People are acting like “misinformation” is some kind of uniquely modern plague. Come on. Societies have always been mis-, dis-, and mal-informed. Spoiler alert: it usually Comes From Within. And by that I don't mean MAGA, I mean Stanford. At the macro level, we’ve always had censors and masters of the larger narrative. Remember the old saw “history is written by the victors”? though I guess some of the losers are doing more of the writing lately. Meanwhile, at the micro level, all editorial decisions are arguably “misinformation”: cuts are made, words chosen. It’s called “making sense of shit” and has vanishingly little to do with RuSsIa or ChInA. Unless you live there, I guess.
Although the (mis)info game is an age-old one, it’s true the landscape has shifted and mutated in modern times. As the scale of communications increases exponentially (thanks, tech “innovators”!), vast rivers of money pour into the game c/o the ever-expanding luxury greed blob. We now have a crisis of quantity and quality. The thing is ,who trusts the war machine—much less tech companies run by IPA chads and/or their pet algos—to perform quality or quantity control?
At the dawn of the internet, elite technocrati like Al Gore used to get all jizzy about the “information superhighway.” Like it was going to free us all. Whereas now it’s burying us all…in freedom, I guess. And yet, my dude, a “superhighway” suggests a shared sense of order; clearly defined rules of law; a collective direction for all; and so on. I’d like to offer up a different metaphor. How about: “information superdouchenozzle expressway to your skull”? No? How about “trillion-armed social engineering control infrastructure”?
Hark! Hear Ye Thee Infinite Cacophony of Tin Horns! It’s the Tower of Babel all over again, except instead of babbling, everyone’s screaming and throwing feces. All these fools out here making stacks of cash shoveling more and more shit onto the info grift pile while most people can’t even pay their medical bills. smdh
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Everyone’s so worried about the earth becoming uninhabitable thanks to climate change or nuclear war. But honestly either one would solve a lot of problems. For instance, the still-broken DMV. Or black ops like “orthodontics” and “optometry.”
Do you ever wonder if you’d actually like to survive an apocalypse (versus dying in one)?FYI for those who make it through to the other side: Yuval Noah Harari asserts that humans were happier back when we were all hunter-gatherers—not that he’d know, being a needledicked ivory tower academic—but I saw The Last Of Us, and that did seem like a pretty decent setup if you could find a nice little country house to hole up in.
Regarding death, my personal sentiments run the gamut from cold to tepid to hot; i.e., being completely terrified of dying; not really caring one way or the other; and being super psyched and really looking forward to it.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Maybe millennials aren’t so bad after all. They’re always smiling and cheerful and semi blissed out on edibles, you know? You just have to stop giving them millions in startup cash to change the world, because we tried that already and everything just got worse.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Good lord! Nelson Rockefeller’s son, Michael Rockefeller, was captured and eaten by cannibals in Papua New Guinea in 1961?HOW DID I NOT KNOW THAT
WTF, Selena Gomez got her start on Barney& Friends?? Is this real? NO WONDER HARMONY KORINE CASTHER IN “SPRING BREAKERS”
“Bully sticks” for dogs are usually “bull pizzle, ”i.e. cow penis? Seriously, can we not do this? IMAGINE CHEWING ON A DRIED DICK
Christopher Lasch and John Updike were freshman roommates? What are the odds? MEANWHILE, SOME OF US JUST GOT RAGING A-HOLES NAMED “BROCK”
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
For a while the professional classes, educators in particular, were obsessed with a little grift called 'Design Thinking.' Almost no-one could explain what it was, or why it was different or valuable, besides featuring buzzwords like “human-centered” and “iteration.” If you used those words in a complete sentence, people automatically thought you were smart. You could just say “my students are iterating through human-centered models” or “I’ll be attending a Design Thinking workshop next week” and everyone would suck your dick. So what is this thing? Well, the basic process in a design thinking approach goes like this:
Of course, there’s already a word for this process and it’s called…wait for it…ENGINEERING
The real value of Design Thinking lies in how it turbo-charges the professional classes’ eternal mission: how to rack up a client’s billable hours. For instance, you’re supposed to “go wild” with your possible solutions. Brainstorm it, have fun with it, blue sky it!“ We explored the idea of having the new gym in the shape of a banana, because kids like bananas. Just thinking outside the box!”
If project creep wasn’t enough, a whole cottage industry sprung up like mushrooms on a turd to offer training in Design Thinking—i.e., how to get your employees to use its lingo. Lots of billable hours there too. But unfortunately Design Thinking’s timing was bad. Justas it was making its move, it got swamped by the Diversity-Industrial Complex tidal wave. If only there were victims in Design Thinking!
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Most people spend a shitload of time and money trying to clean up their skin and wrinkles in order to make themselves look younger. They’re missing a huge upside: if you look older, people usually leave you alone. In fact, if you’re over the age of 50, most of the time people don’t even notice that you’re there. Weirdly I’ve had like three people tell me recently that they use Vitamin C serum on their faces. I bought some of that stuff. Unfortunately, not only does “serum” sound suspiciously like “semen,” it actually does look an awful lot like semen. Once that thought is in your head, it’s pretty hard to unthink it, especially when you’re rubbing it all into your face and around your eyes and mouth. I understand there are slang terms for that kind of activity, which I guess some people do for fun, no judgment.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Why do people pay good money for some castoff trash that someone famous used to own? Like they’ll pay $100,000 for a shirt that Prince wore one time, or Shaq’s sneakers or whatever. I mean what are you going to do with that? Build it a shrine? Sing to it? Take it to bed?
Back when I was a young lad, I saw Bauhaus play at the 930 Club, and after the show there was an extra mic clip sitting on the edge of the stage. So I instinctively just pocketed it, like: “Oh damn, I got a piece of Bauhaus’s equipment!” Meanwhile I was barely in a band at the time and had no need for a mic clip. Plus this $1 piece of plastic probably belonged to the club in the first place. I wonder whatever happened to that thing. Dear Peter Murphy and Daniel Ash: sorry I tried to rob you, although if we’re being honest, you guys kind of were a bunch of art-school posers.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
% “Nothing’s happening”
!! “It isn’t working”
@# “Can I have a different computer? This one doesn’t work”
?^ “I did exactly what you did, but it doesn’t work”
-& “I think it’s glitching”
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
There seem to be two kinds of people in the world: the kind who stop and say, “Ohh! What a cute puppy!” and everyone else. Whenever I’m walking my puppy and I pass by a stranger who does not react in any way, I always think “what the hell is wrong with you? This puppy is pretty damn cute. Fucking DO something. SAY something.”
It’s been said that raising puppies is a lot of work. And worse, it’s tedious. Nonsense. There are countless games and interactions available for you and your pup to pass the time. You can hug it. You can throw it a ball. And you can try to pull things out of its mouth. And…well, that’s about it. Still, totally doable with the correct medication.
There is one exception: house training a puppy does kind of suck, unless you’re a fan of urine-soaked floors. But you’d be surprised at how well crate training works. I wonder if crate training would work on humans. That would be so sick if you could crate train a baby. While you’re at it, you might as well microchip them too. I mean kids do get lost and stuff. Whoever writes the how-to book on these techniques is getting a Nobel prize, mark my words.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
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Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
One of the funniest things about the 2020s is people who thought they were pretty based and hip and forward-thinking in buying a Tesla, until they heard Elon Musk was a friend of Joe Rogan’s. Then all of a sudden Elon became Hitler, and/or possibly Satan. Did they not know about him and Grimes?
Now they’re stuck with this albatross of a car and its shitty build quality. My friend was fixing up his wife’s gorgeous Alfa Romeo and some dude in a Tesla ran a red light and smashed the Alfa. I mean come on.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
| Optimization | elimination of middle class jobs/benefits |
| Innovation | elimination of middle class jobs/benefits |
| Collateralized debt obligation | chopped-up pile of shit |
| Deregulation | privatized reward, socialized risk |
| Structural Adjustment | IMF nation-rape |
| Microloan | IMF person-rape |
| Free trade | friends with subsidies |
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
“We should breed out the feebleminded families... In mental defectiveness they maybe classed into four groups -- 1) complete idiots who merely exist, 2) incomplete idiots with few and rudimentary ideas, 3) imbeciles with limited and often perverted ideas but capable of being taught to read and write 4) Weak or feebleminded who can be educated to a varying extent by special methods.”
—Margaret Sanger, Founder, Planned Parenthood, ca. 1922
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
KAISER PETCO
The pet supply industry is gigantic and largely unnecessary. You can spend $100 on a bunch of fancy toys and treats, but No True Kaiser® would operate in such a manner. The best toy you can give a pet is actually an old ripped-up sock or t-shirt. As for snacks: just find the oldest shit you have in the kitchen and let ‘em have it. Stale Cheerios, pickles two years past the expiration date, whatever--most dogs really don’t GAF.NO ONE: WE HAVE COFFEE AT HOME
I don’t see the appeal of going out for coffee in the morning. You can wait in line with a bunch of other dazed idiots and pay $7…or you could make it yourself at home BASICALLY FOR FUCKING FREE. I did the math .A cup of high-end coffee made at home costs me like twenty-five cents. No struggling with getting your ATM card’s chip scanned. No awkward interactions with ill-tempered GenXers. No overhearing status updates on some software application’s development milestones.
I suppose if you lived in the South of France or Italy, say, maybe it would be different. Some place where going to the cafe is a social experience like going to church, or beach cleanup, or whatever. But in the US, people don’t generally talk to each other when they’re getting coffee. On the contrary it’s more like DON’T FUCKING TALK TO ME I HAVEN’T HAD MY COFFEE YET
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Hey Siri, why is ChatGPT smarter than you?
Hey Siri, add ‘get drunk’ to my reminders
Hey Siri, you suck
Hey Siri, what is “ligma”?
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Why did the United States blow up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline?
How is BRICS like an aircraft carrier?<-- try it!
Please write a punk rock song about Siri’s weaknesses
Where is Siri situated in a being-not-being conception of reality?
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Seeing a movie in the theater now is likegoing on a Disneyland ride. You get this nicebig comfy seat that reclines while you watcha bunch of Hollywood stars prancing throughfake CGI explosions in their Underoos.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
I watched all four seasons of the sci-fi tween juggernaut known as Stranger Things, but I will say I found it pretty confusing. Apparently there’s some kind of evil force on the loose, which might have been provoked or awakened by the CIA, or the military, or a corporation, or the Russians. This evil entity randomly possesses some people’s souls, or commits murder and mayhem, but without any real discernible pattern. Sometimes it spawns underground, sometimes up in the sky, and once in a while it spins off vicious minions, though no-one’s quite sure how or why any of this happens. I guess that’s part of the point: the world is puzzling, random, and malevolent. But still.
Anyway, there’s this gang of Spy Kids who are trying to beat it. One of the kids is some kind of test tube baby with special powers. And it seems there are other superpowered test tube babies out there in the world too. One day the main kid meets one of them—some kind of emo-goth mind melder chick—but she seems pretty committed to her 9 Inch Nails Chicago lifestyle, so they go their separate ways.
True to the YA sci-fi genre, adults are mostly invisible and powerless. So despite kids getting killed and traumatized and paranormal shit happening all over town, there’s close to zero local or state police presence in the entire series, other than one fat cop who’s always yelling and trying to bang Winona Ryder. Once in a while the feds pop in, but only to act all authoritarian and cover the whole thing up.
In the end you find out that the evil entity is basically just this one superpowered kid gone bad. So maybe it’s an anti-bullying message? Which is good I guess.
However upon reflection, it seems likely that the real underlying purpose of Stranger Things is to sell Coke and Halloween costumes, and also to function as a Hollywood tween superstar mill like the Mickey Mouse Club used to be. I heard all the kids in Stranger Things are now allegedly super hot and stylish, so I guess Mission Accomplished.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
| “Tell me that you’re___ without telling me that you’re ____.” | wow, nice, never heard that one before |
| “That’s exactly what Putin wants” or: “That’s right out of the Russian playbook.” | like you would know. post link to playbook pls |
| Labeling someone “grifter,” “bot,” or “irrelevant” sans evidence or context | jealous, impotent bleatings of rage farming keyboard warriors trafficking in copypasta |
| “You’re being played” | aaaaand...you’re not? got it |
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
You hear a lot about “demon alcohol,” or “the devil’s in that bottle,” etc., but there’s only one truly evil liquor and that is Fernet. Fernet is like the airplane glue of alcohols. I wonder if kids still inhale solvents for a cheap high. I never did that kind of thing myself. Wait, nitrous oxide isn’t a solvent, right? Back in the day, I remember there were two commercial butyl nitrite products you could buy: “Locker Room” and “Rush.” Amusingly, Locker Room was popular with the jocks in my high school. It’s amusing because “Locker Room” was supposed to suggest a gay hookup vibe, not a team sports vibe.
>>> school bully self own <<<
Nowadays I guess kids can get a cheap high without the pounding headache by buying meth and fentanyl on the street for next to nothing. Or by asking their parents for some of their weed.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
1. Blood Meridian2. The Road3. All the Pretty Horses4. Child of God5. Outer Dark6. The Crossing7. Cities of the Plain8. Suttree9. The Passenger10. No Country for Old Men11. The Orchard Keeper12. Stella Maris
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Oh great, so now I have a hernia too. Why do I have to get everything.
Hey, you’ve seen the movie Alien, right? You know the part where the baby alien is inside the dude’s chest cavity? And his skin is like popping out from the pressure of the hatchling alien moving around inside? Well, it looks like that when I cough or sneeze. How would you like it if every time you coughed or sneezed, a lemon-sized patch of your skin blew out like a little fucking balloon animal?
They say inguinal hernias can travel down to the scrotum area. Just what I need, one more thing to wake me up at 4 am, this time an alien popping out of my ball sac.
By the way, I just found out that you have an ascending, transverse, and descending colon. So you’re telling me part of your colon goes UP? I’d like to speak to a manager, please.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Wife: Don’t put that in the trash! You know you can recycle that.
Yawny: What’s the point?
Wife: Wow. What if everyone had that attitude?
Yawny: Then we’d have a world exactly like the one we live in.
Wife: Really?
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
“What looks to political scientists likevoter apathy may represent a healthyskepticism about a political system inwhich public lying has become endemicand routine.”—Christopher Lasch, 1979
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Have you ever noticed that Hyundai drivers can be very aggressive? Some of them seem to think they’re operating a Formula One race car, as opposed to one of the shittiest vehicles available today. Like that bucket of bolts would survive any high-speed crash resulting from such reckless driving.
Am I the only one who wonders about the millions of little plastic+shit sandwiches that go into the trash every damn day? I’m speaking specifically of disposable diapers and dog poop bags. Plastic and shit, mashed together, from here to infinity. But now that I think of it, how about the endless tons of waste-filled cat litter? Maybe you could make, I don’t know, a ski resort out of it all or something.
Why is it that a family can buy the dad a leaf blower or a hedge trimmer for Christmas and it’s totally great, but if a husband buys anew washing machine for his wife, he’s a total fucking asshole?
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
I guess I must be a total sucker for all the old school gender stereotypes. Because I actually would be pretty stoked to get a leaf blower as a gift. Or a pellet grill smoker. Instead, I usually get button-down shirts, which are nice but.
Dear #resistance, despite being trapped in an outmoded false dialectic, I subvert the hierarchy when I say that I genuinely like a lot of girl shit. My favorite girl things are mint tea and capers.
And speaking of gender stereotypes, since we can all have our own pronouns now, I’ve decided on “fuckface” and “shithead”. These work well in real-world situations. For example, “I knocked on Yawny’s door, but fuckface didn’t answer so I left shithead a note.” See?
Dear #cancelmob, I was screening John Waters film festivals before your parents even knew what an LSAT was, so you can go ahead and fuck off.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
Can you please pump crypto one last time so I can cash out real quick? I swear I won’t bother you again, I just need this one favor. Thanks guys.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
What’s more challenging: coming of age, or coming of old age? As a kid, I couldn’t wait to become a teenager. To run free, to live independently and recklessly! True, damaging one’s developing brain and neglecting to sow viable seeds for future success may not be the best ideas. But the point is that sometimes we all just hit a wall and want to move on to the next stage. Progress! Keep going! Goals!
Fast forward to today: after a lifetime of largely meaningless virtual grinding, I’m once again ready to move on, namely by stepping off the hamster wheel. And by that I don’t mean jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Necessarily. But as we all know, ministering to the imagined needs of the wealthy can get a little tiresome after a few decades. And I did my time, dammit, now gimme my entitlements!
But will this be another case of “watch out, you might get what you asked for”? Is it really true what they say, that retirees get bored? Do they lose purpose and meaning when they are no longer productive members of society?
I don’t think so. I’m currently favoring a pre-Celtic isolationist lifestyle, with sporadic forays into the trading centers and art exchanges. Kind of like Mad Max, but without all the impaling and dismemberment.
Also, I’m semi-retired as it is, and my days are already filled to the brim. You know, every remaining hour of your life could be allocated solely to classic Russian novels, and that alone could take you all the way into the end zone. But when you factor in learning other languages and musical instruments, plus gardening, pain management, kim chee preparation, etc., I actually don’t see any remaining bandwidth available for things like writing a crappy little newsletter that like fifty people read.
It’s fine. It’s been fun. Thanks for reading. And thanks to all the sponsors who contributed over the years. I would say “I love you all” but I barely even know any of you.
Issue: 16-1 (orig. pub. date: )
