Time for a reset. Our new digital compact is as follows: I will type whatever pops into my head, and you are free to ignore it.
True, this is actually the same as the previous compact, except sometimes I forget it, which becomes wearying on my part. This is because I begin to imagine 1) that I have an audience, and 2) that I must somehow satisfy the expectations of this audience. The first is untrue, the second impossible. Still, from time to time I must rediscover the obvious.
By the way, I used to have more of an audience, and the audience used to grow at a measurable rate. I wonder if this flatlining has something to do with those google algorithms we hear so much about -- the ones that bury conservative opinions under a sea of correct ones?
I doubt it. Rather, I have to believe that if I were more popular, I'd only be less popular. People can only take so much. Or to be precise, there are only so many people who can take so much of this, whatever it is. You'll see: most of you will give up before this post finds its way to the end, and I don't blame you.
Which reminds me. President Trump has even some Democrats marveling at his superhuman level of energy as we approach Tuesday's singularity. How does he do it? How can a 74 year old man fly to four or five major campaign events and fire up the crowds, when Joe Biden can barely shuffle to the mailbox, nor would he be capable of conversing with the mailman without a teleprompter. How does Trump do it?
I know how. It takes a great deal of energy to pretend to be someone and something one is not. President Trump expends zero energy on that. People call it "vulgarity," but it's actually quite the opposite. For vulgarity, in the words of the Aphorist, consists of pretending to be what we are not.
Say what you want about the president, but he never pretends to be someone he isn't, whereas nearly all skank & foul politicians -- not to mention journalists, academics, and "artists" -- never stop pretending to be what they aren't. It's why most Republican politicians only pretend to be conservative, when they really crave to be accepted by the Right People, i.e., fellow vulgarians.
President Trump is like your host, in the sense that he just says whatever pops into his head, the difference being that lots of people truly love what he says. He is the most transparent president ever. Imagine what it would feel like to be totally spontaneous and to be loved for it. It would be like pouring out a kind of energy, and the energy coming back to you multiplied by a factor of 10 or 25 or 50,000. Bracing!
Most people have to fake it in order to appear likable, and this takes a great deal of energy. The pretense must be exhausting for someone as repellant as, say, Kamala Harris, or Obama. Now, there is a vulgar man. Imagine pretending to be unusually intelligent, articulate, a statesman, a literary man, when none of these are remotely true.
Going back to the president, the spontaneous adulation must resemble what it felt like to be Elvis or the Beatles. The remarkable thing about early "rock" (the reason I put it in scare quotes is that Elvis, or Jerry Lee, or Bo Diddley, weren't trying to fit into some preconceived genre or satisfy any existing audience) is that its practitioners weren't consciously manipulating anyone, nor were they imitating some cultural- or corporate-approved fashion.
Rather, they were spontaneously expressing something from deep within, and the public (equally spontaneously) loved it -- not just in America or the UK, but all over the world. This is true multiculturalism, in that it speaks to all cultures (as opposed to the bogus multiculturalism that pretends we should all be moved by Guatemalan lesbian poetry or infrahuman urban graffiti).
Eventually the art form becomes self-conscious and therefore cut off from the archetypal nonlocal energies that animated it, which is what contributes to its gradual death. Which goes back to the blog. Rest assured: I will never try to please my readers. Nor will I ever pretend to be something I'm not, including scholar, expert, academic, theologian, or writer. Just a blogger, which is more than I ever dreamed.
Success is a trap, isn't it? Few musicians can survive it with their artistry intact. It's not that one can't be popular and artistic, only that one must work hard to ignore the former unless it reflects an appreciation for the latter. The Beatles were the quintessential examples of this. (Others who overcame their own successful formulas include Van Morrison, Miles Davis, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Scott Walker, and not many more I can think of.)
I know, I know: okay boomer. That's not what I mean. I'm not talking about nostalgia. Rather, how, up to that time -- 1965 -- if one were lucky enough to stumble upon a successful musical recipe, one did not f*ck with the formula. This is precisely what the insufferable Mike Love said to poor Brian Wilson upon returning home from a tour and hearing the innovative tracks for Pet Sounds: Don't f*ck with the formula, Brian! No wonder he went crazy.
Here's the formula: even if you're an 80 year old self-beclowning parody, never stop singing about high school, surfing, cars, and teenage chicks, so long as it brings in the cash. It's only cynical in the sense that pop music is always cynical, because it's consciously designed to appeal to the mob. It's a cash grab. That's why it exists.
No one imagined Louis Armstrong was producing art in 1927, which is one of the reasons why it is art. No one, least of all Elvis, imagined on July 5, 1954, that That's All Right was a timeless classic. For that matter, it didn't occur to Ray Charles that he was inventing soul music on November 18, 1954, with I Got a Woman.
That was a lengthy prelude. I had wanted to clear my desk in anticipation of Tuesday's election, which will clear off everyone's desk, like it or not. As they say, you can accept your fate or be dragged there anyway, kicking and screaming. You know, amor fati. Doesn't mean you have to love it.
At any rate, I do believe Tuesday -- Tiu being the ancient Germanic God of war, but that's just a coincidence -- will be Cosmo-Historical, and that's no exaggeration. But I'm just a guerrilla blogger, so what do I know?
Petey, on the other hand, spontaneously knows (in the usual manner of discarnate beings) a great deal, and he assures me that this is no ordinary affair. He can peek behind the veil and under the rug, and he insists that it will be catastrophic. In the best sense of the word.
21 comments:
As they say, you can accept your fate or be dragged there anyway, kicking and screaming. I do believe it will be Cosmo-Historical, and that's no exaggeration.
Indeed, whatever the outcome is.
However, should our side lose, we will not be screaming, crying and rioting, any more than we ever have in the past.
We'll just be preparing.
Same as every day, really.
One way or the other, President Trump is not going away. Unlike Joe Biden, who is going away, one way or the other.
This morning's email has an invitation to attend a forthcoming APA conference featuring a talk on the following:
Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
The ignorance, stupidity, and craziness of the left is breathtaking.
It must be really exhausting to be a rank and foul leftist. Micro-oppressed and micro-agressed, every day they die the death of a thousand humiliations, and yet are never humbled.
Worse, they've been told since childhood that it is their destiny to change the world, but never to change themselves for the better. Sisyphus had it easy by comparison.
Weird how life never stops shaming these people, and yet, they are incapable of shame.
Socialism is the philosophy of the guilt of others.
The left is made up of individuals who are dissatisfied with what they have and are satisfied with who they are.
“Social justice” is the term for claiming anything to which we do not have a right.
The left claims that the guilty party in a conflict is not the one who covets another’s goods but the one who defends his own.
Social problems are the delightful refuge of those fleeing from their own problems.
Etc.
VDH:
'Nothing in history is more dangerous than the underemployed wannabe intellectual or college graduate, whose cultivated sense of superiority is not matched by his income or standard of living, but who blames “them” for his own self-inflicted miseries and unappreciated genius.'
Vulgarians as far as the eye can see.
When I was a kid, living in socialist America, most people seemed reasonably happy. Back then the Democrats were mostly New Deal Marxists and pretty much owned DC. An underemployed wannabe intellectual could just walk down the street and get a job pumping gas or bagging groceries. Or, they could aspire higher and get onto a construction crew or sell coats at JC Penneys.
Of course today, they make us pump our own gas and bag our own groceries. They even make us check ourselves out. Construction jobs belong to illegals and we buy coats from online bots.
So now our underemployed wannabe intellectuals are out in the streets, mostly because they don't know how to be telegenic pundits making bank from billionaire donors.
I suggest that underemployed wannabe intellectuals move to China or Scandinavia, where marxism is building stuff like low crime rates, skyscrapers and maglev trains. Real Americans start meth labs and to to MAGA rallies so they can spread the covid to grandpa, to hopefully inherit his farm so they can convert to growing dope.
I view the “shy trump voter” who’ll prove the polls wrong, as being a little like munchkins. As you know, here in the Emerald City most of our munchkins perished in the horrific BLM riots which laid waste this once magnificent city.
But in reality, many survived. They will soon be emerging by the thousands.
Please do not be alarmed. Yes, they may start singing and dancing, loudly and quite incorrigibly, with their lullaby leagues, lollypop guilds, and legendary drunken bacchanals.
Do leave them alone. If left alone, rest assured that they’ll all eventually make it to the polling places, to stand in line and then vote for our President Donald Trump.
In the unlikely event that Trump loses anyways, and fails in all of his legal attempts to restore sanity, I recommend hiding. These munchkins are gonna get quite violent.
I imagine Trump will not like defeat (who does?) but will surrender the Presidency gracefully.
Despite his vigor Trump may be getting weary of being POTUS. There is not much money in it. Fame? Been there done that. Only Trump's love of this country keeps him going.
It is a lot to ask of a 74 year old man to be POTUS, no matter how healthy. He may secretly be relieved if he loses; he can leave with head held up and get on with enjoying life and his family in his remaining years.
President Harris. Try it on. Say it out loud. She is such an unknown quality. We fear the unknown.
On the other hand she may make a fine President. We shall see.
Biden can be no more than a figurehead. He is knackered, it is painfully apparent. Not that he is a bad human being. He agreed to run for President for the love of this country but he does not really want the office. He wants to ease through his few remaining years. Anyone else sense this?
Put away the guns and ammo. Any form of reactionary violence is a waste of time and energy, emanating from the right or from the left. Let the system work. We change POTUS every 4-8 years.
I disagree it as a watershed historical moment. In two years Decision 2020 won't be talked about. It will be like "meh..what a cluster that was."
"... he insists that it will be catastrophic. In the best sense of the word."
I think Petey made a prediction. Let's see. Let's rock.
From Happy Acres: "Fact Checkers" didn't exist until the Truth started getting out!
"fact checker," :"Minitrue,"; "to-may-to," "to-mah-to..."
Munchkins are easily subdued with flame balls and large floating bubbles. But has anybody even seen Glinda lately?
If Trump can’t figure out how to take this thing, somehow, then there’s a very good chance that he’ll have to flee the country. Unlike himself, who enchants the wee folks with "Lock her up!" but it's really just all in good fun, these Biden communists mean business. Worse, as bad as Biden is, Harris is even nastier than her sister from the east.
Thanks for never trying to please us, Bob. As you say, all the true originals never sought out originality. That simply isn't the way inspiration works.
Stay safe out there tomorrow everybody.
Well you say you have no readers, but then what are we, chopped liver? Do you notice or care about the faithful readers who comment on every post? How about the lurkers who chime in once in a while? How about your persistent trolls and sock-puppets?
Godwin, you've got plenty of readers. And you should want more. There's nothing wrong with wanting mores. As you said, you aren't going to be phony in the pursuit of readers, but you can still want them.
So you don't have a mass readership; I say having even one reader is a grand thing. How many people have even one reader? Raise your hands. Oh, I don't see very many hands. How many of us have ever had ONE interested reader (besides a teacher or relative) in their entire lives? Not many of us.
You have been blessed with dozens of readers, possibly hundreds.
Be grateful for your readers. They give your work significance. Otherwise your words would have no more significance the bleating of a distressed goat on a deserted moor.
How about some love? What would you like to say to us?
To write honestly for others, one must write fundamentally for oneself.
I haven’t read this blog in a year and you’re still at it. God bless ass-clown trolls such as you, exploding bags of flaming dogshit on themselves, all alone in the wilderness.
We conservatives provide idiots the pleasure of feeling like they are daring avant-garde thinkers.
"Rest assured: I will never try to please my readers."
Thank goodness. Which is why I feel assured that I can rest again, after I've caught up again.
BTW, I'm a Grandpa now. Truly slacktastical goodness.😎
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