Showing posts with label deep thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deep thoughts. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
ARMAGIDEON TIME speaks of current events and 'The Enemy Within'
From ARMAGIDEON TIME
First things first: If you feel the compulsion to respond to this with “not all men,” then fuck off right now.
Without discounting or downplaying the racist motivations behind the monstrous attack on the Emanuel AME Church yesterday, it’s important to consider that the pathology of the murderer and other of his ilk transcends any single ideology. Their deeds are symptomatic of an associated problem known as the “Angry White Young Dude.”
The mindset is rooted in an overwhelming sense of privilege, inculcated and reinforced across centuries of history. In terms of America’s social stratification, white malehood is to be “to the manor born.” All the perks and open doors, with little if any of the systemic oppression inflicted upon those who don’t fall into that elect category. (Unless you count class oppression, but good luck finding any white American who thinks such a thing is a real issue, and even then the burden falls lightest on the lighter-skinned males among us.)
Yet so much of that privilege is unnoticed by those who most benefit from it. Not getting sexually or racially harassed or exploited is presumed default mode, making it easy to contrive excuses for why it seems so commonplace (providing one cares to pay attention) for so many other people. They’re substantial perks, but they’ve been taken for granted for so long that they tend to be ignored in favor of other perceived grievances — namely, “why doesn’t the universe acknowledge my greatness?”
It’s no coincidence that these Angry Young White Dudes tend to be around the age when Young White Dudes in general have a rock-solid certitude about how the world really “works.” It’s particularly pronounced in those of the tribe who exhibit a shade more “intelligence” (relatively speaking by cultural values of the same) which often resolves as a form of self-pitying megalomania.
Hey, I was there once...
Without discounting or downplaying the racist motivations behind the monstrous attack on the Emanuel AME Church yesterday, it’s important to consider that the pathology of the murderer and other of his ilk transcends any single ideology. Their deeds are symptomatic of an associated problem known as the “Angry White Young Dude.”
The mindset is rooted in an overwhelming sense of privilege, inculcated and reinforced across centuries of history. In terms of America’s social stratification, white malehood is to be “to the manor born.” All the perks and open doors, with little if any of the systemic oppression inflicted upon those who don’t fall into that elect category. (Unless you count class oppression, but good luck finding any white American who thinks such a thing is a real issue, and even then the burden falls lightest on the lighter-skinned males among us.)
Yet so much of that privilege is unnoticed by those who most benefit from it. Not getting sexually or racially harassed or exploited is presumed default mode, making it easy to contrive excuses for why it seems so commonplace (providing one cares to pay attention) for so many other people. They’re substantial perks, but they’ve been taken for granted for so long that they tend to be ignored in favor of other perceived grievances — namely, “why doesn’t the universe acknowledge my greatness?”
It’s no coincidence that these Angry Young White Dudes tend to be around the age when Young White Dudes in general have a rock-solid certitude about how the world really “works.” It’s particularly pronounced in those of the tribe who exhibit a shade more “intelligence” (relatively speaking by cultural values of the same) which often resolves as a form of self-pitying megalomania.
Hey, I was there once...
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Friday, August 30, 2013
The always eloquent Patton Oswalt on Ben Affleck as Batman...
No matter how many times you post your stupid “Fire Ben Affleck from Playing Batman” petition, I’m going to delete it and block you. Take a deep breath, and think for a second:
Yeah, the dude’s made some bad films. Every actor has. Every actor does. Every actor will. It’s a huge, arcing career and NO ONE has control over where it goes. Movie to movie, year to year, you’re collaborating and trying and risking and, sometimes, yes — failing.
Plus, everyone seems to forget that he had the world dropped in his lap when he was YOUNG. And, judging by how other suddenly-famous youngsters do in the same situation, he fared pretty well. Even when it went wrong, he seemed to keep a self-deprecating, long-view philosophy about the burning freak carousel he’d found himself on.
And then what happened? I mean, he’d fallen from a HEIGHT. You know what happens to 95% of people who weather a descent that steep? They come apart, fray at all of their sanity nodes, and give up.
But then there’s the 5% who embrace crushing defeat and see it for the gift it is. And here’s the gift: when you fail, and fail UTTERLY, you wake up the next morning and see that the world didn’t end. And then the fear of failure is gone. And you’re free. You’re free to proceed on your own terms and pace — if you have the ego that permits you to.
Ben brushed himself off, realized he’d kept his eyes open on the movies he’d done, and started directing. And he’s become a damn good one.
A Batman portrayed by someone who’s tasted humiliation and a reversal of all personal valences — kind of like Grant Morrison’s “Zen warrior” version of Batman, post-ARKHAM ASYLUM, who was, in the words of Superman, “…the most dangerous man on the planet”? Think for a second and admit that Ben Affleck is closer to THAT top-shelf iteration of The Dark Knight than pretty much anyone in Hollywood right now.
I’d write more, but I have to go work on my post about how an overweight 44 year-old comedian with bad feet and insomnia would be a bold choice for The Joker...
Monday, January 28, 2013
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
HP Lovecraft's 'The Aristocrats!'
There is a joke comedians tell each other called the Aristocrats, there was a movie about it but just in case you haven’t heard of it this is Wikipedia’s description of it;
The setup: The joke always begins with a family act going in to see a talent agent.
Those who meet the agent can include the whole family or just one family member (usually the father).
The agent asks what they do (sometimes after saying that he is not interested, and a plea from the father).
If the whole family is present, the act may be performed for the agent, rather than described.
2.The act: It is described in as much detail as the teller prefers.
While most tellings follow one of a few basic forms, the description of the act is meant to be an ad lib.
Traditionally, the description is crude, tasteless, and ribald The goal is to significantly transgress social norms. Taboo acts such as incest, rape, coprophilia, coprophagy, beastiality and murder are common themes.
3.The punch line: The shocked (or intrigued) agent asks what the act is called, and the proud answer (sometimes delivered with a flourish) is: "The Aristocrats!"
You may have heard this joke or a variation this joke and not realized it was a secret handshake for comedians. I know I had never heard of it and I had tried to be a stand up comic in my younger days. (The less said about that the better.) The idea is to have your version outdo the previous tellings in vulgarity. Bob Saget explained that the beginning and end of the joke is set, the middle joke is where you have free reign to do whatever you want.
Now you may wonder what the Hell this has to do with Lovecraft, well it occurred to me recently that in a certain way a lot of Mythos/Lovecraftian fiction follows a similar structure.
Consider the way many of our favorite stories go;
1.The setup: The story begins with a protagonist, usually an innocent academic or unlucky bystander
In many cases the story is told in the first person viewpoint.
The protagonists own tale is frequently told in a nested format with other people’s stories making up his tale. The final part of the Call Of Cthulhu is a good example of this; the main character never sees Cthulhu in the gelatinous flesh, he just relates to us what he read in another man’s journal.
The more our hero learns the more of what he thought to be the rational world falls away.
2.The investigation: The protagonist is frequently exposed to a secret society, cult or lineage that has transgressed social norms. In almost all cases worship or direct exposure to the Mythos has either been the cause or result of their transgressions.
The protagonist then either encounters undeniable evidence of the Mythos or an actual creature of the Mythos. The encounter could be with an established aspect or creature or could be a entirely new creation but this is the part that has the most elements of the author's imagination and style.
3.The Conclusion The protagonist has his worldview utterly shaken, or goes mad or dies. In some stories the world itself is destroyed which is a Hell of a worldview changer.
So, what do you think? Do you agree,? Disagree? Need a SAN roll?
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
David Wong discusses "Ways Modern Men Are Trained To Hate Women"
If you're not the type to keep up with ugly, soul-killing political controversies, let me catch you up: A while back, hugely popular political commentator Rush Limbaugh lost a bunch of advertisers because he publicly called a college girl a slut and a prostitute after she suggested that health insurance plans should cover birth control. But he's paid to say outrageous things. If you really want to feel all dead inside, you need to listen to what the regular folk were saying. For instance, on crazy political message board FreeRepublic.com, posters referred to the girl in the above-referenced story (Sandra Fluke) as a "Nasty, disease-ridden plodding uterus, an utter skank crack-ho filthy whore, a prostitute slutbag juice-receptacle" and a "Sperm-burpin' gutter slut," and said she "... is so encrusted and used, that I had to throw out my flat-panel TV because her appearance on my TV infected it with AIDS, gonorrhea and syphilis." There are many, many more worse comments collected here and here and here.
Now go to the front page of any mostly male discussion site like Reddit.com and see how many inches you can browse before finding several thousand men bemoaning how all women are gold-digging whores (7,500 upvotes) and how crazy and irrational women are (9,659 upvotes) and how horrible and gross and fat women are (4,000 upvotes). Or browse the "Men's Rights" section and see weird fantasies about alpha males defeating all the hot women who try to control them with their vaginas. This current of white-hot rage has to come as a surprise to some of you, because we tend to think "sexism" is being dismissive toward women, or paying them lower salaries -- we don't think of it as frenzied "burn the witch!" hatred. Yet occasionally something like this Limbaugh thing will come along to prick that balloon, and out it pours. Like it's always waiting there, a millimeter below the surface. Why? Well, you see...
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
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