Revisiting SOMETHING HAPPENED

WARNING: If you haven't read SOMETHING HAPPENED and don't know about its shock ending---if you've decided you WANT to read the book and don't want to know how it ends----back off now, because I'll be talking extensively about the ending here. In short: SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

***

Joseph Heller's literary career stands tall on one incredibly formidable foundation: CATCH-22. And that's one helluva foundation, folks-----yes, I admit it, CATCH-22 is one of my favorite novels of all time---from young adulthood up to today, this batshit crazy, ultra-dark comedy has informed most of my views on war, business, authority, bureaucracy, and just about all systems of control. Plenty has been said about CATCH-22 and I can never say enough.....but I'm not here to talk about that today.

After a long lunchtime discussion with my wife last week about our capitalist system and the encouragements it puts on us as a society I thought again about Heller's oft-overlooked second novel. It's time to talk about SOMETHING HAPPENED.

Bob Slocum's got problems; he's got a lot of problems. He's got workplace problems, marital problems, parenting problems and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

He's a paranoid cog vying for a leg up in the corporate machine he works in....most of the colleagues he fears and hates yet seeks to impress are color-coded by name---Black, White, Brown, Green...one co-worker on his way out the door is handicapped and Slocum fantasizes endlessly about kicking his weak leg. He is presumably being groomed to replace this fellow, and he can almost taste it.

He's in a miserable, loveless marriage, his teenage daughter is rebelling and his oldest son is having problems at school. Turns out the kid doesn't play well with others. (“I try to give him a will to win,” complains the kid's gym coach in a parent-teacher conference. “He don't have one. When he's ahead in one of the relay races, do you know what he does? He starts laughing. He does that. And then he slows down and waits for the other guys to catch up. Can you imagine?”) His younger son, Derek (the only family member to whom Slocum actually attributes a name) is ironically the least human of the bunch---obviously severely handicapped (physically, mentally---no doubt both) and the Slocums keep him locked away from the world. Poor Bob frets endlessly about Derek----what are they going to do with him? Should they institutionalize him?

Slocum also moons endlessly about the one who got away, Virginia Markowitz, his long ago office crush, who committed suicide years before. Bob plays long, tortured, drain circling games of What If.

Bob Slocum is one miserable sonofabitch, and he's not especially likeable.

And laying all these cards on the table, how do I begin to sing the praises of this long, solipsistic book that slogs on and on inside the head of its own loathsome (and self-loathing) protagonist while he spends page after page navel-gazing and wallowing in his own private pity party with no discernible end in sight?

SOMETHING HAPPENED is one of my favorite books, and that's no mean feat when you consider the fact that it's over 500 pages long, meanders along in lugubrious fashion and basically has NO PLOT WHATSOEVER....

Maybe it's that the slow-shudder depressiveness played so well into my own back in my 20s when I first read it, but this much I tend to doubt---I never had aspirations to be another ant in the hill and I think I always had more going on in me as far as ideals and attitude. Plus, I could think of several other people I turned on to the book, and they didn't really match the Bob Slocum mindset either. Maybe, is it hangs in the light of cinematic favorites like “Taxi Driver”, deep down we're just maladjusts blundering through the darkness, trying to find our way----and maybe we're all pulled instinctively to rubberneck at a downward spiral.

Or sudden salvation.

Or something possibly worse.

Regardless, we watch Bob Slocum's slow, morbid dissolution as his brain spins in circles, contemplating what it was that brought him to this point in his life---what, indeed, happened? He wonders as we're swallowed by a deep crawl into nothing-----until, very abruptly, the titular “SOMETHING”---happens.

And....SPOILER ALERT.

***

Toward the very end of the second-to-last chapter, Slocum's mooning obsessively about the growing rift between himself and his little boy when there's a commotion and he witnesses the kid pinned underneath a car which has crashed into a storefront. In a blue panic, Bob runs to his boy, who's bloodied and screaming, and holds him tight.

“I have to do something,” Heller, as Slocum, writes. “I hug his face deeper into the crook of my shoulder. I hug him tightly with both my arms. I squeeze.”

Later at the hospital, Bob weeps copiously as the boy is pronounced dead.

In the last chapter, things take a drastic and unexpected turn---after the loss of his son, it's almost as if Slocum's entire life falls neatly into place. Despite the trauma and grief, he....WAITAMINNIT.

BACK IT UP FOR A SEC.

“ 'Death,' says the doctor, 'was due to asphyxiation. The boy was smothered. He had superficial lacerations of the scalp and face, a bruised hip, a deep cut on his arm. That was all. Even his spleen was intact.' “

HE KILLED HIS KID!!!!! HE KILLED HIS KID!!!! HOLY BLOODY FUCKBALLS, HE SUFFOCATED HIS OWN KID!!!!!!!!!

There's a telling point toward the end of the second-to-last chapter, just prior to this abrupt climax, where Heller, as Slocum, writes, “I want my little boy back too.

I don't want to lose him.

I do.”

That passage can read one of two ways. You can read it, “I don't want to lose my boy but I lose him anyway”, or you can read it as, “I don't want to lose my boy, but I do want to lose him.”

Things work out perfect for Bob Slocum after he performs a sort of “self-exorcism”------by smothering his son, who refuses to accept the all-American sacrament of competition, he kills the last remnant of human decency within himself. At that point, he is officially ready to climb the ladder.

GODDAMN. GODDAMN, GODDAMN!!!!! Do you see what I'm saying, here?

His marital problems even out, he and his wife decide (at least temporarily) to refrain from sending Derek off to a home and at work he's able to advance with flying colors and everyone is “pleased with the way I've taken command”.

And Heller's telling us, there's something wrong with this picture.

NO DIGGITY.

At the end of the day, Slocum has to murder that one sliver of hope and goodness within himself----that one fly in the ointment of almighty capitalism---the “problem child” in his ethical makeup, in order to advance in life. That's just a trifle disturbing!

You can grab the brass ring if you want it. What are you willing to lose in the process?

YANKEE POT ROAST #2000: BAD NEWS FOR MY FELLOW NEWZIES

Most people who know me know that I work in the News Industry. Being a genuine weirdo and also someone who probably leans further to the left than the average----well, the average STADIUM full of people, I have my struggles in that setting. And no one bristles harder than my co-workers when they hear the term, “fake news” thrown around. I don't really blame them, either. The people I work with every day at a little local affiliate are serious about what they're doing and I watch them strive hard every day to get stories right. My beef is never with them.

The Big Boys, I got issues with. A lot of issues.

A Monmouth University Poll that was released last month casts a pall over our humble profession that should have my fellow newsies very concerned. And sorry, guys----but I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

Thanks, off the top, to Kyle Kulinski and his YouTube channel, SECULAR TALK, where I originally heard about the poll.

77 % say major news outlets report “Fake News”, the poll says. That's a grabber of a headline---both alarming and yet, at the same time, easy for the average cosmopolitan elitist to write off. Sure, they might say, that's an alarming trend, but it's all knuckle-dragging Trumpazoids who follow their leader's every edict, pronouncement and outrageous lie, right?

Uh....sorry, but, no.

The poll in question is squarely bipartisan...

25 per cent of respondents define “Fake News” as false information that is designed to mislead----and that falls pretty well into the realm of how former President Barack Obama defined it when he decried the phenomenon in the press----it's what first popularized the term and we could look at that definition as the “According to Hoyle” definition.

A lot of people, particularly liberals, rallied behind Obama when he made these statements. I wasn't one of them, for reasons that should soon become obvious.

When you throw the term, “Fake News”, out there, it's not your term anymore----it belongs to everyone----and it invites all-and-sundry to fix whatever definition they want on the phrase.

Hence, Fox News grab it and use it however they want. Hence, Donald Trump seizes it and does whatever he wants. My liberal friends might wring their hands and cry “foul” over this, but Obama opened that door. Sorry----he just did. And if you didn't see that coming, well, there are plenty of eye doctors you can visit.

A second, salient point in the poll shows that sixty-five per cent in the poll say that Fake News includes what is covered and what is not covered. Story selection equals bias. In other words, not just lying by commission, but lying by O-mission.

And adherents to the original point might be disturbed by that deviation from Obama's definition, but you know what, kids?

I wholeheartedly AGREE with them. Bias---particularly ESTABLISHMENT bias----***IS*** fake news. Throw a fit and cry all you want. Call me a Russia-Bot. I don't give a rat's ass.

A third point is that forty-two per cent of respondents believe major mainstream news outlets disseminate false information in order to push a political agenda. Eighty-three per cent believe outside groups----major interest groups and lobbies---plant propaganda.

Again----I agree.

And as I said earlier----reponses to this poll are more or less across the board. These definitions are supported by 89 % of Republicans, 82 % of independents and 61 % of Democrats.

Be afraid. You should be.

So should our leaders.

As Kulinski none-too-subtlely puts it, “we live in an age of constant bullshit”, and everyone sees through it except for those slinging it. Don't forget to duck, pilgrim.

******

Speaking of bullshit, have you heard about notable partisan hack Joy Reid and her homophobia problem? Pull up a chair, 'cause it's a good one...apparently Ms. Reid recently got called out for some old blogs she wrote that were homo-and-transphobic in nature. As a stalwart of pseudo-liberal MSNBC, Joy can't be havin' that kind of a sociopolitical albatross around her neck....not she who has railed on identity politics over class consciousness----it just doesn't look good, y'know?

So what does she do? Does she swallow her pride and admit she was wrong? Nope----she obfuscates and blames HACKERS. Yep----she was claiming that she'd been hacked, the old blog posts weren't hers----except that they were. Held up to scrutiny for obvious falsehoods, Reid backpedaled, offered half-assed apologies and maintains that she didn't remember writing those blogs because it's so far away from who she is today that she didn't even recognize the words as her own.

And if you believe that, have I got a bridge for you.

TRUE CONFESSION TIME: Once upon a long ago time, your humble narrator was homophobic. Yep---no joke. A lot of it was based in my religious upbringing and a lot of it was just a defense mechanism within the teenage pecking order----but when I was a kid I threw the term, “faggot”, around with the best of 'em. Of course, I had no clue a lot of the kids I palled around with were gay (and probably deserved some kind of spirit award for kindly putting up with MY bullshit)---sure, the kids we all hated called them faggots, but hey! Everyone you didn't like was a faggot back then. Youth in the '70s.

How I eventually broke free of that kind of thinking as an adult was getting to know REAL GAY PEOPLE (as opposed to their being some abstract spoken about by demagogues) and understanding that they were just regular people like everyone else.

Okay, so I don't like Reid anyway, but if she'd just come out and said, “yeah, that was me back then but it's not me, now, I'm sorry”, it would have been no harm/no foul. We all have stupid old shit we have to work past.

But hackers had a time machine, and they went back to the year whatever and posted incriminating blogs, huh? Kinda reminds me of the Democratic Establishment she gives her fealty to. Embarrassed by the fact that you got caught rigging your own primary? Blame it on “The Russians”.

See? They even tell similar lies!

********

As long as I'm on my yankee pot roast high horse, that whole annual White House Correspondents' Circle Jerk----er, dinner---happened as I was working on this blog and I got to YouTube back (because other than this the annual affair doesn't interest me much at all---) and see the meteoric rise of Michelle Wolf as the great comic mind of this generation. She handily and savagely ripped the Trump Administration, the Democrats (“you guys don't do....ANYTHING!”) and the entire noxious, gladhanding, self-fellating nature of these dinners and the establishment press itself. The whole monologue was pretty spot-on and the press's flailing display of pearl clutching and loud castigation afterwards was a perfect example of how Wolf was right about absolutely EVERYTHING SHE SAID. She particularly nailed the press's pathetic obsession with decorum (last refuge of the disingenuous) and the hypocritical, self-sabotaging culture of “access journalism” which is no good way to run a fourth estate...their collective umbrage shows their true mettle and marks them as an institution that essentially needs to be thrown into a fire.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

The S.E. Apocalypse Krew-Rise

Blue Oyster Cult-Secret Treaties

Blue Oyster Cult-Spectres

THE FUTURE (mix CD)

NEXT TIME: For all you geniuses who seem to go out of your way looking for something to find offensive, I've got a special gift for everyone.

BLOG ROULETTE 2018

I USED TO HAVE AN ANT FARM

Snippets of dialogue occasionally pop into my head

unasked for

one guy will make a statement, another

will respond and the duo will go

back and forth in some half-formed, half-rational

conversation

it comes to me in almost a half conscious fever

dream and just plays out it

really happens

on this one particular night eleventh hour

work night I'm sitting bored in front of my computer

waiting for the night to wrap up when the

one guy in my head declares,

“I used to have an ant farm.”

The second guy responds with a broad question,

as if he were a vaudeville straight man, asking,

“what happened?”

He never responds with anything like, “why are you telling me this?”

Or, “tell me more about your ant farm.” His reaction

is always just blunt, broad, damn nigh scripted

queries like, “what happened?”

The first guy answers back simply, “they died,”

and the conversation is over.

They all kind of go that way and I'm

left to do what I will with the result.

The work night is over and I embark on a couple of

needed days off.. In the space of those days one

friend informs me she's had what appears to be

another mini-stroke. I tell her she needs to seek medical

help, knowing in advance she probably won't

Another friend writes and tells me he's been diagnosed

with a “slight case” of liver cancer and I know from

past family experience there are no “slight cases”

of liver cancer.

Saturday marks the beginning of my work week.

My wife is off with her mother, shopping and doing

all the other things they do---her usual Saturday.

As the time comes when I usually head off to work

I haven't heard from her all day

Usually it's endless phone tag and before I head out I

call to touch base

She tells me she's sitting in the waiting room of

a 24 hour medical clinic

after suffering sudden, out-of-nowhere

pains in her arms and shoulder

and dizziness

no, she tells me, it's probably not an emergency

no, her mother concurs, we don't think it's a

heart attack

and I drive to work, thinking,

I used to have an ant farm

I used to have an ant farm

I used to have an ant farm.....

3/29/18

**********

          It hit me last night, going through my old blogs, that I haven't done a new blog since, what? Back in October? Mostly it's general derailment....this injury has slowed me down and made every aspect of my life suffer....my personal life, my mobility, my painting, my website, video production, music----you name it----my whole life has kind of hit a wall.

Now----with the ordeal almost in my rear view mirror (Praise the Lord and pass the Regranex!), I can start working toward getting shit back on track.

Still and all, it's not that I've been idle. I actually started work on a number of politically-oriented blogs (four, to be exact) that I've all but given up on. Part of it is the terminal nature of current events---you have to strike while the iron is hot or forget about it. If you run out of steam it's over. Part of it is the sad wisdom that I'm like your favorite alcoholic relative that starts ranting and raving incoherently at the Thanksgiving table---nobody likes it when I get political. Not that I can help it---I've just become THAT GUY that breaks out into vitriol and invective at the drop of a hat---and despite the fact that the last overtly political blog I did was the most highly-viewed one I ever did, I put my finger out into the wind, licking it beforehand for whatever reason they do that on all the old cartoons, and no, just, no, just no.....you don't wanna know.

        The writing and other nonsense continues, though, and the future is ripe with promise---in the coming days, you'll see the S.E. Apocalypse Krew's album, RISE, finally be released----I'm also going to be firing out new blogs----quickest arriving will be a jam on one of my favorite novels ever, Joseph Heller's overlooked SOMETHING HAPPENED.

OH---YEAH----in addition to all of this, the 20^th anniversary of “The Abbey of the Lemur” has passed unceremoniously, largely due to the injury in question....but don't expect this to remain the status quo. I'm working, as we eyeball each other, feeble reader, on the rough screenplay for a feature-length TAOTL documentary that will be the final word on our run of infamy. Don't touch that dial!

**********

Speaking of politics (at least in the broader sense of the word, which is what I prefer to deal with), working in a newsroom brings all kinds of interesting tidbits down the transom. Sure, a lot of it makes me want to retch and throw rocks, but what can I say about that? Your favorite Autistic, alcoholic relative strikes again.

But on to the tidbit in question, which did indeed make me want to retch and throw rocks. From our people in DC, more or less verbatim: A new report shows the Opioid Epidemic costs the U.S. Economy billions of dollars every year. It goes on to say that the human price of this crisis is devastating (and it's nice to see some acknowledgment, here, that there's a “human price”), but there's an economic price as well. A new report from the American Action Forum (a DC-based advocacy group that promotes center-right public policy) says nearly a million people were unemployed because of opioid addiction in 2015, and the numbers would seem to only be getting worse.

Translation: Just say no to drugs, kids----because if you do drugs, you're depriving our sainted Oligarchy of exploitable labor, and that hurts the Bottom Line.

And don't get me wrong, here----when it comes to the abuse of and/or addiction to opioids, I agree, say no. But I feel like I got a peek into the worst workings of the work machine with this faceful of an Alan Greenspan wet dream.......

Speaking of such icky business, a friend shared an article from the NEW YORKER last night (Yeah----I know----yawn!----Wearing my affiliation with NYC's Unbearables on my sleeve, there) that talked about the downside of what's now referred to as “The Gig Economy”. It was actually a pretty good read-----much of it centered around ride-share giant Lyft and their promotion involving a driver who gives birth on the job. I'm just gonna link to the article, because the writer, Jia Tolentino, says it better than I will.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-gig-economy-celebrates-working-yourself-to-death?mbid=nl_170323_Daily&CNDID=49221241&spMailingID=10681265&spUserID=MTg0OTkxNzg0Nzg3S0&spJobID=1121869960&spReportId=MTEyMTg2OTk2MAS2

       Again, this whole notion of a “Gig Economy” is kind of a Neoliberal spank bank feature----picture an entire workforce of at-will contractors gigging away in some variety of part-time servitude, without benefits. Welcome to the future.

I got into a minor flap with one cat, who, as far as I can tell, is getting fat off sales commissions, when I bluntly wrote, “it all needs to come down.” He responded, “what the hell does that even mean?”

If you're one of the lucky few who are making out like a bandit in the Gig Economy, I haven't got time to explain it to you. Sorry---diplomacy was never my strong suit.

'Kay----getting off my proletarian high horse for now.

**********

It's nice to see the angry public response to the whole Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal-----yeah, sorry—--I had about a month's jump on it from the rest of you because Lee Camp and Jimmy Dore broke it all the way back then. (Yeah—--I know----”RUSSIA BOT!!!!”---Suck my nuts, ya goddamn lemming) Forbes apparently wrote about it back in November, favorably. Think about that.

Anyway, thanks for finally getting pissed over something you should get pissed about, as opposed to all the silly hype over Russian Troll farms----nothing's sadder than watching sincere Hashtag Resistance-types working themselves into a frenzy while the neoliberals move the goalposts all over the field with shifting charges designed to foment a new cold war, fueled largely by abject fear and wishful thinking. Y'all have made conspiracy theories mainstream and acceptable. Kudos.

A lot of folks are (understandably) dealing Facebook out. I'm still here....I guess the dividing line between you and me is that, from 9/11, Bush and the Patriot Act on out, I always assumed my shit was being looked at anyway. Why this is new or shocking to any of you is a mystery to me.

So, until Big Brother or his surgical equivalent come knocking on my door (and it'd have to be a real slow day for me to be of interest), you all know where to find me.

Yeah. Tolja nobody likes it when I do this.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

FETISH/CANDYSHROUD-Demo

ANDI SEXGANG-Achilles in the Eurozone

ALICE COOPER-Love it to Death

L7-Slap Happy

PUG'S LITERARY GUNPLAY PRIMER

One dash of history with hysteria

mix well with psychology (amateur)

monopoly, dichotomy and control

add lust piping hot with 20g confusion

and 1 tsp paprika hold the relish.

Spread with KY jelly.

Heat 'til burnt.

Serve with irony and hallucination.

Hi to the kids for me.

Sing songs by the piano 'til hoarse

and throw holy water.

I drink in broad daylight

avoid the news (printed AND filmed)

and rarely write past a second draft anymore.

The cats are doing fine.

The women all become the same person

after awhile.

Bluejays in the window yesterday.

Wish you were here.

Kiss this.

Regards.

Published in THE CROWBAIT REVIEW ('95/'96 or thereabouts)

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

GENESIS-The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

PETER GABRIEL-Passion

SWA-Sex Doctor

SWA-XCIII

CHUCK HATES EVERYTHING! (Current Events Roundup)

     Earlier this past week, Arch Alarmist Alex Jones (who never met a bullshit theory he didn't like) and his Infowars channel started pushing this rogue narrative that the Vegas Shooter was associated with ANTIFA.

Obviously, this is a credible call, right? Because the best way to fight back against fascism is to unload a few thousand rounds of ammo on a stadium full of innocent people who are trying to enjoy Music....right?

RIIIIIIIGGHHHHT.

Anyway, typical Conspiracy Theorist M.O.---all the info comes from “anonymous sources” that won't be named and so can't be fact-checked (something the mainstream actually seem to have picked up with the whole Russiagate Thing) but of course, a certain corner of the internet are going wild with it. (They found ANTIFA literature all over his hotel room----does ANTIFA even PUT OUT literature?!--, according to....SOME unnamed source or another----'cause THAT'S real credible) No dissuading the True believers.

The cries of “False Flag Attack” and “Multiple Shooters” are, of course, pretty run-of-the-mill. The former seems to start these days anytime anyone gets shot. The scapegoating of ANTIFA, though, is a pernicious bit of bullshit that has multiple levels to it.

Any number of Nationalist types took up the cudgel with the Infowars story and apparently ran with it--- one person referring to Paddock as “a left wing, Anti Trump, Antifa, Democrat,” further adding, “he looks like a Jew.” (Keepin' it classy, Nazis!) Several people in the twittersphere, according to NEWSWEEK, attempted to connect the shooter to not only ANTIFA, but also to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

And unless you're a complete rube, you might now be seeing the problem, here. The problem is the blanket attempt to conflate two Corporatist, Globalist Neoliberal World Leaders with a worldwide underground semi-organized gang who are largely anarchist or communist that like to bust up White Supremacist rallies. It's not just that these two groupings aren't even in the same ballpark----it ain't even the same GAME. ANTIFA/DEMOCRAT. NO. That's like saying, BICYCLE/FETUS.CRATE/NEBULA. LOBSTER/PARTICLE ACCELERATOR. No. Just, no. They're not the same thing.

So, yeah-----all you nice, moderate suburbanites who don't look any further than CNN for your current events analysis and who dutifully ran out to cast your votes for Hillary last November----you and those guys wearing the bandanas over their faces and getting into fistfights with all the Neo-Nazis during the protests----I know this'll shock and amaze you---but you're basically being painted as one in the same.

Which isn't to cast too much negativity on ANTIFA. I understand all the arguments against them....yeah, it's America, we all have freedom of speech, it might be best just to hear the other guy out and let him be as stupid as he wants, but in the grand carcass of it all I kind of regard ANTIFA as a sociological antibiotic....if we must have these clowns out there pushing for the deportation/marginalization and/or harm of innocent people, hitting people with cars and bashing their heads open with sticks, then having this other group who want to clean their clocks is A-OK with me. Why would I condone such brutality? Look at some pix of the liberation of Auschwitz. That's why I'm okay with people punching Nazis.

       You might get the idea, at this point, that I'm more sympathetic toward these Anarchist loose cannons than I am toward the Democratic Party. And you'd kinda be right. Sorry.

There are so many different gradiations up and down the ideological spectrum that after a while they don't much resemble each other anymore. Not sure how you'd explain the notion of gradualism and corporate pragmatism to someone who basically wants egalitarian society and no central government....but yeah---I'm sure you guys are bedfellows. In some alternate universe.

As a loose rain dog on the ideological street, I get it---I have no desire to be part of a DNC-led McResistance with all the yuppies who can afford to fly around to different actions around the country with their pussy hats. Gimme a real resistance, I'll be there with bells on.

In the meantime, kids, remember that you're all being put into one big, amorphous box. And could be dealt with as such. Remember----this snake oil salesman (Jones) has the ear of some fairly important people these days. Those broad brushes are bein' used. This has been your heads-up.

As long as I'm waxing my carrot on current events---when the yowling Oompa Loompa in Chief starts calling people who have the audacity to actually engage in their American right to dissent and protest (a right people fought and died for) sons of bitches, don't you just wish a wise populace who cared about their freedoms would just yell, “get that stupid, orange SOB out of the White House! He's fired! HE'S FIRED!!!!”?

Yeah---me too.

On the flip of that, does anyone out there really think of Hillary Clinton as a “Victim” of some sort?! This I ask as she's making the rounds with her World Pity Party in support of her new book, WHAT HAPPENED? (The question mark is my addition, since she seems to have not figured the answer out herself) I've seen enough reports on the subject to where I don't have to bother reading it myself, but the main gist seems to be that she looks everywhere but inward to point a fickle finger of blame. Christ Almighty! The poor old gal had every advantage under the sun....her corrupt buddies in the DNC stacked the deck for her in a pathetically(and OBVIOUSLY) rigged primary; the entirety of the mainstream media (Faux News notwithstanding) lined up behind her; the Neo Cons, the Military Industrial Complex, Wall Street---most of whom will usually align themselves with Republicans----all threw her their unequivocal support. All of that would usually spell a ten ton win for any other person, especially in the face of such an opponent, now possibly the most unpopular President ever. How do you botch that? You can whine all you want about Russia, Bernie Bros or whatever other piece of fiction you care to dredge up as an excuse; only one person could have defeated Hillary Clinton, and that was Hillary Clinton.

Why not just go for the gold? I was on my second pass of proofreading and a devil on my shoulder said, “as long as you've gone this far, why not talk about 'Saturday Night Live'? That way you'll have everything out of your system and you won't have to talk politics again for at least another year?” Well, yeah, okay----SNL has been in my craw in recent months, so, done.

You're not going to like it.

So, there's the afformentioned Oompa Loompa in the White House and we're all terrified, but “Saturday Night Live” is actually FUNNY again for the first time in a desert, and Alec Baldwin is just SO CUTE as the Chief Executive Creep, and our faith is restored and SNL is FUNNY again, and we all tune in every Saturday and all is right with the world....and we're all laughing, 'cause.....'cause.....it's TRUMP, right????? And SNL is now the zenith of political satire again, RIGHT????

right?

Ehh.....

Okay, truth is I'm more lenient on current incarnations of the show than some....I got back into it (after years of general apathy) around 2010 and drifted out of it again by 2012, 2013 or thereabouts because all the cast members I liked were jumping ship and it wasn't making me laugh anymore.

Suddenly, though, we're all supposed to start loving it again because some loon's in the White House and suddenly SNL is the absolute pinnacle of political satire....because we all need a good laugh in this day and age and because it's TRUMP, goddammit!!!!!!

So the other week the new season premiered and I made a point of watching, because we're all supposed to love it and all.....watched it that night, pulled it up on YouTube and watched it the next day.

It wasn't funny.

Oh, it had its moments, to be sure-----well, it had one moment---Kate McKinnon's bizarro world turn as Jeff Sessions caught me off guard....that was genuinely funny. Not in a way that had any remote reflection on reality.....but it kinda made me laugh.

It might have been funnier if they'd actually ripped Sessions for being a racist, cryptofascist douchecanoe...but naturally, that's a little too heady for SNL, so they didn't go there.

Which has been my chronic issue with them over the years, I guess: They don't “Go There”.

That's the most I can give SNL right now.

But....but....Chuck....they're nailing it!!!! And it's TRUMP, dammit!!!!!!! You remember TRUMP, right????

Sorry----it being Trump doesn't help matters----sorry----not funny is not funny. In fact, I can't count the number of topical “humorists” I can't abide anymore since the last election...Colbert. John Oliver. Samantha Bee. Seth Myers. Bill Maher. Okay, I've disliked Maher's smarmy ass for years, now, so maybe he doesn't count. Trevor Noah. All Corporate Neoliberal suckups and sellouts, every one. Worthless. Rachel Maddow. She's a comic, right? She may as well be.

You've got no right to cry in your beer over the election of Trump if you found it worthwhile to direct a metric truckload of airtime to his empty podium. It's as simple as that. And the way they bookended the latter half of last season with dueling versions of “Halleluja” made me want to personally approach each and every one of these charlatans and slap Leonard Cohen's name and lyrics out of their collective mouths, along with every single tooth I'd be lucky enough to knock loose.

Yes----step back and take it in, because no euphemism was intended-----I wanted to punch these people in their mouths. I hated what they did THAT MUCH.

UNPOPULAR OPINION #1: SNL has ALWAYS been spotty as hell. Always. ALWAYS. This is the part where all you old skoolers fall all over yourselves to castigate me and insist, “you don't know, punk! Back in the day SNL was counter-culture! It was brilliant! You have no idea how good it was! You need to go back and see the stuff with the original cast!”

To which I reply, no, actually, I ***DO*** know. Because my 13 year old ass was front-and-center for the very first episode, way back in the Mesozoic Era. Don't let these Dorian Gray good looks fool you. And I watched the original run fanatically for its entire duration. Loved the cast. I even liked the Muppets and the short films by Gary Weis. Some of them anyway, I guess.

It'd be an understatement to say a lot of this stuff didn't age well, though....some of it, plain and simple, wasn't good THEN. I remember as a kid trying to justify liking the show to my straightlaced Mom as dud skits peeled forth one after another. Thanks, SNL, for backing me up.

UNPOPULAR OPINION #2: The Political stuff has always been SNL's weak spot. Always. A!L!W!A!Y!S. From lame Gerald Ford pratfalls to all the winking, nudging nonsense of the Carter Era to Dana Carvey's pathetic, uncritical take on Bush I to Armisen's blackface and Jay Pharaoh's general dullness as Obama.....none of this shit was funny. If it was possible to skip the interminable political cold opens I always would, rather than watch more terminally softballed attempts at “satire”. And, as a further note to would-be political humorists----when you invite these politicians to guest on your show, YOU ARE IN BED WITH THE ENEMY!!! YOU HAVE COMPROMISED YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM. Please fuck directly off the edge of the nearest cliff. Thank you.

And I have to reiterate to those who fear the ramifications of “Going There”-----if you're not gonna “Go There”, why should we get in the goddamned car?????

The only person of in the history of SNL who ever had the balls to “Go There” was Charles Rocket, on the much-maligned Doumainian season. Watch his stints on Weekend Update if you can find any trace of 'em. Lorne Michaels seems hellbent on erasing any trace of that era of the show. Rocket had TEETH. His Weekend Updates were properly savage.

He paid for it, too. Go ahead and ask him.

OH, WAIT, YOU CAN'T! Poor sonofabitch killed himself.

Anyway, yeah, (and this one's for the Rocket) fuck SNL.

As I prepare to lob this one out there the sky is falling and Castle Weinstein is crumbling like an iceberg on the Equator. Good riddance. Miramax devoured 90 per cent of what we knew as “Independent Film” in the 90s and probably has a good hand in why mainstream movies suck these days. I'd just as soon see the whole house of cards come down.

And the state of film doesn't even touch this douchenozzle, his abuses and the internal machine's culture that allowed it to keep happening for decades. 'Bye, Harvey! 'Bye to a lot of these troglodytes, I hope.

Tying in with the whole political theme, any articles you may have read by elitist Washington Insiders handicapping the potential candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential horse race will always focus on one crucial (and nauseating) factor: these peoples' abilities to fundraise.

The hit now being taken to anyone favored by Megadonor Weinstein should be the best warning shot ever given across the bough of the political establishment (and the Democrats in particular)----wanna survive extinction? Abandon Donor Culture now.

Copyright 2017 Molotov Editions

BOIL ORDER

The Fault in Bodie's Stars and Other Wrongdoings

Been working, off and on, with several novels-or-novellas-in-progress...the one that seems to be picking up steam is INDIGO. These passages concern the character of Bodie Lewis----think of him as the Robert Cohn character-----not to compare INDIGO to THE SUN ALSO RISES, but just looking for a butt-of-all-life's-bad-jokes thumbnail to roll with. Enjoy or whatever.

 I'm not sure I like Bodie. I like him but I don't.

As the get-together (I'm loathe to call it a “party”) wears on I hear him in the other room and he's in a heated discussion with this girl---I don't know who she is. She'd been having a loud conversation earlier about pheromones---how you give off a pheromone when you're involved with someone and people are attracted to you---you can't beat suitors away with a stick. When you're single, however----and apparently this relates to the fact that she'd broken up with her boyfriend---you can't give it away-----nobody's interested. Again, the mystery of pheromones.

Maybe there's something to all this jargon, I dunno. It imposes too many tacit rules and suppositions for my blood. You just need to be careful what you lay out there in front of Bodie, though, because now he's trying to get his foot in the door and it's not a pretty tableau.

“You said you can't give it away, right? I look at you, I look at me, I see two nice people who should just cut the shit and try being happy, you know? What's wrong with being happy?”

“I know, but, y'know.....no.”

“Come on!”

“You're just not my type, dude, no offense, just, y'know.....that's life! Oh well.”

“ 'Oh well', what the fuck's that supposed to mean?!”

“That's life, man, you just move on. S'not a big deal.”

“It's not a big deal for you, you can just shrug your shoulders and forget about it! I'm stuck here with this shit forever!”

“Yeah....maybe you are. I gotta go, dude.....”

Yeah, Bodie, maybe you are.

Eventually we all head down to the University Computer Lab, shanghai some terminals and fart around on the net. So we're all sitting at various points in the lab separate and yet gloriously together. Crazy Ed is in Goth Chat under a female persona then he cybers with some guy who thinks he's a 16-year-old hottie. He busts the third wall and scares the hell out of the guy. No one ever hears from him again.

Some guy from a Christian Chat site comes in and starts preaching at us, haraguing us, telling us we're all evil and going to hell. Why? I don't know-----because we like The Cure or some other nebulous reason. This prompts a mass exodus to the Christian Chat site where we heckle everybody there. Some cat calling himself Count Othmar starts calling himself “The Lion of the Tribe of Shecky”, which is a hoot and a half.

Bodie tries cybering with a whole slew of girls and they all laugh him off the net. He slams the table and leaves the lab in disgust, probably to the joy of several kids who are around waiting to work on their papers or do research. Life is tough.

The rest of us are there entirely too long. When we leave the lab it's early morning. The sun's not up, yet, but the night birds are scaring up one helluva racket. I'm almost sober again, and that just will not do.

                                                                    ***

    Bodie gets up and delivers some long, pompous, anal-retentive preamble about “intellectual property”, and how, if you relate something he said it's very important to tell people, even if all he said was a comment about the weather, that “Bodie Lewis said that,” that this is just as important as telling people “Bram Stoker said X” or that “ee cummings said x”. And by the point where folks are catcalling Bodie to get on with it we've all been appraised of how important all of this is to Bodie.

When the poem comes around it's a lot of rhymey doggerel about feeling one particular woman's “hot breath” on his neck (which he has never felt, obviously) and describing the look and feel of her legs (which he has also obviously never felt or seen)----the mystery woman is never mentioned by name, but I imagine it's Bessie.

                                                                   ***

                   “You really like that one girl, huh?” Says Bodie, and I'm getting a distinctly creepy, polluted vibe off him.

“Do what, now?” I don't look up at him, which is a more and more frequent occurrence in my interactions with Bodie. I can smell him, though, from the doorway. He smells like jerky, hotdogs, Budweiser, stale BO and stale, jizzed-in, unwashed underwear.

“That one girl,” he says. “I don't know her name.”

I choose not to fill in the blank for him.

“You're a cuck,” he tells me, a hint of practiced contempt in his voice.

“Do what, now?”

“I'm a MGTOW,” he says, with what I imagine to be a kind of subdued pride.....I misunderstand him at first and think he says, “I'm Big Now.”

“Proud of ya,” I offer.

“It means I'm a Man Going My Own Way,” he elaborates, correcting what I'd initially inferred. “I don't need women to make me happy. My eyes are open. I've taken the Red Pill.”

My first comeback to “I don't need women to make me happy” might be to respond, “Bodie, how do you know?” But I guess that would be mean.

“You know, that girl you like, she'll dump you. You know, that's what they do.” He repeats it, as if he's trying to implore me to listen. “That's what they do.”

“Nice to see you've got that figured out,” I shoot back.

“I do,” he says. “I see it all the time. It's my world. It always will be.”

“I don't doubt you're right.”

“Yeah,” he says, in a quieter voice. Whatever's going on in the next room draws him away, where I imagine he'll tell everyone out there he's big, now, and that he's taking red pills. He's no longer trying to pry Gayla's name from me, so....the desired effect.

*********************************************************************************

As of this writing I've got my irons in a few fires.....first and foremost “The Abbey of the Lemur” is BACK!!!! This is our first show since 2014 and we're hitting a string of milestones....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6OwLCpJ-0s

        This is the first-ever episode of the show where we embrace cellphone technology. The centerpiece for “Lemurs at Monte Ne” (the 15 minute video of our trip to the ruins at Monte Ne) was all shot on my phone. It's not great video, by any stretch, but it's one more stab at putting the production and dissemination of art and culture in the hands of whoever wants to do it.

It also marks the first appearance with written sketches of our little friends, the Devil Goats, since their brief origin in 2014's “The Megalithic Bamboozler” Beyond that we just padded it about with old stuff. Have fun.

Past that, expect two more episodes in 2017....one will be a tribute to late TAOTL cast member Adam “Dead Guy” Jardine----the other will be related to our 20^th anniversary on the airwaves in Fayetteville. Past that I couldn't tell ya, but like Joe Strummer said, “the future is unwritten”.

This also marks the very first episode of “The Abbey of the Lemur” to be uploaded on to YouTube in its entirety....all thanks to our wonderful providers at FPTV. You'll need to sign in to YouTube as an adult to watch it, and that's just what we gotta do. Prior administrations in the city (perhaps illegally) didn't offer the privilege of being shared online to VDA shows, so we're happy to let FPTV set up that precaution.

        ENJOY!

*********************************************************************************

          The SE Apocalypse Krew's album----tentatively titled “RISE”----is officially in the can! Yeah----it only took us 30someodd years!

You're gonna have to wait a little longer for the official release....right now I'm wrangling with the visual art aspects and then there are other logistics....but HEY! Lemme know if you're interested in covering this thing/reviewing or helping to promote it. Who knows? We could hook you up.

I'll personally tell you Mike and I are happy as hell with this beast----and it is a beast. 17 songs in 58 minutes and the thing just BLASTS. Mike had been floating me dailies on the production and even I wasn't ready for the face removal that is the final product, mixed and everything else. I spent over a week with it in the car, blasting it up and down the streets of Fayettenam. At long last, we're the monster I'd always hoped we'd be.

Heavy metal sprouted from the blues, originally, and in some respects, even as it's evolved into sort of a post-rock'n'roll genre, it is, in a lot of ways, similar to blues. Metal has its indelible conventions and tropes, just like blues does---its musicians and fans love these tropes and conventions and are dedicated to their perpetuation and preservation.

Mike and I, in that respect, are more jazz guys. Push to shove we'd rather hear someone break from the old tropes and take things in a direction we don't expect, and we like to do that ourselves. Not that you can't hear our influences----you'll hear a little Black Sabbath here, a little Black Flag there----a little Dead Boys here, a little Jimi Hendrix, there----a little Wes Montgomery here, etc., etc., etc. And yet at the same time we're our own animal.

Stay tuned.

THIS WEEK'S HOT NEW FEAR

In the S.E. Apocalypse Krew's song, “Kid Eternity”, we sing, “pull Dad's gun from the drawer/and aim it at my head/they'll sue Ozzy and be happy to have someone to blame”.

Obviously, it's locked into the zeitgeist of its times----the 80s, the Satanic Panic and all that happy horseshit. Even back then, no one was going to mistake us for politically correct. The protagonist of the song practices suicidal ideation and self-mutilation, literally cutting his nose (or ears) off to spite his face....or anyone else that irks him. Yeah, we know....maybe we're coarse, maybe we're insensitive....but that's how we roll. And at the end of the day, hopefully you learn it's okay to laugh at everything. Or at least think long and hard about what you're laughing at.

       We knew right from the outset we were on a collision course with certain easily-offended types and we were fine with that. Gimme a knee-jerk, pro-censorship person, I'm probably going to offend them. It always works out that way.....I'm there.

ON THE OTHER HAND, it's always an eye-opener when the pro-censorship knee-jerker goes after artists who DO handle things sensitively!

Care 2 is a Social Networking Website that brings together activists and enables them to create petitions and organize campaigns leaning toward human rights, animal rights, social justice, environmental issues and a variety of worthwhile rallying points. So it was a surprise to see some activists utilize Care2 to advocate censorship.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/684/075/222/?z00m=29091444&redirectID=2407597025

      One phrase that Mike and I have thrown around together since the 80s was “The Hot New Fear”, or “this week's hot fear” or other such variations on the subject.....and the hot new fear is always something that's literally sold like a bottle of mouthwash, and the media will usually jump on it and harp on it, exploiting it with little to no rational discourse or serious examination....it's usually some superficial scapegoat in the arts or entertainment, used to serve as a cultural “band-aid” to a larger problem people regard as too big to address (or too big to fail?).

Obviously, around the time we wrote “Kid Eternity” the Satanic Panic was in full bloom and the big fear was that if your kids listen to Ozzy Osbourne or Judas Priest they're going to commit suicide (and to hell with any deeper examination of issues like home life, mental health, chemical dependency or whatever---you're a terrible person if you even ask such questions!)

There have been lots of other handy fears, though....does your kid play Dungeons and Dragons? It'll turn the introverted little lamb into a babbling, Occult-practicing psychotic! Anybody remember the West Memphis 3? Three kids who were basically railroaded for a child murder due to the fact that they wore black and listened to Metallica----shit----one or two turns of circumstance and I coulda been Damien Echols! Natural Born Killers? Everyone from Bob Dole to John Grisham said it was gonna spawn a generation of homicidal maniacs. Marilyn Manson? Caused Columbine---y'know....if you disregard the fact that those two kids didn't even listen to him....

Today's fresh new fear is apparently this 13-episode Netflix series, “13 Reasons Why”. Since this show will apparently be responsible for all your childrens' deaths, let's bust it out of its virtual box and get a look at it.

      I sat down and binge-watched “13 Reasons Why” (I keep wanting to call it “13 Ways to Die”) a few weeks ago pretty much based on the fact that I found the premise interesting. For those of you who haven't been paying attention, “13 Reasons Why” is the story of this high school kid, Hannah Baker, who kills herself and leaves a series of cassette tapes detailing the events that led to her suicide to be distributed among the various parties she considers “responsible”, and as the tapes (and her narrative) unravel, the lives of those around her, the “accused”, unravel. Some (most notably the protagonist) are angry, some are dismayed and others are trying to fight to keep a lid on the whole thing for fear that it will “destroy the school” ( tenuous defense of a construct that makes little sense to anyone standing outside such an asinine bubble world).

Personally, I fucking LOVED this show.....no ifs, ands or buts. I don't think I was ready for how smart it was going to be. On one level, yes, it unflinchingly takes on a lot of the hard issues teens deal with, from harassment to bullying to rape to gossip to stalking to slut-shaming—on other levels, while the show, per se, definitely takes Hannah's “side”, it turns around and shows you that she doesn't necessarily see the whole picture---some of the events don't necessarily follow her side of the story and some of the kids in the story aren't necessarily as bad as she makes them out to be. When there's a scene where she asks Clay, the main protagonist of the story, if he thinks she could ever be as pretty as this one other character, homeboy shits in his wheaties by being like, huh? She walks away and says, “never mind----you just answered the question,” and we the viewers see that it's just one more nail in her coffin....but it's a mistake anyone could make. I could make that mistake. You could make that mistake.

So, yeah---incredibly smart show....not only does it nail everything kids are facing in school from peer pressure to bullying to suicide, to unresponsive authority figures to an entire culture that bolsters and reinforces the pecking order, it shows you the bottom line of suicide---the grief of the parents and friends—the damage left in its wake. The acting is uniformly great, especially from the two young leads----they'll rip your heart out.

Does it have the potential to resonate with young audiences in ways that might make authority figures uncomfortable? Yeah----it does. After I got done it took me several days to get “13 Reasons” and its haunted teens the hell out of my head. But that also begs the question, if authority figures are uncomfortable with that, what does it say about them? Seriously, guys----too scary? Too big an issue to deal with?

Sorry, I know----I'm being a dick about this. But you know what? Having actually lost friends to suicide, I can be a dick about this.

One thing I was unaware of was that “13 Reasons Why” is also a popular, best-selling Young Adult novel that has been revered among young audiences for a decade, now. I'm not very conversant in the topic of contemporary YA Lit, which is strange, I guess, as my first novel qualifies, technically, as “YA”----(and I'm still looking for a publisher----hint, hint!) (It covers many of the same topics----hint! HINT!)(You can read excerpts right here on this blog----HINT!!!! HINT!!!!) (Naw----I'm not self-serving in the least, am I?)-----but it's something I genuinely have not followed. Apparently it's a sufficiently beloved book to where, when the TV adaptation was announced, young fans confronted the producers and told them, in no uncertain terms, “don't fuck this up!” So obviously, much to the chagrin of some knee-jerk types, this material hits very close to home. Between the book and the show, why does this story resonate with kids?

Well, don't believe for a second it's because the story and themes were generated in a vacuum. This shit happens all the time----it was going on when I was a kid way back in the Mesozoic Era, and precious little seems to change. “13 Reasons” doesn't come by its attacks in a one-dimensional manner---the parents in the show are not cutout characters. They genuinely care for and are worried for their kids and frequently find themselves closed off from genuine communication----and there's no dressing that up---that's very often on the kids. But I think that one part of the story that gets under the skin of all the concerned adults (SPOILERS!!!!) is the last “Reason Why”----the well-intentioned-but-ineffectual student counselor whose answer to rape is basically “try to forget about it”.

Does the “culture” of a school cover up and engage in apologetics for its favored students? Betcha I can say “yes” faster than you can choke out the word “Steubenville”....like I said, no one, not the producers of the show nor the author of the book, pulled this concept out of a vacuum. Think these notions of hopeless reaching out to an adult authority figure never happen? Think the authorities are all-knowing sages who can solve all the problems of youth? Then you have to answer to this:

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/School-Boy-8-Who-Killed-Himself-Never-Said-He-Was-Bullied-422142353.html

         So where were the concerned and able adults when this kid was being knocked unconscious in full view of the security cameras?

Eight years old. EIGHT. Yeah----good job, authorities.

And ultimately that's the problem I have with these reactionary activists....rather than actually reach out and help end the abuses and negligence that helps motivate kids toward despair, they'd prefer this easier “band-aid” route-----because taking on the hallowed pecking order is too hard...and deep down, we all love the blessed, besotted, motherfucking pecking order down to its apple-pie-and-stick-shift-drivin' Jesus core, so let's micromanage and/or ban a TV show, instead.

       To quote comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore, "we're a nation of adult children of alcoholics....we don't get mad at the guy who screwed you over----we get mad at the guy who pointed it out and let you know about the guy screwing you over."

        Agreed, Jimmy. Well said.

         Go, Hot New Fear, Go! Except you're never that new, are you? It's the same old shit, over and over.

Except that maybe, for a change, things are a little better. Some counselors and psychiatrists have taken a new approach...they've seen the “provocative” potential of “13 Reasons” as the opportunity for a “teaching moment”----parents, watch this with your kids and take this as an entryway to a dialogue. Listen to your kids. Find out what's happening in their lives. If what you're seeing on this show rings true with them, find out why.

SMART. FOR A CHANGE. So, hey, as grumpy as I get about these things----maybe we can evolve past the bad old days of the Satanic Panic.

Be nice if someone made sure the gang at CARE 2 (or at least some of their petitioners) got the memo.