Saturday, May 11, 2019
CHAPTER 675: IN WHICH I FIX ENDGAME WITH SOME STINGERS
< SPOILERS AHEAD >
Credits roll. People stick around because, like Pavlov's dogs, they're conditioned to wait at the end of Marvel movies now. Lo and Behold, here's your stinger:
As the funeral ends, a group gathers at the shore and watches Tony's flowers drift away.
The camera pans around to reveal that the crowd consists of Bucky, Vanessa from Deadpool, Elektra, Frank Castle, two regular Gwen Staceys, Gwenpool, Spider-Gwen, an old guy with a name tag that says Uncle Ben, Red Skull, 2014 Gamora, Colossus, Jean Grey, Scott Summers, Madeline Pryor, Stan Lee, Groot, Elvis and Grand Moff Tarkin for some reason.
BUCKY: So, what do we give him? Three years, tops?
Everybody laughs for an awkwardly long time.
........
Star wipe to the revolving doors in front of Stark Tower. Mistress Death and Deadpool are hanging out next to the door.
DEATH: Wait for it....
DEADPOOL: Are we being too obvious here?
Cue Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper".
DEATH: What ever would make you say that?
Wolverine comes through the door holding a bag of money and contract with mouse ears on it.
DEADPOOL: Oooh! A hidden Mickey!
WOLVERINE: What's up Spider-man?
DEADPOOL: Close enough.
Death, Deadpool and Wolverine skip off through Manhattan, pausing to look at the Latverian embassy.
DEATH: Now we're being too obvious.
......
Cut to the Sanctum Solarium. Wong and Dr. Strange are eating sandwiches on the front steps.
WONG: So, in all those millions of possible outcomes, how many ended with us actually getting sandwiches?
DR. STRANGE: Only one. Actually, most outcomes ended with everyone surviving and Thanos just tripling the amount of resoruces in the universe instead of killing everyone, but I hate Tony Stark.
Both men laugh.
.........
Death, Deadpool and Wolverine continue skipping through a cemetery, pausing to dance a circle around Jack Kirby's headstone.
They run into Rhodey Rhodes, who looks a little depressed.
WOLVERINE: Why the long face, bub?
RHODEY: I put up with Tony Stark's bullshit for over a decade, you guys. And all I have to show for it is that I didn't die a horrible trope.
DEATH and DEADPOOL: Like Nat, Vanessa and Thor's mom!
RHODEY: I mean, that fucking raccoon got his space family and tree friend back. Thor got Absolved of responsibilities and can be the pudgy space Lewbowski he apparently always wanted to be. Hulk is having to invent new forms of birth control for himself now that he has discovered adjectives. Antman and the serial killer got their families back. Nebula got her sister back. Valkyrie is now Queen of Asgard. Pretty sure Wong got that sandwich he wanted...
Death snaps her fingers. Rhodes's clothes transform into Buck Swope's red western apparel, and Stan Bush's "You've Got the Touch" plays. She Hulk rides by on roller skates motioning him to follow her.
RHODES: Wow! Thanks death!
......
Magneto, Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel are sitting on a nearby park bench.
MAGNETO: My dear daughter who I have not seen in a very long time and could not assist due to complicated legal issues, please explain to me why the Wakandans coudln't just fix him now that the stone is removed, baring in mind that he is an android?
WANDA: Apparently because I don't have a white or green penis.
CAPTAIN MARVEL: Oh snap!
Captain Marvel and Scarlet Witch high five, then sigh and glare at the camera.
MAGNETO: Doesn't Vision have a green....
VISION: I sure do!
CAPTAIN MARVEL: I didn't need to know that!
VISION: And I brought Captain Marve a Cookie Puss!
CAPTAIN MARVEL: Wow! My life is now complete!
......
Black Widow and 2018 Gamora are just standing around on Voromir, looking annoyed.
GAMORA They're still making a solo movie about you, right?
BLACK WIDOW: Yes...?
Monday, February 4, 2019
Yes, Virginia...
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam needs to take responsibility, own up to his failure to address his racist past until it was exposed, and set an example by stepping down. Yes, people can change and his heart may be in the right place now, but he needs to see the bigger context - that this is a symptom of a bigger societal problem.
I’ve seen a number of people ask if they should be taken to task for things they did in their youth that could be construed as racist later in life. The answer is yes, you should at least acknowledge it, do some soul searching and confront yourself over what led you to assume that was an okay thing to do. If you can’t do that, you’re either an emotionally stunted jackoff or just okay with being a racist asshole. And yes, before anyone brings it up, I am pretty embarrassed by and ashamed of being paraded around in a paper bag vest and headdress while holding an oatmeal tom-tom in kindergarten. Well-meaning or not, it is something that I understand to be hurtful to my friends who are Native American.
With that in mind, Ralph Northam was 24 when the offending photo was attached to the page dedicated to him in his medical school yearbook. That’s about fifteen years beyond any possible too-young-to-know-any-better mark, if you want to open that can of worms.
The photo isn’t of a little kid in well intentioned but ill-advised blackface doing an in-character oral report on the accomplishments of George Washington Carver. It shows an adult man in full minstrel show attire leaning in to an adult klansman. This is a joke to those two men - mocking and terrorizing the descendants of slaves. There is no context in which this could have occurred that this could ever be innocent in the mid 80s. What the photo depicts are two white, southern, racist douchebags reveling in being white, racist, southern douchebags.
This kind of shit still goes on all the time on college campuses. I guarantee you, some stupid frat somewhere started taking notes the moment the news broke and we will see recreations of the photo. There needs to be consequences, otherwise the message to those assholes is going to be that one can be a racist shitbird in college and remain in office when exposed.
Oh, but Ralph now claims that he isn’t even in the photo. He thought it was a different one of him in blackface as Michael Jackson until he saw it just the other day. That still isn’t excusable at 24, and shows that he was still totally okay with the afore mentioned white, racist, southern douchebagggery being associated with his academic career for 35 years. Also, that same yearbook also refers to a nickname of his that I will not repeat here.
Ralph says he wants to turn this into a learning moment. He has only been in politics since 2007 and it wasn’t okay then. If he wanted a learning moment, he should have addressed a problematic history when he first entered the fray twelve years ago.
But hey, Ralph, let's have a learning moment. Virginia is the state that hanged John Brown for the abolitionist uprising at Harper's Ferry a year and a half prior to the Civil War. Brown was a traitor in his time, but he was also a rebel underdog who died fighting for the liberty and freedom of others. The Virginia General Assembly doesn’t acknowledge Brown, but they did make national news for celebrating the legacy of Robert E. Lee while Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax - an African American - sat out alone in protest just two fucking weeks ago. Lee was a traitor to our republic who fought to preserve a status quo that relied on and celebrated the kidnapping, rape, dehumanization and enslavement of others to attain that “gentler way of life” that the Cracker Barrel set like to talk about when pressed on the matter. If you didn't call for a learning moment then, don't call for one now.
I’ve seen a number of people ask if they should be taken to task for things they did in their youth that could be construed as racist later in life. The answer is yes, you should at least acknowledge it, do some soul searching and confront yourself over what led you to assume that was an okay thing to do. If you can’t do that, you’re either an emotionally stunted jackoff or just okay with being a racist asshole. And yes, before anyone brings it up, I am pretty embarrassed by and ashamed of being paraded around in a paper bag vest and headdress while holding an oatmeal tom-tom in kindergarten. Well-meaning or not, it is something that I understand to be hurtful to my friends who are Native American.
With that in mind, Ralph Northam was 24 when the offending photo was attached to the page dedicated to him in his medical school yearbook. That’s about fifteen years beyond any possible too-young-to-know-any-better mark, if you want to open that can of worms.
The photo isn’t of a little kid in well intentioned but ill-advised blackface doing an in-character oral report on the accomplishments of George Washington Carver. It shows an adult man in full minstrel show attire leaning in to an adult klansman. This is a joke to those two men - mocking and terrorizing the descendants of slaves. There is no context in which this could have occurred that this could ever be innocent in the mid 80s. What the photo depicts are two white, southern, racist douchebags reveling in being white, racist, southern douchebags.
This kind of shit still goes on all the time on college campuses. I guarantee you, some stupid frat somewhere started taking notes the moment the news broke and we will see recreations of the photo. There needs to be consequences, otherwise the message to those assholes is going to be that one can be a racist shitbird in college and remain in office when exposed.
Oh, but Ralph now claims that he isn’t even in the photo. He thought it was a different one of him in blackface as Michael Jackson until he saw it just the other day. That still isn’t excusable at 24, and shows that he was still totally okay with the afore mentioned white, racist, southern douchebagggery being associated with his academic career for 35 years. Also, that same yearbook also refers to a nickname of his that I will not repeat here.
Ralph says he wants to turn this into a learning moment. He has only been in politics since 2007 and it wasn’t okay then. If he wanted a learning moment, he should have addressed a problematic history when he first entered the fray twelve years ago.
But hey, Ralph, let's have a learning moment. Virginia is the state that hanged John Brown for the abolitionist uprising at Harper's Ferry a year and a half prior to the Civil War. Brown was a traitor in his time, but he was also a rebel underdog who died fighting for the liberty and freedom of others. The Virginia General Assembly doesn’t acknowledge Brown, but they did make national news for celebrating the legacy of Robert E. Lee while Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax - an African American - sat out alone in protest just two fucking weeks ago. Lee was a traitor to our republic who fought to preserve a status quo that relied on and celebrated the kidnapping, rape, dehumanization and enslavement of others to attain that “gentler way of life” that the Cracker Barrel set like to talk about when pressed on the matter. If you didn't call for a learning moment then, don't call for one now.
Monday, January 14, 2019
Blogness 1/14/19
1/14/19
Sunday morning, I swung by Bull Moose in Scarborough while getting new wipers and shoe laces in the area.
Two years later, it still feels a little weird going in there. I have to stop myself from organizing and being nitpicky when I'm in there, which is why I do most of my shopping at the Mill Creek store now. It's not my job anymore, I respect the current management, and understand possibly better than anyone the challenges they face.
While there, I ordered the new Flesh Eaters album, "I Used to be Pretty", which comes out on Friday.
The Flesh Eaters are an old LA punk band that features members of X (John Doe, DJ Bonebreak) and the Blasters (Dave Alvin, Bill Bateman) and frequently played with X, The Gun Club and the Cramps. I guess you could call them a supergroup, though the band formed with this line up in the late 70s around singer Chris D., before any of the other bands were especially big. In terms of sound, think a mix of Fear's aggressive vocal abrasiveness, The Gun Club's poetry and The Violent Femme's creative percussion. Their album Forever Came Today is one of my favorite forgotten gems of the old-school LA punk scene and their song "My Life To Live" in particular is one of my all-time favorite punk songs.
*****
I've been meaning to post a Best of 2018 list, but I've been busy and get stuck writing up blurbs about the music. The TLDR version (wghich may be all you get) is:
New Stuff:
Death Valley Girls - Darkness Rains
Sleep - the Sciences
Turbonegro - Rocknroll Machine
Dog Party - Hit and Run
Zeke - Hellbender
High on Fire - Electric Messiah
Joe Strummer - Joe Strummer 101
Tiger Army - Dark Paradise EP
Distillers - Blood in Gutters/Man vs. Magnet single
Old Stuff:
Hawkwind - In Search of Space, Space Ritual, Doremi Laso fatido, Warrior at the Edge of Time (AKA - the Lemmy stuff)
Massive Attack - Protection, Mezzanine
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Joe Strumner - Earthquake Weather
Big Audio Dynamite - Big Audio Dynamite, 10 Upping Street
Looking forward to:
Flesh Eaters - I Used To be Pretty (Jan. 18th)
Giuda - E.V.A. (april 2019)
Distillers - new album (in studio now - title, date TBD)
Sunday morning, I swung by Bull Moose in Scarborough while getting new wipers and shoe laces in the area.
Two years later, it still feels a little weird going in there. I have to stop myself from organizing and being nitpicky when I'm in there, which is why I do most of my shopping at the Mill Creek store now. It's not my job anymore, I respect the current management, and understand possibly better than anyone the challenges they face.
While there, I ordered the new Flesh Eaters album, "I Used to be Pretty", which comes out on Friday.
The Flesh Eaters are an old LA punk band that features members of X (John Doe, DJ Bonebreak) and the Blasters (Dave Alvin, Bill Bateman) and frequently played with X, The Gun Club and the Cramps. I guess you could call them a supergroup, though the band formed with this line up in the late 70s around singer Chris D., before any of the other bands were especially big. In terms of sound, think a mix of Fear's aggressive vocal abrasiveness, The Gun Club's poetry and The Violent Femme's creative percussion. Their album Forever Came Today is one of my favorite forgotten gems of the old-school LA punk scene and their song "My Life To Live" in particular is one of my all-time favorite punk songs.
*****
I've been meaning to post a Best of 2018 list, but I've been busy and get stuck writing up blurbs about the music. The TLDR version (wghich may be all you get) is:
New Stuff:
Death Valley Girls - Darkness Rains
Sleep - the Sciences
Turbonegro - Rocknroll Machine
Dog Party - Hit and Run
Zeke - Hellbender
High on Fire - Electric Messiah
Joe Strummer - Joe Strummer 101
Tiger Army - Dark Paradise EP
Distillers - Blood in Gutters/Man vs. Magnet single
Old Stuff:
Hawkwind - In Search of Space, Space Ritual, Doremi Laso fatido, Warrior at the Edge of Time (AKA - the Lemmy stuff)
Massive Attack - Protection, Mezzanine
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Joe Strumner - Earthquake Weather
Big Audio Dynamite - Big Audio Dynamite, 10 Upping Street
Looking forward to:
Flesh Eaters - I Used To be Pretty (Jan. 18th)
Giuda - E.V.A. (april 2019)
Distillers - new album (in studio now - title, date TBD)
Thursday, February 16, 2017
CHAPTER 2-16-17: 30 PRACTICE QUESTIONS TO GET YOU IN THE RIGHT MINDSET FOR ANY JOB INTERVIEW
What follows are the thirty most effective practice interview
questions ever put to paper. If you spend at least two hours a day
reading over these questions and practicing your answers in front of a
picture of Julie Andrews, you are all but guaranteed* to ace your job
interviews like I always do.
1. Tell me about a time in which someone working with you needed you to hold their hair while they vomited.
What, if anything did you learn from this experience?
2. Suppose that you are a basket of tepid, fried clam strips.
3. Tell me about an experience you have had in which you had to hide unexpected arousal from a politician, member of the clergy or former children's game show host while on the clock.
What did you take away from this experience?
4. How would you go about explaining a Jackson Pollack painting to a blind person while high as balls on mix of bath salts and peyote?
Would you make noises? If so, please perform them now.
Now perform them as Disney's Goofy character.
5. Suppose your supervisor hands you a Leggs pantyhose egg, a straight razor, plastic sheets, and a chloroform soaked rag, points at Loraine, the office gossip, and says "You know what you must do". What do you do with the pantyhose?
6. Tell me about a time in which you had to determine which of your co-workers was a grody hosebeast.
7. Suppose legendary Irish author and artist Christy Brown (of My Left Foot fame) challenged you to leg wrestling match. Would you humor him, and if so, would you go all out, or would you go easy on him?
If you chose to go easy on him, would you be comfortable telling him that you handicapped the match?
8. Would you be willing to move to the Deep South, remove several teeth and gain seventy pounds?
9. Envision a world without consonants. Please, in the English Language of this hypothetical world, explain what a pangolin is to me.
10. Have you ever had to determine which of your co-workers will be stoned to death?
Was it the one you deemed a grody hosebeast?
11. Suppose you found out that Christopher, one of your co-workers, was Philadelphia's notorious Swiss Cheese Pervert. Now, suppose that your elderly, naive, overly-sensitive, and deaf supervisor, Jill, chose to pass you over for a promotion in favor of Christopher. Would you tell Jill about Chris's past behavior?
What, specifically, would you tell Jill?
Now, please repeat that to me while doing an impression of Mister Rogers.
12. Can you kick yourself in the genitals?
That was a demand, not a question.
How did that make you feel?
13. Using only 1930s gangster slang, please explain to me what software packages you may be familiar with.
14. Tell me about a time in which your parents were horribly disappointed in you, not because you had failed at one particular task, but because your entire life up to that moment had been a long, depressing string of mediocrity and awkwardness.
15. Have you ever been in a situation in which you suspected that one of your supervisors was regularly taking part in three-way sex acts with your recently-divorced father and his new, significantly younger girlfriend, Tippi? I KNOW my supervisor is regularly taking part in three-way sex acts with my recently-divorced father and his new, significantly younger girlfriend, Tippi. Please tell me how you would go about confronting Tippi and telling her that she is not welcome at Thanksgiving this year.
16. Please explain to me what you envision a typical work day is like, speaking only in Bad Brains lyrics.
17. Suppose that Diane, one of your co-workers, begins removing her press-on nails at the cafeteria table. More alarmingly, by the time she leaves, there are eleven press-on nails left on the table. How would you go about confronting Diane, and would you even bother mentioning the elevnth nail?
18. Tell me about a time in which you had to explain to a customer that they were actually a mop with googly eyes attached to it.
19. Are you still supposing that you are a basket of tepid, fried clam strips?
20. Can you follow complex instructions after huffing flypaper glue?
21. Randal, your cubicle mate, insists on eating an entire rotisserie chicken with his bare hands between calls. Does that make him more or less repugnant than Diane from question 17.
If you answered that Randal is more repugnant than Diane, would you allow Diane to rub Preparation H on your tummy while singing One Week by Barenaked Ladies to you?
22. Tell me about a time when you had to make a split second decision, and it ended with a co-worker having an abortion.
23. What words can you spell on a calculator?
24. Tell me about a time when a grown man shat himself in front of you at the self-checkout lane at the grocery store.
Would you be comfortable being that man?
25. If your co-worker Jeff had really good abs, but a fucked up pair of saggy man boobs, would you consider letting him fart on your forehead twice a day if it meant that we would provide you with a dental plan?
26. While pinching the tip of your tongue between your right thumb and index finger, please describe how talking to someone with a cleft lip and no eyelids makes you feel.
27. Our company firmly believes in being a non-judgemental environment for people who have had their lower jaws removed in order to better perform mock sex acts on mannequins during board meetings. How would you go about explaining this policy to a group of tween Fundamentalist Christian day camp counselors?
28. Our company is actually extremely judgemental of people who have their lower jaws removed in order to better perform mock sex acts on mannequins during board meetings. Suppose that you found out that both Jeff and Diane were engaging in this activity, and that Jeff was also your supervisor. Would you consider bypassing Jeff in the chain of command in order to report this activity, knowing that it was equally probable that doing so will either result in your immediate termination or a promotion?
29. After undergoing massive restructuring and re-branding, our company has decided to keep you at your current pay grade with full health care for you and your family because one of your children is sick with a horrible disease that causes their body to slowly and agonizingly reject their skeleton. The only catch is that you are now required to cold-call random people, trying to sell them a brand of lavender scented litter and pie tins for people with a crippling fear of water to use in lieu of the toilet. Please explain to me how you go about pitching the people litter and pie tins to someone who is deperate for any human interaction after being lost at sea for a year.
30. Suppose that the person who last sat in the chair you are currently sitting in had a huge, disgusting, prolapsed anus hanging out of the back of their pants. They were also incredibly qualified for the job and were planning on using their entire annual salary for the first seven years to fund research that would be able to eliminate the possibility of anyone ever developing spina bifida again. We, however, have decided to hire you because of the huge, disgusting, prolapsed anus hanging out of the back of their pants. Please come up with a compelling argument to convince me to hire the person with the prolapsed anus without mentioning the spina bifida research, as that would indicate that you were aware of what their salary is.
*the phrase "all but guaranteed" does not actually guarantee anything. I do, however, think these are kinds of valid, if earthy, practice questions for job interviews.
1. Tell me about a time in which someone working with you needed you to hold their hair while they vomited.
What, if anything did you learn from this experience?
2. Suppose that you are a basket of tepid, fried clam strips.
3. Tell me about an experience you have had in which you had to hide unexpected arousal from a politician, member of the clergy or former children's game show host while on the clock.
What did you take away from this experience?
4. How would you go about explaining a Jackson Pollack painting to a blind person while high as balls on mix of bath salts and peyote?
Would you make noises? If so, please perform them now.
Now perform them as Disney's Goofy character.
5. Suppose your supervisor hands you a Leggs pantyhose egg, a straight razor, plastic sheets, and a chloroform soaked rag, points at Loraine, the office gossip, and says "You know what you must do". What do you do with the pantyhose?
6. Tell me about a time in which you had to determine which of your co-workers was a grody hosebeast.
7. Suppose legendary Irish author and artist Christy Brown (of My Left Foot fame) challenged you to leg wrestling match. Would you humor him, and if so, would you go all out, or would you go easy on him?
If you chose to go easy on him, would you be comfortable telling him that you handicapped the match?
8. Would you be willing to move to the Deep South, remove several teeth and gain seventy pounds?
9. Envision a world without consonants. Please, in the English Language of this hypothetical world, explain what a pangolin is to me.
10. Have you ever had to determine which of your co-workers will be stoned to death?
Was it the one you deemed a grody hosebeast?
11. Suppose you found out that Christopher, one of your co-workers, was Philadelphia's notorious Swiss Cheese Pervert. Now, suppose that your elderly, naive, overly-sensitive, and deaf supervisor, Jill, chose to pass you over for a promotion in favor of Christopher. Would you tell Jill about Chris's past behavior?
What, specifically, would you tell Jill?
Now, please repeat that to me while doing an impression of Mister Rogers.
12. Can you kick yourself in the genitals?
That was a demand, not a question.
How did that make you feel?
13. Using only 1930s gangster slang, please explain to me what software packages you may be familiar with.
14. Tell me about a time in which your parents were horribly disappointed in you, not because you had failed at one particular task, but because your entire life up to that moment had been a long, depressing string of mediocrity and awkwardness.
15. Have you ever been in a situation in which you suspected that one of your supervisors was regularly taking part in three-way sex acts with your recently-divorced father and his new, significantly younger girlfriend, Tippi? I KNOW my supervisor is regularly taking part in three-way sex acts with my recently-divorced father and his new, significantly younger girlfriend, Tippi. Please tell me how you would go about confronting Tippi and telling her that she is not welcome at Thanksgiving this year.
16. Please explain to me what you envision a typical work day is like, speaking only in Bad Brains lyrics.
17. Suppose that Diane, one of your co-workers, begins removing her press-on nails at the cafeteria table. More alarmingly, by the time she leaves, there are eleven press-on nails left on the table. How would you go about confronting Diane, and would you even bother mentioning the elevnth nail?
18. Tell me about a time in which you had to explain to a customer that they were actually a mop with googly eyes attached to it.
19. Are you still supposing that you are a basket of tepid, fried clam strips?
20. Can you follow complex instructions after huffing flypaper glue?
21. Randal, your cubicle mate, insists on eating an entire rotisserie chicken with his bare hands between calls. Does that make him more or less repugnant than Diane from question 17.
If you answered that Randal is more repugnant than Diane, would you allow Diane to rub Preparation H on your tummy while singing One Week by Barenaked Ladies to you?
22. Tell me about a time when you had to make a split second decision, and it ended with a co-worker having an abortion.
23. What words can you spell on a calculator?
24. Tell me about a time when a grown man shat himself in front of you at the self-checkout lane at the grocery store.
Would you be comfortable being that man?
25. If your co-worker Jeff had really good abs, but a fucked up pair of saggy man boobs, would you consider letting him fart on your forehead twice a day if it meant that we would provide you with a dental plan?
26. While pinching the tip of your tongue between your right thumb and index finger, please describe how talking to someone with a cleft lip and no eyelids makes you feel.
27. Our company firmly believes in being a non-judgemental environment for people who have had their lower jaws removed in order to better perform mock sex acts on mannequins during board meetings. How would you go about explaining this policy to a group of tween Fundamentalist Christian day camp counselors?
28. Our company is actually extremely judgemental of people who have their lower jaws removed in order to better perform mock sex acts on mannequins during board meetings. Suppose that you found out that both Jeff and Diane were engaging in this activity, and that Jeff was also your supervisor. Would you consider bypassing Jeff in the chain of command in order to report this activity, knowing that it was equally probable that doing so will either result in your immediate termination or a promotion?
29. After undergoing massive restructuring and re-branding, our company has decided to keep you at your current pay grade with full health care for you and your family because one of your children is sick with a horrible disease that causes their body to slowly and agonizingly reject their skeleton. The only catch is that you are now required to cold-call random people, trying to sell them a brand of lavender scented litter and pie tins for people with a crippling fear of water to use in lieu of the toilet. Please explain to me how you go about pitching the people litter and pie tins to someone who is deperate for any human interaction after being lost at sea for a year.
30. Suppose that the person who last sat in the chair you are currently sitting in had a huge, disgusting, prolapsed anus hanging out of the back of their pants. They were also incredibly qualified for the job and were planning on using their entire annual salary for the first seven years to fund research that would be able to eliminate the possibility of anyone ever developing spina bifida again. We, however, have decided to hire you because of the huge, disgusting, prolapsed anus hanging out of the back of their pants. Please come up with a compelling argument to convince me to hire the person with the prolapsed anus without mentioning the spina bifida research, as that would indicate that you were aware of what their salary is.
*the phrase "all but guaranteed" does not actually guarantee anything. I do, however, think these are kinds of valid, if earthy, practice questions for job interviews.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Let's Build a Wall... Said Donnie One Day
"LET'S BUILD A WALL..." SAID DONNIE ONE DAY
Alright. Let's talk about the wall, for a moment.
It's a wall!
It's a wall!
Even if it is surrounded by landmines, topped with razor wire and staffed with well-paid half-man-half-honey-badger red bull blooded cyborgs that are all heterosexual Christian crackers where it counts - even if Il Douche doesn't find a way to auction off construction to the
lowest bidder and actually pays someone in full for their work - it's still a stationary object. It can and will be bypassed.
Don't believe me? Look at the security situations in Baghdad and Kabul over the last sixteen years and tell me that you actually have faith in the ability of the U.S. Government to actually seal off 1900 miles of border in seven years time. Look at the corruption and waste that went into our recent war efforts. Now look at Trump's long history of bullfuckery. Do you really think that this fucking guy can be trusted with the construction of anything at this point?
Don't be a schmuck. Reality doesn't work that way.
Also, no desperate person has ever said "Well, fuck, guys. It's a wall. I guess we better go back and let the cartels and/or paramilitary death squads murder us, or just settle for the crushing poverty at home in Central America."
Don't believe me? Look at the security situations in Baghdad and Kabul over the last sixteen years and tell me that you actually have faith in the ability of the U.S. Government to actually seal off 1900 miles of border in seven years time. Look at the corruption and waste that went into our recent war efforts. Now look at Trump's long history of bullfuckery. Do you really think that this fucking guy can be trusted with the construction of anything at this point?
Don't be a schmuck. Reality doesn't work that way.
Also, no desperate person has ever said "Well, fuck, guys. It's a wall. I guess we better go back and let the cartels and/or paramilitary death squads murder us, or just settle for the crushing poverty at home in Central America."
No smuggling operation has ever seen a wall and said "Oh raspberries, my bosom chums! They built a wall! The jig is up! We'll just have to find some other use for all this cocaine!"
American drug users aren't going to be flocking to rehab because President Debate Sniffles decided to build a wall.
American drug users aren't going to be flocking to rehab because President Debate Sniffles decided to build a wall.
Unethical business owners aren't going to start offering an ethical wage for unpleasant jobs because the guy who refused to pay the undocumented Polish workers who helped build the tower named for him decided to build a wall.
War, exploitation and human misery in Central and South America aren't going wither away because of a fucking wall.
And, despite what Il Douche says, no, Mexico is not going to pay for the fucking thing. We are.
But hey, we will have a big token gesture to show the world that we love throwing money at stupid bullshit instead of actually addressing the underlying problems that cause illegal immigration. And, in four to eight years, when the pendulum swings back into the realm of rational thought and/or disenchantment, we'll have a another half-finished, half-assed monument to our impulsive, shortsighted stupidity.
Yaaaaaay.
Yaaaaaay.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
The Hateful Man's Election Special
Alright! Alright! Alright!
The Hateful Man has heard your pleas to comment on the current state of presidential politics in the United States.
So, how should a Truly Hateful Man vote?
Well, Wendy, like every election year, you have a choice between several rich honkies, two of whom have a somewhat viable chance of winning, and several of whom exist for the sole purpose of keeping their tingle-pants going for another six weeks.
(That's not true. I'm just bitchy when I've been huffing varnish. Hell, I'm not even real. I'm a character like Bob Dylan.)
The Hateful Neophyte may be tempted to vote for Trump. I mean, the guy just kind of screams Hateful Man, right?
Wrong. You're dead wrong, Wendy. And you're stupid and you have a dumb haircut that reminds me of John Denver for some weird fucking reason that might be some kind of strange, uncomfortable turn on for me that I don't want to address right now. But back to Trump.
Actually, never use the phrase "but back to Trump". He's old, and pretty clearly a fucking pig and might think you said "butt, back to Trump" and take it as an opening for inappropriate sexual advances.
Now, going back to the topic of Trump. No, Trump is not a good choice for the Truly Hateful for many, many reasons, not the least of which is that Trump is either a complete mouth breather, or just assumes that everyone else is and addresses us all as such. He speaks to us like Derek Zoolander, and speaks for people who see people who speak like Derek Zoolander as a good choice for leading the motherfucking free world.
His hate is not aimed at the obnoxious, insipid shit we as Hateful Men have to contend with everyday. In fact, his brand of hate only further enables the banality we stand against.
He would turn away immigrants who could improve the cultural make up of our country in order to ensure the ignorant unfettered, intellectually unchallenged access to the Wonder Bread aisle. He invokes the boogeyman of terror while allowing Russia to run roughshod over the human rights of the citizens of Aleppo, creating another generation of foreign terrorists and just straight up giving warm fuzzies to actual domestic terrorists at his rallies.
He disregards science and the intelligence community, insults our allies, and doesn't see or at least doesn't bother to call out the failings of the idea of racist ideology when it is espoused by his supporters.
His public persona doesn't understand why we shouldn't use nuclear weapons or even joke about doing so. I honestly don't know if the man is legitimately that fucking stupid or is just trying to seem macho to people who are.
And therein actually lies the thing that bothers me most about Trump. Yes, all politicians have a public persona. But Trump's public persona is straight-up kayfabe. The things he says, the claims he make are fucking ludicrous when you look at his past words and actions. His ads present us with this Hulk Hogan character, but the reality we've all endured for forty-plus years is unsettling Terry Bollea sex tapes and audio. Hell, the man has even told us that he has a huuuuge dong while standing at a podium. In reality, he's proven himself to be the epitome of yuppie scum, working against the interest of the common people, fucking over friend, foe and complete strangers just to (sort of) make a fucking buck. But even in that regard, he has a long track record of being a shitty businessman who is better at self-promotion than at maintaining an empire.
So what about Hillary? Surely she's just as bad?
No. Hillary represents the status quo. Electing Hillary will probably just ensure a continuation of the political climate of the last eight years. Think a center-left George H.W. Bush. Congress will act as a buffer against any truly radical change because Congress hasn't done jack shit for the last eight with someone more progressive than her in office.
Those who know me know that I am also surprisingly strong supporter of the Second Amendment. Despite what the NRA and the right would have you believe, she's not a threat to your right to bare arms. The most she might do is curtail your ability to hang trucknuts off your vintage Bushmaster, but I kind of doubt even that will happen. I actually kind of suspect she's in bed with the industry.
But what of Benghazi? Why is this one event suddenly a lightning rod of Republican soul-searching on foreign policies, when these same people kiss a picture of Ronald Reagan before bed every night? Why does a party that complains about big government and waste love nothing more than spending years and countless dollars investigating one public figure when nine years ago, their leadership blatantly lied in order to start a war that has killed 20,000+ Americans and their allies and wasted trillions of dollars?
But what about her massive corruption? She's in bed with the Saudis!!! She's a corporate shill who spoke to Wall Street! Her charitable organization took foreign money!!
You do remember that she's running against Donald Fucking Trump, right? Like, there's run-of-the-mill money in politics crap, and then there's this fucking guy.
I'm not telling you to vote for her. I'm just saying I don't mind Hillary in comparison to Trump. That's not to say that she's the bees knees, but given the binary candidates, she's the least insulting one.
So, seriously though, what about third party candidates?
I'd almost endorse Gary Johnson if I didn't completely disagree with most of his platform. I don't believe in non-interventionism, reducing taxes and gutting medicare and social security. I can get behind his faking a heart attack, indicating he'd recently smoked the Devil's Lettuce during a debate policy, though. Look, again, he's running against that fucking guy. Go vote for him if you agree with him.
Speaking honestly and not in character here - Jill Stein is too liberal for me. I'm not saying don't vote for her, though. She seems like a good person. Again, as with Johnson, I just don't agree with her foreign and defense policies. But, yeah, vote for her if you want. It's better than a vote for Trump.
Well then, am I endorsing anyone or anything?
Wendy, if there is one thing that I can get behind in this world, it's that the worst kind of vote is a not him vote. But fuck me, one candidate is so unbelievably shitty that I have to endorse NOT HIM.
The Hateful Man has heard your pleas to comment on the current state of presidential politics in the United States.
So, how should a Truly Hateful Man vote?
Well, Wendy, like every election year, you have a choice between several rich honkies, two of whom have a somewhat viable chance of winning, and several of whom exist for the sole purpose of keeping their tingle-pants going for another six weeks.
(That's not true. I'm just bitchy when I've been huffing varnish. Hell, I'm not even real. I'm a character like Bob Dylan.)
The Hateful Neophyte may be tempted to vote for Trump. I mean, the guy just kind of screams Hateful Man, right?
Wrong. You're dead wrong, Wendy. And you're stupid and you have a dumb haircut that reminds me of John Denver for some weird fucking reason that might be some kind of strange, uncomfortable turn on for me that I don't want to address right now. But back to Trump.
Actually, never use the phrase "but back to Trump". He's old, and pretty clearly a fucking pig and might think you said "butt, back to Trump" and take it as an opening for inappropriate sexual advances.
Now, going back to the topic of Trump. No, Trump is not a good choice for the Truly Hateful for many, many reasons, not the least of which is that Trump is either a complete mouth breather, or just assumes that everyone else is and addresses us all as such. He speaks to us like Derek Zoolander, and speaks for people who see people who speak like Derek Zoolander as a good choice for leading the motherfucking free world.
His hate is not aimed at the obnoxious, insipid shit we as Hateful Men have to contend with everyday. In fact, his brand of hate only further enables the banality we stand against.
He would turn away immigrants who could improve the cultural make up of our country in order to ensure the ignorant unfettered, intellectually unchallenged access to the Wonder Bread aisle. He invokes the boogeyman of terror while allowing Russia to run roughshod over the human rights of the citizens of Aleppo, creating another generation of foreign terrorists and just straight up giving warm fuzzies to actual domestic terrorists at his rallies.
He disregards science and the intelligence community, insults our allies, and doesn't see or at least doesn't bother to call out the failings of the idea of racist ideology when it is espoused by his supporters.
His public persona doesn't understand why we shouldn't use nuclear weapons or even joke about doing so. I honestly don't know if the man is legitimately that fucking stupid or is just trying to seem macho to people who are.
And therein actually lies the thing that bothers me most about Trump. Yes, all politicians have a public persona. But Trump's public persona is straight-up kayfabe. The things he says, the claims he make are fucking ludicrous when you look at his past words and actions. His ads present us with this Hulk Hogan character, but the reality we've all endured for forty-plus years is unsettling Terry Bollea sex tapes and audio. Hell, the man has even told us that he has a huuuuge dong while standing at a podium. In reality, he's proven himself to be the epitome of yuppie scum, working against the interest of the common people, fucking over friend, foe and complete strangers just to (sort of) make a fucking buck. But even in that regard, he has a long track record of being a shitty businessman who is better at self-promotion than at maintaining an empire.
So what about Hillary? Surely she's just as bad?
No. Hillary represents the status quo. Electing Hillary will probably just ensure a continuation of the political climate of the last eight years. Think a center-left George H.W. Bush. Congress will act as a buffer against any truly radical change because Congress hasn't done jack shit for the last eight with someone more progressive than her in office.
Those who know me know that I am also surprisingly strong supporter of the Second Amendment. Despite what the NRA and the right would have you believe, she's not a threat to your right to bare arms. The most she might do is curtail your ability to hang trucknuts off your vintage Bushmaster, but I kind of doubt even that will happen. I actually kind of suspect she's in bed with the industry.
But what of Benghazi? Why is this one event suddenly a lightning rod of Republican soul-searching on foreign policies, when these same people kiss a picture of Ronald Reagan before bed every night? Why does a party that complains about big government and waste love nothing more than spending years and countless dollars investigating one public figure when nine years ago, their leadership blatantly lied in order to start a war that has killed 20,000+ Americans and their allies and wasted trillions of dollars?
But what about her massive corruption? She's in bed with the Saudis!!! She's a corporate shill who spoke to Wall Street! Her charitable organization took foreign money!!
You do remember that she's running against Donald Fucking Trump, right? Like, there's run-of-the-mill money in politics crap, and then there's this fucking guy.
I'm not telling you to vote for her. I'm just saying I don't mind Hillary in comparison to Trump. That's not to say that she's the bees knees, but given the binary candidates, she's the least insulting one.
So, seriously though, what about third party candidates?
I'd almost endorse Gary Johnson if I didn't completely disagree with most of his platform. I don't believe in non-interventionism, reducing taxes and gutting medicare and social security. I can get behind his faking a heart attack, indicating he'd recently smoked the Devil's Lettuce during a debate policy, though. Look, again, he's running against that fucking guy. Go vote for him if you agree with him.
Speaking honestly and not in character here - Jill Stein is too liberal for me. I'm not saying don't vote for her, though. She seems like a good person. Again, as with Johnson, I just don't agree with her foreign and defense policies. But, yeah, vote for her if you want. It's better than a vote for Trump.
Well then, am I endorsing anyone or anything?
Wendy, if there is one thing that I can get behind in this world, it's that the worst kind of vote is a not him vote. But fuck me, one candidate is so unbelievably shitty that I have to endorse NOT HIM.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Damage Case #5: Bikini Kill and KISS
First off, in honor of today being officially proclaimed Riot Grrl Day in Boston, I'm going to discuss Bikini Kill for a moment.
I first heard Bikini Kill immediately after hearing Minor Threat for the first time while on a road trip with my friend Shaun when I was in eighth grade. Something that struck me immediately about them was that they were a contemporary band, aggressively and directly confronting contemporary issues. It's easier to yell anti-Nazi, anti-Reagan, and anti-drug slogans in a room full of like-minded white boys than it is to confront and challenge an entire gender. That was and is the definition of hardcore to me. If you do not listen to, appreciate, respect and support what they did as a band and what they continue to do as individuals and musicians, you are not hardcore.
Bikini Kill helped directly inform my worldview as a humanist. If nothing else, they helped me to understand that as a white, middle class male in the United States, I need to acknowledge that I have had some really shitty attitudes toward women, minorities, gay and trans people ingrained into me and that I can do better. Thank you for calling me out on my shit, Bikini Kill. You helped me develop critical thinking skills in a way that no school ever could.
And now, on the opposite end of the spectrum, let's talk about KISS, which is what I originally set out to write about here.
I recently started listening to the first few Kiss albums after my autistic son, Frankie, began singing "Rock and Roll All Nite" and hearing my friend Gina defend them.
I never especially liked them when I was younger.
My first memory of them involves staring at a picture of the original lineup in the back of what I believe was the third issue of Muppet Magazine (I did my homework here. Muppet Magazine came out in 1983. The picture was of the band in make up. Kiss stopped wearing make up on September 18th, 1983, when Lick It Up was released. Ere go, it was issue 3, which also had a Star Wars inspired cover, making it extremely likely to have been the issue in question). My mother told me that they were evil or something and I'm pretty sure my sister told me that they were lame, so that was the end of it.
I'm pretty sure the first time that I actually heard their music was while watching Dazed and Confused in '94. I remember liking the idea of Kiss at that point, but this was tinged with the knowledge that they had been performing without makeup for over a decade and had devolved into a forgettable buttrock band.
Their reunion and return to wearing makeup in 1996 didn't do much for me. By that time, I was pretty much only listening to East bay punk and just saw it as a cash grab.
And then they just didn't go away and have continued releasing albums, touring and bragging about how many women they had slept with for another twenty years.
But really, now having actively listened to Kiss, Hotter than Hell, Destroyer, Rock and Roll Over and Love Gun, I get it. Kiss were all kinds of awesome in the '70s.
Yes, every song is about fucking or having at least one penis. There's an element of misogyny to the music that is hard not to cringe at, but there's far worse examples out there. But if you can get past that, and just listen to the songs as examples of '70s glam rock, they're pretty fucking awesome in all their ridiculous stupidity. The majority of their lyrics amount to "Euphemism for sex / Same euphemism for sex / Something that rhymes with Venus / let's get undressed / I have a penis / AIDS doesn't exist yet". Their first album has a fucking instrumental track called "Love Theme from Kiss" that is literally an instrumental track for fucking. Yes, their shit is that stupid.
Of course, if their ode to statutory rape, "Christine Sixteen", doesn't make you throw up in your mouth at least a little, there's something wrong with you. But then again, Thee Headcoatees' "My Boyfriend is Learning Karate", Agnostic Front's "Public Assistance" and The Long Tall Texans' cover of "Get Back Wetback" piss me off, too. It's a document of a moment in time when our culture was still pretty gross. I prefer to confront such material, let it get to me for a moment and move on.
Ultimately, though, Kiss are a lot of fun. I just prefer to think that their tour bus exploded in 1978 just after they finished filming Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, thus preventing the next thirty six years of suck.
I first heard Bikini Kill immediately after hearing Minor Threat for the first time while on a road trip with my friend Shaun when I was in eighth grade. Something that struck me immediately about them was that they were a contemporary band, aggressively and directly confronting contemporary issues. It's easier to yell anti-Nazi, anti-Reagan, and anti-drug slogans in a room full of like-minded white boys than it is to confront and challenge an entire gender. That was and is the definition of hardcore to me. If you do not listen to, appreciate, respect and support what they did as a band and what they continue to do as individuals and musicians, you are not hardcore.
Bikini Kill helped directly inform my worldview as a humanist. If nothing else, they helped me to understand that as a white, middle class male in the United States, I need to acknowledge that I have had some really shitty attitudes toward women, minorities, gay and trans people ingrained into me and that I can do better. Thank you for calling me out on my shit, Bikini Kill. You helped me develop critical thinking skills in a way that no school ever could.
And now, on the opposite end of the spectrum, let's talk about KISS, which is what I originally set out to write about here.
I recently started listening to the first few Kiss albums after my autistic son, Frankie, began singing "Rock and Roll All Nite" and hearing my friend Gina defend them.
I never especially liked them when I was younger.
My first memory of them involves staring at a picture of the original lineup in the back of what I believe was the third issue of Muppet Magazine (I did my homework here. Muppet Magazine came out in 1983. The picture was of the band in make up. Kiss stopped wearing make up on September 18th, 1983, when Lick It Up was released. Ere go, it was issue 3, which also had a Star Wars inspired cover, making it extremely likely to have been the issue in question). My mother told me that they were evil or something and I'm pretty sure my sister told me that they were lame, so that was the end of it.
I'm pretty sure the first time that I actually heard their music was while watching Dazed and Confused in '94. I remember liking the idea of Kiss at that point, but this was tinged with the knowledge that they had been performing without makeup for over a decade and had devolved into a forgettable buttrock band.
Their reunion and return to wearing makeup in 1996 didn't do much for me. By that time, I was pretty much only listening to East bay punk and just saw it as a cash grab.
And then they just didn't go away and have continued releasing albums, touring and bragging about how many women they had slept with for another twenty years.
But really, now having actively listened to Kiss, Hotter than Hell, Destroyer, Rock and Roll Over and Love Gun, I get it. Kiss were all kinds of awesome in the '70s.
Yes, every song is about fucking or having at least one penis. There's an element of misogyny to the music that is hard not to cringe at, but there's far worse examples out there. But if you can get past that, and just listen to the songs as examples of '70s glam rock, they're pretty fucking awesome in all their ridiculous stupidity. The majority of their lyrics amount to "Euphemism for sex / Same euphemism for sex / Something that rhymes with Venus / let's get undressed / I have a penis / AIDS doesn't exist yet". Their first album has a fucking instrumental track called "Love Theme from Kiss" that is literally an instrumental track for fucking. Yes, their shit is that stupid.
Of course, if their ode to statutory rape, "Christine Sixteen", doesn't make you throw up in your mouth at least a little, there's something wrong with you. But then again, Thee Headcoatees' "My Boyfriend is Learning Karate", Agnostic Front's "Public Assistance" and The Long Tall Texans' cover of "Get Back Wetback" piss me off, too. It's a document of a moment in time when our culture was still pretty gross. I prefer to confront such material, let it get to me for a moment and move on.
Ultimately, though, Kiss are a lot of fun. I just prefer to think that their tour bus exploded in 1978 just after they finished filming Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, thus preventing the next thirty six years of suck.
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