I admit that I spent many — probably too many — hours this weekend glued to the computer, compulsively refreshing about 10 different Firefox tabs, seeking updates on the Giffords shooting. I have read half of the Internet at this point, and the only definitive things I can say on the matter are a) Although it’s been useful this weekend, by God I hate the Huffington Post and b) Turns out FrumForum is not the Orthodox Jewish message board I assumed it was, based on the domain name.
I’m not here to minimize the tragedy. A nine-year-old girl died. A lot of people have been accused of inappropriate grandstanding in the wake of this event. But I want to discuss some of the ideological aspects right now. It’s how my brain processes these things. A few scattered thoughts.
I’m bothered by Jack Shafer’s “awesome stupidity,” stating that the county sheriff isn’t qualified to opine on Arizona’s horrendous influx of and ugly rhetorical fomentation by a fast-growing group of its citizens. I often respect (if not agree with) Shafer’s opinions, and I don’t agree with calls to repress political rhetoric/polemic if it’s protected by the First Amendment. But he’s way off-base here with his knee-jerk libertarian smear. Frankly, Arizona *is* a fucking cesspool.
The mental illness aspect: Loughner’s online footprint indicates that he’s quite mentally ill. (And wow, how the hell did this guy fall through the cracks in the system? Everyone around him, including his parents, had to have seen something was very, very wrong.) But we can’t fully prove that the mentally ill are more prone to commit violent acts than the rest of us. This 1999 study of assassinations of public officials [PDF] from the Journal of Forensic Science states that although 3/5s of the attackers in the study had been “evaluated or treated” by mental health professionals, “relatively few suffered from serious mental illness that directly affected their assassination behaviors.” Both studies linked here indicate that substance abuse was a very common factor.
Interestingly, the JFS study also states that attackers are unlikely to target public officials for political reasons. (This is an interesting post also about the shaky connection between political motivations and assassination attempts.) I’m very curious to see what comes out in the next few days in terms of Loughner’s political and social affiliations. Is he part of some larger conspiracy, a pawn in a Manchurian Candidate-style scenario? Eh, we’ll see. (The SPLC is alleging that he’s a follower of far-right-wing-loony David Wynn Miller, which does seem plausible. How anyone can understand what Miller’s trying to say, though — that’s another question.) The problem with media analysis — and, for that matter, vetted medical studies published in esteemed journals — is that you come up with the conclusion you were looking for going in.
This, I thought, was a particularly interesting Metafilter comment from back in August:
The current cycle will likely peak next spring. The usual pattern is for the Patriots to ride on the energy of electoral cycles and then the more violent ones will have a temper tantrum (usually in the form of mass killings) in the spring after the federal elections. You may recall the last cycle turned violent in 1995, six months after the right-wing frenzy gained the Republicans control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Depression. The crazies like Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph don’t have any investment in electoral politics, but they are activated by political agitation and take the hot air coming from the far right as encouragement and approval for their own extremism.
The First Amendment vs eliminationist aspect: I’m of two minds when it comes to whether a) the violent political rhetoric of the Right somehow crosses the line of “protected speech,” and b) the rhetoric actually brings about this kind of violence. David Neiwert makes a compelling argument for a) yes and b) yes. Neiwert knows hate speech and hate groups better than most. The moment I hear dog-whistle words like treason, tyranny, traitor, sovereign, etc., come out of a pundit or politician’s mouth, I do get nervous. Because it means that that person is making two simultaneous statements — one directed at the general public, and the other at the fringe. Whether the fringe interprets this rhetoric as a call to arms is, to me, what determines whether it’s hate speech or not.
But we’re not talking Hal Turner calling for the murders of judges and Mexicans (which, as it turns out, may have been entirely payrolled by the FBI). We’re talking about greater nuance. Glenn Beck, who told us that it isn’t the time to pick up our guns and revolt — yet. Or Sharron Angle’s Second Amendment remedies. And Palin, Jesse Kelly, Beck, and all the other stupid, hateful *mainstream* political figures and pundits who use incendiary words and “surveyor’s symbols” on infographics. Even given the tragedy this weekend, I remain comfortable with letting them continue their stupid, hateful campaigns of stupid hate, because, eventually, and hopefully soon, they’ll shoot themselves in the foot (no pun intended) in doing so. As a defender of the First Amendment, I say, keep talking, bozos. But those of us who vehemently disagree (and I include myself in this) should be doing a lot more to exercise our own First Amendment rights in decrying this bullshit.*
The gun control aspect: This “insurrection timeline” is probably the most comprehensive list of violent insurrection (and attempts) since 2008. I think it’s casting entirely too wide a net, but it’s useful. I don’t have a lot to say on this, right now, other than I’ve read Loughner purchased his gun legally. (Although I have to question why someone with documented mental issues is legally entitled to do so…)
Anyhow, more later(ish).
*Not that I’m implying we should stage a leftist uprising or anything, she said.
My goodness, it’s been awhile. I admit, I kind of enjoyed my sabbatical but now that I no longer have the excuse of being occupied with unpacking all our belongings (a process which still isn’t finished, by the way — it’s nice how austere our living room looks without books on the bookshelves*) I guess I should write something. Comin’ at ya big dick style!**
Yeah, we moved again. I don’t think I mentioned that. Yes, we moved further into Queens and are now paying *more* than we did in LIC, but now we have a yard and the most beautiful, brand-new bathroom you’ve ever seen.*** It’s also not a soporific 80 degrees all winter. In fact, we have a high-tech thermostat with four different settings! Incroyable!
And, not to brag, but we now have four (equally sketchy) laundromats within a block of us.
It wasn’t all so bad in our old place (our neighbor had it worse — at one point she had a bee infestation) but it was, you know, a crumbling prewar apartment complex maintained by a shambolic former death metal drummer.
I have two Savannah anecdotes to share, both of which came up this week for unrelated reasons.
Pinkie Masters [sic] is The Greatest Bar in Savannah and possibly the southeast United States. (Murph’s would be a close second, but it’s changed hands since we first went there and the jukebox is one of those electronic abominations and there’s no more talk of spoons players. The pool table with the bullet holes remains. Also, another runner up is Jim Collins, another bar in Savannah, but that closed eons ago.) Anyhow, there was a totally unsubstantiated rumor (related to me as fact by one of the bartenders, as I recall) that during some renovations, contractors discovered a human skeleton buried underneath the concrete in the bathroom. As you know, I have exemplary investigative skills — if you want to find out the dirt on someone, give me 24 hours and I’ll tell you what color their toothbrush is — but I’ve researched the hell out of this story and I have found squadoosh. So it’s almost certainly apocryphal. Anyone who knows otherwise, please feel free to email me.
So this week I came across a WSAV news story about Obama visiting Savannah earlier this year:
A lot of politicos hung out at Pinkie’s in its heyday, particularly democrats — there’s a plaque on the bar where Jimmy Carter stood in 1978 — so naturally everyone at Pinkie’s wanted Obama to come by during his visit. I don’t think it happened. (I’m sure he’d have felt really welcome, what with the Dixie flag above the bar and all. It would have been nice to see that come down before the end of the 20th century — or the Carter administration, for fuck’s sake, but shit in one hand and wish in the other, I guess.)
I saw a number of famous people in Pinkie’s. It sucked when a film shoot rolled into town, because it meant you couldn’t get a seat at the bar. I met a number of (quasi) celebrities. I had a conversation with Jude Law one night. He seemed like an idiot, although to me everyone seems like an idiot.
My favorite Savannah celebrity encounter didn’t take place in Pinkie’s, though. This was the mid-90s, when ironic t-shirts were beginning to become wildly popular, and I was wearing an AWESOME gray t-shirt emblazoned with It’s Miller Time! in red letters. I was walking up the stairs of the downtown post office and this little guy was coming down the stairs, and he pointed at me and said, “It’s Miller Time?” And I’m thinking, this guy looks familiar. And so I said the only thing I could think of, which was, “Yeah, and I’m late!” And we smiled at each other and then I realized Holy shit, it’s Miller from Repo Man! And then *he* realized that *I* realized and he smiled and winked at me.
Miller, of course, is the best character in Repo Man:
So that’s it. THE END.
Oh wait. Since I have no idea how much time will pass before my *next* dispatch, I give you this: BEES!!!. [NB: I did not create this masterpiece -- my office mate did. ENYOY!]
*However I trust no one whose living room lacks books, because it’s generally a condition concomitant with specially designed shoe closets and ironed hair.
**And in this instance, “big dick style” means “totally rambling, unedited, and trailing off at the end.”
***In a Queens rental apartment. After enduring nearly seven years of what I will charitably term “substandard” bathrooms, N and I decided that we’re not students and as people firmly situated in our mid 30s, we deserve a tub that we are not afraid to sit down in. My only real complaints are that the toilet a) is a little tall and b) has a square base, which makes me far more likely to stub my toe on it in the middle of the night. Still, it beats black mold.
Last night Maud (with Max reluctantly in tow) came over to watch Sarah Palin’s Alaska, a show so insipid that a link to its TLC website would be as useless as tits on a boar. You don’t care about this show and you don’t need to learn anything more about it than you already know. As the opening credits rolled, N joked that we should make up a drinking game but frankly, that would’ve resulted at least one of us being airlifted to a hospital for acute alcohol poisoning. A preferable game would’ve been Russian roulette. Losing outcome: You have to watch the rest of Sarah Palin’s Alaska.
Anyhow, more on that some other time.
I started the rest of this post so long ago that it’s about Henry Rollins and his stupid tirade at the Cakeshop here in NYC. This stopped being relevant a week ago, but oh well. I’m fucking lazy.
If you don’t feel like watching it, the great Nitsuh Abebe has written a play-by-play of it.
Maybe some folks in the punk scene are bored with him that way. Random kids at this particular venue, though, are not likely to care. They are not as annoyed by their elders as punks like Rollins used to be. And to most of them, he is just a guy who was in a legendary punk band (Black Flag), was painted red on MTV when they were kids (Liar), and likes to talk a lot. He is no more in the way than, say, Betty White is in the way of younger actresses. The only person in this room freaking out about Henry Rollins’s cred is Henry Rollins.
Witness Rollins’ sad display of insecurity. And his weird grope-y and chauvinistic behavior. And the ultimate reflexive irony of a tattooed, posturing millionaire accusing a woman (whoops, I mean “chick”) of being a tattooed trust-fund hipster. I don’t doubt that the woman who shouted “Get in the van!” was doing it to goad him. (Had I been there, I’d have been tempted to shout something stupid at him too. But it would probably be either “Hey guys, the lead singer from the Misfits is here!” or “Look, it’s the 6th lead singer of Black Flag!”) But fucking RISE ABOVE, Henry. Don’t take the bait. Don’t use your companion as some sort of Integrity Shield. And for fuck’s sake, keep your hands off of women you barely know. (To me, the most uncomfortable moments in that video are when Rollins grabs onto Neshat like she was about to float off into space and I swear, her shoulders visibly stiffen. Or maybe that’s transference, because mine are stiffening right now as I type this.)
Remember this, Henry. We won’t be calling your integrity into question because you’re “old” and “in the way.” We will be calling you out for Johnny Mnemonic. For The Gap. FOR YOUR FAMOUS GRAMMY-WINNING SPOKEN WORD ALBUM.
Full disclosure: I am already on the record as considering Rollins a turgid, parochial moron.* I’ve always disliked him. Say what you will about Jello Biafra, but he hangs out with terminally ill kids (and not in the Tim Yohannon way, if you get what I’m saying**) and has never bragged about his FAMOUS BOOKS. I’m on Team Jello.
*Weirdly enough, the most brutal critique of that essay was almost totally focused on my hatred of Henry Rollins and why it was so wrong of me and I’m an idiot and Rollins is a god and I will bet you $5 that the shitbag who wrote it beats off on the regular to that Rollins Cakeshop video. (You see what I did there?)
**Nothing like some micro-scene slandering of a dead guy, right?
Y’all know that one of my bugbears is how law enforcement and the media alike routinely trivialize and downright ignore the serial murders of people — and particularly women — of color (See also. See also. See also).
Something else I dislike? The pop culture treatment of street prostitution.* Here is a list of things that are not funny: Movies and documentaries and conventions and friggin’ Halloween costumes [warning: sound] that glamorize and/or sensationalize pimping. Also not funny: That the meaning of “pimp” has somehow been distilled to mean “to lavishly adorn” or “to promote.” (I find it particularly disturbing when I hear this word used by authors or even publishing world professionals in reference to marketing newly-published books. It’s gross, and they should know better.)
With that jeremiad out of the way, I’d like to introduce you to the newest addition to my list of Self-Appointed Digital Media Gurus Who Are Also the Worst People in the World Bafflingly Clueless and Tone Deaf (But Possibly Redeemable): the author of How to Market Your Brand Like a Prostitute.**
I’ve had the Cherrysave feed in my Google Reader for a while now, long enough that I can’t recall how I first came across the blog. I think it was via this post about using web fonts in CSS3. Or via this post about the semantic web.
Here’s a question, Kurt — why did you delete those posts? Those were interesting.
More specifically, why on earth would you delete those posts and instead puke up something like How to Market Your Brand Like a Prostitute? From the intro:
Prostitutes are not just coke-addicted sex workers. They are (often) very talented marketers and entrepreneurs. Here’s how to market your brand like a prostitute.
This makes my mother’s backhanded compliments (e.g., on Barbra Streisand: She’s so brave to keep her real nose) seem positively toothless.
Reading on. I really liked Tip Number 3:
3. Get a pimp
Connect with people with connections who can promote your brand for you. Having someone to vouch for you (and discover your work) will increase leads and credibility.
See Why Using the Word Pimp to in the Context of Anything Other Than a Fucking Sociopath Who Exploits Fellow Human Beings Means You’re an Idiot, above.
Anyhow, Kurt, I don’t know why you’ve chosen to take this new direction with your writing, but since you mentioned on your About page that “every person has an amazing and rare piece of insight that would be useful to someone else,” allow me to share this insight with you:
I see that you’re a law school student and that this digital media stuff is apparently just a side interest of yours. So here’s a Feminist Protip for you: Regardless of whether you’re arguing a case or presenting at TED or even just hanging out at a neighborhood barbecue, using prostitution similes in an effort to make yourself sound clever or edgy is not going to win you fans. At best, it will win you uncomfortable laughter.
In an ideal world, I mean. Frankly, people are fucking assholes. Maybe everyone outside of my Imaginary Humorless Feminist Collective thinks shit like this is hilarious. For those people, I’ve taken the liberty of punching up Kurt’s cute little presentation — since, you know, street prostitutes are 18 times more likely to be murdered than their non-sex-working female counterparts and are also a hugely popular target for serial killers.
NOW WITH MORE EDGE: How to Market Your Brand Like a Serial Killer:
- Go to where the hookers are
Self-awareness is key. You need to understand who your audience is, and … where you can hunt them down and “pitch” to them. If you don’t, your “pitch” will surely fail to “kill”!
- Be a hot piece of a**
Package and design matter. Anyone can kill a bunch of prostitutes! It’s the ones who chop them up and dump their gutted torsos in elementary school playgrounds who make the news. [Note: It helps if they're white.]
- Get a partner in crime
Connect with people with connections who can promote your brand for you. You think Ottis Toole could’ve made it into the pantheon of American serial killers without Henry Lee Lucas? Forget it!
- Don’t try to look like a serial killer unless you are one
If you fake it, you’ll lose engagement from your audience. Remember: You need at least three kills over a period of more than 30 days if you want to be a REAL serial killer. Don’t half-ass it, buddy.
- Avoid competitive corners
Too much competition can drive down prices and make it harder for you to get noticed. Did you know that when you cross the Georgia border into Florida there’s a giant sign that reads “Welcome to the Sunshine State, Land of a Thousand Serial Killers”? That’s right — only a rank amateur would “pitch” to an already glutted “market”! Same goes for Southern California. Try someplace like New Hampshire. They haven’t had a good serial killer in like two decades.
*Please note that I’m not talking about sex work in general. I fully support sex workers’ rights, I think prostitution should be legalized, and I believe there are plenty of “normal,” well-adjusted, non-substance-abusing women and men in the trade, etc. etc. But I’m not talking about that today.
**As I was writing this, I had a change of heart once I considered the people in the field whom I wholly despise, such as Loren Feldman (of 1938Media), who is truly in the pantheon of the Worst People in the World. I don’t think Kurt qualifies for this. He’s redeemable. Unless he’s writing shit like this in an attempt to emulate Loren Feldman. Then he goes back on the Worst People list.
Where did she go?
I am lazy. If you're bored, go visit my tumblr, updated daily with other people's witticisms and erudition.Also by me
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