So one of those things you may have heard from a woman if you were making "on the rag" jokes is that testosterone levels are at their highest in the average cis woman during her period. So what cis dudes were identifying as "chicks being irrational because their hormones" was cis women behaving a tiny bit more like a cis man, hormonally, and even that was too much for a lot of the dudes.
It's a complete oversimplification scientifically, but yeah, the ladies have volumes of humor on that specific subject.
Ethically, I no longer tell those jokes. I'm not a lady, and they make me kind of hate cis dudes. If you'd like to hear some, find a group of ladies, bring them some liquor or weed, and ask what the stupidest fucking thing their exes believed was. Then just listen, and try not to get defensive. Which is harder than it sounds, even I'm tempted to go "Not All Men" and my district apparently taught the dudes that the chicks had a period just once and never again. In their thirties I still knew dudes who believed that, and would get belligerent when told it was not so.
I guess I just never hung out with guys like that. I mean that in a not-enlightened way - I just never saw it in the people I knew or might have been around in candid moments. The level of ignorance you illuminate is baffling, tho I've met plenty ignorant people. But it's the level of casual meanness that gets to me, and probly most people. And I'd like to think I'm not particularly the getting defensive type.
I long ago determined that people are gonna do what people are gonna do, and that if blame's to be slung, it should be slung at the parents who failed to impart a proper fetchins up. Anyway, thanks for your response. Fair play.
The self-confident sexism of this guy's threads (including one on whether MeToo has "overreached," is breathtaking. It amazes me that thinking men can be so lacking in self-awareness. One woman's response to the pussyhat cringe hit the nail on the head:
"Totally get the annoyance, because as present day events have clearly proven, women "performatively" marching in those "silly hats" back in 2016, because they were afraid of losing their rights to bodily autonomy, were definitely wildly overreacting."
The part of _me_ that cringed at it did so because everyone looked so happy or angry, but above all energetic, but I doubted it would do much good, and as present-day events have clearly proved….
I just felt that the hard-eyed, soulless, bastards who would really be in charge would at most be moved to laughter, and likely not even that. Democrats would have good will, but were outclassed in power, and that because they were outclassed in strategy and tactics and above all, dependable money from people certain of what they were buying.
I kept quiet about it because I know I tend to depression and so I might be wrong, and maybe it would help even if just by giving some people who _could_ do something enough of a lift to help them do what they could.
I have that "What the fuck good is it gonna do?" reaction any time I hear about people marching. But it's such a familiar reaction, I know it's coming, and I can wait for it to pass, and then join the march if my schedule permits.
As for the Women's March, I think you can draw a pretty direct line from what was started that day to the Dem's retaking the House in 2018, to which you could say, "Well what difference did that make, other than two impeachments that went nowhere?" And you'd be mostly right, except that it was Nancy Pelosi and not Kevin McCarthy running the house when they counted the electoral votes in 2021.
Is anxiety the right emotion? I tend to think negative reactions to others’ displays of opinion are more about fear. Fear of what we don’t understand, fear of being left out, fear of being put down, insulted, deprived of status and so forth. Maybe there’s enough crossover between fear and anxiety that they’re both right. Anyway, the current crop of Wisconsin Republican governor primary ads are fucking insane. “Warrior Conservatives”!! Talk about putting your anxieties and fears on display. “We used to say the Pledge, now they take a knee,” and every other pseudoconservative brain fart from the last 20 years. It’s like having Roy’s Hardcore headlines interrupt your local weather report.
It's like one of those diner-safari stories I read, a woman says she's still happy with Trump, even after [waves generally in all directions] because "People are saying Merry Christmas again." Congratulations, lady, you found ONE thing a President CAN'T do, and you've built your whole "politics" around it.
Make America Great Again! Give him his due, he tried. If you keep all the Muslims out, you never have to hear, what is it, Happy Halal? Is that how you say that?
That was my dufus bigot talking? I'd kind of avoid it in company you don't know real well. My partner and I do not quote Strangers With Candy at each other for reasons.
Good advice, I'll hold on to "Happy Halal!" in a typing-words-on-the-internet kind of way, but likely not in a saying-words-out-loud-to-actual-people kind of way.
It's the same with people who get pissed off at celebrities for expressing an opinion they disagree with. So what? Take it or leave it. Why do you give a shit about what they think about anything?
But they will use that as an excuse to vote for whatever reactionary republican is running for Congress and that republican will get back at those celebrities for having the temerity to exercise their First Amendment rights by...cutting their taxes.
"excuse to vote for whatever reactionary republican" is exactly what it is, they were going to vote Republican anyway, but needed an excuse that didn't require much effort to find. Fortunately, celebrities and the things they say and the reactions to the things they say come spilling out of your TV every day with no effort needed on your part, so yeah, let's use that to justify voting for the same party we've been voting for since we were 18.
The alleged problem: There's a terrible unprecedented crisis with the Republic. The answer: warmed-over Archie Bunkerisms that people laughed at 50 years ago, but a little less coherent.
Way back before the comet killed the dinosaurs, I had a job as the guy who trained your receptionist on how to use the new business phone system. We sold a lot of these systems to galleries down in Soho, which let me see lots of early '80s new art. There was good, there was bad . . . and there was one installation that consisted of a 6-volt battery with a knife switch and lightbulb attached to a piece on 1X6 plank atop a cheap stool. $10,000 for that grade-school science project.
My girlfriend at the time was a fine arts major at Hofstra, and she dragged me out to various shows. We went to see an exhibition by one of her profs at the Hyde. He'd managed to fill an entire wing with the same painting in different sizes and orientations: Fine pastel lines on a white gesso background. Dozens and dozens of these things, with the least expensive starting at $36,000. When I pointed out to my girlfriend that what this genius had painted was Sanitess drawer liners, she got pissed. Not two weeks later, we were walking through Pergament (a department store) when I spotted the very Sanitess I was thinking of. So I grabbed a roll and showed her that it was the exact same pattern of fine pastel lines on a white background--right down to the order of the colors. She was shocked, but still defended the prof's work as some kind of social commentary derivative a la Warhol. I figured the guy had decided he had a moral duty to separate stupid and pretentious people from their money.
Am I still cynical about art? Very much so. I've seen too many frauds and poseurs over the decades. (Latest favorite object of scorn: A woman I know who calls herself an artist because she made a painting back in 1987, but hasn't painted since because she's "blocked.")
This is the right attitude here: we proles get all huffy about art because we're taught in school that art is sacred, & the spirit of our Culture (Kultur, maybe?) -- but even when art was sacred & artists had powerful patrons -- the more you could get out of that patron for the least amount of work, the smarter an artist you were... And all the patron really cares about is being to say "I have an artist in my stable." Everybody's happy
𝗧𝗭𝗔𝗥𝗔: Doing the things by which is meant Art is no longer considered the proper concern of the artist. In fact it is frowned upon. Nowadays, an artist is someone who makes art mean the things he does. A man may be an artist by exhibiting his hindquarters. He may be a poet by drawing words out of a hat. In fact some of my best poems have been drawn out of my hat which I afterwards exhibited to general acclaim at the Dada Gallery in Bahnhofstrasse.
𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗥: But that is simply to change the meaning of the word Art.
𝗧𝗭𝗔𝗥𝗔: I see I have made myself clear.
𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗥: Then you are not actually an artist at all?
𝗧𝗭𝗔𝗥𝗔: On the contrary. I have just told you I am.
𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗥: But that does not make you an artist. An artist is someone who is gifted in some way that enables him to do something more or less well which can only be done badly or not at all by someone who is not thus gifted. If there is any point in using language at all it is that a word is taken to stand for a particular fact or idea and not for other facts or ideas. I might claim to be able to fly…Lo, I say, I am flying. But you are not propelling yourself about while suspended in the air, someone may point out. Ah no, I reply, that is no longer considered the proper concern of people who can fly. In fact, it is frowned upon. Nowadays, a flyer never leaves the ground, and wouldn’t know how. I see, says my somewhat baffled interlocutor, so when you say you can fly you are using this word in a purely private sense. I see I have made myself clear, I say. Then, says this chap in some relief, you cannot actually fly after all? On the contrary, I say, I have just told you I can. Don’t you see my dear Tristan you are simply asking me to accept that the word Art means whatever you wish it to mean; but I do not accept it.
𝗧𝗭𝗔𝗥𝗔: Why not? You do exactly the same thing with words like patriotism, duty, love, freedom, king and country, brave little Belgium, saucy little Serbia…
It's been a while. I still remember my mom taking my copy of RaGaD from me because it was "too adult". Lady, I ain't the one with Leonard Cohen on the shelf. (Which books she also took away from me, while letting me read the bible and Dostoevsky. Living with crazy people leads to a lot of mixed messages.)
In the 70s I was into art. I lived in NYC and went to galleries and etc., and in fact recruited a pal to co-write a parody of Art News magazine for National Lampoon, and of a David Douglas Duncan My Pal Picasso-type book. Then one day I was in the Whitney and saw a Julian Schnabel painting on which were affixed many pieces of smashed crockery, and I thought: That's it. I'm out. And I have remained out to this very day.
The first person to glue a broken coffee cup to a canvas made art. The next person to do so made nothing. The 50th person to do so made garbage from garbage.
If these guys really are so concerned about being masculine, why don't they try the traditional, time tested method of SHUTTING THE HELL UP? Like Tony Soprano used to say (an enormous crybaby himself), whatever happened to the strong, silent type like Gary Cooper? Maybe then they could concentrate on something important like actually trying to get somewhere in life instead of complaining about their wretched lot all the time.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” That, indeed, is my personal preference over leading a life of 𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘴𝘺 desperation. Others’ mileage may, and apparently does, vary.
Dudes, we actually do want you to be able to have emotions. We just want you to try a bunch out, rather than just sticking with Arrogant, Condescending, Paternalistic, Threatening, and Violent. If that's your happy place, keep that to yourself, regardless of gender.
Our boy Noah is clearly emoting the first three. Textbook example of a privileged white guy having Deep Thoughts, and believing his personal discomfort with this or that is not just relevant enough, but important enough, to share with the world.
Well, that's the problem, I think. Generations of American men who were presented with these totally unattainable ideals as role models (who could really ever be Gary Cooper?) and now, nearing the end of their lives, they've said, "Fuck it, I give up on being Gary Cooper, I'll just be Donald Trump instead." And you have to admit, being Donald Trump, a man totally lacking in any positive qualities whatsoever, is much, MUCH easier.
Right, that's how unattainable it was! Gary Cooper or John Wayne or even Jimmy Stewart stands up to the bully and the bully backs down BECAUSE THE SCRIPT TELLS HIM TO. Try that in real life, and you'll get your ass kicked, because the bully didn't read the script.
Look at this picture of Robert Mitchum's reaction to his sentencing for marihuana possession. Silent and lethal, the very mirror of the pure disdain proper to anyone who can't believe this bullshit:
(Lila Leeds can't believe it, either, but she was in a much worse position and noöne and nothing had taught her adequately that it was bullshit and that she was better'n it.)
To my knowledge -- and like Roy, I have no interest to expend the energies required to confirm -- I believe Smith’s shtick is being a lib apostate, a Greenwood-lite as it were. And/or maybe the problem is that he feels required to opine frequently and has just run out of juice, causing some strains.
As for the hats: My heart (blackened, dead) is warmed to see huge groups uniting, coming together. Not because it affects policy in any way that matters but because the masses uniting is the only way we’re going to get through what is no shit a collapse of the national state. See, Dobbs. That is, keeping control on the local levels and taking care of ourselves is the way.
Smith, OTOH, can’t seem to get past knit hats which, I know, put like that can be taken as a sign of a problem.
Meanwhile, I’ve reached a point where I’m not so sure what liberal means anymore. Not being an asshole? Believing that a national government should have the power to initiate nationwide responses to global pandemics? (SCOTUS has shot that one down.) Being fully accepting of capitalism? Can’t get it together to actually oppose thing like, I dunno, our farce of national security issues? Thinking that the Dems have ours interests at the. Forefront of what they do? I don’t know. Maybe I’m missing things, losing it, I don’t know.
I'm a Molly Ivins liberal and a Jim Hightower populist. That's how I'm using the words, and the kids can get off my lawn and go look 'em up.
It is problematic, but I have found clarity in the First Rule of the Internet: Don't be a dick. Aside from that, we know what we like to look at, and it ain't the dither fish. Let people be who they want to be, if it's at all possible. Some of them might even save us, and if they don't, it was still worth the effort. There's no fucking dress code for the apocalypse.
Fair enough. I've never been a Marxist, just a social liberal. My economics are significantly to the left of your average voter, but that's not saying much. They called me a commie in Jr High, but they say that to all the queer girls.
What the folks on yon interwebs mean when they say liberal appears to be something along the lines of "collaborator, who virtue signals." To be fair, I am also seeing "progressive" defined that way, with refinements. Bit I have lost track of what people mean when they say bisexual on the interwebs too, so I just use my words and let people figure it out from context.
I've never had much time for the theory, and flunked out of college after a year, so we mostly do default to "Fuck it, you know what I mean." Twitter has been a real lesson in concision which, is a thing I do not do.
Some of it is virtue signalling, I'm gonna trust blue hair and pronouns over a red cap every damned time. But anyone who stays to listen will catch on.
I'm trying to make the world a better place, not speed date.
None of which answers your question except to say, solidarity in confusion. The kids are fascinating. I'm half convinced they'll come up with solutions to this shit.
We’re putting the kids in sink or swim mode by leaving a shitty, fucked up world. Then again, the Greatest Generation raised one addicted to materialism, which is to say greed above all…
"...I’m not so sure what liberal means anymore. Not being an asshole?"
When Republicans have chosen to build their whole political identity around "Be an asshole, as often and as loudly as possible", it does open up some space for liberals, opportunistically, to simply grab the whole "We're not the assholes" lane. And thus the yard signs.
So nastiness is a thing I think about a lot. As you know, so you're all welcome to skip this. But nastiness is also my avocation, so this is something of a professional opinion.
Despite what my title says, I am actually dedicated to the goddess of, among other things, *vengeance*. Revenge is more of an actual deities' prerogative and you demand it at your risk. I am a Harpy, which is not as good as being a Fury but it's not bad considering I'm a shut in.
It's not about nastiness by inclination, it's about delivering balance, and if possible, lessons. You seek to stop the harm, dress the wound, sort out the stories, and then swat the offender to the degree that will cause least harm to others but also secondarily to themselves. Sometimes that means depriving the offender of something they'd like to hang on to. Dignity, money, freedom, whatever gets the job done with the least damage. Not *no* damage. Some fuckers won't learn. Some fuckers *like* causing harm.
Surgery is messy, but it heals.
This leads to a lot of discussions about the intolerance of intolerance and low roads and turning into the people we despise and slippery slopes and vigilantism. A lot of Latin gets thrown around, and I have always been terrible at these discussions. But I will say that I have come to terms with the fact that I can consider some people completely irredeemable and thoroughly worthy of strategic nastiness without turning into the Joker, or even Batman. Bruce Wayne did a lot of good with just his cash and influence.
But you have to do it right, or you end up with Joe fucking Biden, POTUS, calling Trump "The Great MAGA King" and launching a thousand RedBubble shops. As with everything else, it is a skill. It takes practice. If we want nastier pols, we have to hire nastier people.
Some of them will vastly overstep. And we will be crucified. And the Democratic Party will freak out and go back to their own versions of dogwhistles, and I think they know all that which is probably why we get stuck with Joe Biden, and even that's a bit of a self own. Ol' Loose Cannon Joe who thought gay marriage was probably fine is about as spicy is they'll let us get in public for fear of offending the people who go on call in shows and say "As a Democrat Party voter." Because then they might stop voting for you.
I'd be OK with this idea of Democrats being nasty if they were even doing a halfway (or even quarterway?) decent job of putting about a positive message about what they're for and what they've done. Of course the Republicans are assholes, what else have you got to offer, when your health care message is "Get your own fucking health care, loser." But the Dems really do have a story to tell about lives changed and improved by timely government assistance, and for reasons that I really can't understand, they just don't want to tell it. That seems like Job #1 to me, and if you're not going to do it, you've already lost no matter how many negative ads you run.
I never could understand the whole "the Party left me" line -- when in the name of St. Donna Summer has the Democratic Party stood for anything!? And being "liberal" has only meant "vaguely leftward-leaning" since Rush Limbaugh [spit] taught us that perverting language was profitable.
As for Noah here, patriarchy comes first before all other concerns or oppressions, So I really appreciate your analysis here -- anxiety & neurosis is a big part of the spoutings-off of men who inexplicably have mics these days.
Thing is, I kinda get what Elon was saying with that stupid graphic of his that everyone laughed at. Because one issue where the Dems have moved left, of late, is on whether actual billionaires should "pay their fair share" (as Uncle Joe says.) And THAT, if you are an actual billionaire, has got to stand out above all other issues as a getter of your attention. Yeah, that graphic was ridiculous for a hundred reasons, but if you run it through a filter of "I don't give a fuck about absolutely anything except whether I might be made to pay more taxes" it actually makes sense.
One definition that could work is "Tending to favor the use of government to solve large societal problems" but oops, I used the "g-word" there, and that's even more forbidden among Democratic politicians than using the "a-word" for a certain medical procedure soon to be illegal in half the states.
I guess I "trust" them like if I was drowning and someone threw me a life preserver and I'd grab at it and not interrogate it too closely on how many lives its saved in the past.
Or whether there’s a rope attached to it and whether anyone on the boat is holding the rope? Desperate hope for possibly bike crumbs doesn’t sound a great plan.
Meanwhile, the issue may well be mooted but I think a couple of years.
Yea, fashion can be an obstacle. And the notion that the universe is not designed to cater exclusively to one’s whims at any given time in their lives. I’ve come to believe that the fact we are primates and the limitations that come with it are what dooms us as a species. It’s nice a few of us evolved past those basic limitations in the Age of Enlightenment, but as things heat up and the luxuries get scarce, the less enlightened among us will inevitably follow the biggest, meanest ape with the most gnarley red ass, especially those more prone to violence as that is the only skill they have and it’s our nature to want to be good at something.
I too get where that guy is coming from and sometimes find it stifling to mute my justified criticisms of our side, but hopefully he can keep in mind that cringe worthy as pussy hats may be, they are a helluva lot better than jack boots.
Except that "real men" actually are terrified into "walking away" from pursuing justice by pink hats.
That's the entire distinct content of masculinity. It doesn't mean anything else. (Masculinity has no virtue, strength or desirable quality that a non-masculine/non-male person cannot possess or practice.)
Masculinity's defining characteristic is horror/disgust when confronted by something sufficiently non-masculine, and a reaction against that thing, ranging from "an urge to walk away...somewhere" to "WIMMEN MARCH SADDERDAY Gnnnnnnrgggh Whor Baby Bort Arrrrrgh" to "murder"
Not what I'm sure the point was, but I'm grateful to know that being an asshole is something I can grow out of.
My personal asshole take on pussy hats is, people who have their rights written into the Constitution should not tell people who don't how to object to that fact. Doesn't matter how cringe I think it is. Anyway, we like cringe here. It appears to be the new word for "sincere".
the biggest threat to progressive political outcomes is right-wing political forces, but the second-biggest threat is ostensible liberals who ultimately care more about aesthetics than outcomes.
While I don’t have an issue with the hats, I find myself not entirely in sympathy with some of the stylistic manifestations of Left activism—and that’s to be understood, because I’m closing on my eighth decade, and Old Fartitude is a thing. I recognize my Inner Republican, but I don’t let the bastard vote. Of course, this tendency was perhaps latent in my youth. A companion and I bailed from a political march circa 1982 (I think the rally may have had something to do with US policies in Central America) when the folks with the bullhorns decided to lead the masses in that deadly chant: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, [objectionable thing or policy] has got to go.” We looked at one another and wordlessly agreed to leave the scene, although we had different ideas as to where we might next betake ourselves (spoiler: it wasn’t to her apartment, alas).
Bravo!
Mistaking anxieties for political beliefs is an accurate umbrella description of many if not most Republican voters.
Nicely done.
"See, men are just too emotional to have the right to vote..."
"And what if one of 'em got into the White House? He might start a war just because he's havin' a bad day!"
So one of those things you may have heard from a woman if you were making "on the rag" jokes is that testosterone levels are at their highest in the average cis woman during her period. So what cis dudes were identifying as "chicks being irrational because their hormones" was cis women behaving a tiny bit more like a cis man, hormonally, and even that was too much for a lot of the dudes.
It's a complete oversimplification scientifically, but yeah, the ladies have volumes of humor on that specific subject.
Do tell...
Ethically, I no longer tell those jokes. I'm not a lady, and they make me kind of hate cis dudes. If you'd like to hear some, find a group of ladies, bring them some liquor or weed, and ask what the stupidest fucking thing their exes believed was. Then just listen, and try not to get defensive. Which is harder than it sounds, even I'm tempted to go "Not All Men" and my district apparently taught the dudes that the chicks had a period just once and never again. In their thirties I still knew dudes who believed that, and would get belligerent when told it was not so.
We've all got these stories.
I guess I just never hung out with guys like that. I mean that in a not-enlightened way - I just never saw it in the people I knew or might have been around in candid moments. The level of ignorance you illuminate is baffling, tho I've met plenty ignorant people. But it's the level of casual meanness that gets to me, and probly most people. And I'd like to think I'm not particularly the getting defensive type.
I long ago determined that people are gonna do what people are gonna do, and that if blame's to be slung, it should be slung at the parents who failed to impart a proper fetchins up. Anyway, thanks for your response. Fair play.
The self-confident sexism of this guy's threads (including one on whether MeToo has "overreached," is breathtaking. It amazes me that thinking men can be so lacking in self-awareness. One woman's response to the pussyhat cringe hit the nail on the head:
"Totally get the annoyance, because as present day events have clearly proven, women "performatively" marching in those "silly hats" back in 2016, because they were afraid of losing their rights to bodily autonomy, were definitely wildly overreacting."
The part of _me_ that cringed at it did so because everyone looked so happy or angry, but above all energetic, but I doubted it would do much good, and as present-day events have clearly proved….
I just felt that the hard-eyed, soulless, bastards who would really be in charge would at most be moved to laughter, and likely not even that. Democrats would have good will, but were outclassed in power, and that because they were outclassed in strategy and tactics and above all, dependable money from people certain of what they were buying.
I kept quiet about it because I know I tend to depression and so I might be wrong, and maybe it would help even if just by giving some people who _could_ do something enough of a lift to help them do what they could.
I feel that way now.
As they say on twitter, big mood. I'm trying very hard not to discourage anyone with some energy. I'm just support, like the lunchlady.
Thanks for this. I liked the reading of it.
I have that "What the fuck good is it gonna do?" reaction any time I hear about people marching. But it's such a familiar reaction, I know it's coming, and I can wait for it to pass, and then join the march if my schedule permits.
As for the Women's March, I think you can draw a pretty direct line from what was started that day to the Dem's retaking the House in 2018, to which you could say, "Well what difference did that make, other than two impeachments that went nowhere?" And you'd be mostly right, except that it was Nancy Pelosi and not Kevin McCarthy running the house when they counted the electoral votes in 2021.
Is anxiety the right emotion? I tend to think negative reactions to others’ displays of opinion are more about fear. Fear of what we don’t understand, fear of being left out, fear of being put down, insulted, deprived of status and so forth. Maybe there’s enough crossover between fear and anxiety that they’re both right. Anyway, the current crop of Wisconsin Republican governor primary ads are fucking insane. “Warrior Conservatives”!! Talk about putting your anxieties and fears on display. “We used to say the Pledge, now they take a knee,” and every other pseudoconservative brain fart from the last 20 years. It’s like having Roy’s Hardcore headlines interrupt your local weather report.
There are people who get that shit *with* their local weather report, on purpose.
“We used to say the Pledge, now they take a knee”
And as Governor I will... (fill in the blank)
It's like one of those diner-safari stories I read, a woman says she's still happy with Trump, even after [waves generally in all directions] because "People are saying Merry Christmas again." Congratulations, lady, you found ONE thing a President CAN'T do, and you've built your whole "politics" around it.
Make America Great Again! Give him his due, he tried. If you keep all the Muslims out, you never have to hear, what is it, Happy Halal? Is that how you say that?
From now on, I'm going with "Happy Halal!" as my standard holiday greeting. Who knows, I might get some really, really good schawarma out of it.
That was my dufus bigot talking? I'd kind of avoid it in company you don't know real well. My partner and I do not quote Strangers With Candy at each other for reasons.
Good advice, I'll hold on to "Happy Halal!" in a typing-words-on-the-internet kind of way, but likely not in a saying-words-out-loud-to-actual-people kind of way.
Now that I have sorted out dharma
I've boosted my score of good karma
While I can't guarantee
That my ego is free
I did score some really good shawarma
It's the same with people who get pissed off at celebrities for expressing an opinion they disagree with. So what? Take it or leave it. Why do you give a shit about what they think about anything?
But they will use that as an excuse to vote for whatever reactionary republican is running for Congress and that republican will get back at those celebrities for having the temerity to exercise their First Amendment rights by...cutting their taxes.
"excuse to vote for whatever reactionary republican" is exactly what it is, they were going to vote Republican anyway, but needed an excuse that didn't require much effort to find. Fortunately, celebrities and the things they say and the reactions to the things they say come spilling out of your TV every day with no effort needed on your part, so yeah, let's use that to justify voting for the same party we've been voting for since we were 18.
The alleged problem: There's a terrible unprecedented crisis with the Republic. The answer: warmed-over Archie Bunkerisms that people laughed at 50 years ago, but a little less coherent.
And the voters love it and snap at it.
I was hoping the picture was of you in 1982, but I see it's from some TV movie.
Note from the Art World:
Way back before the comet killed the dinosaurs, I had a job as the guy who trained your receptionist on how to use the new business phone system. We sold a lot of these systems to galleries down in Soho, which let me see lots of early '80s new art. There was good, there was bad . . . and there was one installation that consisted of a 6-volt battery with a knife switch and lightbulb attached to a piece on 1X6 plank atop a cheap stool. $10,000 for that grade-school science project.
My girlfriend at the time was a fine arts major at Hofstra, and she dragged me out to various shows. We went to see an exhibition by one of her profs at the Hyde. He'd managed to fill an entire wing with the same painting in different sizes and orientations: Fine pastel lines on a white gesso background. Dozens and dozens of these things, with the least expensive starting at $36,000. When I pointed out to my girlfriend that what this genius had painted was Sanitess drawer liners, she got pissed. Not two weeks later, we were walking through Pergament (a department store) when I spotted the very Sanitess I was thinking of. So I grabbed a roll and showed her that it was the exact same pattern of fine pastel lines on a white background--right down to the order of the colors. She was shocked, but still defended the prof's work as some kind of social commentary derivative a la Warhol. I figured the guy had decided he had a moral duty to separate stupid and pretentious people from their money.
Am I still cynical about art? Very much so. I've seen too many frauds and poseurs over the decades. (Latest favorite object of scorn: A woman I know who calls herself an artist because she made a painting back in 1987, but hasn't painted since because she's "blocked.")
Funny, but all that shit sounds rad to me, as does separating fools from their money.
This is the right attitude here: we proles get all huffy about art because we're taught in school that art is sacred, & the spirit of our Culture (Kultur, maybe?) -- but even when art was sacred & artists had powerful patrons -- the more you could get out of that patron for the least amount of work, the smarter an artist you were... And all the patron really cares about is being to say "I have an artist in my stable." Everybody's happy
From Tom Stoppard’s 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 (1974):
𝗧𝗭𝗔𝗥𝗔: Doing the things by which is meant Art is no longer considered the proper concern of the artist. In fact it is frowned upon. Nowadays, an artist is someone who makes art mean the things he does. A man may be an artist by exhibiting his hindquarters. He may be a poet by drawing words out of a hat. In fact some of my best poems have been drawn out of my hat which I afterwards exhibited to general acclaim at the Dada Gallery in Bahnhofstrasse.
𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗥: But that is simply to change the meaning of the word Art.
𝗧𝗭𝗔𝗥𝗔: I see I have made myself clear.
𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗥: Then you are not actually an artist at all?
𝗧𝗭𝗔𝗥𝗔: On the contrary. I have just told you I am.
𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗥: But that does not make you an artist. An artist is someone who is gifted in some way that enables him to do something more or less well which can only be done badly or not at all by someone who is not thus gifted. If there is any point in using language at all it is that a word is taken to stand for a particular fact or idea and not for other facts or ideas. I might claim to be able to fly…Lo, I say, I am flying. But you are not propelling yourself about while suspended in the air, someone may point out. Ah no, I reply, that is no longer considered the proper concern of people who can fly. In fact, it is frowned upon. Nowadays, a flyer never leaves the ground, and wouldn’t know how. I see, says my somewhat baffled interlocutor, so when you say you can fly you are using this word in a purely private sense. I see I have made myself clear, I say. Then, says this chap in some relief, you cannot actually fly after all? On the contrary, I say, I have just told you I can. Don’t you see my dear Tristan you are simply asking me to accept that the word Art means whatever you wish it to mean; but I do not accept it.
𝗧𝗭𝗔𝗥𝗔: Why not? You do exactly the same thing with words like patriotism, duty, love, freedom, king and country, brave little Belgium, saucy little Serbia…
It's been a while. I still remember my mom taking my copy of RaGaD from me because it was "too adult". Lady, I ain't the one with Leonard Cohen on the shelf. (Which books she also took away from me, while letting me read the bible and Dostoevsky. Living with crazy people leads to a lot of mixed messages.)
Saw the original production with John Wood. One of the most memorable theater experiences I've ever had. Thanks for the reminder.
Same. I got to tell Tim Curry how much I liked his perf as Tzara, and he said, "Oh, that was a long time ago." Well, yeah, but...
Saw the cheap matinee when Wood didn’t do matinees.
In the 70s I was into art. I lived in NYC and went to galleries and etc., and in fact recruited a pal to co-write a parody of Art News magazine for National Lampoon, and of a David Douglas Duncan My Pal Picasso-type book. Then one day I was in the Whitney and saw a Julian Schnabel painting on which were affixed many pieces of smashed crockery, and I thought: That's it. I'm out. And I have remained out to this very day.
The first person to glue a broken coffee cup to a canvas made art. The next person to do so made nothing. The 50th person to do so made garbage from garbage.
If these guys really are so concerned about being masculine, why don't they try the traditional, time tested method of SHUTTING THE HELL UP? Like Tony Soprano used to say (an enormous crybaby himself), whatever happened to the strong, silent type like Gary Cooper? Maybe then they could concentrate on something important like actually trying to get somewhere in life instead of complaining about their wretched lot all the time.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” That, indeed, is my personal preference over leading a life of 𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘴𝘺 desperation. Others’ mileage may, and apparently does, vary.
I support this for assholes only.
Dudes, we actually do want you to be able to have emotions. We just want you to try a bunch out, rather than just sticking with Arrogant, Condescending, Paternalistic, Threatening, and Violent. If that's your happy place, keep that to yourself, regardless of gender.
Our boy Noah is clearly emoting the first three. Textbook example of a privileged white guy having Deep Thoughts, and believing his personal discomfort with this or that is not just relevant enough, but important enough, to share with the world.
Obligatory: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmemegenerator.net%2Finstance%2F78077820%2Fpointing-mirror-guy-its-not-about-you-but-you-get-in-there-and-make-it-about-you&psig=AOvVaw3UanYI7TkgvE0WExBBu3Tt&ust=1652557231372000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAkQjRxqFwoTCICB1sud3fcCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
Noah Smith is just Rod Dreher without the artisanal meats or funhouse Christianity...
You know, I also made the mental comparison to Dreher.....and that comparison is not a good mark on any man, lol.
Ass Wednesday
Concern trolls always think like this, "Well, if they've lost ME, they've lost the whole country!"
Well, that's the problem, I think. Generations of American men who were presented with these totally unattainable ideals as role models (who could really ever be Gary Cooper?) and now, nearing the end of their lives, they've said, "Fuck it, I give up on being Gary Cooper, I'll just be Donald Trump instead." And you have to admit, being Donald Trump, a man totally lacking in any positive qualities whatsoever, is much, MUCH easier.
Even Gary Cooper probably wasn't the embodiment of Cishet White American manhood he was reputed to be...
Right, that's how unattainable it was! Gary Cooper or John Wayne or even Jimmy Stewart stands up to the bully and the bully backs down BECAUSE THE SCRIPT TELLS HIM TO. Try that in real life, and you'll get your ass kicked, because the bully didn't read the script.
Oh, I meant because he was reputed to have a male lover...
Look at this picture of Robert Mitchum's reaction to his sentencing for marihuana possession. Silent and lethal, the very mirror of the pure disdain proper to anyone who can't believe this bullshit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/2mozc5/actor_robert_mitchum_center_right_and_actress/
(Lila Leeds can't believe it, either, but she was in a much worse position and noöne and nothing had taught her adequately that it was bullshit and that she was better'n it.)
To my knowledge -- and like Roy, I have no interest to expend the energies required to confirm -- I believe Smith’s shtick is being a lib apostate, a Greenwood-lite as it were. And/or maybe the problem is that he feels required to opine frequently and has just run out of juice, causing some strains.
As for the hats: My heart (blackened, dead) is warmed to see huge groups uniting, coming together. Not because it affects policy in any way that matters but because the masses uniting is the only way we’re going to get through what is no shit a collapse of the national state. See, Dobbs. That is, keeping control on the local levels and taking care of ourselves is the way.
Smith, OTOH, can’t seem to get past knit hats which, I know, put like that can be taken as a sign of a problem.
Meanwhile, I’ve reached a point where I’m not so sure what liberal means anymore. Not being an asshole? Believing that a national government should have the power to initiate nationwide responses to global pandemics? (SCOTUS has shot that one down.) Being fully accepting of capitalism? Can’t get it together to actually oppose thing like, I dunno, our farce of national security issues? Thinking that the Dems have ours interests at the. Forefront of what they do? I don’t know. Maybe I’m missing things, losing it, I don’t know.
I'm a Molly Ivins liberal and a Jim Hightower populist. That's how I'm using the words, and the kids can get off my lawn and go look 'em up.
It is problematic, but I have found clarity in the First Rule of the Internet: Don't be a dick. Aside from that, we know what we like to look at, and it ain't the dither fish. Let people be who they want to be, if it's at all possible. Some of them might even save us, and if they don't, it was still worth the effort. There's no fucking dress code for the apocalypse.
Hightower and Ivins who of course I miss like fuck are to the left of contemporary libs, I think, so I remain a little confused and bewildered.
Fair enough. I've never been a Marxist, just a social liberal. My economics are significantly to the left of your average voter, but that's not saying much. They called me a commie in Jr High, but they say that to all the queer girls.
What the folks on yon interwebs mean when they say liberal appears to be something along the lines of "collaborator, who virtue signals." To be fair, I am also seeing "progressive" defined that way, with refinements. Bit I have lost track of what people mean when they say bisexual on the interwebs too, so I just use my words and let people figure it out from context.
I've never had much time for the theory, and flunked out of college after a year, so we mostly do default to "Fuck it, you know what I mean." Twitter has been a real lesson in concision which, is a thing I do not do.
Some of it is virtue signalling, I'm gonna trust blue hair and pronouns over a red cap every damned time. But anyone who stays to listen will catch on.
I'm trying to make the world a better place, not speed date.
None of which answers your question except to say, solidarity in confusion. The kids are fascinating. I'm half convinced they'll come up with solutions to this shit.
We’re putting the kids in sink or swim mode by leaving a shitty, fucked up world. Then again, the Greatest Generation raised one addicted to materialism, which is to say greed above all…
"...I’m not so sure what liberal means anymore. Not being an asshole?"
When Republicans have chosen to build their whole political identity around "Be an asshole, as often and as loudly as possible", it does open up some space for liberals, opportunistically, to simply grab the whole "We're not the assholes" lane. And thus the yard signs.
A plus, sure, but clearly in no way a game changer. And we really need to be as nasty as the Rs and, well, assholes towards them and the harm they do.
So nastiness is a thing I think about a lot. As you know, so you're all welcome to skip this. But nastiness is also my avocation, so this is something of a professional opinion.
Despite what my title says, I am actually dedicated to the goddess of, among other things, *vengeance*. Revenge is more of an actual deities' prerogative and you demand it at your risk. I am a Harpy, which is not as good as being a Fury but it's not bad considering I'm a shut in.
It's not about nastiness by inclination, it's about delivering balance, and if possible, lessons. You seek to stop the harm, dress the wound, sort out the stories, and then swat the offender to the degree that will cause least harm to others but also secondarily to themselves. Sometimes that means depriving the offender of something they'd like to hang on to. Dignity, money, freedom, whatever gets the job done with the least damage. Not *no* damage. Some fuckers won't learn. Some fuckers *like* causing harm.
Surgery is messy, but it heals.
This leads to a lot of discussions about the intolerance of intolerance and low roads and turning into the people we despise and slippery slopes and vigilantism. A lot of Latin gets thrown around, and I have always been terrible at these discussions. But I will say that I have come to terms with the fact that I can consider some people completely irredeemable and thoroughly worthy of strategic nastiness without turning into the Joker, or even Batman. Bruce Wayne did a lot of good with just his cash and influence.
But you have to do it right, or you end up with Joe fucking Biden, POTUS, calling Trump "The Great MAGA King" and launching a thousand RedBubble shops. As with everything else, it is a skill. It takes practice. If we want nastier pols, we have to hire nastier people.
Some of them will vastly overstep. And we will be crucified. And the Democratic Party will freak out and go back to their own versions of dogwhistles, and I think they know all that which is probably why we get stuck with Joe Biden, and even that's a bit of a self own. Ol' Loose Cannon Joe who thought gay marriage was probably fine is about as spicy is they'll let us get in public for fear of offending the people who go on call in shows and say "As a Democrat Party voter." Because then they might stop voting for you.
1. You’re wrong on Wayne.
2. Mazel tov on spew f bombs. Told you could do it.
Here I can. And on twitter, I will drop f bombs in response to a cute cat. This is a Disqus-free zone.
Anyway, it depends on which version of Wayne.
My bad. It’s Disqus where you claim you can’t. What a fucking dotard I am.
I'd be OK with this idea of Democrats being nasty if they were even doing a halfway (or even quarterway?) decent job of putting about a positive message about what they're for and what they've done. Of course the Republicans are assholes, what else have you got to offer, when your health care message is "Get your own fucking health care, loser." But the Dems really do have a story to tell about lives changed and improved by timely government assistance, and for reasons that I really can't understand, they just don't want to tell it. That seems like Job #1 to me, and if you're not going to do it, you've already lost no matter how many negative ads you run.
I'm old as fuck so I know exactly what you're talking about. Very well put.
I think Noah, however, is a genuine asshole and not just an asshole because he's young.
I could be wrong. I don't care.
I think you're giving Noah exactly the amount of thought he deserves. Well done.
Yup. Genuine asshole as in "thinks the sun rises and sets in his".
I never could understand the whole "the Party left me" line -- when in the name of St. Donna Summer has the Democratic Party stood for anything!? And being "liberal" has only meant "vaguely leftward-leaning" since Rush Limbaugh [spit] taught us that perverting language was profitable.
As for Noah here, patriarchy comes first before all other concerns or oppressions, So I really appreciate your analysis here -- anxiety & neurosis is a big part of the spoutings-off of men who inexplicably have mics these days.
“I used to be a liberal, but then someone left a cake out in the rain, and then I became outraged about Chappaquiddick.”
Thing is, I kinda get what Elon was saying with that stupid graphic of his that everyone laughed at. Because one issue where the Dems have moved left, of late, is on whether actual billionaires should "pay their fair share" (as Uncle Joe says.) And THAT, if you are an actual billionaire, has got to stand out above all other issues as a getter of your attention. Yeah, that graphic was ridiculous for a hundred reasons, but if you run it through a filter of "I don't give a fuck about absolutely anything except whether I might be made to pay more taxes" it actually makes sense.
As noted, I’m confused too by the contemporary meaning of liberal.
One definition that could work is "Tending to favor the use of government to solve large societal problems" but oops, I used the "g-word" there, and that's even more forbidden among Democratic politicians than using the "a-word" for a certain medical procedure soon to be illegal in half the states.
I could go with that up to the point where they trust Democrats to act and deliver.
I don't trust them to. I trust them to be more likely to be forced into it than republicans.
I guess I "trust" them like if I was drowning and someone threw me a life preserver and I'd grab at it and not interrogate it too closely on how many lives its saved in the past.
Or whether there’s a rope attached to it and whether anyone on the boat is holding the rope? Desperate hope for possibly bike crumbs doesn’t sound a great plan.
Meanwhile, the issue may well be mooted but I think a couple of years.
Yeah, fuck that life preserver that doesn't even have a fucking rope attached to it what kind of fucking bullshit is that glug glug glug...
Hey, if you don't like that definition, here's a more up-to-date one:
Liberals believe we should FEED the babies in our baby prisons, Conservatives believe we should STARVE the babies in our baby prisons.
And then they trust a party that doesn’t care to act to act.
So I guess my problem isn’t just the meaning of the term but that it involves misplaced trust and, in their way, an excess of delusion.
This is good, and I resemble this. But the last line really says it all, and it’s what differentiates liberals from conservatives.
Yea, fashion can be an obstacle. And the notion that the universe is not designed to cater exclusively to one’s whims at any given time in their lives. I’ve come to believe that the fact we are primates and the limitations that come with it are what dooms us as a species. It’s nice a few of us evolved past those basic limitations in the Age of Enlightenment, but as things heat up and the luxuries get scarce, the less enlightened among us will inevitably follow the biggest, meanest ape with the most gnarley red ass, especially those more prone to violence as that is the only skill they have and it’s our nature to want to be good at something.
I too get where that guy is coming from and sometimes find it stifling to mute my justified criticisms of our side, but hopefully he can keep in mind that cringe worthy as pussy hats may be, they are a helluva lot better than jack boots.
Except that "real men" actually are terrified into "walking away" from pursuing justice by pink hats.
That's the entire distinct content of masculinity. It doesn't mean anything else. (Masculinity has no virtue, strength or desirable quality that a non-masculine/non-male person cannot possess or practice.)
Masculinity's defining characteristic is horror/disgust when confronted by something sufficiently non-masculine, and a reaction against that thing, ranging from "an urge to walk away...somewhere" to "WIMMEN MARCH SADDERDAY Gnnnnnnrgggh Whor Baby Bort Arrrrrgh" to "murder"
"Exit, pursued by a pink hat" is supposed to be a way to get minor characters off stage, not as base for reactionary politics.
If they went away, it wouldn't be a problem
LOL
And lest you think it's a het masc thing, lots of gay masc dudes are horrified by anything femme as well...
I was still in my teens when I figured out that the meaningful divide wasn't gay/straight, but misogynist/not.
Not what I'm sure the point was, but I'm grateful to know that being an asshole is something I can grow out of.
My personal asshole take on pussy hats is, people who have their rights written into the Constitution should not tell people who don't how to object to that fact. Doesn't matter how cringe I think it is. Anyway, we like cringe here. It appears to be the new word for "sincere".
the biggest threat to progressive political outcomes is right-wing political forces, but the second-biggest threat is ostensible liberals who ultimately care more about aesthetics than outcomes.
Thank you for saying this
While I don’t have an issue with the hats, I find myself not entirely in sympathy with some of the stylistic manifestations of Left activism—and that’s to be understood, because I’m closing on my eighth decade, and Old Fartitude is a thing. I recognize my Inner Republican, but I don’t let the bastard vote. Of course, this tendency was perhaps latent in my youth. A companion and I bailed from a political march circa 1982 (I think the rally may have had something to do with US policies in Central America) when the folks with the bullhorns decided to lead the masses in that deadly chant: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, [objectionable thing or policy] has got to go.” We looked at one another and wordlessly agreed to leave the scene, although we had different ideas as to where we might next betake ourselves (spoiler: it wasn’t to her apartment, alas).