Understand this. One day you're going to wake up in a bed, or whatever passes for a bed in your world, and you're going to realize that you've gotten old, and that it's all downhill from here. You have already been Young and now your body is going to start its slow decline. You are going to become aware of the aging process and you are going to be crippled by the fear of being Useless and Impotent, of Hurting, and, of course, of Dying. God help you if this strikes you when you're Young, still, around the 20-25 range, when you haven't even hit your peak yet. A thought like that sucks all the Fun out of those years when you still think you're immortal and that you're going to party till well past dawn every weekend for the rest of your life. There's no joy in thoughts like that, and you can get hung up on them for a while.
I've been bogged down in this kind of thinking, that the party might be over soon, that I might have to slow it down. It might have to do with the legitimate line of work I've gone into requiring my services frequently these past few weeks. Jesus, people do that for their whole LIVES, man. Make sense of that and then get back to me, that someone could do the exact same thing in the exact same place for years at a time. I understand wanting to master something, sure, but...catering? Mastering catering is a feat, sure, and the idea of being able to handle a party of any size and difficulty is a cool idea, but not something I'd want to sink my time into.
I've been wanting to write something on the upcoming primary for months now; I've been digging into each prospective candidate relentlessly, trying to come up with point sheets for the GOP. Nothing. This is a piss-poor election. The Right is cowering in the corner, and no one's bothered to step up apart from a few joke candidates and one ex-Governer. Right now all the talk is on Donald Trump—I suppose the New Rightists, all hung up on their Reaganophilia, have figured that Trump is the best they'll get since Schwarzenegger can't run. Not a chance in hell, I'd put more money down on John McCain giving it another go.
No, the GOP is going to have to offer up a sacrificial lamb in 2012, and they understand this. All the serious players are keeping quiet, forming “exploratory committees” and making few statements to the press. This is a careful time for the Republican party. This is the warm-up grounds for 2016, when the Democrats will have to find another worthwhile candidate and the GOP will stand a decent chance at grabbing the Big Seat.
Early prediction for GOP Nomination 2016: Scott Brown, the young Senator from Massachusetts that created a small upset when he nabbed Ted Kennedy's seat. Mitt Romney minus the Mormonism. A Right-Wing Obama. Dangerous. Someone to be watched.
And until then? Yawn at the debates, I suppose. This time in 2008 there were already 12 formally announced candidates, all power-players, all seriously snarling for their chance at the Big Race. Today we have four, five if you count Ole Savior. No one else seems to be. Fred Karger and Andy Martin, both one-trick ponies that won't come CLOSE to putting a dent in the nominations. Neither one will nab higher than 10 percent come Primary season, and I'll take bets on that. Jimmy McMillian, the brief Internet sensation, better known as the “Rent Is Too Damn High” guy. I'll leave his chances as an exercise for the reader.
Then there's Gary Johnson, who I actually like as a candidate. He's climbed Everest, he's pro-legalization of Marijuana. No word on the Three Gs of Neoconservativism (That would be God, Guns, and Gays) but his socially liberal views paint a fairly easy guess: for gay marriage, religious tolerance without congressional backing of a particular religion, and anti-gun-control. His fiscal policies are safe enough to win over the money-minded GOP, but his social views guarantee he'll be eaten alive. Every straw poll taken have candidates winning who haven't said they're running yet. Welcome to America, where ghosts win presidencies.
Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney. Romney would be the most comfortable, as far as evil bastards go. He'll be torn to shreds for his constantly changing positions, but so it is. Ron Paul is batshit crazy, and not much else. Huckabee...how long, O Lord, how LONG? Huckabee attracted my attention in the 2008 primaries for being a Republican with a soul, who wasn't afraid to stake out on his own opinions in the face of the Party Line...and yet four short years later he's bowing down to the GOP. Do we need a spineless sellout as a president?
Obama's got this in the bag. The media will try to inject some drama, but all the political journalists are dreading the thought of having to follow these tired old hacks around the country to watch them shake hands. There's hesitation all across the right. I'm not even taking bets, apart from Karger/Martin wager I've already offered. Four more years, and that's not a terrible thing.
Jesus, I'm rambling. I've been thinking of moving into more local politics, as I've got much easier access to the local suits than anyone on Capitol Hill, and getting my information second- or third-hand is starting to wear thin on my nerves. The implications give me the charge, slake my thirst, but Christ, finding things out from Al Jazeera and Reddit isn't the same as hearing the words. I want to dig in and see them sweat. If I do, I might not put my scribblings up here; I doubt any of you give half a shit about Treachery and Treason and Politics in South Florida. Still, if you want it, I will deliver. I spread joy and wisdom like aerosolized rabbit semen. Write me, strangelings, and ask me questions.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The End of the Road: On Doomfreaks
“The future is an inherently good thing. And we move into it one winter at a time. Things get better one winter at a time. If you're going to celebrate anything, then have a drink on this: The world is, generally and on balance, a better place to live this year than it was last year.” -Spider Jerusalem, Transmetropolitan
The word of the day is “doomfreak,” and there are many clogging up the thin-walled arteries of the world these days.
People have been talking about the End of the World since the idea came up that it might have an end. Talk of Divine Wrath and swarths of fire purging the land of all living things and (my personal favorite among the lot) all the Gods in the heavens strapping on their best armor and kicking the shit out of each other just because they decided it might as well be now. Ragnarok is a hell of a story to read, but depressing on a fundamental level. Fatalism never sat very well with me.
Now we have two groups of neo-fatalists gearing up for the Great Fuck-All. Among the New Agers and burnt-out hippies and the fashionably spiritual but most CERTAINLY not religious thank-you-very-much we have the folks who cry out “2012!” The whole idea is based on the dated speculation of Michael Coe, an old Mayan scholar who noticed some scribblings talking about the end of a Great Cycle. A few calculations later and Coe found that the Great Cycle would come full-circle on December 21st, 2012, and he noted that the end of the Great Cycle had a kind of apocalyptic quality to it. Current Mayan scholars tend to agree that Coe, while significant, was, in academic terms, completely fucking wrong. The Great Cycle holds, they say, either not much significance or it acts as some big festival. Looking into the 2012 ideas a little more, useless and frightening phrases like “galactic alignment” and “timewave zero” crop up. The ideas are shaky, based on facts pulled out of the ether found only in the topmost portion of the human rectum. There is also talk of a new magnetic alignment, of global catastrophe, and so much forth. Doom, gloom, madness, mayhem, and none of it really worth thinking about.
The ones that have been lighting a fire under my ass the past few months are the followers of Harold Camping, a mummified radioman who felt like beating the rush and put forth the idea that the Rapture, a concept among Christians that the Truly Faithful would all be taken into the Heavens so they could stuff their faces with celestial popcorn while the world they inhabited not too long ago shit itself to death, would take place in May of 2011. Harold, in addition to being a favorite of the more rambling and senile school of Biblical teaching, is notable for claiming that the Rapture would occur sometime in 1994. Over the past 15 years, he's been re-examining his “math” and discovered his error. He is absolutely positive on this date, something that all of you should find and record evidence of, for when your more gullible friends want their money back. Mr. Camping puts his justification for all the world to see on www.ebiblefellowship.com and I openly invite all my readers to try and make any fucking sense of it at all. I've been staring at it for what feels like months now, and it always comes out the same way; pull numbers out of ass, throw at Bible, get Doomsday.
But what bothers me so much isn't these people playing on the fear and stupidity of others; for shit's sake, I follow politics like it's the goddamn football season. What bothers me is the attitude of not even ambivalence, but mean, malicious delight at the thought of our planet going up in flames. This was one of my original beefs with The Church, and it hasn't changed much over time. For people to talk about the Boundless Love of the Creator/Father/SkyDaddy one minute and the absolute and never-ending shitrain you will find yourself in if you don't start loving Him right fucking now the next is inherently Wrong on a deep level, but to look at the world today and think “It'll all be over soon, and this whole place will burn to the ground,” and leave it at that? We are aware today to a degree that even science fiction writers wouldn't speculate on fifty years ago. We have developed by leaps and bounds not only in terms of what we have created, but in terms of our ability to create, and to destroy, and to COMPREHEND. We, as a species, are finally Getting It. The right amount of Fear has married with the right amount of Understanding and Awareness to start the gestation of a genuinely good place for the first time in centuries, if ever. The fact that, at this very moment, we have instantaneous access to the collective summation of human knowledge astounds me to a degree that I can't begin to put into words. No one, myself included, would think to argue that the world doesn't have its problems. But the activities in Libya, in Egypt, in Wisconsin and Bahrain and London make me think that we KNOW these problems, and that, since we know, we can conquer them.
And you want to leave it to burn?
Humanity is a beautiful thing. We have done great damage in our time here, but we have also made great beauty. But none of that matters. No, see the problems and then close your eyes and wait for reality to go to sleep forever. By no means better what you see. By no means try and solve a problem. No. Stand there. Stay very still. Wait for the signal. Do nothing in the meantime. And give me money, so that I may continue to spread this message and buy a new fucking Corvette in the meantime.
I don't give half a shit for the justification these doomfreaks shoulder. This bleak Messianic fuckheadery is the most poisonous, most foul, most fucking sick line of thinking out there today. Even the deep-fried thrice-inbred backwater types who think that all the A-rabs ought to be blown back to the stone age are at least of the idea that something ought to be done. The tragic misguidance there is nothing unlimited access to a public library and maybe a good chemical castration can't fix. But to sit there, knowing that things are fucked, knowing that we May Be Doomed, and DO NOTHING ABOUT IT, and look forward to the day it all closes shop? That, dear readers, is what's wrong with the world today. Have your Paradise when you're dead if you want, but in the meantime, leave your mark and help clean up, for the young kids who have to shoulder the burden you feel like passing.
So much for all of that. You know, I could talk on about how these people are wrong, and why they're wrong, but that's all besides the point. This is our world now. We have taken it as our responsibility, for better or for worse, and I see out of all the sick twisted news a growing thread of hope that maybe, just maybe, we might be getting better at this. And if God Himself wants to step down from On High, Rod and Staff in hand with a choir of fat, evil-eyed Cherubim cheering Him on as he looks down on the Earth and says “YOU'VE HAD A GOOD RUN, BUT IT'S TIME TO PACK IT UP. YOU LOT, COME WITH ME, THE REST, I'LL BE BACK IN A BIT,” I think our reaction should be fairly clear. We, as a species, as one entity that is HUMAN, should band together, break down national and cultural barriers, combine every resource we have, and...
Kill Him. Kill the motherfucker where he stands. This is our world, and I will proudly go for the throat of God to keep it that way. Fear no evil. Be proud. Walk tall, and kick ass.
-Tambour
The word of the day is “doomfreak,” and there are many clogging up the thin-walled arteries of the world these days.
People have been talking about the End of the World since the idea came up that it might have an end. Talk of Divine Wrath and swarths of fire purging the land of all living things and (my personal favorite among the lot) all the Gods in the heavens strapping on their best armor and kicking the shit out of each other just because they decided it might as well be now. Ragnarok is a hell of a story to read, but depressing on a fundamental level. Fatalism never sat very well with me.
Now we have two groups of neo-fatalists gearing up for the Great Fuck-All. Among the New Agers and burnt-out hippies and the fashionably spiritual but most CERTAINLY not religious thank-you-very-much we have the folks who cry out “2012!” The whole idea is based on the dated speculation of Michael Coe, an old Mayan scholar who noticed some scribblings talking about the end of a Great Cycle. A few calculations later and Coe found that the Great Cycle would come full-circle on December 21st, 2012, and he noted that the end of the Great Cycle had a kind of apocalyptic quality to it. Current Mayan scholars tend to agree that Coe, while significant, was, in academic terms, completely fucking wrong. The Great Cycle holds, they say, either not much significance or it acts as some big festival. Looking into the 2012 ideas a little more, useless and frightening phrases like “galactic alignment” and “timewave zero” crop up. The ideas are shaky, based on facts pulled out of the ether found only in the topmost portion of the human rectum. There is also talk of a new magnetic alignment, of global catastrophe, and so much forth. Doom, gloom, madness, mayhem, and none of it really worth thinking about.
The ones that have been lighting a fire under my ass the past few months are the followers of Harold Camping, a mummified radioman who felt like beating the rush and put forth the idea that the Rapture, a concept among Christians that the Truly Faithful would all be taken into the Heavens so they could stuff their faces with celestial popcorn while the world they inhabited not too long ago shit itself to death, would take place in May of 2011. Harold, in addition to being a favorite of the more rambling and senile school of Biblical teaching, is notable for claiming that the Rapture would occur sometime in 1994. Over the past 15 years, he's been re-examining his “math” and discovered his error. He is absolutely positive on this date, something that all of you should find and record evidence of, for when your more gullible friends want their money back. Mr. Camping puts his justification for all the world to see on www.ebiblefellowship.com and I openly invite all my readers to try and make any fucking sense of it at all. I've been staring at it for what feels like months now, and it always comes out the same way; pull numbers out of ass, throw at Bible, get Doomsday.
But what bothers me so much isn't these people playing on the fear and stupidity of others; for shit's sake, I follow politics like it's the goddamn football season. What bothers me is the attitude of not even ambivalence, but mean, malicious delight at the thought of our planet going up in flames. This was one of my original beefs with The Church, and it hasn't changed much over time. For people to talk about the Boundless Love of the Creator/Father/SkyDaddy one minute and the absolute and never-ending shitrain you will find yourself in if you don't start loving Him right fucking now the next is inherently Wrong on a deep level, but to look at the world today and think “It'll all be over soon, and this whole place will burn to the ground,” and leave it at that? We are aware today to a degree that even science fiction writers wouldn't speculate on fifty years ago. We have developed by leaps and bounds not only in terms of what we have created, but in terms of our ability to create, and to destroy, and to COMPREHEND. We, as a species, are finally Getting It. The right amount of Fear has married with the right amount of Understanding and Awareness to start the gestation of a genuinely good place for the first time in centuries, if ever. The fact that, at this very moment, we have instantaneous access to the collective summation of human knowledge astounds me to a degree that I can't begin to put into words. No one, myself included, would think to argue that the world doesn't have its problems. But the activities in Libya, in Egypt, in Wisconsin and Bahrain and London make me think that we KNOW these problems, and that, since we know, we can conquer them.
And you want to leave it to burn?
Humanity is a beautiful thing. We have done great damage in our time here, but we have also made great beauty. But none of that matters. No, see the problems and then close your eyes and wait for reality to go to sleep forever. By no means better what you see. By no means try and solve a problem. No. Stand there. Stay very still. Wait for the signal. Do nothing in the meantime. And give me money, so that I may continue to spread this message and buy a new fucking Corvette in the meantime.
I don't give half a shit for the justification these doomfreaks shoulder. This bleak Messianic fuckheadery is the most poisonous, most foul, most fucking sick line of thinking out there today. Even the deep-fried thrice-inbred backwater types who think that all the A-rabs ought to be blown back to the stone age are at least of the idea that something ought to be done. The tragic misguidance there is nothing unlimited access to a public library and maybe a good chemical castration can't fix. But to sit there, knowing that things are fucked, knowing that we May Be Doomed, and DO NOTHING ABOUT IT, and look forward to the day it all closes shop? That, dear readers, is what's wrong with the world today. Have your Paradise when you're dead if you want, but in the meantime, leave your mark and help clean up, for the young kids who have to shoulder the burden you feel like passing.
So much for all of that. You know, I could talk on about how these people are wrong, and why they're wrong, but that's all besides the point. This is our world now. We have taken it as our responsibility, for better or for worse, and I see out of all the sick twisted news a growing thread of hope that maybe, just maybe, we might be getting better at this. And if God Himself wants to step down from On High, Rod and Staff in hand with a choir of fat, evil-eyed Cherubim cheering Him on as he looks down on the Earth and says “YOU'VE HAD A GOOD RUN, BUT IT'S TIME TO PACK IT UP. YOU LOT, COME WITH ME, THE REST, I'LL BE BACK IN A BIT,” I think our reaction should be fairly clear. We, as a species, as one entity that is HUMAN, should band together, break down national and cultural barriers, combine every resource we have, and...
Kill Him. Kill the motherfucker where he stands. This is our world, and I will proudly go for the throat of God to keep it that way. Fear no evil. Be proud. Walk tall, and kick ass.
-Tambour
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