Friday, February 02, 2018

Life. Celebrated Daily.

I was ready to simply comment this on the latest "Sentence" of Dave, the one where he concludes:
I remain optimistic that people are not as stupid and narrow-minded as the folks representing them in our government right now.
Here's what I typed in reply:
People ARE that stupid. And somehow the right has decided to capitalize completely on their ignorance.

I credit the shrewdness of the plan to convince millions of simple Americans to flush their better interests away in the name of egregious hypocrisy, hubris, and hatred. It's clever, and it's working. I just can't stomach the hideous lack of human decency.

And because of that, I instinctively avoid these articles and podcasts. Can't do 'em. They make my neck and back ache almost immediately when I read them. Stomach acid starts bubbling. Instant hypertension, and it's not these scholars' and crusaders' faults, but that's what happens.

I'm sorry to put my head in the sand when civic atrocities are occurring daily, but it's a survival mechanism. I need to go to the Outer Banks, hit our favorite spot, and watch surf videos while listening to reggae and eating fish tacos.

And there it is.  More and more I am involved in civic leadership groups and roles in my hometown, but more and more I have to put national, international, and sometime state issues on a mental shelf.  That's a challenge when even around my town, or in any pocket of the parachute pants known as social media, I quietly bear witness to daily, logic-dashing emanations attacking intelligence and factual integrity in contemporary revivals of The Emperor's New Clothes all because of America's version of Brewmeister Smith and his skating minions.

I get frustrated with people's fixed alignment with patently faulty logic.  That's an enormous understatement, I'd say.  I've had major relationships crumble because of this scenario.  If people want to quietly hold opinions dear that make no sense and serve as self-sodomy, that's fine.  I will, sometimes very unfairly, quietly judge them to be morons.

When people make grand proclamations of ass-backwards, stupefyingly stupid nonsense and then look at me like I'm the asshole, though, that's more than I can bear.  And I'm aggressively non-confrontational -- not only am I a pacifistic "can't we all just get along" wiener who couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag, but also when I know I won't have the slightest opinion-altering impact on sputtering nitwits, I arrogantly won't deign to speak to such people about a topic of which they just demonstrated a grasp that's equivalent to mine on greased trigonometry in marriage -- so I won't do anything at all, instead turning my attention to lighter fare and more easily achieved smiles. (Dave, that "sentence" was for you.)

My city's slogan is "Life. Celebrated Daily."  Doesn't get much lighter fare than that, but that's about perfect for me.  I am so painfully obviously ill-equipped to process and deal with a world where logic gets stuffed in the glove box and puffed-up insecurity posing as patriotism is behind the wheel, I'm guilty of being a quitter.  A non-participant.  An ostrich among eagles, condors, and vultures.

You could do worse than to have your worldview imbued by the teachings of His Holiness the Gheorghe Carlin.  One of the bits that always sticks with me is his take on the disparity in license plate messages between New Hampshire and Idaho.  Check out the first 2 minutes of this segment:


Yep.  That's about right.  But in a way I'm both; I'm gonna live free; I'm gonna revel in silly stuff like goofy slogans, stand-up comedy, blogging like a clown, and eating some famous potatoes; and then I'm gonna die.  Hopefully as happy as I am right now, not blissfully ignorant but removed enough from the fray that my glass stays half-full.  (At intervals before my man Tortuga's Sean fills it back up.)

I will close with my favorite slogan 'round these parts:

Now back to your regularly scheduled dipshittery.

10 comments:

Professor G. Truck said...

That Carlin bit made me laugh. Out loud. And I'm sitting alone in a classroom so that probably looks weird and lunatic to the kids walking past. Good advice-- I'm proud that I stay off the social media but I can't help listening to and reading long-form stuff on this and it just makes me nuts.

zman said...

The President authorized the release of a Republican-authored memorandum asserting that the FBI isn't trustworthy, despite the fact that the FBI are the nation's police force and the President and Republicans are generally pro-police. Democrats assert that the author of the memorandum isn't trustworthy, despite the fact that the author is a Representative and the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee and Democrats are generally pro-government.

So either you can only trust those whom you already trust tell you to trust, or you can trust no one. Or maybe you trust but verify, but be careful while verifying because you might get fired if you verify too thoroughly.

How did we get here?

Whitney said...




TRUST NO ONE



THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE


Whitney said...

Trump Presidential advisor Marc Short's yearbook quote was amusingly off-putting back in 1988 but makes a lot more sense in the context of this administration.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/talalansari/short-quote?utm_term=.mcY8G06RD#.ipKKgm7Vl

If the layout of the senior photos looks familiar (look here), yeah, Marc and I went through school 12 years together. Never knew he had to potential to be a Koch Brothers flunkie who would eventually get super-famous by suckling on the DD Trumpteat.

It's way cooler to say I was friends with the drummer in Seven Mary Three.

zman said...

I was carded by the bassist in Seven Mary Three.

rob said...

i know lebron james.

an underratedly bad part of the memo story is not that these fuckers are so incompetent that they messed up stuff that's actually part of the public record (comey's testimony). they did, and that's bad, sure. but what's really bad is that fuckers this incompetent are running the country.

and unlike the distinguished gentleman from norfolk, sadly, i can't look away from the carnage.

Whitney said...

I am headed to the school that Marc Short graduated from to watch my daughter play JV basketball. Other than occasionally checking back at GTB, I won’t be thinking about anything like the matters that will be perplexing the distinguished gentleman from Northern Virginia.

Which makes me think of Virginia Gentleman. Best name, worst Bourbon.

Mark said...

Nas is doing Illmatic back to front at the Kennedy Center tonight. It’s on PBS and it’s really dope.

Marls said...

Mini summit in Leesburg.

Mark said...

There are a lot of things in this world currently that bum me out. The clip of Joey Bada$$ dancing (quite well) to “The Less I Know the Better” is most definitely not one of them.