Laying Low
Slow and low, that is the tempo.
A few months ago, my father woke up with trouble breathing, so he was rushed to the hospital, where fluid was found in his lungs. From there, it was only a matter of waiting on how bad the news would be, and sure enough within days he was diagnosed with lung cancer.
He’s been responding well to the chemo, and it looks like he might beat this thing. Nevertheless, this ordeal has mentally and emotionally weighed me down, on top of what I’ve already been dealing with. Helping my parents around their house is good for the soul. I can use it - I’ve been a mess lately, functional enough to survive is about the nicest way to put it.
Coupled with working 60 hours a week across various jobs just to get by, it’s got me stretched a bit thin, hence the long gaps without a post here. Now that the 2024 election is ramping up the insanity, I put pressure on myself to write something, and I’m not sure why aside from wanting to give something to the readers who have stuck by me. I hate both major parties, and supporting controlled opposition Bernie was likely my last sincere foray into presidential politics. Every so often I get dragged into a conversation with some weaselly liberal going on a tangent about how Trump is old too, and people need to acknowledge that if they’re gonna clown Biden for his conspicuous dementia, and it takes all my strength not scream SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU DELUDED WORTHLESS GASBAG in their face.
I avoid social media and legacy news sites, so I don’t have granular analysis of how various parties are handling these latest rounds of spectacle. It’s not about trying to act superior, pompously lecturing strangers to TOUCH GRASS. Avoiding being terminally online isn’t an achievement unto itself, today’s low standards notwithstanding. Paying attention to the discourse simply drives me up the wall, for reasons that should be clear. Around the time of the debate (I watched a grand total of 30 minutes off DVR the day after it aired), I caught wind that libs are upset with the lying news media that publications are attempting to claw back their lost credibility by finally admitting Biden is a desiccated vegetable who needs to go, something anyone with eyes recognized years ago, and which reporters lied about and forbade discussion over just as long. It reminded me of that news conference at the end of Trump’s first term when the major networks finally cut away from him as he was spouting Stop the Steal talking points, and resistance pundits crowed and patted themselves on the back like they actually did something, only after years of the media endlessly indulging him for ratings. Abundant layoffs in corporate media the last year or two have led to hysterical bleating about a press apocalypse yet the establishment will always be in need of a propaganda machine. The core media ghouls aren’t going anywhere; let’s just hope there are fewer pathetic bootlickers treating them like heroes.
I’ve heard influencers claim corporate wokeness is on the retreat, partially evidenced by some companies ditching their cursed DEI personnel. I remain skeptical, especially with a Trump victory looking imminent. As soon as he gets back in the White House, the fulminations will begin anew. He’s the perfect foil for the identitarian madness. The public’s fatigue with radlibs and wokies has been evident for some time, but that hasn’t stopped the stuff from being aggressively pushed by institutions. Perhaps this next go-round will be different. I’m not holding my breath.
But even without wokeness, there are liberals throwing each other under the bus when faced with cancel culture from the right. This week, DNC comedian Jack Black publicly castigated his Tenacious D bandmate for making a gag about wishing the sniper’s bullet had hit Trump a little more centrally than his earlobe. Leaving aside my surprise that Tenacious D was still touring in 2024, it’s a remarkable bit of slimy cowardice by Black. Liberals have spent the last decade swearing that Trump is Hitler, the paragon of evil, a totalitarian threat to democracy and life on this planet. Yet here they are, once again cowed into playing the decorum game, because they have a losing hand and they know it. Oh, and because every liberal public figure is, at the end of the day, a petrified loser careerist that toes the ever-shifting party line.
As I mentioned a few posts back, my new job is heavy on driving, so I still listen to a fair amount of podcasts to get me through the day. I’ve been searching out ones lately that are generally apolitical and veer away from culture war bullshit, though there are a few I have retained that dwell in those arenas. This past week, I was listening to a liberal one and they had a guest who boasted that whenever he sees a Tesla Cybertruck on the road, he flips off the driver, which is just the most impotent, petulant, adolescent stunt imaginable. Way to stick it to The Man by throwing a hissy fit over someone’s hollow consumerism. Liberals can hate Elon Musk all they want - I’m hardly a fan - yet they should admit that the vast majority of their contempt for him is due to his wrecking the Democrats’ propaganda machine that was Twitter, in which corporate executives collaborated with the security state to engage in fascistic censorship drives that left-liberals excused because it was often aimed at their culture war foes.
It’s hard to fathom anyone deserving to lose an election more than the Dems are tanking this one. Privately, party insiders and aligned media are undoubtedly fine with that. Trump back in the White House is tremendous for fundraising and sensationalist media catastrophizing. The Democrats can again promise the moon to their brainwashed voters only to not deliver later on and blame the GOP. They don’t have to bother lying about their record and covering for the insufficient baby steps policies they advance. Media pundits won’t have to waste ink lecturing proles about how they don’t understand the economy because conditions have worsened for most people under Biden. It’ll just be back to “Unhappy? Bad Credit? Imposter Syndrome? Constipated? Blame Orange Man!”
In the meantime, I sense something foul in the air that I can’t pin down. The debate being moved forward just to produce this freak-out about Biden’s age that felt forced. The Trump shooter simply being allowed to get his assassination attempt off due to Secret Service and police bungling, following by a lack of manifesto and the kid appearing in a BlackRock commercial. All very bizarre even if no one has anything plausible to connect the dots. A sense of foreboding pervades all.
My nose has been firmly planted on the grindstone to keep away from things that will only drive me crazy. Two weeks ago, I forced out a draft of a post and couldn’t bring myself to publish it. It was too full of rage. This post is still pretty angry, so that should tell you how off the rails that one got. I like to believe there’s some usefulness in showing the public what this ordeal does to someone, as so little mainstream culture is allowed to focus on it, but maybe that’s my delusion.
It brings me no joy knowing what is on the way. The rare encouraging thing I’ve seen lately is the work of an anonymous Substack writer going by Jack Torrance who has been doing some amateur sleuthing, digging into the details of The Punk Rock Therapist, a scammer who gained notoriety in 2023 for latching onto the MeToo cancellation of Justin Geever, the former frontman of the well-known punk group Anti-Flag. Torrance has done an admirable job highlighting ways The Punk Rock Therapist has been dishonest and misleading about her credentials, which has apparently only led to her stealth editing her website to remove some of the claims rather than own up to her deception. All social justice grifters quiver and hide when caught in a lie, because they’re fundamentally craven strivers and they assume everyone to the left of Barry Goldwater is afraid of calling out their bullshit, which sadly has been largely true for the last decade. Just look at Megan Greenwell and Drew Magary, those chickenshit, elitist backstabbers. And, naturally, an overly credulous liberal media apparatus has been only too happy to hype up The Punk Rock Therapist while not performing the due diligence their profession supposedly calls for to investigate her or any potential destructive claims against men.
I know there’s a lot happening. Even still, almost a decade on, so little critical light is cast on this issue and it allows scammers to run wild. For a while, the right made half-hearted objections to some of it, but once it was clear they were backing Trump again and the many credible misconduct claims against him, that dissipated. The left is totally brainwashed, a blind alley of ideological zealotry.
Do give those posts a read. Some days I’m a mess of scattered rage and circular reasoning. Others I’m still a person who still has fun and curiosity about the world. I’m working to have the latter win. I pray that he does.
Another great piece. I loved KSK, and reading of the BS that happened make me furious. So glad you are writing here. Your ability to keep moving forward, even if at times to you it doesn't feels like moving forward, is inspiring. I am curious of what you think of Leach, although i don't want to be that kind of commenter that is simply looking to hear Behind the Scenes stuff of something that was such a tragic situation for you. I'll read whatever you post, so keep posting, even infrequently. My best to your father.