more often than not, is more micro than macro-aggression.

Think of it like this: you probably don’t think you’re a bad person. You likely don’t think you’re perfect, you might even think of yourself as being flawed or broken or screwed-up, but you probably don’t think you’re evil. You might think you make everyone’s lives worse, but that’s because you’re a fuck-up who can’t get their shit together, and not because you’re, you know, Hitler.

But let’s say one day that you use the word (and let’s keep it kind of ridiculous here) “ginger”.

And maybe a family member immediately turns to you and escalates, labelling you an absolute bigot, and telling that they go by “rouged” now, and that using ginger makes you a horrible racist and probably supportive of all the anti-trans, homophobic, sexist nonsense out there, and a Republican while you’re at it.

Now, you, even thinking you’re kind of a loser, probably don’t think that of yourself. And so, how do you respond?

Like pretty well everyone does when they feel they’ve been unjustly accused – defensively.

You get your back up. You get defensive because this person is trying to invalidate all the good parts of you, that no matter how screwed up you are, at your core, you know you’re not that, not EVIL, and reduce you down to this one thing – rougephobic.

And with that, all the other nonsense that gets conflated with one level of bigotry. If you’re transphobic, you must be anti-gay as well. You must hate lesbians and black people and Latinos and women. If you’re a women, you must be a TERF and probably pro-life as well.

Of course, you know you’re not that, so even if you don’t say it out loud, you push back. You internalize your indignation and all of a sudden, all these disingenuous assholes talking about the elitist left looking down their nose at you, start making a bit more sense. And you’re sucked in, a little more each time it happens, until you’re a full blown Trumper (I mean, hopefully not that far, but imagine this isn’t just one person doing this to you – it’s a million people, a literal million, in some cases, online, constantly, without cease. How far down the rabbit hole might you go in your anger at being unjustly labelled Evil).

And all this is knowing that if they’d just said, “I think they go by rouged now” in an informative and non-judgmental way, sparking a brief, but important conversation, you might have avoided any of that, avoided the defensive trigger response and even possibly, gained an ally.

Education, not condemnation. These are the keys to winning back those on the edge, those that just maybe need a little bit of knowledge, rather than vilification.

These are the things I think about as I drive.

And they’re the things that are killing the left – why we get smaller every day, while the lunatics swell in size.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1256 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Hammered, Elizabeth Bear
Comics: A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance 10, Deadly Class 54-55, The Scumbag 14
Music: The Warrior's Code, Dropkick Murphys