Category: Books

Read. Read More.

First Audio Book

Pseudo Review: Al Franken, Giant of the Senate

Another example of how worst-writer is no early adopter, dear worst-reader. Took till recent drive up and down the boot of Italy to finally listen to what‘s known as an audio book. Which book? Well. Don‘t you know. I‘ve always been an Al Franken fan. Since his days on SNL to his amazing Minnesota Senate win in 2008, I‘ve always payed attention to Franken. In fact. I was hoping, in the fifteen or so hours this audio book takes to end, which, btw, is a great way to deal with a more than four thousand kilometer drive, he would say something about how/why he quit the Senate after a bunch of ridiculous accusations of sex harassment surfaced. Accusations, by-the-buy, that were at best out of context and at worst part of a life-time of writing #Americant comedy. But then I realized that he published this book before resigning. Oh well. More on that here.

The thing is, dear worst-reader, Franken should have never quit the Senate. In fact. He should run for president. No. Serious. After reading/listening to this book, which I don‘t consider all-that great, for worst-moi, he is an American gem. What a guy. Is that enough audio book buttering? Yeah. Let’s move on.

This book, at times, drags on and on and on. It is filled with filler and more Senate filler. The parts about his comedy career are fine, especially the stories he has from working on SNL. The latter chapters of the book, though, deal with a tick too many uninteresting if not boring details about the politics of being in the Senate. Let me worst-restate that. Franken rambles on and on about the internal politics of the Senate. Not only that. This book has one other weakness. Even though I don‘t think he should have resigned, especially considering the likes of Bill Cosby, who drugged women for sex or Louis C.K., who jerked off in front of women for kicks, Franken was/is nothing more than a old school #OKBoomer practical joker stuck in a collective society that is sexually repressed. Oh. And. He definitely crossed the line with writing and/or creating comedy. That worst-said, he obviously never abused anyone. Franken should have fought all the accusations on that basis. Then again.

Franken tells the story of how, during his first campaign for the Senate, the media tried to portray him negatively by bringing up his comedy writing past which is full of atypical #Americant sexual repression humour. You know. The whole reason one of the greatest yet unrecognized accomplishments of technology is dick pics. Anywho. While working at SNL during a late night last minute rewrite session Franken wrote a joke that he calls a bridge. A bridge is supposed to be a method not for writing a joke but instead for rewriting or finding a better joke. This particular bridge he references details how he crossed the/a line. It was a rape joke. Now. As I listened to him explain the context of this bridge, I do not agree that joking about rape in any context is funny. And he continues to try and explain it that way. Nor do I think rape jokes can or should lead to better, more acceptable humor. He then explains what the result of the bridge joke was, which didn’t include reference to rape but instead something about homosexuality. WTF? What I realized listening to him explain all this was that Franken is, of course, part of a generation #OKBoomer that is obsessed with sex. Hence. Sexual repression galore equals #Americant. You know. Dick pics. Or. Lots and lots of sexual repression jokes that may or mayn‘t include rape–locker room banter here or there.

She: Say! Is your fly open or are you just happy to see me?

Ha. Ha. Anywho. For Franken, if this bridge method was how he worked, what other bridges didn‘t make it to press? Then there‘s the issue of his Playboy Porn-o-Rama article.

In May 2008, the Minnesota Republican Party released a letter about an article Franken had written for Playboy magazine in 2000 titled “Porn-O-Rama!” The letter, signed by six prominent GOP women, including a state senator and state representative, called on Franken to apologize for what they called a “demeaning and degrading” article. His campaign spokesman responded, “Al had a long career as a satirist. But he understands the difference between what you say as a satirist and what you do as a senator. And as a Senator, Norm Coleman has disrespected the people of Minnesota by putting the Exxons and Halliburtons ahead of working families. And there’s nothing funny about that.” -Source: see link below

Is there a better example of sexual repression than Playboy or right-wing politicians? As an #OKBoomer I‘m sure the Playboy article was funny. That worst-said. I’m surprised staunch, sexually repressed right-wingers couldn‘t find more dirt on Franken. The reason they can‘t? All this stuff, in comparison to real abusers, is harmless. Anywho. As boring as sexually repressive humor is, this book was worth a listen. And so.

Franken should spend the rest of his life fighting against the reason he was forced, by Democrats, to quit the Senate. At the same time he should run for president. What he shouldn‘t do is write another book about the internals of the Senate. Another book about how to be a comedian I‘ll definately read. I mean. Does anyone really want to read/listen to how the sausage is made in the Senate? Especially the Senate dick sausage? But working on SNL? Yeah. That‘s the ticket.

She (on the phone): I‘m on my way. You want me to bring anything?

He (on the phone): Bring beer, arrive naked.

Ha. Ha. Duh.

Rant on.

-T

Links:

He Who Should Not Be Named

Pseudo-Review of The Premonition and The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

It was hard to imagine anyone wading into that passage voluntarily, much less giving it a second thought. The words mattered less for what they said than for what they could be made to say. Like the words in the Holy Bible or the U.S. Constitution, they invited the problem of how they might be interpreted, and by whom, and for what purposes. -Michael Lewis, The Premonition: A Pandemic Story

Just finished reading two Michael Lewis books back to back. And boy did I eat them up, dear worst-reader. The thing is, Lewis has an incredible knack for story telling even though his subject matter is far from fictional.

In The Premonition Lewis chronicles not only the covid-19 pandemic but also covers in great detail SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which we’ve been battling for the past few decades in one form or the other. He also compares our current response to the 1918 influenza pandemic and how times may or may not have changed very much. The crux of this book, though, is how Lewis details the lives of those working in the wings of not only pandemic control but pandemic prevention and/or mitigation–and he only mentions Dr. Fauci a few times. Without being too science-see or getting bogged down in details, Lewis provides clarity in how Covid may or mayn’t have been better controlled. Indeed. With a lot less politics and more faith and trust in the science, things could have been different.

The Fifth Risk was written a few years before The Premonition. Having read the latter first, it is clear that both books are related. In The Fifth Risk Lewis indirectly and with masterful subtlety chronicles the election of former prez pee-pee-hair, including the buffoonery that coincides with his election. Instead of focusing on he who should not be named, Lewis writes about the ramifications of not just an inept, privileged man-child that glows like a cheeto-jezus winning the electoral college–and losing the popular vote bigly–but how that man plans to dismantle the U.S. government by systematically installing inept cronies whose only achievement in life is to admire the dear-leader or the wealth of others and thereby wear a badge of STUPID as though they’d just won an Olympic gold medal in a sport they’ve never heard of.

Ignorance allows people to disregard the consequences of their actions. -Michael Lewis, The Fifth Risk

What’s important about these books is how Lewis tells the story of American scientists, civil servants, government employees, etc. All these people deserve praise and admiration which they obviously never get–especially in these times/days of government and political fail-upwardness. It’s certainly better than telling the story of how a moron like former prez piss-hair could fail his way to the highest office of THE LAND OF FREEDOM TO BE STUPID. What a boring story that would be, eh?

Brilliant.

Rant and read on, baby.

-T

Gore Vidal’s Least Political?

Subtitle: Worst-thoughts on Gore Vidal’s Washington, D.C.

A few months back, dear worst-reader, while pondering Gore Vidal’s work, I took the liberty of reminding my sister that she should start reading Narratives of Empire. I’ve been ranting and raving about Gore Vidal to her for years. I’ve now read five of the seven books of this series, plus a whole bunch of his other stuff. Here’s a tag link to my Gore Vidal posts. Anywho.

My sister took note of my recommendation because on our next call she informed me that there would be no reading of any of Vidal’s work on account her public library no longer carried his books. WTF! Although an avid reader, she is no longer an avid book owner/buyer. Which is cool. Whatever floats your dingy, right. Then again. She also relies on her local library to have the books she wants in digital form so she can read them on her iPad (for free). Again. That’s cool. Our dingy is floatin’.

There’s just one problem in this world of worst-writer reading recommendations. When I asked her to inquire as to why a public library in my grand & missed united mistakes of #Americant doesn’t have one book (either digital or analog) by Gore Vidal her answer was nothing less than… bewildering. After the call I got to thinking about how censorship and well-framed narratives make up the entirety of #Americant public discourse in times of faux-newz, epic comic book movies and cable tv galore that does nothing less than mind-fcuk. With that in worst-mind, do I think prudery, bigotry and dumbing-down of a country would inevitably lead to indirect literary censorship–of the likes of Gore Vidal? You betcha I believe it, baby. But enough of my worst-gibberish about the obvious.

According to Wiki, Washington, D.C. is the least political of Gore Vidal’s seven novel series Narratives of Empire. I don’t quite know what “least political” means since I’ve not read anything by the likes of Henry James, the works of which this book is supposed to, according to Wiki, emulate. I’m also not able to distinguish anything between literary realism and/or literary modernism. Two more big concepts that kind of elude me. But I will worst-say this about it: this is the easiest of the five Narrative books I’ve read thus far. For. Don’t you know. Gore Vidal’s Narrative series was not written in historical chronology–and they, unabashedly, are not full of praise and wonder of all things red-white-and-blue. Since I’m also not reading them in order—either historical chronology or publishing chronology—I can definitely tell that this book isn’t like the others I have read. Although it’s the second to last book in the historical chronology, Washington D.C. was the first published in 1967. Of the series I’ve read so far, Burr, Lincoln, Hollywood and Empire, this one is much more subtle in its truth-telling and/or criticism (of all things red-white-and-blue). The second in the series that was published, Burr, which begins the historical chronology, is not as subtle at all. It’s as though Vidal found his mark after publishing Washington D.C. thereby realising there’s no need to go easy on ‘em–and write like Henry James (what ever that means). The last published book of the series is The Golden Years. It was published in 2000. All in all, that’s thirty-two years of truth-telling and critical historical novel writing about #Americant that I wonder if only Gore Vidal is good at. In other worst-words, it’s thirty-two years of writing, in essence, about the history of #Americant where nothing is buttered-up.

Miss you Mr. Vidal!

Here’s a small example of some text from Washington D.C. that tickled my fancy:

They made love as if they had been married a long time yet still desired each other. But then, they had known each other a lifetime and their lovemaking could be considered simply a progression in a friendly relationship. Lately Peter found himself, to his disgust, using jargon words like “relationship,” picked up from Aeneas and his friends who, to a man, were addicted to the opulent vocabulary of psychiatry, a pseudo-science now in vogue, even more than phrenology had been during the previous century. But though Peter found touching the belief of the simple in these new mysteries, he was alarmed when intellectuals attempted to redefine art and life in terms borrowed from the mental therapists, who meanwhile, like the early church fathers, warred with one another, each maintaining that his was the truth and all else heresy. The first victim in these stormy quarrels had been the English language. Eager to illuminate interpersonal activity, words were made up exactly as if this elaborate game were a science in which new things heretofore unknown must be named. One of the great discoveries, the Vinland of the bold voyagers, was “relationship,” a word Peter personally found less appealing than the as yet uncoined “connectionship” or “loveship.” -Gore Vidal, Washington, D.C., Chapter Five, Part III.

There’s two more to go until I finish Narrarives. And as I’ve worst-written before, this is yet another excellent piece of art depicting my beloved & missed #Americant as only Gore Vidal can. Which sometimes makes me beg the question: what would it be like if smart people (as opposed to political morons) ran things?

Rant on.

-T

It’s happened before before

It’s one of those books I’m afraid to finish, dear worst-reader. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Yet I chug on. In the bathtub. Under cover in the rain walking Beckett the killer pug. Yet. After a spat w/ the feminine this evening I thought it time. And then there’s all the here and there (that comes between anything I try to achieve. Boo f’n who!)

The comparative entirety of Hannah Arendt with today’s authoritarian bent is nothing less than stunning. Then again. Who reads this stuff? At least. Who reads it that also votes for #MAGA?

Rant on.

-T

Dead Languages, Undying Sovereign Worship

 

Worst book review: The Writing of the Gods

It’s been a long time (twenty years), dear worst-reader, since I last visited the British Museum. Among its various treasures are two things that have always stood out for worst-moi from all-things stolen in the name of colonialism and monarchial bull$hit galore. The first was having a look at a copy of Beowulf. Not sure why but this ancient poem, which may or may not be one of the first novels ever written, has always fascinated me. I mean. Isn’t it a book about how to get people to worship you? With that in worst-mind, I’m not sure if I dig Grendel more than Beowulf–but that’s neither here nor there.

The second thing that fascinated me in the British Museum is the Rosetta Stone. After giving it a good glance or three I recall asking a tour guide how ancient Egyptian was spoken. The tour guide proceeded to point to the stone and the three text/languages that are inscribed on it. Yeah, can see that, I thought to my worst-self. But what did their language sound like, I asked. I don’t recall the tour guide’s answer but I’m sure that’s because she didn’t have one. Even though I haven’t done much reading about the Rosetta Stone since then, I do recall a conversation here there, perhaps at a silly dinner party or an after theatre cocktail gathering, where I tried to question again and again: how did ancient Egyptians actually talk? What did their language sound like? How were all those slaves controlled by means other than coercion, violence, advertising, drugs, food, etc., to build those damn pyramids? How did the builders of those damn pyramids talk to each other about things like logistics, organisation, measurements, and their better-than-thou food and drugs, etc.?

While on $hits&giggles regarding all-worst-things better-than-thou, allow this little worst-aside regarding a modern version of the uselessness of pharaohs aka kings and queens: why must humanity still live with the uselessness of hereditary monarchs? In that worst-vein, go ahead and ask worst-moi what I think of the queen of engaland’s latest jubilee. What a crock of…

When I first heard about The Writing of the Gods by Edward Dolnick I didn’t give it much thought. Who needs to read (or write) another book about the Rosetta Stone? But then I heard an interview where Dolnick started blathering about Napoleon and how the Stone was found. Ok, I thought. Maybe I could brush up a bit on the subject. I kinda dig all-things Napoleon, don’t you know. After giving the example text a read, I immediately bought the book and two days later I finished it. Yeah, it’s an easy read. Unfortunately–and thanks to the author–I’m no closer to knowing how ancient Egyptians spoke to one another. The thing is, dear worst-reader, hieroglyphs don’t provide any hint of phonetics. This form of picture writing doesn’t have any vowels and consonants–at least not as we know them. Of course, there are various resources out there in/on the #Interwebnets that give examples of how some dead languages are spoken. Heck, I got a thrill and chill during the movie The Mummy as I recall a few ancient Egyptian languages were spoken in it. But there’s something missing in all the research, academia and Hollywood regarding ancient Egypt. For isn’t there more than just transcribing of human thought that makes up how humans converse? Considering where we (humanity) come from and where we currently are, wouldn’t it be fascinating but/and not surprising to find out that not much has changed? Wouldn’t it be a hoot to finally figure out that fighting the man, beheading the man, ridding life of arbitrary monarchs, despots and THE FREEDOM TO BE STUPID is no different today than it was when you or me could worst-$hit in a cave or work for some dickwad rich guy cause he gets a hard-on by controlling everything and everyone while building a worthless tomb for his fat-arse to lay in after he’s dead? Yeah. Or maybe not. Nomatter.

The Writing Of The Gods is a great read and I’m glad I invested the time in it. Dolnick provides a concise and precise history of the Rosetta Stone that includes its (colonial) discovery via Napoleon (during his downfall) and the subsequent competition to translate it, which, it seems, the French won–even though the thing still gleefully rests in the wrong country and, of course, wrong museum. But. Again. That’s neither here nor there. If you’ve read something about the Rosetta Stone already, I’m not sure this book is gonna do much for ya. But it is a fun read.

Rant on.

-T

Oh Well vs Orwell

Source: screenshot from the interwebnets

And let’s never forget, dear worst-reader. It can happen here. Or. Put another worst-way: Oh well. You fcuked. I mean. You had a chance. As in. In the last forty years, you didn’t really have to move the country so far to the right (of politics). Then again, as far as a country of collective stupid goes–that would allow #Americant to go so far to the right–Bill Maher says it best: there’s simply too much STUPID out there. With that in mind, I finally got around to reading George Orwell’s review of Hitler’s Mein Kampf from, like, 1940.

George Orwell:

Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people “I offer you a good time,” Hitler has said to them “I offer you struggle, danger and death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.

The three dictators Orwell refers to, of course, are Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler. And just so we’re on the same wave length, Stalin is militarised socialism, Mussolini is fascism and Hitler is Nazism. The thing is, I came across this review in my quest to figure out the difference between Fascism and Nazism. As I’ve attempted to point out here, even though to some it may seem like splitting hairs, I believe the difference between the two are quite relevant in also understanding the current political situation regarding my beloved & missed united mistakes of #Americant.

Or maybe not.

Link to Orwell’s review is below.

Rant on.

-T

Links: https://archive.org/details/ReviewKampf/mode/2up

Putting Sugar Or Butter On It

cynthia ann parker

Pseudo review of Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches by S.C. Gwynne

What to do as an eternal skeptic and an unwilling expat, dear worst-reader? Shutting down, as in, tuning out, might be an alternative. Yet, my beloved & missed united mistakes of #Americant is most certainly continuing its de-evolution, don’t you know. For example.

Can you believe what happened the other night (see link below)? A seventeen year old from Illinois illegally crossed his state’s border carrying the infamous AR-15 to a peaceful but over-curfew protest in neighbouring Kenosha, Wisconsin, and ended up, almost at the behest of local law enforcement (depending on your political bent, of course), killing some of those protestors as they tried to take little big-man’s gun away.

Did you get that?

Shall I repeat that… another worst-way? Indeed.

A seventeen year old militia-boy aka wannabe [The Comedian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedian_(character), excluding the smiley-face, got in a pseudo vigilante row with other young people protesting the brutality of white-man, hate-man, WASP-sicko, crack-pottery that seems to so casually shoot black people (seven times in the back, don’t you know) on account they’re all to afraid of the shadows their ignorance has made because there is no intellect available to process the realities of politics post the death of the #Americant dream–aka that which #OKBoomer killed.

Indeed. Those who would raise a boy to seventeen so that he could go join his elders in replacing cerebral-ism with reactionary WWE (which now included MMA) batshittery all on account fear-monger shadow-making white people can continue to avoid facing the reality that they’re fcuked and the reason they’re fcuked is their own doing and it’s been going on with the inception of the greed shit-show that is #Americant post Ronald Reagan, baby.

But I digress.

And while I’m on the subject of white people avoiding truth, justice but adhering to the wanton will to be stupid… While all this #Americant dip-shittary, deprivation and delusion is going on, I just finished reading that Pulitzer Prize nominated, easy-read history book, almost written like a novel, about the end of the Comanche nation.

And get this.

The book kinda sucks. Or. Put in other worst-words, anybody could’ve written it and considering how and what is written (in it), it doesn’t give me the feeling that it hasn’t already been written. Wait. That makes no sense. #Nomatter. Let’s worst-write on, shall well.

Empire of the Summer Moon is yet another white-man whitewash of the single greatest and most successful genocide in all of human history. I mean. If you put the horror show that is the culling of Native Americans together with slavery… Heck. You got a royal fcukfest of death. Am I wrong? It’s no wonder that my beloved & missed #Americant has devolved into a death-cult that can only culminate in the likes of president pee-pee hair and the shitshow that is fail-upwards capitalism forever seeking its nadir.

But. Again. Before I get too far off worst-subject.

Empire of the Summer Moon is actually a pretty good read–if you’re not up-to-date on #Americant history and also have a bit of interest in Native American history. Since I’m already somewhat versed in that history, the reason for giving this book a read was because I thought it was going to be more about Cynthia Ann Parker. Although I’m somewhat familiar with the story of her son, the last Comanche chief, Quanah Parker, I’ve never read a book about his mother. Unfortunately, I still haven’t read one about her. I know. I know. I have to get my shit together. There are a few books out there about her. On the other hand, since this book uses those books as source material, I was hoping to get more from it.

Again. Here’s the thing, dear worst-reader. I need a book from the point of view of the Native American. The entire story I’ve been told about these people has always been from the POV of… wait for it. That’s right. White people. Or. Of course. Hollywood. Heck, I even dabbled years ago in the original screenplay that became a novel that then became a screenplay and ended up being the film Dances With Wolves. Even though I love the movie and owe a little chunk of my heart to Kevin Costner for making such a masterpiece of a film, of the half dozen or so times I’ve seen the movie, crying every time Wind In His Hair yells from that cliff top that Dunbar is his friend, I can’t stop the cynical gremlins in my mind that remind me I’m watching whitewash galore.

But I will hand the author of Empire of the Summer Moon, S. C. Gwynne, this. He did write a few lines in (t)his pseudo-history that threw me for a loop. Here’s one of those lines:

They [Indians] were three to four millennia behind the Europeans and Asians, and the arrival of Columbus in 1492 guaranteed that they would never catch up.

If civilisation began in and around the Fertile Crescent and from there humans spread across the globe, those who left the Middle East for the far east and who eventually ended up crossing the Baring Strait, must be the ones that became the peoples that Europeans encountered post Columbus’ treasure hunt. We already know that the reason these peoples are called Indians is because Columbus thought he landed in India. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m just boggled with this question: Are these people from the Fertile Crescent or from before that?

The thing that gets me about this book is that I’ve completely lost touch with a thought or three about the origins of the American Indian. Are they from the Stone Age or even before that? Or perhaps they are a people that freed themselves from the seed of human greed-hate early enough to live thousands of years in harmony with nature–until that greed-hate hit them with the arrival of Europeans. The origins of these people, of course, is what gives way to the evils of the white man’s prejudices. Hence the enslavement of Africa and the genocides of North America. Indeed. White Europeans have most certainly allowed their greed-hate to prosper in the (new) world–and through out history. Or am I the only one to notice that it’s still thriving today?

And so. Hail President Pee-Pee-Hair and his Eurowasteland origins and/or those who would write whitewash books well enough to be nominated for a Pulitzer.

And so. As the #Americant saying goes (via worst-writer): put some butter and sugar on it and all will be well as you swallow forever the lie of the mind.

Rant on.

-T

Links:

Re-Read Galore: Slaughter House 5

slaughter house 5 cover

America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, ‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?’ There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand–glued to a lollipop stock and flying from the cash register.

– Howard W. Campbell, Jr. via Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughter House 5, Chapter Five

It’s been twenty years (or so) since I last read this book, which was my second re-read. The first time I read it I was already on a plane ride to Frankfurt, around 1986 (or so), which would become the beginning of my expatriation. And so. What a joy to read it a third time. Of course. I was motivated to read it because my years as an expat in Germany have put me up against several claims to either have survived the Dresden fire-bombing or to have been born from it. Heck, even my wife’s mother went there to find refuge because Dresden was, at the time, one of the only places in all of Germany that hadn’t yet been bombed to $hit. Yeah, people thought they’d be safe there. Yet, the most extraordinary thing about this book, is that it is the source of a telling fact–at least a telling fact for worst-moi from the time I first read it. That fact is this: more people died during the fire-bombing of Dresden that used conventional weapons than died in Hiroshima where an Atomic weapon was used. But does such info even matter in these days of perpetual wars-of-choice? I mean, how many people have died since Dresden and Hiroshima because of wars-of-choice, bombings-of-choice, etc.?

Vonnegut has a knack for writing about my beloved & missed Americans, too–which makes it even more worthwhile to re-re-read.

Rant (and read) on.

-T

Summary Demise

hiding in plain sight cover

Pseudo-Review: Hiding In Plain Sight by Sarah Kendzior.

Cliffsnotes, dear worst-reader. Maybe that’s the ticket to understanding what happened to my beloved & missed #Americant since the advent of political stupidity and the election of a two-bit actor for president–oh so many years ago. But enough re-hashing of the good’ole days, eh. Haven’t we all had enough of The Ronald? As in, Ronald Reagan (and not Ronald McDonald)? But before you bite into the delicious pseudo-burger I’m preparing for ya… Let’s get on with The Donald aka President Pee-Pee-Hair–the friendly antithesis of The Ronald in this #Americant $hitshow of greed-galore.

Or maybe not.

The original thought for this worst-post was to make an analogy to Cliffsnotes and there being a pretty good summary out there for those who want to understand things. You know. Something like… Everyone needs a good summary of what it is that’s bothering him/her in order to figure out what the heck is going on–in #Americant politics–so the whole $hitshow can be fixed. I mean, ain’t that what Cliffsnotes are for? Cheating. As in. Cheating–for the greater good? Or? Then again. Figuring things out without actually learning anything–in a life of multiple-choice testing? Ain’t that how so many #Americants got their so-called edumacations and careers, especially college edumacations, and have subsequently guided the $hitshow down the road it’s on as though it and everything within it was nothing but a bad wizard of oz musical?

We’re off to see the…

Let me start again, dear worst-reader.

Sarah Kendzior’s book Hiding In Plain Sight is like a summary (CliffsNotes) of President Stupid and how he came to be–wihtout having to read any history. Except. Of course. In her summary she’s missing one big thing. That is, one big thing is missing in her book and it’s not unlike what everyone else misses in their attempt to figure out (CliffsNotes) what the hell is going on. Of course, I don’t blame Sarah for missing the biggest part of what made #Americant elect such a buffoon. Then again, the same #Americants did elect that other buffoon, Dubya, don’t you know. And just so we’re clear here. Barry-O and Bill Blowjob Clinton were not buffoons. And that’s the ticket, ain’t it, dear worst-reader? A good summary of buffoon-hood might be just enough to send whoever over the edge of knowing a bit more than he or she knew before thanks to faux newz, Rush Limbaugh, and the love of being really, really, really STUPID. Indeed. When it comes to knowing something… about politics… Don’t ask an #Americant.

But let us digress.

Hiding In Plain Sight is nothing less than brilliant–if you’re interested in understanding some of the stupidity behind not just #Trump but also what he stands for, how he actually raped his first wife Invana, and, where necessary, as little as possible about his ugly, disgusting and perfectly distracting clown hair. With that in worst-mind, Sarah Kendzior codifies from begin to end the political life and times of President Stupid–and what he really is. And she does it in about four hundred or so pages. From my POV that means #Trump is a thin book with an ugly hair-do-cover but Sarah is smarter than most to be able to make it all palatable. If I could afford it I’d buy hundreds of copies of this book and hand them out to everyone I see–while wearing gloves, a face mask, and after spraying each book with a bit of #Trump disinfectant.

So what’s missing in this book–and what’s missing in most summary’s (CliffsNotes) of what gave the world The Donald aka #Americant? As I’ve said through out this worst-blog, the thing that must not be forgotten or overlooked is the class system that voted for this guy, especially the ignorant and greedy middle-class that thinks/believes it is the chosen people. Too few actually call this class out, of course. I mean. Obviously. To call out this class of greed mongering gluttons… is nothing short of blasphemy. Hence, welcome to my expatriate world of worst-writing. And so. Faux-Newz does have an audience, or? Limbaugh & Co. has been talking to someone all these years. Am I wrong? #MAGA hats sell well, don’t you know.

The #okboomer generation is filled with closeted haters and bigots and spite-rearing automatons all of whom are reflected in the #Trump mirror. Add to that the fact that these people feel as though the world owes them… Indeed. What a mirror $hitshow. But how many actually look at the/their mirror? The last number I heard was sixty-two million. Sixty-two million greed mongers, who, like #Trump, have never been able to grow-up and out of the shadow of their parentage, voted for this guy because, well, they hate women, they don’t understand the difference between newz and propaganda like Joseph Goebbels does, and they never read It Can’t Happen Here, or anything else intellectual. Indeed. Of course. The other number is sixty-five million. That’s the number that voted for Hillary. But get this, dear worst-reader. Sixty-two million haters, bigots, greed-mongers combined with faux newz is obviously a lot more powerful than sixty-five million (plus the eight to ten million smart-asses that voted “independent”) who are obviously trapped in the rainbow of a unicorns arse. In fact, sixty-two million is enough to overlook, as Sarah & Co. do, because there are so many fascinating details about one man, his hair, and that mouth that looks just like an anus puckering atop a golden toilet jut before it expels a huge…

As good as this book is, it fails to call-out the real problem–just like everything/everyone else out there that think they have answers about my beloved & missed #Americant. So take a seat, dear worst-reader, and give my answers a go.

Or maybe not.

There is at least two generations of #Americants that have lived an unearned life of luxury and status unseen in all of human history. Hence the Disney/McDonalds/CocaCola/War nationalistic vernacular of exceptional, #MAGA, that hair, etc. And when I worst-say unearned, I mean: considering the state of debt-economics1 in #Americant today, it’s no wonder that all these people can do is either vote for more greed or more war or just hate women–as the likes of faux newz spews the only truth they know. Indeed. And so. These generations of #Americants have hell-to-pay, which is reason enough to have a mindless moron with yellow cotton-candy pee-pee-hair as… their a new & improved #MAGA-hat dear leader. What else are these millions of greed mongers to do?

Seriously. Someone. Please. Get rid of faux newz. Otherwise. All those who/that come after, will just learn to disguise their… pee-pee hair.

But before I get too far off on worst-writer’s ranting and raving about who and what worst-moi is, what I believe, and what I ran away from, let me get back to this great summary (CliffsNotes) of what/who #Trump is. Sarah Kendzior has put together a must-read for anyone that is willing and able to give President Pee-Pee-Hair a second look. For those who already hate the guy, there’s not much here. And even though I grew up with #Trump and already know what kind of idiot he and his NYC ilk really are, I’m glad that Sarah Kendzior wrote this book. It relieves me of some of the pain of being an expatriate #Americant on the verge of relinquishing my citizenship due to the ugliness and disgust I ran away from.

The only question that remains with me, and, of course Sarah Kendzior can’t answer, is what’s next for the sixty-two plus sixty-five million that are capable of this much blatant and outright gun-toting, nuclear warhead, stupidity?

Good luck suckers.

Rant and read on.

-T

  1. Economic debt being synonymous with riding on the backs of others because, well, you can’t do anything for yourself, etc. ↩︎

Zombie Virus Or Just A Bad Flu

world war z cover

Pseudo-review: World War Z by Max Brooks

Note: To skip all the/my worst-writing, the actual pseudo-review of this book is just a scroll or two or thrice downwards.

And now…

Not sure if this makes since, dear worst-reader. So I appreciate you indulging me. Here’s a worst-writer fact for ya: I was never, ever afraid of horror movies as a kid. In fact, although the movie rating-system in my beloved & missed united mistakes of #Americant was not so heavily enforced at the time, I pretty much watched/saw any and every film I ever wanted to see–even before I was a teen. But my youthful rowdy behaviour is neither here nor there. For I am born and reared: #Americant, baby.

Horror films were everywhere by the late 1970s. In fact, in the whole Hollywood horror genre of my beloved & missed #Americant youth, there was nothing on the big screen–at least in the shape of monsters, goblins or ghosts, etc.–that scared me. I attribute this super-power to having faced the worst kind of childhood: loneliness and fatherlessness. Oh wait. Before I get-off on making this worst-post about my #Americant bastardisation…

By the time I could go to movies on my own, during my mid to late teens, albeit being dropped off by a parent here or there, I used to have a ball in the cinema teasing who ever I was with–especially a sister, a neighbour friend, or Chad–that older false cousin who even got me a fake ID that turned my fifteen years into eighteen. Anywho. The fun of horror movies was observing others either tremble or try not to tremble while watching The Omen, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, etc. Of course. Later. Things got really fun for me when I started going to the movies on “dates”–as opposed to going with friendly neighbours. Scaring the “date” with a poke here or a poke there during whatever gore scene was a blast as she screamed and yelped and whined. Eventually, though. All that fun had to succumbed to cop a feel where, if timed correctly, lead to some serious second-base action–no matter what was on the big screen. But. Again. Nuff about me.

A girl went to a horror flick with me once and stayed the whole time on her knees in the row directly between my knees, mostly because she was terrified by whatever gore-fest I took her to watch. Did I trick her by saying I didn’t know it was a horror movie and thereby just happened to get the best BJ of my youthful life? Who knows. My worst-point is this: I never fell for the illusion-of-truth (verisimilitude) that was supposed to be “horror” in the realm of celluloid story telling, which wasn’t the case with other movie genres. And here’s the reason why.

I was never afeared of horror movies because fear of another kind beat it to the punch. Indeed. Blood and guts meant nothing compared to a good ol’fashion suspense-thriller. Hold a sec. Let me worst-splain. By my late teens I was an experienced hunter and fisherman. I also killed bats while cleaning tobacco barns. If you’ve never done such a thing, dear worst-reader, trust me when I say that not only killing bats is gross but hanging around where they hang around–and shit–is worst. I even put down old horses with a ten gauge shotgun once and then chainsawed off their legs in order to fit them in the back of a pick-up truck that would hall them off for glue production. With that in worst-mind, horror movies were just silly to me. Suspense movies, on the other hand, scared the living bee-gee-zees out of me. In fact, they scared me so much my mind would be boggled for days after watching one. They gave me nightmares, too. I experienced excessive sleep loss. I had #Americant anti-disney PTSD, don’t you know. And all that long before PTSD was a thing. Oh wait. Scratch that. I came of age during the end of Vietnam war. PTSD was alive and well then. It just had a different brand(ing), don’t you know. Anywho.

Fear of suspense movies, by-the-buy, made horror flicks a fun-fest for me. But put me in a huge claustrophobic movie house with a thriller with shit that could actually be real–as in real-life… Holy krapp, dear worst-reader. Yeah, I almost wet myself when a chick tricked me into going to a dollar showing of Rear Window. And so. Hence. Ever since I became a young intellectual, a pseudo-know-it-all, a wannabe well-read anti-automaton, I’ve always claimed to hate Alfred Hitchcock–even though the opposite is true. Seriously. Rear Window and Vertigo usually sent me to that place between my dates knees, low in the row of her cinema seat–to her satisfaction, of course, don’t you know.

By-the-buy. The movie that scared me the most and set the stage for preferring the horror-genre was The Poseidon Adventure. I saw it when I was, like, nine. Here a bit more on that. Indeed. To this day. I can’t help but think of (fat but luscious) Shelly Winters whenever I go swimming. I also will never board a cruise ship. In short, I’m a real chicken-$hit when it comes to suspense.

But here’s the thing, dear worst-reader. For most of my adult life, I kinda dug the movies. I mean. I preferred live theatre when available—especially since moving to #Eurowasteland. But a good movie here or there? That’s the ticket. Yet. Things changed in the last ten to fifteen years. I’ve kinda quit going to the movies. I’ve even already sickened of streaming services. Reason? Movie making has gone to $hit. I just can’t find a connection to any of it. It’s as though Hollywood, over the years, has over done it. Actually, that’s kind of a nice way to put it. What I really mean to say about Hollywood is this. As I’ve gotten older, seen too many movies, I think they’ve simply run out of creativity.

Still. Some stuff intrigued me. Like the whole horror sub-genre known as Zombies. WTF is up with Zombies? I mean. Come on. Even though I’ve long since grown out of my horror movie fascination, and certainly don’t need to cop-a-feel anymore, I can’t help but be curious. Thank goodness for the various clips and shorts available by the Interwebnets, eh. So I couldn’t help but notice, over the years, how people are eating up the Zombie genre. I mean. There are Zombie movies, Zombie comedies, Zombie walks (yes, as in, go for a walk dressed as a Zombie), and various Zombie TV shows.

Why?

Thanks for asking, dear worst-reader. Here’s worst-writer’s theory about the Zombie craze.

First. The zombie genre is the first purely American aka Hollywood horror creation. I mean. Get this. Ghost stories, the undead, monsters, etc., have a long history in the mind-catacombs of #Eurowasteland and corresponding literature. But until the Zombie thing came along, America had nothing. Luckily the Zombie thing fits a particular mentality, which means Hollywood has probably found the money-recipe that appeals to so many and they’ve been running (away) with it ever since. Good for them, eh.

Second(1). How has the horror genre lasted so long? Horror movies of my youth were an answer to the suspense movies that would eventually scare the bee-gee-zees out of me. Yet. For the last fifty or so years, it doesn’t feel like suspense movies have, for lack of better cinematic vocabulary, moved on (like the diversification of the horror genre). I suppose I could say the same thing about other genres, aka Dramas, Sci-fi, Comic (movies based on comics–aghast!) But horror? These things have gone full evolution (or is it devolution?) I mean. The first horror movie to ever tickle my bee-gee-zees button (as in scare me) was Saw. Of course, the blood and guts didn’t scare me from that film. For, don’t you know, dear worst-reader, no horror movie director has ever had to rid a local barn of bats. And so. Suspense scared me. Under other economic and social circumstances, a movie like Saw might have even driven me mad. Btw. I should also note that I tried to watch other Saw movies. Since they are all just redundant, pseudo-repeats of the first, those initial bee-gee-zee scares were quickly wiped away. Again. IMHO Hollywood has a serious creativity problem. Oh. Wait.

But I’m off worst-subject again. Stop the presses. Rewind. Start again.

Second(2). To worst-writer, the success of the Zombie genre over the years is what I like to call a two way mirror. A two way mirror is where/when people look at the mirror, they know it’s a mirror, they know that someone on the other side is looking back at them, but they don’t care because, well, it’s still just a mirror image and we all know that a mirror image isn’t necessarily real. And so. The Zombie genre seems to be an ever flowing revenue stream for Hollywood because it doesn’t really need much creativity to keep turning out more and more product–it just needs to point that mirror. It needs to make sure that the zombies never really, actually, literally, show #Americants the other side of their two-way.

But I die-gress.

The first zombie movie I saw was 1978’s Dawn of the Dead. It has remained in my mind as the quintessential #Americant horror movie. Reason? It was set in a shopping mall. It is about shoppers in that shopping mall–all of whom are afraid for their lives. What better imagery is there than to show reality in a mirror, fill it with gore, add a bunch of weaponry and racism, and don’t forget sexual tension but no nudity, and there you have it. George Romero is a fcuking genius. Of course. Dawn of the Dead was Romero’s second Zombie movie. The first having been shot ten years prior to Dawn. I think it took me twenty years before seeing his first one–but it wasn’t as good as Dawn. Anywho.

To worst-writer, the Zombie genre is perfect for current #Americant misconstrued political and social ideals, especially for those who cling to such ideals. The essence of the #Americant fail-upward-ness that is the greed $hitshow cannot function unless misconstrued individualism reeks of spite, bigotry, hate–and the desire/need to see the death of what is in the mirror. It is a very binary thing, don’t you know. Not unlike the so-called bipartisan pseudo-governance, aka politics, that is red and blue states. It’s also the perfect mismatch for #Americant never facing its demons, especially the demon of slavery, rich v. poor, winner-take-all and all the losers left behind, or who and whatever else is in that mirror. And so. To bring things back around… The Zombie genre is perfect for audiences to avoid the mirror that is #Americant life–i.e. avoid reality. Hence, consumerism does have a price when mixed with too much Mikey Mouse. Eh?

Which brings me to the only Zombie movie that ever, kinda, moved me–above and beyond the thrills of horror. It happened on a flight across the Atlantic to visit Mom a few years back. Although I had planned to read and do some worst-writing on the flight, I scanned through the movie offering and there was Brad Pitt’s Zombie film. Sure, I thought. I can kill two hours out of the eight to watch this film. Besides. I had heard about the film. I had read about its production problems. There was also something out there in the ether about the book it was based on. And so. A few years later. Last week to be exact. I caught World War Z on Amazon Prime–again. I thought: yeah, I should re-watch this on account I missed a few things here and there while watching it on a plane with that horrific little backseat screen and awful audio. Also. I’ve since heard a few more things about the book–on account of all this/that about viruses. So I watched the movie again. I let it percolate through my mind that night. The next morning, last Thursday, I discovered that Amazon was offering the e-book of World War Z by Max Brooks for something like three fcuking Euros. I finished the book Easter Sunday morning, 2020.

Pseudo-review of World War Z by Max Brooks.

Let me begin with the negative.

It makes no sense to me why such a great writer/thinker would subject himself to writing this book. Did Max Brooks get up one day and think to himself: how the heck can I sell my compulsion? Oh. Hey. I’ll write about Americans–as Zombies. I’ll show them the mirror they refuse to look at–but instead dance around with guns and violence and war and false-happy. But then some publishing big shot called him up–surely a friend or foe of his father (the grand Mel Brooks) and said: just do it, dude. Just write about the brainlessness of Americans and… with that name of yours… we’ll sell it.

Let me end with the positive.

Max Brooks nails it. This has to be one of the best reinterpretations (or is it regurgitation) of #Americant story telling–ever. Wait. Is this a first? Not sure. From the get-go, the first third of the book kept me very interested. The second third of the book trailed along the first. The last third of the book is a bit winded (i.e. weak) but I was so glad that the whole thing didn’t degrade into anything like the Hollywood mess that was the movie, I was happy to read every word to the end. And on that note… The thing from the mediocre Brad Pitt movie that interested me was how the fight against Zombies was not unlike the fight against an enemy within. It was, eventually, my hope that the book would double down on the enemy-within–and it did–whereas the movie screwed the pooch. But let’s move on.

A chronicle of a world war against Zombies based on interviews with participants? Again. Brilliant. And how Brooks holds it all together with some seriously good writing. He even threads here or there a few snipes of social and political reality, i.e. addressing man’s non-sensical, if not whimsical, allowance/enabling of so much gluttonous behaviour–that can only result in Zombies. I mean. What a silly genre, really, for so much social commentary–hidden or not (in the back of that two-way mirror). Zombies. Yet the author maintains a level of literary bent that can even interest the best of the best of us pseudo-intellectual wannabes, making the undead not only entertaining but important. Good for you, Max! Us failed/worst writers salute you.

Rant on.

-T

Get With The Program, Son. Not.

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Alternate title: Pseudo-Review: Permanent Record by Edward Snowden

Get with the program. Get with the program. One more time: Get with the program, son. Countless times that was said to me growing up in my beloved & missed united mistakes of #Americant. It usually was said after I tried to talk with someone older than me. You know, perhaps an acquaintance’s parent or just some older guy (an older Boomer) that I had met, encountered, but also a few people that were a bit younger (GenXers). It was all about growing up, don’t you know. Asking questions about life and this and that. Trying to figure things out. Yeah. It was about questioning the system and how I was supposed to fit in that system. Bah humbug, eh.

A few example questions:
– why should I join the military if the military is only about empire and I never will be (about empire)
– is there no alternative to years and years of debt-ridden college for a corporate job that hangs by a whim
– with decimated labour and manufacturing post Reagan, how the hell am I supposed achieve what my parents achieved, they could buy a fcuking house for 50k 

Indeed, dear worst-reader. People would always sneer and smirk and then blindly, dumbfounded, spew monotone: Get with the program, son. And there you have it. Any person since the 1950’s need know nothing else about life or the system that is dysfunctional #Americant other than: Get with the program, son. And boy did I NOT get with the program.

Like so much in #Americant, the word program, in essence, is code. It’s another way of saying there are unwritten rules and laws and boundaries and unless you can afford otherwise, you must abide by them all. That is, btw, what is taught by the entire education system, don’t you know. As far as affording otherwise… As money became America’s new God (perhaps after God was declared dead by enlightened Europe), it was only inevitable, like all finite resources, that greed become its keeper. As in: greed is money’s keeper. With me still, dear worst-reader?

Oh, the greed-shit-show. Yet more code that may or may not differentiate worst-writer from Edward Snowden. In other worst-words, where Snowden thinks he’s fighting the good-fight, worst-writer knows the futility of non-fight fight. Where Snowden thinks there is a boogeyman out to get us all, worst-writer knows that truth is just a mirror, mirror on the wall–supplied by parents. Where Snowden dreams of a city upon a hill, worst-writer and perhaps a few others know that the city is rotgut and shit on a shingle controlled by old, white greed mongers and what ever it is they do with their private parts. But, again, before I get too far off subject…

Twenty or so years my younger, but with similar geographic background, I too was reared in the suburban hell of the mid-Atlantic coast and the government, gift-horse bubble of Washington, DC. With that in worst-mind, Snowden’s book has drawn me nearer. Nearer to myself, to my past, to all-things worth forgetting. For don’t you know, dear worst-reader, Snowden has had to deal with a world of trickle down-ness, of meritless but well structured pseudo-hierarchy, a world of blindness caused by fear. Fear due to wanton and misconstrued patriarchy and the ills of really, really, stupid ugly white people that just can’t figure it out for themselves: hey, suckers, you’ve been duped. But I digress.

I mean, obviously, Snowden is a B-genius. I have to give him that. In fact, the only thing missing in his book, Permanent Record, or his story, as far as I’m worst-concerned, is a bit more tech-talk regarding what, actually, either the NSA or the CIA did with all those plans of full and total government ownership of individual privacy. Snowden has given us content but I’m still waiting for context. Wait. Switch that. Flip it. Yeah. It’s the other way ’round. Or? Ok. Snowden revealed something. I guess. Nomatter.

Snowden is a dreamer slash true believer in the fallacy that there is/could be (a) government for the people and by the people–as though, not unlike #MAGA, it is something that was ever actually possible. Ok. Maybe it was possible before it all turned to THE LAND OF FREE TO BE STUPID and the greed shit-show that is the current iteration of #Americant. I’m referring, of course, to way back when, say, when FDR was elected President for four fcuking terms. But then came that warning from Eisenhower after which the right-wing and all those stupid ugly white men and their shit-show of greed got some mojo on. That mojo was Reagan, I suppose. Yeah, the flood gates of STUPID opened in the 1980s. Or am I wrong?

At the least, I’ve always questioned Snowden’s motivation for doing what he did. I mean, what was the point? To inform people about what they should know–inherently? Or has no one been paranoid about the fact, since its invention, a telephone call could be spied upon? Snowden’s generation is most certainly not the first to grow up in the mental spiral of government conspiracy theory, which is just code for people who don’t quite, intellectually, know how to question wanton and ill-gotten authority. I question his motivation even more now considering he writes, rather abruptly, subtly, and almost stealthily on page 257 of chapter READ,WRITE, EXECUTE:

I needed a way to work with the files, search them, and discard the irrelevant and uninteresting, along with those containing legitimate secrets that I wouldn’t be giving to journalists.

I’m sorry. Did you not reveal legitimate secrets? Oh. Wait. They were powerpoint presentations…

For you see, dear worst-reader, although what Snowden revealed is kinda interesting, none of it surprised worst-moi. I worked, although not at a technical level as Snowden did, on a few tech projects with a few tech companies in my day–I even worked, to my regret, for Booz Allen’s commercial consulting business in Europe as an analyst and researcher. The one thing I will always remember is how error-prone to point of failure large scale data collection can be. I mean, come on, dear worst-reader, did any of this tech collecting stuff stop 9-11? What about the Boston bombing, where only after the fact did they know about the bombers communications via cellphones? My point is this: in a greed mongering society that is incapable of differentiating its political and social needs, and when it spends massive amounts of resources to maintain a dream-delusion, it’s no wonder that organisations like the NSA and CIA turn into a monstrous apparatus that has to somehow justify its existence (costs). Now just add a bunch of hyperbolic, paranoid #Americants to the mix all elbowing each other off a small plank barely attached to a sinking ship… Yeah, baby, the greed $hitshow.

Is Snowden just another angry white guy raised by another angry white guy who was also raised by an angry white guy? Snowden’s details about his family heritage dating back to the Revolutionary War, which was/is a great way to start the book, btw, is reason enough to think, well, there’s a lot of anger running through veins. I mean, considering what’s come of that revolutionary war, don’t you know, and how things are all about the rich eating the poor and the poor–especially the middle class poor–just eating up the likes of what a guy like #Trump tells them… OMG! How else could the ineptitude of faux-newZ permeate so much of a society hell-bent on wet t-shirts, reality TV, WWE and now, of course, #Trump, #MAGA, President Stupid!

Don’t get me wrong. I feel for Snowden. I’ve been to Moscow. Great place to visit, btw. St. Petersburg has the fresher air, though. That worst-said, I’m also first hand aware of the suburban hell that reared Snowden. How I laughed and giggled when he writes about Columbia, MD, and the travel to VA for work. I travelled from College Park, MD, to Gaithersburg, MD for a while. After that I commuted from College Park, to Columbia, MD, too. It was all part of trying to finance the lie of university studies–which ended up being an effort in $hit-futility–and eventually lead to my dropping the $hit-show greed game of #Americant for other shores. But. Again. I’m off subject.

Permanent Record is a great read–especially if you’re an ageing Marylander that jumped ship because, well, Maryland, VA, DC, the east coast, the midwest, and the gluttony of all else #Americant is worth disembarking. Other than that, I really enjoyed reading this book. Got a kick out of it, if you will. And I’m glad Snowden wrote it–even if it seems like a bit of stretch to believe that he really penned it all by himself. Still. I’m gonna recommend it. I might even gift it to a few people. For, don’t you know, dear worst-reader, even a fight of futility, skewed from the get-go, might be worth fighting for. What the heck. And before I end this worst-post.

Here are some of the notes/issues/thoughts I had and may or may not have scribbled in the margins of pages, pages, pages, while reading this book:

  • it’s important to know where someone is coming from, you know, as in their politics
  • is Snowden part of a right-wing sub-culture in #Americant that has been indoctrinated into such an extreme anti-liberal (anti-Democrat Party) sentiment from which there is no alternative political point-of-view meaning that there is only one point-of-view
  • this is the result of a pseudo bourgeois class, a delusional false American dream middle class, that has never taken a sincere look at itself for, perhaps, intellectual enlightenment, and so, this class has remained in a state of mental recess, a grey zone of ineptitude–that has children
  • protesting via espionage for citizen rights that are aligned to a document (The Constitution) that was never written for the poor or the downtrodden or even the fcuking spoiled rotten privileged middle-class… yet privacy is the motivator
  • real protestors, worthwhile protests, are/were occupy wall street, Aaron Swartz (who, thankfully, Snowden briefly mentions in chapter Love and Exile, p. 329)
  • liberals have long since proved that they can change their political direction, which is exactly what Bill Clinton did in the 90s by clamouring on to Reagan’s Neo-liberalism and even having the most success with it, aka the tech boom happened on Democrats watch but is Snowden aware of that
  • the problem with Snowden is his politics which he refuses to name but is perhaps obvious: he’s a right-winger reared by right-wingers and he’s oh-so incredibly suburban hell white and and and
  • his girlfriend refers to shooting guns with him (or as a means to ward off stress), see chapter From the diaries of Lindsey Mills
  • the ship at sea analogy: sysadmins are not ship captains, instead they are something akin to ship builders or even sailors and when they squeal they only bring down their ship–not that which made the ship (pick your poison, pick your enemy, pick your…)
  • One should never let the ship builder sail the ship, hence the delusion birthed by the lie of freedom, the lie of inalienable rights, the lie that is The Constitution that was never about we the people but instead we the privileged, we the haters of aristocracy so that we can make our own aristocracy, we the ones, like the French eventually, that should have chopped the fcuking heads of King fcuking George the 3rd and and and–instead of giving us pseudo king George the 3rd coloured like a fcuking orang-utan and is now President Stupid leader of all stupid people

Good luck suckers.

Rant on.

-T

We Are In Hell

a problem from hell cover

As stated here and there throughout worstwriter.com, I’ve been living the expat life since 1989 in a kind of daze. One of the main reason for that is, well, #Americant political conservatism manifest in the ideology of greed, can be confusing to those who are born to think free–and not the free one is told to think, i.e. think like the behaviourists that are (make-up) the greed $hitshow. Even though I eventually found certain cures for daze & (fake)free(dom) living in THE OLD COUNTRY, those cures were never the motivating factor to… expatriating till my gonads fall off. Indeed. Put another worst-way. There was so much STUPID brewing back home (in the 1970s and 80s, etc.) because of political conservatism and greed-galore, THE OLD COUNTRY and its lingering history, including a century or so of culture and art and willing women, was a godsend to someone yearning for anything but the status quo of money, money, money–and militarism. Of course, don’t get me wrong, dear worst-reader. #Eurowasteland is full of greed-mongers and in its essence just as STUPID as my beloved & missed #Americant. In fact, the capitalism-game that regulates to protect the rich of old Europe is as strong as ever. The only difference to #Americant is that Europe’s redistribution (of wealth) isn’t as one sided. But redistributed it is all the same. And before I get too far off subject.

Just finished the book “A Problem From Hell” by Samantha Power. It’s been on my to-read list for some time. I first heard of the book after it won the Pulitzer and was also recommended by Barry-O as he chose the author as a national security adviser. In fact, I think he picked her partly because of this book. And so. If anyone wants to know a detailed history of Genocide in the twentieth century, this is your book. Power details the origins of Genocide as an international and legal concept since the Armenian Genocide beginning in 1915. Power also details the genocide in Cambodia, Iraq, the whole mess that was/is the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. The book is a vast and well chronicled explanation of what is often referred to as “a problem from hell”, which is ultimately nothing more than humans killing humans for really, really, really stupid reason. To my surprise there was nothing in this book about Indonesian or East Timor, although both are referred to a few times.

They were killing anyone who wore glasses because if they wore glasses it suggested they knew how to read, and if they knew how to read, it suggested they had been infected with the bourgeois virus. It was a Great Leap Forward that made the Great Leap Forward under Mao look like a tentative half step. –Stephen Solarz @ Cambodia Genocide in 1975

The chapter that stirred me the most is the one on Cambodia. Having grown up in the wake of Vietnam, a war that fills my earliest memories of black & white television viewing while stuck in the humdrum of suburban hell, I’ve always been a bit curious as to the various power-proxies that made Southeast Asia tick (back then). The detailing of the Cambodian Genocide also presented me with an explanation of the fight against communism in the region, but with it all being twisted because of certain national and international interests and/or relationships. Lucky for me, this book is not only informative about Genocide but also is a wonderful narration regarding #Americants most dramatic war-loss.

In 1975, when its ally, the oil-producing, anti-Communist Indonesia, invaded East Timor, killing between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians, the United States looked away. In the Cambodia case perhaps the most important factor behind (President Jimmy) Carter’s choice was US fondness for China, which remained the prime military and economic backer of Pol Pot’s ousted government. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski saw the problem through the Sino-Soviet prism. Since the US interest lay with China, they lay, indirectly, with the Khmer Rouge. Slamming the KR might jeopardise the United States’ new bond with China. Slamming the Vietnamese would cost the United States nothing.
-Samantha Powers, “A Problem From Hell”

Another profound detail Powers chronicles is that of Bosnia in the 1990s. Keep in mind, dear worst-reader, I began my expatriation in the old country just before hell broke out in the former Yugoslavia. As the war in the Balkans waged on, I lived only a day’s drive away from it all. It was also a time, due to personal issues, I was in and out of different hospitals. Not only was Germany doctoring Kuwaitis and some Iraqis from Desert Storm but also people from Croatia and Serbia. In one hospital an entire floor was being used to help the war wounded. Also, various makeshift housing facilities were put up throughout Germany to help the displaced from Yugoslavia. Along with a few church goers we used to bring old clothes and shoes and sometimes fresh cookies for the kids. When I tried to communicate with some of the refugees in either broken German or broken English, it became clear that many people weren’t willing to talk about their aggressors. But a few did mention the brutality and hate of Serbs towards Muslims. Of the serbs I’ve met and befriended in Germany, they’ve all been pretty upright and very friendly people. Needless to say, the Bosnia war was a fcuking mess.

Serb gunmen knew that their violent deportation and killing campaign would not be enough to ensure the lasting achievement of ethnic purity. The armed marauders sought to sever permanently the bond between citizens and land. Thus, they forced fathers to castrate their sons or molest their daughters; they humiliated and raped (often impregnating) young women. Theirs was a deliberate policy of destruction and degradation.
-Samantha Powers, “A Problem From Hell”

The only gripe I have with this book is that I’m not sure so many pages are required to explain what Genocide is and/or what some think its place should be in politics. On the other hand, this book might be enough to explain one particular aspect of humanity–mostly how men beguiled by power and/or moneyed and/or ideological interests always have a desire/need/want to kill, kill, kill. Only her writing style kept me reading this book, even though I often found myself resorting to skimming a few pages here and there because I was already familiar with Rwanda and Bosnia (from other sources). I can’t help but think, though, this type of book might not be the proper means to make a wide audience aware of Genocide. Something is missing. I’m just not sure what that is yet. That worst-said, it is a worthwhile read if you have any questions about how the term Genocide came to be, the first third of the book deals with exactly that subject. That worst-said… I still have a few questions about Serbia’s hate issues.

Rant on.

-T

October Reading List And Missing Eyewear Nose Bridge

october 2019 reading list

Superfluous post indeed, dear worst-reader. Begs only the question: what to do, what to do, what to do… in this consume-to-survive world of nothingness galore? Then again, at least I can still read. You know, read, as in, read something to expand the/my mind. It is, must be, a requirement in these days of Marvel movie trauma, don’t you know–although I do dig that scene in Avengers Endgame where Captain Marvel finally appears and has a quick pow-wow with Peter Parker as an apocalypse rages around them.

Scene: Captain Marvel destroys huge alien ship that is reeking ballistic havoc on the Endgame battle field. As the ship crashes to the ground Captain Marvel lands with a thud in front of a distraught Peter Parker as he’s struggling to protect the infinity stones. Captain Marvel is standing above Parker, who is in a ditch cradling the infinity stone glove like a baby.

Peter: Hi. (Odd, quick pause.) I’m… (Another odd quick pause.) Peter. Parker.

Captain Marvel: (Cute grin on her face as she sports a new hair style contrasting previous appearances.) Hey. Peter Parker. You got something for me?

The cadence and tone of Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) is mesmerising–to me. At that moment in the film I wish Captain Marvel was two scoops of gelato, chocolate and pistachio, atop a butter crusted cone. But enough about worst-moi.

You know the thing that really gets me about my October reading list to help me get over Brie Larson? Check out the cover of Snowden’s book. What the heck is going on with his glasses? Who the hell wears glasses with a nose pad missing on one side of the bridge? What? Can’t see it? Well, I see it. And it’s driving me crazy.

Rant (and read) on.

-T

The First Soap Opera

hamilton cover

Title #2: maybe the founding fathers weren’t so special after all

As the initial reports of the Broadway Musical Hamilton began to appear on my computer screen a few years back, I found my worst-self getting confused about whether to like it or hate it. Was it the shows immediate success that drove me to such inner spite-drama? The play was an immediate smash hit as it was catapulted from a mediocre off-broadway production to a major broadway production within an unusually short period of time, according to its wiki page. Or was it the casting, the dramaturgy, the writing, the stage production, the drag-queen blowjobs between acts, etc., that confused me? And then that whole rap-musical thing? A rap-musical about the founding fathers–all of whom are played by non-white actors? So does that mean George Washington is in black face now? Go figure.

Actually, in all worst-seriousness, that’s kind of a great idear. At least, Chernow seems to be quite thorough in reminding the reader (or in my case worst-reader) about a few of the sins of the founding fathers, namely the human servitude $hit$how that built the great greed $hit$how. But that was then and this is already yesterday. For, as you may (or may not) know, dear worst-reader, Hamilton the musical, by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is a bit of stretch from the book it’s based on. Am I wrong?

While I’m on the subject of the play, I tried to get tickets last year to see it on a trip to my beloved & missed united mistakes, thereby re-routing my flight through NYC. Lo and behold, I got a taste of what broadway success in this new era of greed-galore is all about. The cheapest tickets I could find were priced waaaaaay out of my league, which subsequently put the show on my shit-list. I mean, why oh why, dear worst-reader, when a broadway show is so popular and so successful, they haven’t made a movie out of it so the rest of us can get a peek? Elitism galore anyone? I’m so turned off by this level of pricing for a friggin play that I could dance around Marie Antoinette’s detached head or even wear the blood stained basket that head fell in while singing in the rain. Indeed. Let them (or the rest of us) eat brioche, ain’t that right dear worst-reader! But enough silliness aside. This play is just another reason to hate the hob-snob of broadway theatre–which at one point in this worst-life I loved so much.

Oh wait. I’m off subject. Enough about being worst-writer.

Although it took a decade or three for me to come around to this unique if not (what I consider) odd form of theatre, that I always thought was a bit cheesy, I’m now kind of a musical fan. At least I really dug Mama Mia. Still, there have been a few shows I’ve put on a pseudo to-do list. It is a list that varies based on mood, amount of drink (the night before) and, of course, cost. With that in mind, will I ever go out of my financial way to see any of the shows on that list? Probably not. Reason? Hamilton is based on a book. If it’s based on a book, why do I have to bother with the hob-snob of elitist über expensive theatre? And get this: A few weeks ago, out of the blue, the Apple bookstore offered Hamilton by Chernow for something like seven and half bucks. So I snatched it up and immediately moved it up my to-read list. Oh wait. Hold a sec. It’s not just any book, though. No. It’s a really, really thick book. Like. Seriously thick. Even in digital form. Wow. Almost a thousand friggin pages? Oh my.

It took me about four weeks to get through it. I scheduled regular reading sessions either in the morning or during my afternoon nap where I would turn digital page after page, sometimes pushing myself through a whole chapter in one session. Then were/are (my) morning constitutional reads, too. But don’t be afeared dear worst-reader. It shouldn’t disparage you that I have books above and around my Euro toilet1. Reading is good. Right? Nomatter where you read. Or? I mean, I haven’t watched TV in over a decade. And I regularly dust off the books in my fancy book shelf, too. Sometimes I even contemplate sorting all my books. But that’s a whole ‘nother worst-post. Anywho.

The plan to get through this thick (digital) book was to hammer away at least four or five pages two or three times a day–depending on the previous evening of drink, ambient temperature, the mood of Beckett our killer-pug and, of course, my better half’s desires for a fulfilled life. That may not sound like much dedication (or is it commitment?) to getting through a book, and there were a few moments here or there where I wasn’t able to pick up the book for a few days at all. Nomatter. The important thing is, I was determined to get through it because, well, fcuk theatre elitism that is über dramatisation, drag-queen antics and the stench of broadway that can only give rise to the likes of President pee-pee-hair. Am I off subject yet again? Oh yea. But before I forget. From what I can tell from wiki, liberties have been taken by the play creator. So let’s get back to the book.

The only other question I had about committing myself to such a large book about a history that I am well versed in wasn’t if/when I’d finish it. No. The important question was, how long would it take? Would this be yet another history book that is too winded? Would I give up on it because of its length? And most important: how much of it would I retain? Then again–and get this dear worst-reader: the month of May (2019) turned out to be one of them rare months were I was reading three major books at a time. And let’s also not forget all the worst-writing that need be done. Then there’s the daily deluge of reading Das Capital–in fcuking German! Oh, and what about the dog sitting, the dishwashing, the cooking and the frequent tickler sessions with my better-half. May (the month) also included various visitors, two trips (one to Paris!) and a long two day house cleaning session that I promised my better half in exchange for sexy-time. Indeed. A thousand pages of meticulously researched and well versed history ain’t nothing for a redneck battling inner ugly prejudices–to shake a stick at. And so. This past weekend (while on that trip to Paris) I finished it–pictures n’all! And so…

Worst-writer’s pseudo-review of…

Hamilton by Ron Chernow.

Keep in mind, dear worst-reader, I’m a Gore Vidal fan. Here’s a tag link to my GV posts. As I’ve said here or there, I believe that all schools in my beloved & missed #Americant should learn history from GV. In other worst-words, all schools should just stop the BS they’re teaching kids right now–which has, over the span of at least two generations, systematically deprived the intellectually capacity of a nation, which can only lead to the right-wing, conservative, greed-mongering batshittery that is #Americant. Am I wrong? And so. Stop it now, LAND OF FREE TO BE STUPID! Read Gore Vidal and learn something. But I die-gress.

I thoroughly enjoyed Vidal’s Novel Burr, which may or may not be the anthesis of Hamilton. Of course, Burr is not quite a real history or biography. Or is it? For you see, dear worst-reader, Gore Vidal writes histories in novel form. Is that why they’re called fictional histories? Or is it novel histories? How bout a fictional novel? No. They’re called historical novels. What a great idear, don’t you know. There’s a genre for everything. Is that why such a book can entertain intellectual deviants that live and prosper in the LAND OF FREE TO BE STUPID? Yes, it can. And what about the edumacated who think they know everything? You know, the college grads that have been running, managing, facilitating the greed $hit$how? Compared to GV, though, Chernow has written a plain old history book–or is it a biography? Or has he? At the least he writes for those who:

  • have the time to read/focus on almost a thousand friggin pages,
  • don’t mind a bit of history regurgitation that most should already know (but of course so many of them do not on account of #Americant intellectual deviancy)

Before I continue, allow me to state briefly how/why this book was catapulted up my to-read list. It was the WHCD 2019 that did it. As you may or may not know, President Stupid (pee-pee-hair) and his ill-humour, saw to it that no one make fun of him anymore after Michelle Wolf drilled him a new a$$hole in 2018. (What a performance that was, eh!) For 2019 Ron Chernow was invited to fill the comedian spot–but President piss-hair still didn’t attend. Obviously not a comedian, Chernow did a great job out-smarting President Stupid’s minions–who thought they had a win-win by getting rid of a comedian. You can watch Chernow’s “speech” at the link provided below. As soon as I finished watching it, I did a hop, skip and jump over to the Apple book store which was selling the same book for half the price of that other online book retailer–that sucks piss rain as much as #Trump has pee-pee-hair.

Back to the book (again).

Why Chernow chose to spend so many words on public school level history-telling is a bit of a mystery to me. The good news is, he’s a brilliant history teller/writer–which also comes out in his WHCD speech. The bad news is, Gore Vidal is just a better writer/thinker when it comes to this sort of thing. And get this, Chernow even takes a swipe at GV towards the end of his book. He says that Vidal was wrong in his narrative assumption2 that Burr wanted to duel Hamilton because the latter accused him of an incestuous affair with his daughter. Chernow insinuates that Vidal’s take on history is unprovable. The problem is, Chernow doesn’t convince me that he knows everything better than GV. Also, I thought it kind of a krappy thing to do since GV ain’t around to defend himself. And so. Yeah. I prefer–and believe–Vidal’s take on the reason for the great duel. At the least, GV’s version fits better to the mindset that is #Americant.

Chernow’s work is, from what little I can tell, more academic than, say, Gore Vidal’s. That said, Chernow constantly plays on the third-grade, knuckle dragging banalities of realpolitik wrapped in sexually repressed patriarchy run amok–and all because somewhere, somehow, someone thinks there’s almost something holy about Alexander Hamilton. Hence the title of this worst-post. Through out the book Chernow lingers between academia and, maybe, a museum–and, of course, lots of bitching and moaning between founding fathers who were, at best, lead poisoned to the hilt? (Just throwing that out there.) Then again, the more and more I read–and there is plenty of excess to read in this book–his text became more and more of pseudo soap opera than a book about history. Perhaps that’s the reason it is easily transferrable to the drama-queen stage of elitist Broadway. I worst-write pseudo soap opera, btw, because within the first two chapters it became clear that Chernow was playing The Drama card in telling his history of AH. Indeed. The conniving, the snickering, the love-fest of whose money is better or whose wig is fancier has certainly permeated #Americant ever since. Is that the history that need be learned?

Don’t get me wrong, dear worst-reader. I’m not referring here to daytime TV soap opera krapp. You know, the emotion BS that has raised at least two generations of submissive wives? I mean. Come on. Times have changed, eh. For me, the modern old-rot .e.g. Days of Our Lives, Young and the Restless, etc., has been superseded by new-rot e.g. The Sopranos, Mad Men, GoT, and… Wait for it. Hamilton the fcuking musical. The banality of corporatism, war mongering and greed, greed, greed, is a perfect incubator, don’t you know, for where #Americant has taken itself. Or am I the only worst-writer that’s questioned how/why so many disgusting white men can become President Stupid. On the other hand, could Chernow have known that his bloated and somewhat superficial style of history telling, originally published in 2007, would turn into a pop culture broadway phenomenon playing on all the anti-intellectualism that is so well-fed in the year of your Lord, 2015? Again: we live in a world of reality-TV. Where does that come from?

This book is meticulously well researched and written. It has been worth the struggle to read. Would I read it again? Will I refer to it in the future? I don’t think so. I’m gonna stick with Gore Vidal. Also, I’m no longer hell-bent to see Hamilton on stage. The book was more than enough and from what I can tell via Wiki, I’m not sure the narrative of the play interests me either. I might watch the movie if/when it ever comes out (the sooner the better before I lose all interest) or watch it in pieces while focusing more on Mama Mia.

For those worst-readers interested, here a short-list of the things I will take with me from Chernow’s work.

  • Hamilton’s Caribbean upbringing and subsequent rise to fame is a fascinating rags to riches, almost Cinderella story, albeit a bit über-dramatised by the author
  • Federalist (Washington, Hamilton) vs. Republican (Adams, Jefferson) is two sides of the same coin fighting the fight that would eventually result in #Americant and greed, greed, greed that till this day is same as it ever was
  • how Hamilton was able to acquire so much knowledge before leaving the Caribbean for NY is interesting but surely not worth a pop-musical
  • perhaps AH’s personal situation is similar to Spock’s (that’s right, that Spock) and how he had to fight for having mixed parents (ok this one is full silly?)
  • very impressed with the relationship AH had with George Washington and I now have a better opinion of GW
  • although this book is supposed to be about AH, I found the Thomas Jefferson v. George Washington ideological fight to be as interesting
  • buy-the-by, Thomas Jefferson is now on my shit-list
  • AH’s work ethic, how much he wrote, it’s now motivated me to re-read The Federalist Papers
  • AH is portrayed as a humble man, also an abolitionist, but I don’t believe that he was in anyway… a good guy (for good guys don’t die the way he died!)
  • all the text about whether or not #Americant would be a monarchy or republic wasn’t very interesting because the author fails to focus on how it managed to turn money into its monarchy, and, for sure, its god/religion
  • I want to read more now about the French Revolution versus the #Americant revolution and also juxtapose both with the Russian revolution
  • duelling should be called out for what it is and not be legitimised as a means of conflict resolution let alone require almost a thousand fcuking pages to get to, for it is just another example of how stupid white men (if AH was even white) behave, even to this day
  • a great example of how to turn history into a soap-opera, perfect for a/the reality-TV mind

Nuff for now.

Rant and read on, baby.

-T

Links that motivated this post:
– WHCD 2019
– WHCD 2018

  1. That’s right. Some claim that those of us who read while on the shitter might also be somewhat intellectually challenged. Well, to that, I say: fick dich! ↩︎
  2. Is there such a thing as “narrative assumption”? Of course there is. I am worstwriter.com, baby. ↩︎

She’s A Man, Baby

 

Raquel Welch Myra Breckenridge

Pseudo-review: Mrya Breckenridge, the novel–not the movie!

I saw the movie thirty-five (or so) years ago1. Somehow the movie stayed with me–and not only because of Raquel Welch who is, other than Rita Hayworth, the only Hollywood bombshell worth gawking at like a fifteen year old man-boy run amok with girly magazines. At the least, reading Gore Vidal’s Empire series helped in finally getting me to his novels even though Myra Breckenridge made my have to read before I die list only around fifteen years ago2. And so. I finally got around to it the other day. And that’s what matters, right? Finally getting around to something? The worst-word now is: thank goodness I finally got around to it.

My first thought was: why did it take so long? Second thought was: hallelujah! Then again, there was that one chapter (Chapter 29!) where Myra straps on a dildo and has her way with an aspiring young Adonis-like acting student thereby changing him and his personality… Hollywood-forever-more. As uncomfortable as that chapter was, reading it kind of solidified where the novel, and Vidal, was actually going. For. Indeed. Dear worst-reader. It was a tough chapter to read. But get through it I did. And so. Is my manliness still intact–unlike Rusty’s?

The capacity for wit and humour and more wit knows no bounds in this book. Does that mean it’s opened my mind to read more of Vidal’s novels–since I’ve only read his historical novels and various essays up to now? By-the-buy, the reason for reading only his historical novels is simple. Like most #Americants , important things get lost in the ether of the greed $hitshow. Or they get lost in the hope and want of Disney. Or both. At the least, being an #Aemricant can be very convoluting. And so. Every #Americant should read Gore Vidal’s Empire novels. In fact, all public schools in my beloved & missed united mistakes of #Americant should stop all the pseudo-history they’ve been learned (taught) so far. In fact, fire all the pseudo-teachers (of history) now. Simply replace it/them all with reading Vidal’s Empire series. You know, Burr, Lincoln, etc. It’s probably the best way to learn our history, don’t you know. But on that note, I should digress.

The version of Myra I have also contains Myron, which is supposed to be a follow-up novel. But I also ordered The City And The Pillar which I’ve prioritised to read next–unless I get to another Empire novel. I guess I’ll eventually get to Myron but somehow I’m not as motivated. Perhaps Myra was enough. Indeed. I’m really, finally, thinking more in terms of getting around to finally reading Washington DC, which is the one important Empire novel I’ve still not read. I’m actually missing something in my soul since I haven’t read one of Vidal’s Empire novels in awhile–and perhaps also because of finally reading Myra. Again. Nomatter.

Myra Breckenridge is a hoot to read. Set in Hollywood of, I guess, the 60s, Myra is a teacher of sorts at an acting academy. And guess what she teaches? That’s right. At an acting school in Hollywood she doesn’t teach acting. No. She teaches posture and empathy. Who would have guessed that such a thing exists/is required for Hollywood? In fact, the great scene (Chapter 29) where she tries to set the story’s Adonis-like acting student’s spine straight by breaking his heterosexuality, she does so in the name of… wait for it. Posture. Although Myra’s motivation is to dominate and manipulate others (a well established #Americant Hollywood creed) via her fluid if not didactic sexuality, she is also obsessed with another burgeoning #Americant-ism: that of acquiring wealth without means, i.e. through the death of her late husband Myron. I’m now convinced Vidal had something quite different in mind with Myra other than creating something for $hits & giggles–which is the #Americant way of dealing with sex. By-the-buy, such an iconic (literary) character could never be properly portrayed in a prude #Americant movie of the 1970s–even if it did star one of the greatest bombshells of the twentieth century. I’m worst-wondering if the film could/should be remade? Nah. #Americant still ain`t ready for it.

Considering the discourse today regarding sexuality, compared to what I grew up with, e.g. hardcore 1960 > 1970 feminism plus a krapp load of closeted gays, Vidal just might be a prophet above and beyond his fictionalisation of history as he’s done so well with his Empire novels. At the least, what Vidal writes about in Myra is only slightly askew from my personal experience(s), although I never met a transexual… a transgender… Sorry, I’m still confused about all that stuff. Nor have I ever lived in Hollywood. But I have crossed paths wit a bunch of fags in my day. Nomatter.

Much has been said about Myra Breckenridge since its publishing (1968). But I’m curious if much of what need be said has been said about it. You know, #Americants and prudes do find a way to suppress this sort of stuff in the best and usually not subtle ways. On the other hand, Vidal has seen into the future with this book. A future I’m now living in. The only thing missing from it, IMHO, is a proper conclusion. Perhaps I’ll get that conclusion after reading Myron. Then again, my guess is I won’t. That’s the one criticism I have of this book. It’s too much about Vidal’s personal POV regarding his sexuality which I’m guessing is old school faggism. You know, no anal, lots of hand-jobs, a few more blowjobs, no PDA and never, ever, go overboard with acting über-feminine. Or maybe not.

Myra Breckenridge (the novel) is something between a kind of Hollywood soap-opera and a very dark comedy run amok. But I think Vidal’s text says a lot more than portraying a man as a woman as a man. This book is a depiction of #Americant and its true face, including its true heart and how morally corrupt it all really is–simply because of the confusion caused by what is really amorality. Yeah, so much for family values, eh! Read in 2019, it’s still as sad and sorrowful and infantile, yet also inspiring, as it should be. If only #Americants (like Vidal) could be as unapologetically hi-larry-us as the Brits with, say, their Monty Python stuff. Or maybe not.

Rant on.

-T

PS Compared to the book, the movie really does suck–although it might squeeze out a laugh or two while gawking at Raquel Welch.

  1. I can’t remember exactly; I either saw it at my university cinema or on VHS during a college drunken stupor. Nomatter. ↩︎
  2. After constantly being reminded of the significance of GV’s teachings. ↩︎

A Thread Runs Through It

Screenshot 2019-03-24 at 11.42.23

Subtitle: Pseudo-Review of Loaded by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Metaphorically worst-writing (or is it analogically) I often use the idear of a thread, as in, a thread runs through it to explain something. I can also worst-say it thus: Without this thread the whole quilt will wilt. For worst-moi and the emotions I wield for my beloved & missed #Americant , the thread up to now that holds the whole $hit$how together hasn’t been so much the violence but instead… The Stupid. Indeed. THE LAND OF FREE TO BE STUPID. My beloved & missed #Americant is a quilt of stupid. As in: stupid thread runs through it. But on that note I digress.

Just finished reading the book Loaded by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. It’s a terrible book, don’t you know. Wait. I don’t mean terrible as in a terrible written book. No. In fact. It’s a totally well written book. When I say it’s terrible, what I mean is, it’s a terrible (terribly) printed paperback. For indeed, dear worst-reader, this is the third physical book in the last five books I’ve read (or so) that is real, aka physical book. Does this mean I’m steering more and more away from e-books of yore–which at one point I thought I would never yield? Not sure yet. The next book I read I plan to read on a screen. But which screen? Nomatter.

We were worst-discussing a thread runs through it, right? And poorly printed cheap paperbacks. Well get this. There is one thread that goes through the entire history that is the quilt of my beloved & missed united mistakes of #Americant –and this little poorly produced book addresses that thread brilliantly. Which means, we can tolerate a bit of poor/cheap printing. Or? Anywho.

Can you guess what the thread is I’m referring to here, dear worst-reader? Here’s a hint (spoiler alert): guns. Ok. Maybe it’s not a hint. Nomatter.

The author of Loaded manages, within around two hundred pages of a really cheap printed paperback–the latter third of those pages printed as though Gutenberg were on a heeling ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean–to locate that single thread of quilt-history and thereby lead the reader onward and onward and onward to some hard truth about #Americant . The only thing that’s missing is the other thread of the grand #Americant quilt according to expat worstwriter: STUPID. But let’s not get too far off worst-subject. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz ain’t worst-writer!

IMG_5801
TOC of Loaded almost summarises the #Americant history of violence galore.

I’ve always been a skeptic when it comes to the idear that #Americant was built on slavery. I mean, obviously, slave labour is part of the founding of the grand greed $hit$how. But the realty is, that part of history was perpetrated by Europeans–not Americans. At least not Americans as we/the world knows them since, say, the 1950s–which is what I consider to be the America the world knows today. Indeed. And so. It was the Dutch, the Belgians and of course the British that gave the world mass exploitative labour that enabled the building of… new & improved Egyptian Pharaohs. Even those numb-nut colonists, aka George Washington & Co. (new Pharaoh #1) were more European than what would eventually become gun totting hamburger slobs all on the verge of killing not just his/her neighbour but the whole $hit$how of slobs. In other worst-words, don’t you know, #Americant wasn’t built on hard work, ingenuity, industry, etc. No. It is a place of exploitation, sexual repression (which is a conduit to further exploitation and violence) and the propagation of ignorance in order to have a system of wealth creation for the few and far between, i.e. the new & improved Pharaohs. Because of its shear size and economic magnitude, though, it’s easy to avoid facing the reality of what a $hit$how things have become. And so the European slave makers became #Americant . THE LAND OF FREE TO BE STUPID.

Although Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz would have you believe it was all about guns, there is something she misses in her story. But that’s neither here nor there. For worst-writer would only counter her with this idear: No, Madame Dunbar-Ortiz, it was not built on guns (violence) but instead on STUPID. Then again, Madame, you might be right if you focused on the only way to control STUPID is with the proliferation of guns in order that STUPID may cull itself.

But. Once again. I’m probably off subject.

This is a great book for anyone wanting some word-ammunition on how to combat a gun-nut when faced at a bar, a turkey shoot or family Thanksgiving dinner. It is not a book that will you help survive a mass shooting, though. It’s also a great read if you want to follow a single thread that has run through the entirety of #Americant history–but forgetting a few other threads. It is not a book that will help anyone figure out how to change things–which can only be done if/when someone addresses all the STUPID.

Good luck suckers.

Rant on.

-T

More Greek Mythology Galore To Me

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Subtitle: Or at least we now know where all the crazy comes from.

While approaching the end of Mythos by Stephen Fry, I was happy (relieved?) he threw this in at the end of his retelling the story of Narcissus. Take special notice of the cynical or sarcastic asterisk.

Narcissistic personality disorder and echolalia (the apparently mindless repetition of what is said) are both classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which medically and legally defines mental illnesses. Narcissistic personality disorder, much talked about these days, is marked by vanity, self-importance, a grandiose hunger for admiration, acclaim and applause, and above all an obsession with self-image. The feelings of others are railroaded and stampeded, while such considerations as honesty, truthfulness or integrity are blithely disregarded. Bragging, boasting and delusional exaggeration are common signs. Criticism or belittlement is intolerable and can provoke aggressive and explosively strange behaviour.*

Perhaps narcissism is best defined as a need to look on other people as mirrored surfaces who satisfy us only when they reflect back a loving or admiring image of ourselves. When we look into another’s eyes, in other words, we are not looking to see who they are, but how we are reflected in their eyes. By this definition, which of us can honestly disown our share of narcissism?

*No one we know, of course…

-Stephen Fry – Mythos, from the chapter Echo and Narcissus, The Gods Take Pity

Once this book started to veer towards mortals and their stories–as opposed to the stories of just The Gods–I started to get bored. Not that Fry’s writing is boring, don’t you know. Of course, I probably don’t understand most of his wry British humour anywho. No. Indeed. Yet even though Fry’s writing is fantastic, there is a level of boredom and monotony when it comes to the endeavours of mortals and their being sucker subjects of The Gods.

Note: I’ve read these Fry Greek retelling books out of order. Here my worst-thoughts on his second book, which I read first. Speaking of which. I liked Fry’s Heroes more than Mythos. Reason? Heroes felt more like story telling whereas Mythos feels more like a textbook that tries to also be entertaining. The good news, though, is that Mythos also feels more biblical and paternal. which might be good for my life-long endeavour to understand the origin of human-stupidity. Where Heroes entertains, Mythos informs. And that’s a good thing, right? But I’m not referring to information about Greek mythology. There’s something else at play here. At least in my worst-mind there is.

I’ve always been curious about the stories that gave way to that which has steered the world for that past two thousand to twenty-five hundred years. I’m worst-writing, of course, about human-stupidity galore aka religion. In my limited and redneck reading of and about religion, the thing that’s always been clear is that it really is nothing but a story told over and over and over and… Indeed. It is a story that people want/need to believe–and never question. Once you get people hooked on that, you got ’em! That’s where politics and religion mix, right? That’s their secret, right? Hence the world we live in today. With that in mind, though, what came before The Story?

Fry in no way, shape or form answers my worst-question. And I probably shouldn’t expect an answer from him–at least not in these books. But his writing does motivate me to think anew as he has become quite the conduit to writings I’ve previously failed to comprehend. For example. Humanity went from polytheism to monotheism thousands of years ago. And I can only imagine that the transition was bloody and horrific–but it is all part of a true story that can be retrieved from stories told over and over and over, etc. For example. The story of religion. In this story we know that monotheism replaced polytheism. But what was before polytheism? I mean, could there have been a time where man didn’t rely on irrational thought to deal with his reality? If so where is the story about that? I know. I know. I’m batting at the wind.

The thing I’m gonna take away from reading these two books by Stephen Fry is this: Greek mythology and Christianity are the same joke told by the same joke maker that humanity fails to laugh at enough so that we can wake up from stupid-time. For some that might be exciting. You know, on account you can actually comprehend the classics. For others, it’s a turn-off on account they could give a hoot if all the classics once again conveniently burn away in Alexandria. But since I just recently found out what the term “bottoming” means, I think I’m making progress in my quest to understand life, the universe and why men want to stick their dicks in anything that moves.

So. Yea. That’s what I got out Mythos. The Greek Gods, especially the main-god Zeus, really did a number by sticking his dick in anything and everything that moved. How convenient that it only took a thousand years or so to reign in men trying to be their own little Zeus, hence the advent of prudery aka Christianity, of which Jesus Christ must have been well aware–since most of his life was probably spent in Alexandria, Egypt. Is there a coincidence here? Irony? I mean, isn’t Alexandria where the whole Greed world kinda ended? You know, and then all that Roman shit stepped in until monotheism could finally get a hold on everything? Oh. What the hell do I know? And so…

Good luck with loving the story of your faith fiction that tells the lie fo the mind of your bitter-sweet nothingness prudery that dates back to something like… three to five thousand B.C. where dicks reigned supreme on account they could be stuck anywhere and in anything. But on that note, I do die-gress.

Rant and read on.

-T

Everything Greek Mythology Galore

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Alternative title to this worst-post: How Stephen Fry read it all so I could finally cheat-it-all and thereby get a grip on some seriously ancient literature stuff. Thank you Stephen!

Question: Were you there, dear worst-edumacated-reader? You know. Were you there… while you was in college? Or was I the only one fiddling around with my girl’s button-downs (while in college) and thinking I was gonna get me some edumacation? Seriously. Was I the only one drinking too much at the local pub after every $hitbag tutor session from you-know-who professor that must have been so much like just another Harvey Weinstein? And after it was all said & drunk… Was I the only one trying to pay attention to whatever ENG201 or LIT301 class at University of… How To Fill The World With $hitbags?

Yeah. I’m sure you were there. In your college. Or is there another way to read worst-writer dot com?

But here’s a question for all my worst-readers: While attending so-called higher education in order to make a buck or three in a future of no-fate, did you ever ask yourself this: was it really your intention to become just another college grad $hitbag automaton that would steer the world to where it is today? Or did you have something else in mind?

Indeed. And enough with worst-writer’s non-sense about how the edumacated have ruined everything for the rest of us by thinking/assuming they learned something/anything during those years of post-adolescence put on hold. Then again, I’m dreary at times, if not inebriated, when I think of those days gone, days long gone, where I had my way with that one girl’s button-downs who was really my everything–and she got away. And on that note, I do die-gress.

Although I had hoped college would be different than high school, not unlike Barry-O’s presidency so many years later, I was wrong. The only difference between high school and college in my beloved & missed #Americant–you know, the place that has given way to Stupid-Rule (as opposed to the lie of Democracy)–is that in college, as they say, you are of-age. That is, you don’t have to worry about parenting anymore by erstatz-parents, aka teachers and school authoritarians. You also don’t have to worry about $hitbag siblings or dirty uncles who do funny things with fingers in your body parts, etc. In college the only thing you have to worry about is the police–and their being the final score in raising you to know who’s boss in this world of how little freedom you really have. Of course, there’s another form of authority you have to deal with post high school $hitbaggery. In other worst-words…

I quickly realised what it is like to be part of the lower middle classes once I got to college. College forced me to really get to know my poverty. You know, as in, the financial police are dictators of behaviour as you starve for a few nights in order to afford being able to purchase reading material so that you can listen and adhere to even more dictates of some $hitbag tenured professor who would rather be fiddling with your girl’s button-downs. Wait. In other worst-words…

I remember reading Oedipus Rex in college and having somewhat of a good time with it–because, other than a good time in #Americant, there is nothing else to do in college. That is, even though I had already read Oedipus Rex, whereas most of my colleagues read CliffNotes of it, I decided to turn my knowledge of the play into an attack on that $hitbag tenured professor–who thought he owned me. In fact, I still have the used paperback version of the play that I bought for a previous class and was subsequently scolded by the $hitbag tenured professor for trying to save money thereby not buying the recommended book for his class–which would have cost three or four times more that what I could afford. While professor $hitbag scolded me and said that I wasn’t playing along in his $hitshow and that would result in my final grade, I proceeded with a written and oral argument about the illegitimacy of Oedipus Rex being a king because he, ultimately, he is not part of a kingly bloodline. And since I knew my professor was a semi-professional priest, I proceeded in making a Jesus vs. Oedipus comparison that would rock his world. I argued, in line with Greek mythology, that Jocasta was nothing but yet another tainted and über-angry woman–married to a tainted and über-angry man–and no one quite knew where the key to her chastity belt was. Unlike Jesus’ mother, though, everyone knew where her chastity belt was. I then threw in a few examples of ancient Demi-gods and how those Demi-gods were nothing more than the result of war-torn booty-calls–especially booty-calls from the likes of Zeus & Co., who all have the eternal keys to not just war-torn losing side females, but also their tainted chastity belts. And so… Like all Greek mythology, the entirety of Christianity is a narrative for suckers and blind believers and/or those unwilling to not only question EVERYTHING but to even think critically about answers found or avoided by questioning EVERYTHING. And so… I really pissed off that tenured $hitbag professor with my pseudo comparison that was also a bloated $hit on his religious beliefs. You know, he was a devout evangelical #Americant $hitbag who couldn’t keep his lying eyes off my girlfriend’s button-downs on account his wife was probably more frigid than Zeus’ ice-cock. So at the end of my oral argument I said something akin to Oedipus shouldn’t even be studied anymore on account it does the same damage to unquestioning minds that the fcuking bible does. But enough of my sentimentalising about how much I hated having been edumacated in #Americant.

After five or so years of struggling with tenured $hitbag professors who never taught me a thing, I finally gave up on college. Degree-less and wanton of something other than becoming just another automaton, I swore then and there that there were two things that I would never trust for the rests of my life. The first is systematic and collective edumacation. I had attended three colleges in my beloved & missed #Americant. I attended a fourth college in #Eurowasteland. Considering that college is a stepping stone (or is it step-ladder?) to get anywhere in life in the past thirty to fifty years, it’s no wonder that the world is so fcuked up. I mean, can you believe it, dear worst-reader? Look at all those college grads! Look at all those higher-edumacated dunces running corporations, governments, the media. Even President Stupid, über-$hitbag #Trump himself, proudly claims that he is edumacated from an elite and privileged class of… University of Free to be Stupid. Yeah, just look at what school can do. But here’s the real-sad thing about my days trying to get some knowledge on.

  1. All I wanted was to learn and I wasn’t allowed to do so because I’m actually poor.
  2. I wanted, potentially, possibly, to become a teacher because, while failing in college, I did realise that I loved the interaction of teaching and learning–and I wanted to be a teacher that wasn’t a $hitbag.
  3. Even though, for all practical purposes in the game of getting by in life, I learned nothing from either high school or college and to this day, there is something seriously wrong with that.

I know. I know. Perhaps I’m a bit idealising that whole learn(ing)-thing. Considering the meritless situation the world is in right, learning might not be all it is cracked up to be. Still. Every few weeks or so, I yearn to get a book in my hands–as it’s been my sole source of learning for the past thirty or so years. Heck, I’m even so far & wide with reading, I yearn to download another book on my iPad if I go a few weeks without reading something–even if there appears to be nothing out to read. Yeah. Ain’t nothing wrong with reading books on hand-held computers out boredom. Or? Nomatter.

The other day I came across a book that I just had to give a try. After reading a few sample pages of it (electronically) and then seeing that purchasing the paperback version was cheaper than the electronic version, guess what? I bought Stephen Fry’s “Heroes”–in real book form. As in… I bought a physical book. As soon as it arrived, though, it sat on my coffee table for about a week before I picked it up to actually read it. Reason? It’s the first time I ordered a physical book in two or three years. It took time for the whole idear of having purchased a real book to settle in. I actually swore way-way back that I was done with physical books. So. When a real book arrived with snail-mail, I kept staring at it while it rested on my coffee table. It’s actually real, I thought to myself. I mean, don’t get me wrong, dear worst-reader. In 2018 I bought new bookshelves so my better-half and I could finally combine all our physical reading material in one place. You know, a bookshelf for decorative and sentimental reasons. Our own little library, if you will. So I didn’t stop buying real books because I have something against them. No. It’s just that…

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Our physical/real library!

Once I started reading Fry’s brilliant re-write of Greek mythology, I couldn’t stop. Reason? From beginning to end, I can’t recall ever reading something so familiar but, at the same time, reading something so new. In fact, I killed the over four hundred pages of this book in three days. Just before worst-writing this worst-post, I re-read the chapter on Bellerophon, too. So get this…

I did not know anything about Bellerophon. Of course, I knew about Pegasus. I even had a vague recollection of Pegasus’ birth out of the neck of Medusa. But Bellerophon? Whaaaaaaa? And Fry doesn’t stop there teaching anyone willing everything that need be known about Greek mythology. I did not know that Heracles freed Prometheus from that whole side-of-mountain thing during one of his labours where a bird eats his liver every day. Whaaaaaaa? And then there’s Medea. Wow. What a witch-chick that one was, eh! Anywho.

Fry really nails it with this book. If anyone is interested in a concise and precise cliff-note-like, yet beautifully narrated summary of everything Greek mythology, this is the book. What a joy.

Rant and read on.

-T

PS Although out of order, reading Heroes first, has lead to reading Mythos next, which is Fry’s first book of the two. Yeah, out of order is fine.

Books To Read Delivered Biggly

Source: worstwriter iPhone 6s still learning to take pictures

Just a little surprised at the size of the packaging for a single paperback. It also took several weeks to get here even though it was sent from a book store in Engaland. Then again, if my expectations of this read turn out to be warranted, how it got here doesn’t matter. 

Rant (and read) on. 

-T

Sizing Up Your Read

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This pic is a screenshot

While e-book shopping the other morning I couldn’t help but notice this image. Why in the world does Bezos & Co. think it necessary to provide a size-comparison of a friggin book as part of their tech-enormity galore? Then again, considering that this corpo-giant is what it is because, well, at this state (iteration) of capitalism run-amok, the day of the scavengers has arrived. So. I guess. Sizing up books seems as good a tech-idear as any.

Rant on.

-T

Narrative Non Fiction And Too Many Unnecessary Words

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Actually I’m not done with it yet. In fact, after about half-way through it, I put it down last week and have been reluctant to return to it. Reason? I know most of the history already. What I was hoping for, though, was that Tom Holland would consolidate a bit. You know, cliff-note the history but then go crazy with some interesting narrative. For it is, dear worst-reader, a narrative non fiction book. Boy, were my hopes misgiven. That worst-said, Holland is not a bad writer, but he does write a lot–where perhaps a little less would be just as good. Does he have to fill pages? Is there a publisher out there wanting to print more? It doesn’t matter. History is history. With that in mind, I enjoyed reading Caesar’s Civil War more. And so…

Currently reading the book Rubicon. It’s a celebrated narrative non-fiction of the rise and fall of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. That’s right, dear worst-reader. They were two different things. But, as previously mentioned, I’m not as tickled with the book as I had hoped to be. Holland’s writing does not pull me in. Does it push me away? I’ll hold off on that question for now. Of course, this book did make my reading list a few years back after reading about it. And now I’m battling through it. So let me just worst-write a few thoughts based on what I’ve read so far–in case it joins my list of I give up books.

Even though the author is British, I get the sense that through his “narration” he is chronicling the fall of today’s Western empire–with my beloved & missed #Americant in mind. Considering that one of the reasons I chose this book from my to-read list now is the fact that #Trumpism and his lust for authoritarianism is running amok, I’ve always wanted to know why it is that so many many many people can fall for something as stupid as, well, believing and then electing… a President Stupid. I mean, I get it that there is a faux-newz channel in the united mistakes of #Americant. I also get it that Rush Limbaugh has played a major role in corrupting already vulnerable half-baked minds. In fact, the whole right-wing narrative that has corrupted practically everything in #Americant, has never been more obvious. Yet, even after Ronald Reagan, after what one side of politics in the US has done (I am NOT a both-siderist!), I’ve always believed that more than a few people by now should wake up to reality and do the simple task of not voting for the shit side all the time. As usual, I am wrong and I am probably off subject.

The only thing that stands out after reading half of Rubicon is the relationship between the ruling elites and the willing slaves that supported those elites through both the Republic and the Empire of Ancient Rome. But then again, if you’ll allow this tangent, I am obsessed with hating not just President Stupid (the perfect imbecilic example of a 20th century wannabe emperor) but the minions (modern slaves?) that put him there–just like those idiots of Rome that ransacked the world in the name of greed, lust, hoarding, spite and bigotry, etc. Yeah, history sounds familiar, don’t it?

I guess there’s no point in reading a book that tells me neither anything new or anything original about ancient Rome. But for those who know nothing of it, this book might be a great place to start. Who knows, I might finish it eventually out of sheer boredom and that unwillingness to put Caesar’s dagger through my left temple.

Rant on.

T

Feminism, Distorted Reality And Friedrich Schiller

Jungfrau von Orleans cover

Subtitle: Enamoured after reading Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orleans… In German!

Note about book cover above. This is my first read of a Reclam e-book. I bought this on iBooks (2,49€) and am very pleased with how the publisher has taken the time to produce it, align it, make a joy to read on a screen. I have to admit, dear worst-reader, there’s probably no turning back for me. Although I’ll enjoy my physical book collection for the rest of my life, by slowly  and surely re-reading from it, here, it doesn’t look like I’m gonna miss buying real books anytime soon.

Onward worst-ho.

It’s been a long time, dear worst-reader. Probably waaaay too long. So I finally broke down the other day after reading this quote from The Hitch (Christopher Hitchens) and jumped on the good foot and bought me the Reclam e-book version of (one of) Schiller’s Meisterwerks. The English title of this book is: The Maid of Orleans. Although I recall dabbling in it (for quotes) years ago in its original German, I was never able to get through much of Schiller’s writing. What a shame, eh? So let me just put this out there, dear worst-reader.

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Part of my book collection includes these Reclams. Love them.

Now that I’ve finally read it in its original German, I’m totally enamoured with this play. In fact, the other night it almost had me in tears. But it wasn’t what I was reading that caused the tears. It was the fact that I was reading Schiller’s German. Yeah, baby. I was getting it. I was understanding it. I was, in fact, enjoying it so much, emotion began to over-take me. Every sentence, every stage direction, every scene and every act put me in fifteenth century France–while reading poetic German. Yeah, baby. This story became a piece of work that I didn’t want to finish. That is, I didn’t want it to end. And so. I skipped the last sentence of the final scene. That’s how I do it, don’t you know. That’s how I stay in a piece work that I never want to end. Also, since I’m getting the hang of reading these ebooks, especially on my ageing iPad Air, I’m really loving how I can so easily access my notes or highlighted text. Wait. Did I mention how flabbergasted I am with this play?

Joan of Arc according to worst-writer.

I’ve always been fascinated with story of Joan of Arc. Reason? Of all the things the Universal (Catholic) Church can do, it’s really, really good at twisting ancient stories, sewing mystery into historic events, and just flat out making $hit up in order to propagate an agenda. The story of Joan of Arc, which I believe to have been a real person, was one of its best über-lies. The only problem is, if the Church is so good at lying or making $hit up, what should one believe if one is interested in the truth? The wiki link above does provide a great deal of info regarding the story of Joan of Arc, including links to revisionist theories. But for worst-moi, something is missing.

Here a short list of what I consider acceptable worst-writer story-lines that could contain the truth about Joan of Arc:

  • The standard, church version (see link above). This is the canonised version of Joan of Arc where she’s a farm girl, potentially from a rich farming father, perhaps even somehow connected to royal blood, but through contact with God, she heeds the call to not just save France from England but also to unite long warring French tribes. In the end she is burned at the stake.
  • The conspiracy-theory. Until reading Schiller this was my favourite Joan of Arc theory. But be warned, it’s kinda out there! In it Joan was part of what remained of the royal blood of the Cathars. The Universal Church committed genocide against the Cathars between the eleventh and fourteenth century. Very few Cathars remained by the end of the fourteenth century. Of those who remained, they gained power and wealth in the chaos of the Hundred Years’ War. In fact, this theory goes so far as to claim Joan was one of the last members of the bloodline of Jesus Christ. JC, btw, is one of the founders of the Cathars as he wasn’t crucified but instead made his way to the coast of France… With his wife and family! I kinda dig the whole idear of the JC bloodline-theory because it fits well with the evil and violence committed by the Church in order to propagate their sick, authoritarian, patriarchal agenda including krapp like the inquisition, crusades, Galileo, etc. But enough of my nonsense, eh.
  • I finally have a new favourite version of Joan of Arc? Way to bring it on Fred Schiller!

The thing that really threw me for a loop in Schiller’s Virgin of Orleans (literal translation of the German title), is its feminism. Not well read in literature of the era, I’m curious if there is any other work from that era where females play such a prominent role–especially when it’s all about war. And not just any war but a war that French men couldn’t win. Indeed. Bring on the Feminines, baby.

The three feminists in the story are Joan, Isabeau (mother of the king) and Sorel (the kings wife). These chicks do some serious conniving. And that’s kinda cool. Also. Unlike the canonised version of the story, where Joan is arrested and tried for witchcraft, cross-dressing, and/or back-talking stupid, ugly white men–all perfect accusations by church authoritarian patriarchal mongers–Schiller instead focuses on her abilities as a warrior and a leader of men. He also makes it pretty clear how men either follow her or fear her. She is also a stedfast believer in God that in no way contradicts the dogma of the time. This leads to her fighting off charges of heresy (by cross-dressing?) but then she dies in battle thereby freeing France from the Engelländer. (Ain’t that a cool way to write it? Schiller, you da man!)

But here’s the real question that Schiller has got me asking: why would he write/create this version of an already established, canonised story at the beginning of the nineteenth century? Would it not have been more dramatic to have Joan burned at the stake? Would it not have been more titillating to portray her as a cross-dresser? Yet in Schiller’s life-time, this was his most popular play. Did his audience like this version better than the Church’s version?

Yeah. The greatest creator/perpetrator of reality distortion fields has to be religion. So much truth is out there and so much of it distorted. Why is that? Nomatter. Schiller definitely helped me sift through it (distortion) a bit more.

-Rant on

T

Everything Is A Joke Until It Isn’t

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Subtitle: Thoughts on re-read of Milan Kundera’s The Joke (the 1982 English translation)

“Optimism is the opium of the people! A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky!” -from The Joke by Milan Kundera

According to Ludvik the quote above is from a postcard he sent to woman of interest as a joke. I suppose when written to a person while in the midst of love-lust confusion and during the striving days of the Soviet Unions’ new-beginnings in early 1960s Czechoslovakia, Milan Kundera considers the twisting of Marx’s Religion is the opium of the people more than just a joke. But what can one do if/when the thing you are really joking about is a system that depends on the control of not just words written but also of words thought?

As I ride it gayly and march ambiguously into the twilight of western democracy’s funny-train (the #Trump-era), I’m often wondering if I’ll see the day when the same type of total control (totalitarianism) that Kundera deals with, I’ll also have to deal with. Considering how things have turned out since 1991 and the fall of the Soviet Union, I also wonder if the whole socialist experiment was just one big joke played on humanity by some dirtbag she-goddess with a grudge–that stems back tens of thousands of years because of how males grabbed females by the HAIR and dragged them into caves. You know, as in, grab ’em by the… But I digress.

“You used to say that socialism sprouted from the soil of European rationalism and skepticism, a soil both nonreligious and anti-religious, and that it is otherwise inconceivable. But can you seriously maintain that it is impossible to build a socialist society without faith in the supremacy of matter? Do you really think that people who believe in God are incapable of nationalising factories?” -from The Joke by Milan Kundera

Then again, of the political and economic systems alive & kicking in the world today, there really is only one that has past the test of (recent) time. If you’re thinking Capitalism is that system, dear worst-reader, you’d better think again. Socialism is kicking butt right now. From both sides of China’s Great Wall to Vladimir Putin’s total ownership of Red Square to the various interpretations of Socialism in the vastness of #Eurowasteland’s epic confusion, Socialism is way ahead of #Americant… Sorry. Way ahead of Capitalism.

“‘As Communists we are responsible for everything that is going on here.’ I nearly laughed in his face. Responsibility was unthinkable without freedom, I told him. He said he felt free enough to act like a Communist and that he had to prove, would prove himself a Communist. His jaw trembled as he spoke. Today, years later, I can still remember it clearly, but now I realise that Alexej was not much more than twenty at the time, a child, an adolescent, and his destiny hung on him like the clothes of a giant on a little boy.” -from The Joke by Milan Kundera

In worst-short, Capitalism in its current iteration is nothing but a reimagining of Feudalism. Feudalism was a system of lords and serfs, including inbred monarchs. What lead to Feudalism was Slavery. Slavery had the longest run of the three. Slavery goes back to Egypt, don’t you know. It was also used in Ancient Greece, Rome and, of course, it was used to build my beloved & missed #Americant. But then $hit started to hit the fan as that whole Enlightenment thing took hold after the 16th century. Btw, I will always admire the French for one-upping the US when it comes to social and political revolutions derived out of human oppression. Indeed. The French nailed it. (Well, they nailed it in the revolution but fcuked it up in the counter-revolution.)

“Rationalist skepticism has been eating away at Christianity for two millennia now. Eating away at it without destroying it. But Communist theory, its own creation, it will destroy within a few decades.” -from The Joke by Milan Kundera

The thing to keep in mind when worst-writer says that Socialism is currently outlasting, winning, kicking the a$$ of capitalism, is the state of things in the strongest Capitalist strongholds, the US and the UK. Is it any concern to anyone how small these remaining Capitalist nation-states are? Or should one consider how large China is? So even if my claim here is kinda out of whack, the fact remains, China is on the verge of over taking #Americant as the largest economy in the world–and it is far from being a Capitalist nation. Will we someday soon consider Capitalist nations and their extreme isolation a joke? Think about that worst-thought.

“Nobody liked people who relied on pull.” -from The Joke by Milan Kundera

It’s all a joke. Seriously. The state of things in the Capitalist West is a fcuking joke and it can only be comparable to the fcuking joke of the former Soviet Union (and its failure) and to the success of China along with a few places in #Eurowasteland. (I’ve always said that Germany is the last Communist State in the West.) And the thing about a joke is sometimes you’re in on it and other times it’s in on you. I mean, come on. Crooked, lock-her-up #Hillary won something like four million more votes than #Trump and she wouldn’t have done much to counter the chilling effects of the post FDR years where Capitalism has pretty much run amok. Is that not a joke? The Capitalist democracy joke? Is the manipulation of #Americant’s electoral college combined with bailing out banks that act like loan sharks the joke teller? Jokes galore, dear worst-reader. An audience of joke lovers.

Milan Kundera’s idear of the perfect joke: Helena, one of Ludvik’s lovers, attempts suicide by stealing pills from a young man. It turns out the pills are laxatives hidden in a prescription jar of pain killers. While in a panic and trying to save her, she is found hysterical sitting on toilet.

The Joke was Kundera’s first book. Although I started reading it years ago, I never got around to finishing it. Having read three others (Laughable Loves, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Immortality), I knew that I would eventually get around to this one again as it waited patiently for me in my Kundera collection. After picking it up the other day and having a first sitting with it, I realised that I had actually read more than I initially remembered. All the markings, underlines, etc., that I had made so many years ago woke my memory of having read through it one night while gloriously penetrating a bimbo I met in Amsterdam. Yeah, Dankyavel was her name. I would fcuk her for a bit and while in my refractory period I’d read from this book. We’d then fcuk some more and with each subsequent fcuk I’d need a longer refractory period where I could read more. Hence I feel safe considering this a re-read. Btw, the only thing I miss from youth is cumming in or on or around a woman smarter than me ten times a day.

“Pray tell, dear friend, Why doth this honest groom desire to take this honest maid to wife? Is’t for the flower or the fruit?” -from The Joke by Milan Kundera

Most of The Joke is a joy to read. But I can understand why some might consider Kundera’s narrative style a bit cumbersome. (At least that’s what my wife says.) To me, Kundera is an author that has unlimited creative prowess, he maintains a thread that permeates all his work (which I really dig), and his word sculpting never ceases to amaze. But the thing that always brings me back to Kundera–let’s say as a reference source, especially in times of trouble where Mother Mary doesn’t come to me–is the fact that I have always been touched by his exasperations regarding Stalinism. Along with Vaclav Havel, Kundera introduced me to a new reality of political thought. The fact that Kundera is able to combine (his) musings about love, passion and desire from the POV of political oppression, makes his work even more interesting. (Btw, that’s the thread that permeates.)

When I first started reading Kundera, back in the early 90s, capitalist and/or economic oppression hadn’t shown its #Trump face yet. In other words, Reaganomics hadn’t made the full turn to ugly (Deplorables) yet. The Soviet Union was in free-fall but the former oppressed were suddenly free to buy jeans, Marlboro reds, travel, etc. Yet the whole time I couldn’t help but feel that the oppression of the Soviet Union wasn’t isolated nor was it bound by politics. Oppression is oppression, eh. As we all now know, the only thing the peoples of the Soviet Union really wanted was jeans, Marlboro reds and…. blah, blah, blah. What was once authoritarian oppression has now become economic oppression–the difference between the two being jeans, Marlboro reds, blah, blah, blah.

My first read of Kundera was The Unbearable Lightness of Being and it was like being struck by lightening. From the get-go, Tomas became my secret hero. His heroism, btw, has nothing to do with his fight against the Soviet-Man. No. Tomas was about love and the conquest of love and then eventually losing yourself in love. Tomas, to me, was the kind of lover I sincerely wanted to be. Was I ever able to find my Tereza or my Sabina? Of course not–although I did enjoy trying (to find her.) But until the power, the anger and the need to fcuk finally subsided (resulting in the true cute ugliness of feminine payback aka marriage), all I ever wanted was to fcuk like Tomas. The real beauty of Kundera’s The Joke is that Ludvik is Tomas’ predecessor, if not Tomas’ character in spirit. It’s almost like reading Tomas in a beta version.

“Yes, suddenly I saw it all clearly: most people willingly deceive themselves with a doubly false faith; they believe in eternal memory (of men, things, deeds, peoples) and in rectification (of deeds, errors, sins, injustice). Both are sham. The truth lies at the opposite end of the scale: everything will be forgotten and nothing will be rectified. All rectification (both vengeance and forgiveness) will be taken over by oblivion. No one will rectify wrongs; all wrongs will be forgotten.” -from The Joke, Milan Kundera

Kundera’s The Joke is really one big joke. It’s brilliant!

-Rant on

T

Links that motivated this post:
– Opium of the people | Wiki

Uncode Yourself – Before It’s Too Late

capitalism and freedom friedman

Subtitle 1: It’s Too Late!

Subtitle 2: Thoughts on re-read of Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom.

“The Liberal conceives of men as imperfect beings. He regards the problem of social organisation to be as much a negative problem of preventing “bad” people from doing harm as of enabling “good” people to do good; and, of course, “bad” and “good” people may be the same people, depending on who is judging them.” -Milton Friedman

Sound familiar, dear worst-reader? Sound anything like what President Stupid said when trying to explain there are good and bad people on both sides of Charlottesville, VA, 2017? With that in mind, is it time to wake up to the embedded code that makes up this/your sucker>fool #MAGA again again again, etc.?

The code has got you.

On the one hand, some refer to the code as the bubble. Others may call it the narative. Then there’s drinking the kool-aide. Let’s stick with bubble, shall we.

“Dude, you’re stuck in a bubble and that’s why you can’t understand what I’m fcuking trying to tell you.”

Of course, the issue being discussed is that of politics. Witnessing a discussion in America with Americans about politics is indeed a sight to behold. But who doesn’t like watching monkeys alternate their thumbs between ass to mouth? And speaking of monkeys, politics and the krapp #Americant has gotten itself into. Here a few random thoughts as to how it got this way.

  • Can you pay off all your debt in thirty days, two months, less than six months?
  • How are those multiple mortgages that you took out; think you bought low, got some great fictional interest rates; and now no one can pay rent to feed that low interest?
  • Worried about seeing a doctor, dentist, or even calling an ambulance?
  • Finance a car for seven years lately, sucker? Seriously. Seven year car financing. Are cars made to last that long?
  • How does it feel to be part of the minority-rule supporting the 1% because you’re too fcuking stupid to have thought about this over the past thirty years?
  • And let’s not even talk about credit cards, student loans, etc.

But there’s more code.

“On the one hand, if the minority feels strongly about the issue involved, even a bare majority will not do. Few of us would be willing to have issues of free speech, for example, decided by a bare majority.” -M. Friedman

“That’s a demon I will take down, or I’ll die trying. So that’s it. It’s going to happen, we’re going to walk out in the square, politically, at high noon, and he’s going to find out whether he makes a move man, make the move first, and then it’s going to happen. It’s not a joke. It’s not a game. It’s the real world. Politically. You’re going to get it, or I’m going to die trying, bitch. Get ready. We’re going to bang heads. We’re going to bang heads.” -Alex Jones about Robert Mueller (who is investigating President Stupid for being stupid)

What is your favourite code? I know the favourite code of certain types of stupid, ugly white people. And I assure it has nothing to do with an app for your phone. But let’s not get too complicated. Here an example of some very simple non-app code: unite the right rally. Why would a country need such a rally in 2017? Has the right been so convoluted/diluted over the years–you know, post 1865–that it has to unite (again)? If so, how does such a thing permeate through time & space of the American Dream (sarcasm off)? Indeed. What motivates these really, really ugly, stupid white people to do such a thing? That’s right. Code. The code of language, of gesture, of eye-contact, clothing, crocs. And so, after recently reading a brilliant book, I began to ask: what is this code?

Last night in an ill-motivated and drunken stupor I reached for my e-reader and immediately called up Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom. I started re-reading…

Chapter 2: The Role of Government in a Free Society

“The mere mention of royalties, copyrights, patent; shares of stock in corporations; riparian rights, and the like, may perhaps emphasise the role of generally accepted social rules in the very definition of property. It may suggest also that, in many cases, the existence of well specified and generally accepted definition of property is far more important than just what the definition is.” -M. Friedman

“That depends on what ‘is’ is.” -Bill Clinton

Yes. Re-reading Milton Friedman while suffering a kind of panic-attack, especially while sorrow-raging over a twenty-nine year old minimum wage airport worker stealing a commercial airplane, crashing it in a fit of suicide, and then listening to the Newz (The Media?) never ask once why a human being would resort to such a thing. Yeah, reason enough to re-read Friedman, eh. Then again, the thing that hit me is that there is something that connects all of this. What connects is not just all the (bad) Newz, don’t you know. But also all the blatant stupidity that has somehow given rise to THE CODE. Which begs the questions: Is the code emerging, showing its true face? If yes, what’s brought it out? Is it the sorrow-rage of mass suicide on a social and cultural and epidemic scale that no one wants to question? Does the code include the peripheral that goes beyond killing yourself by hi-jacking a commercial airline but also to take with you as much as you can–as the Vegas Shooter (2017) did? Have these people understood the code–a bit too well?

Who are the code writers?

Seriously. I always thought Milton Friedman was one scary motherf’er. The $hit he writes, man. All pure code. And how many people follow him? How many adore him? But it doesn’t stop there. I had no idear that he could be topped. I suppose, in a way, after reading extensive research about him, and now having discovered someone even worse, I’m afraid to go anywhere near a guy like James M. Buchanan. Is it because, maybe, like so many of my #Americant brethren, I’m worried something might turn me? You know, convert me, show me the light, redeem me in the confusion-hate of John the Baptist and his lead-tainted industrial river greed water? Reading one of these crackpots is enough, ain’t it? Please let it be enough. And although I will admit I am tempted to dabble in Hayek for posterity’s sake, please don’t let me go near the likes of James M. Buchanan. Aghast!

As stated, since reading Capitalism and Freedom during a Bali trip ca. 2006/7, and only being impressed with the first two chapters, although I did read the whole book, something tethered my thoughts back to it recently after opening the can of worms that is hate-economics e.g. Friedman & Co. And it’s all about how they write not what they write. Well, it’s also about what they write. Nomatter.

Code. Code. Code.

Code is what these crackpot, dogmatic, idealist, pseudo-economists use when they write books. (Ok. “pseudo” probably not applicable but I’ll keep it all the same.) And their books are nothing more than how-to guides on economic authoritarianism. That’s right. They really are writing how-to books for fascists. Remember, fascism is capitalisms answer to communism, per F.A. Hayek. Yes. These man produce easy guides (easy for the edumacated pawns of the fascist dear leader) about how to oppress people, nations, etc. using economic torture. And boy are they good at it. Friedman & Co., baby. They have been feeding the mind of greed-mongers for at least a century now. And look at the result.

Obviously, President Stupid is taking the code to new levels. Perhaps he’s even side-stepping convention in his use of the code. But make no mistake, dear worst-reader, he too is a code-monger. I mean, come on. At least Friedman can articulate a thought and make it intellectual–even if it is an evil thought. President Stupid does it on Twitter where he’s able to spew code to the redneck shitkickers at the base of the alt-right, right-wing, WWE, fly-over states, free t-shirts and hats make millions of minions vote. And that’s how you activate the electoral college, #Hillary.

Side note: The reason Twitter won’t cancel Alex Jones after Apple and other tech companies have, is because of #Trump. Think about it. Just look at the number of President Stupid followers. Then calculate how much it might cost in stock value if Twitter were to actually do the right thing. (Yeah, Twitter can’t afford it.)

But I digress.

Code Code Code.

“It is therefore clearly possible to have economic arrangements that are fundamentally capitalist and political arrangements that are not free.” -M. Friedman

Two words out of this last quote. Capital and Free. Milton Friedman’s book is titled “Capitalism and Freedom”. Perhaps, not unlike Einstein’s E=MC2, which is also a kind of code, Friedman has found a way to explain everything in the most simple terms. The only problem is that Einstein eventually came around to the destructive power of his code. Friedman died laughing about the suckers he turned to fools with his code. Indeed. Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom is ONLY about capitalist being free to do what ever the fcuk they want. And they do so via code:

Capital + Freedom = Freedom for Capitalists nomatter what the result.

Or maybe not.

Either way, good luck on your journey (#Americants) from being turned suckers to fools.

-Rant on

T

Pseudo Review – 2: How Deep Do The Unpeeled Layers Of Your Rotten Onion Go?

democracy in chains cover

Subtitle: “Democracy In Chains” By Nancy MacLean Goes Seriously Deep Into What Makes #Americant Stupider Not Greater.

She took me deeper, dear worst-reader. This historian, this professor-type person that writes books–and she can take you deep, too. That is, if you’re at all inclined to go deep. Especially the kind of deep that involves figuring out what made The Land of Free To Be Stupid. I mean, ain’t that where we’re at right now? Especially considering that such a claim is straight out of the worst-mouth of an expat–who jumped ship over twenty years ago on account he saw all this stupid coming? Then again, with the political situation in my beloved & missed #Americant–that I probably follow waaaaaay to much–I’d say we’re long past the old saying: going off the deep end. Yeah, we’re actually right there measuring how deep that deep-end goes as we fail-upwards and the ground can be seen below… I mean above. How’s the view for you?

I finished “Democracy in Chains” by Nancy MacLean the other day in the late morning. I’ve been telling myself that I need to let the book rest–as in, rest in my mind–a bit, especially considering I wrote this worst-post about it only two days ago. The thing is, two days ago, I couldn’t stop my typing fingers even though I was only half-way through the book. That’s what happens when you find a book that gets to your innards, eh, dear worst-reader? Indeed.

If you are at all into trying to figure out how something can get so fcuked up, especially politically and economically, MacLean has found a way to explain it to you. Of course, I’m always looking out for a good book to read. I’m specifically looking for a book that will get under my gander by teaching me a thing or three about this fcuked up world we’re all stuck with on account a bunch of greed-mongers run it. This book comes pretty close to doing just that. For example, who the fcuk is James M. Buchanan? Not even sure if I ever heard that he won the friggin Nobel Prize for economics. But before I get too much into all that, allow me to provide an analogy or two that might help you understand worst-writer and where I’m coming from.

Analogy 1 – Peel the onion

You know that old saying, don’t you dear worst-reader? But what does peeling the onion really mean? Well, for some, it’s about work. It’s also about slow work. Some even think it’s about how to get chicks. But let’s stick with work, shall we? You peel the onion and with every layer peeled you complete something. For worst-moi, Democracy in Chains, is the result of having completed a seriously cool onion peel. Layer after layer MacLean shows how the political right-wing of #Americant–and for you both-siderists out there, this really is a right-wing only problem–has a plan to fcuk you over all in the name of, to put it simply: old-money. Let me worst-write that again. Old money is fcuking you. And that’s not the best part about this book. The best part is that MacLean seems to have made a major discovery by…

  1. Peel a completely new onion
  2. With every layer peeled, blow worst-writer’s fcuking mind that kinda knew all this already. (Or maybe not.)

And so. If you want to understand what’s wrong with #Americant and how someone like #Trump can become President Stupid, have a look at what the right-wing has been doing since… Get this. The right-wing has been fcuking you since the fcuking civil fcuking war and they’ve been doing it like leeches, roaches, cockscukers, etc. But let me move on before I blow a gasket.

Analogy 2 – Inception, the movie

It’s been a while since watching the movie, so let me summarise it like this. (Spoiler Alert!) Leonardo DeCaprio is a kind of dream thief. Through some weird chemical and technical manipulation where two people are connected, a dream-state is induced between them. While in the dream-state Leonardo becomes part of the other persons dream–but they don’t know that. They just think he’s a character in their dream. The dreamer is then manipulated by Leonardo which leads to some form of criminal activity in the real world. And here’s the kicker about how I think this has something to do with what Nancy MacLean has done. Leonardo not only can go into one dream-state but he can also go deeper into a dream-state within a dream-state. You got that? I can’t remember how many levels of dreams he ultimately penetrates but he obviously goes pretty deep into various dream-states by the end of the movie.

If I understand MacLean correctly, #Americant republicans, libertarians, Neo-liberals and conservatives, for decades, have been working deep within the layers of the #Americant onion. With the help of Leonardo DeCaprio they’ve been peeling it away from within your dreams in order to screw you and…

Ok. Maybe not. At least forget the last DeCaprio reference. Let’s move on.

Up to now I really only thought republicanism had two levels. I thought these two levels pretty much controlled the whole show. One level is a particular form of economic ideology, you know, Milton Friedman & Co. The other, of course, is religious bat$hittery. You know, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, The 700 Club, weight-lifting, muscle-bound, gun-totting Jesus, etc. But I was wrong. Although the religious part is probably singular in its execution, there are multiple layers of economic ideology that have been stealing the show for decades. These multiple economic layers, though, are not just Keynesian or Austrian schools, among others. Instead there is something completely different going on here.

Seriously. If you thought things couldn’t get any worse because of $hitbags like Milton Friedman, think again. MacLean, in her book, reveals some pretty astonishing stuff about the players in the grand greed $hitshow–from a whole bunch of new layers (peeled away). For example. I had no idear someone other than Milton Friedman was part of what turned Chile, if not most of South America, into a bastion of old money Neo-feudal aristocracies–that right-wing extremists in #Americant adore. Another example. A rinky-dink college in the middle of Redneckville, Virginia, George Mason University, has played a huge role in some of the most dirty, rotten onion layers of republicanism. Seriously. Redneck school got one up on the infamous Chicago School (Milton Friedman)? Take that, Chicago!

If MacLean is right, the stuff she’s discovered in her research is not only scary, but people should probably start filling up their shelter-bunkers–cause it looks like the bat$hit greed-mongers have a long-term plan in place and they ain’t done yet. The upper middle-class schmucks should get on with filling their bunker’s first on account they ain’t part of the layer of republicanism that is doing all this–as they are beholden to the trickle down of the 1%. More on that in my worst-post about being ruled by the minority 30% here.) And, as I’ve worst-said before, the people that make up the #Americant political right-wing, especially the really, really rich and well-inherited dudes, if they can’t get their way with all their misconstrued economic ideology that is basically nothing but bigotry, greed and racism, they will fcuking burn the house down. And they are in pretty good position to do it, too. Speaking of…

Charles Koch

A name that has been creeping around the newz I read and listen to (podcast) for years. But to be honest, I’ve always thought he was just another lucky dude that inherited a krapp load of money from his father. According to the history of Koch Industries, since he inherited it, he’s done pretty well for himself. But has he done anything new, anything original? Of course not. Even though MacLean is very lenient about this man in her book and even praises him for having earned multiple academic credentials in whatever field of science or engineering from whatever bat$hit school, I haven’t fallen for any of that. This guy is nothing more than a second or third generation a$$hole that inherited inherited inherited–like so many others in #Americant. And because of his/her perverted, sexually repressed upbringing, mixed with Godzilla-like bigotry, he is nothing but a man who has never been able to face the fact that he’s never known an original thought. That’s how and only how his old inherited money has enabled him to “succeed”. If you can even call not having ever done anything original but instead buying other companies, bullying other business, blah, blah, blah, success. He and his ilk (very old money inheritors) hate the fact that the world is desperately trying to move on. Men like Koch would rather stop the world from turning. That, btw, is one of the main reasons why old-money is so ugly. Charles Koch, with the help of his favourite political ideology (Libertarianism)–that in its essence is nothing more than greed mongering galore–uses his wealth to manipulate politics for one thing and one thing only. For himself. The #Americant way!

James M. Buchanan

People like Charles Koch, as I said, are incapable of original thought. Therefore they need thinkers. But what do you do if the only people you can associate with (because of your innate prejudices) have even less original thinking than you? You find someone that doesn’t need original thinking. You find someone that can take unoriginal thought and dress it up in a suit and tie and a certain lapel flag-pin–and then sell it as something new. Enter a world full of pawns, academia and pawn-credentialed-academia. Seriously. I thought Milton Friedman was a jerk-off. But Nancy MacLean peeled that onion and found a jerk-off that tops Friedman.

James M. Buchanan, a man that should provide thinkers of this world enough ammunition to finally laugh-off the Nobel Prize–or at least reject it–turned out to be the perfect pawn bigoted a$$holes like Charles Koch could rely on. According to MacLean, Buchanan’s economic idears are perfect for despots of the modern age because they facilitate the writing of constitutions that almost literally put people in economic chains. Hence, the title of her book. And so, Buchanan was useful to Koch until the bitter end when eventually they had to break ranks due to, you guessed it, bigoted, rich-a$$hole infighting.

In worst-summary

Although I don’t want to spoil the book (or have I already), here’s what republicanism is up to according to Democracy in Chains: old money needs to be secured constitutionally–even more than it already is. That is, republicans–as they are guided by The Virginia School (Buchanan, Koch, etc.), the Chicago school and, of course, now #Trumpism, etc.–are in the process of making the system even more one sided and in favour of the rich and the privileged–and making all this akin to what things were like, lets say, between 1850 and 1913 (give or take a few decades). Btw, the term robber baron remind you of anything?

So there you have it. After reading this book I feel fulfilled and I’m happy–even though this book is at times utterly shocking. On the one hand, it has taught me something. On the other hand, I can go into the near future without questioning the contempt that burns inside me for everything #Americant, republican and conservative. Also, I am somewhat relieved that this book helps reassure me that the disease of both-siderism is nothing more than a layer in the right-wing onion. For real. #Americant is the way it is post 2016 presidential election because of republicans. And I think that’s cool. Reason? It makes me feel superior. It makes me feel tingly and giggly as I LMAO on this side of the Atlantic. It also reassures me that the choices I made in life, that were mostly because of the deep-seeded onion filth/rot I left so many years ago, was the right choice.

And boy do I miss America!

Good luck suckers.

-Rant on

T