Putting the SEX back in Rock 'N' Roll
Episode 3: Raw Animal Lust and Wild Jungle Rhythms
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
The Rock 'N' Roll Brat with Cesca TomCat: Episode 2- What Might Have Been: Torch Songs of Love, Lust and Longing
Episode two of a weekly rock 'n' roll radio show, broadcasting from an underground bunker on the outskirts of Detroit, into the nebulous ether for you aural pleasure. A genre-bending mix of all the rarities, B-sides, and deep cuts your earthly bodies can handle. From the street corner occupied by The Ramones, to the dusty roads walked by Townes Van Zandt; somewhere on Tom Waits home planet, in the The Cramps galaxy: tune in, you magnificent cretins!!
On this week's episode we delve into the deep and treacherous waters of love found and love lost through the agony and the ecstasy of the brutal necessity of the torch song. Pour yourself a tall scotch and break out that emergency pack of cigarettes you keep in the back of your panty drawer, its going to be a long night.
The Rock 'N' Roll Brat with Cesca TomCat: Episode 2- Torch Songs
As always, Gabba Gabba Hey Forever!!!
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
The Rock 'N' Roll Brat with Cesca TomCat: Episode 1- Saved By Rock 'N' Roll
The premiere episode of a weekly rock 'n' roll radio show, broadcasting from an underground bunker on the outskirts of Detroit, into the nebulous ether for you aural pleasure. A genre-bending mix of all the rarities, B-sides, and deep cuts your earthly bodies can handle. From the street corner occupied by The Ramones, to the dusty roads walked by Townes Van Zandt; somewhere on Tom Waits home planet, in the The Cramps galaxy: tune in, you magnificent cretins!! Gabba Gabba Hey Forever!!!
The Rock 'N' Roll Brat with Cesca TomCat: Saved By Rock 'N' Roll
Follow me on Instagram, cool Daddios: @ctomcat55 or @the_rock_n_roll_brat
Email inquires or nasty complaints: cescatomcat@gmail.com
The Rock 'N' Roll Brat with Cesca TomCat: Saved By Rock 'N' Roll
Follow me on Instagram, cool Daddios: @ctomcat55 or @the_rock_n_roll_brat
Email inquires or nasty complaints: cescatomcat@gmail.com
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Cigarettes and Coffee: Ancient Love and the Power of the Unknown
Preamble: Spent the Last Piaster I Could Borrow
I awake with the following Steely Dan lyric playing on repeat, in my head...
"I was halfway crucified / I was on the other side / Of no tomorrow
You walked in / And my life began again
Just when I'd spent the last piaster / I could borrow
All night long / We would sing that stupid song
And every word we sang / I knew was true"
I haven't felt this pang of longing and desire in years. Feelings I forgot I could even feel. Fuck. It is truly the most exquisite pain; la douleur exquise. You ignite me in a way I've craved to be lit since the genesis of time. An ancient, primal thirst. Your virility, your power, your coruscation; you are a brilliant flash of color against an otherwise grey tableau.
I burn with desire to taste the sins of your flesh. There is no one I'd rather be tangled up in blue with...
Untitled XVIII
Willem de Kooning
1970's
Ancient Love
Since primordial times, I've longed for my Cigarettes and Coffee lover. His essence has been fomenting in my anachronistic, jungle soul, waiting to be conjured and made manifest. Rugged and virile, but boyish somehow. Lascivious, yet undeniably sweet. I love him; with an ancient love. I am as desperate to worship his cock, as I am to fold his laundry. He makes me feel like myself.
We are skin-diving into an turbulent eddy, with no real plan other than to let the whirlpool take us where it pleases; down into the depths or lost out at sea. Either way, the dividing line between Heaven and Hell, razor-thin. As I wait for the pendulum of pain and rejection to swing back my direction, I can at least revel in this ignited moment, that very first second when the struck match is lit. Before beginning it’s slow, inevitable burn into piceous obscurity.
Sunlit Surf
George Bellows
1913
"Won't say I love you, babe / Won't say I need you, babe
I'm gonna get you babe / And I will not do you wrong
Living's mostly wasting time /And I'll waste my share of mine
But it never feels too good / So let's don't take too long
Well you're soft as glass / And I'm a gentle man
And we got the sky to talk about / And the world to lie upon...
The choice is yours to make / And time is yours to take
Some dive into the sea / Some toil upon the stone
Well, to live's to fly / All low and high
So shake the dust off of your wings / And the sleep out of your eyes"
~ Townes Van Zandt, To Live is to Fly
Cigarettes and Coffee Playlist
********
“This then is the game that is afoot... You smolder sullenly until that moment when the flame quickens and you resolve, once again, to drive yourself deeper into the chaos you demand, first singed and finally scorched by the conflagration you create. A serial arsonist, this latest fire will catch as you fan it and the architecture of the Man you burn with and for will find his fate. And you will surge.
The Ancient one, the fulsome Soul, burning now as you always have and always will. You can see all the way back to the beginning. You know the length of days. You count the nights. Tally them all and from the sum derive the total of that jagged chaos you sustain. Your soul feeds on it. And those men you nurture in their due time in turn are fed by the heat and chaos of your scorched soul. This is the gift you bring them, pray that they are aware of the value, not now alone, while they have that benefit directly, but also later, in the lonely nights after you have gone.
And how many will find their fortune in seeing all of you, all sides, not only, not merely, the fiery Sex but, indeed, that other one, that one that weeps, that lays tenderly, that bears the weight of the World on her slender frame, so slender? How many? For that is not the gift you bring to most. The gift you bring is the power to burn, if only for a little while, alongside you as you consummate that union."
~ MN
********
The gamblers, the bums, the creeps, the tramps, the cowboys, the poets; they are all me. I am them. A strange attractor, an arcane antenna; I draw them to me. Feeding them, as elemental Mother, and feasting on them, in the most carnal, Circean-manner. I will give until it hurts, as only the truly sadomasochistic can. I am both vessel and drink.
Stationary Figure
Philip Guston
1973
********
"When I say I'm in love, you best believe I'm in love. L-U-V." ~David Johansen, by way of The Shangri-Las
All I have are these stupid words to give you, for I cannot touch you, I cannot taste you. I burn to offer you my love, my affection, my tenderness, my sex. I ache to render myself to you in tangible form, not just the symbolic. Alas the longing deepens, as the chasm of my animus floods with cum and blood; fervor and love.
The Treachery of Images
Rene Magritte
1929
I awake with the following Steely Dan lyric playing on repeat, in my head...
"I was halfway crucified / I was on the other side / Of no tomorrow
You walked in / And my life began again
Just when I'd spent the last piaster / I could borrow
All night long / We would sing that stupid song
And every word we sang / I knew was true"
I haven't felt this pang of longing and desire in years. Feelings I forgot I could even feel. Fuck. It is truly the most exquisite pain; la douleur exquise. You ignite me in a way I've craved to be lit since the genesis of time. An ancient, primal thirst. Your virility, your power, your coruscation; you are a brilliant flash of color against an otherwise grey tableau.
I burn with desire to taste the sins of your flesh. There is no one I'd rather be tangled up in blue with...
Willem de Kooning
1970's
Ancient Love
Since primordial times, I've longed for my Cigarettes and Coffee lover. His essence has been fomenting in my anachronistic, jungle soul, waiting to be conjured and made manifest. Rugged and virile, but boyish somehow. Lascivious, yet undeniably sweet. I love him; with an ancient love. I am as desperate to worship his cock, as I am to fold his laundry. He makes me feel like myself.
We are skin-diving into an turbulent eddy, with no real plan other than to let the whirlpool take us where it pleases; down into the depths or lost out at sea. Either way, the dividing line between Heaven and Hell, razor-thin. As I wait for the pendulum of pain and rejection to swing back my direction, I can at least revel in this ignited moment, that very first second when the struck match is lit. Before beginning it’s slow, inevitable burn into piceous obscurity.
George Bellows
1913
"Won't say I love you, babe / Won't say I need you, babe
I'm gonna get you babe / And I will not do you wrong
Living's mostly wasting time /And I'll waste my share of mine
But it never feels too good / So let's don't take too long
Well you're soft as glass / And I'm a gentle man
And we got the sky to talk about / And the world to lie upon...
The choice is yours to make / And time is yours to take
Some dive into the sea / Some toil upon the stone
Well, to live's to fly / All low and high
So shake the dust off of your wings / And the sleep out of your eyes"
~ Townes Van Zandt, To Live is to Fly
Cigarettes and Coffee Playlist
********
“This then is the game that is afoot... You smolder sullenly until that moment when the flame quickens and you resolve, once again, to drive yourself deeper into the chaos you demand, first singed and finally scorched by the conflagration you create. A serial arsonist, this latest fire will catch as you fan it and the architecture of the Man you burn with and for will find his fate. And you will surge.
The Ancient one, the fulsome Soul, burning now as you always have and always will. You can see all the way back to the beginning. You know the length of days. You count the nights. Tally them all and from the sum derive the total of that jagged chaos you sustain. Your soul feeds on it. And those men you nurture in their due time in turn are fed by the heat and chaos of your scorched soul. This is the gift you bring them, pray that they are aware of the value, not now alone, while they have that benefit directly, but also later, in the lonely nights after you have gone.
And how many will find their fortune in seeing all of you, all sides, not only, not merely, the fiery Sex but, indeed, that other one, that one that weeps, that lays tenderly, that bears the weight of the World on her slender frame, so slender? How many? For that is not the gift you bring to most. The gift you bring is the power to burn, if only for a little while, alongside you as you consummate that union."
~ MN
********
The gamblers, the bums, the creeps, the tramps, the cowboys, the poets; they are all me. I am them. A strange attractor, an arcane antenna; I draw them to me. Feeding them, as elemental Mother, and feasting on them, in the most carnal, Circean-manner. I will give until it hurts, as only the truly sadomasochistic can. I am both vessel and drink.
Philip Guston
1973
********
"When I say I'm in love, you best believe I'm in love. L-U-V." ~David Johansen, by way of The Shangri-Las
All I have are these stupid words to give you, for I cannot touch you, I cannot taste you. I burn to offer you my love, my affection, my tenderness, my sex. I ache to render myself to you in tangible form, not just the symbolic. Alas the longing deepens, as the chasm of my animus floods with cum and blood; fervor and love.
Rene Magritte
1929
Friday, April 17, 2020
Lust and Longing in San Francisco: Love Letter For the Quixotic Man
I know we literally just hung up, but God, that was such a fantastic conversation. We certainly eye-fucked each other’s brains out. You’re so sexy. I can’t resist you. All I could think about was you kissing me, and licking me, and how badly I wanted your gorgeous cock inside of me. My pussy aches for you. I ache for you.
I can’t get enough of you. You consume my every thought, you invade
my obsidian dreams; your sex, your wit, your charm, your cock. I long
to be your adoring, model girlfriend, and your dirty little secret slut.
I want to be covered in you, to drink you; to be fully subsumed by you.
You know shit is getting real intense when poetry takes place of of my prose.
I’ve never experienced this level of desire with someone so
quickly, so far out of reach. This intensity is atomic. We may just rip a
hole in the time/space continuum when we fuck for real. But there’s no
one I’d rather destroy the fabric of reality with than you. ; )
I can’t wait to cum for you. I can’t wait to make you cum. You sexy, handsome, magnetic fucker.
And for what it’s worth, I think we’re just the right amount of fucked up for each other.
********
“And the reason why they were so compelling, besides those cute
haircuts and tight leather pants, was because they were sexy losers.”
I don’t see what’s so wrong with sexy loserdom. I find it terribly
hip, and incredibly sexually arousing. It’s in that devil-may-care
attitude, the shine of the switchblade, the roar of the motorbike, and
the smell of the leather that all the fun lies. Why that fell out of
favor for some flimsy illusion of maturity and puritanical morality, is
baffling. Meanwhile, the soul is asphyxiated by the putrid stench of
bullshit and sexual repression.
So many rules to follow, so many structures to adhere to, to be
good. To be popular. To be loved. Who fucking cares about being good?
Good is boring. Who fucking cares about being popular? Most people are a
joke. And most importantly, who cares about that kind of false love?
Love isn’t putting someone in a straightjacket and expecting them not to
go mad. Love isn’t convincing yourself it’s really not *that* bad.
Jesus. How abysmal. Fuck that.
Real love is freedom. Freedom from rules, freedom from judgment,
and freedom from lies. The lies we tell our partners and the lies we
have to tell ourselves. There’s something incredibly freeing about fully
embracing yourself, no matter how perverted, but it’s even more
stratospheric when lovers can embrace themselves within each other.
That’s the Holy Grail; riding the crest of the wave for as long as
fucking possible, on some far-out Universal plane, until it inevitably
slams you into the galactic surf.
********
Is there a more intoxicating love than the one laden with prurient
hunger, sensual thirst, and the bittersweet longing built right in: la
douleur exquise?
My body burns with desire. My mind races with smut. My soul
crackles with atomic electricity. The melancholic yearning; el duende,
it only intensifies the passion, like throwing Molotov cocktails into a
volcano. It only amplifies the bloodlust with the threat of destruction
and chaos.
It’s like Year One. The clock is being reset. We can start all over
if we want. Why should we settle for anything short of cosmological?
Why do we have to even dumb down our dreams. Without the hope of
something stratospheric, some suicide pact-sized tire fire; a connection
greater than the sum of its parts, what’s the point? I might as well
drive my car off a fucking bridge. If this is all there is.
Why am I so fucking stupid? Why do I care about this? About
anything? Why can’t I just be an apathetic nihilist? Instead of a
romantic, sentimental, bone-headed fool? Why does it all have to mean
soooo much. Why does losing control make me so fucking high.
Why must I take the idea of the challenge to such obnoxious
extremes? My relationships akin to walking a tightrope between two
skyscrapers. It all has to be so fatalistic. Why is that what excites me
so? Bonnie and Clyde without all the gunshot wounds. He said. Yes, in a
perfect, non-neurotic world. But without all those gunshot wounds,
does it really have the threat of tragedy necessary to make me
hot/cum/give a shit?
Not fucking likely. Addicts need to keep seeking out that bigger,
more intense high. Too much ain’t enough, for this junkie. Fuck it. I
need my heroin fix.
I realize I’d rather wade in memory than wallow in fantasy.
********
“Still waking up in the mornings with shaking hands / And I'm trying to find a girl who understands me / But except in dreams you're never really free...
Don't the trees look like crucified thieves/
Don't you feel like Desperados under the eaves”
Warren Zevon’s Desperados Under the Eaves plays as I was leave my
bedroom after our amazing morning together, in one of many poetic
moments. Your primal virility seared in vivid color in my mind;
gorgeous, granite cock in hand, jacking for me; your casual masculinity
inescapable. I am looking for a supplement, not a replacement. I have
my own obligations and commitments, that I’m not willing to cede. And I
fear I am more than any one man can handle; this hard-to-tame Appaloosa,
but I also know my limit. But because I we are of the same mind on
this, I am afforded the comfort needed to explore this from a place of
emotional depth and total indulgence. I hope this elucidation allows you
to feel the same.
I’m no stranger to intensity or passion; love and lust are my stock
and trade. I’m a junkie for it. And while the threat of pain is always
lurking just below, the excitement and pleasure far outweigh the fear.
The fear, that is, of getting hurt, as emotions are inextricably
entangled. I relish and adore your attention, and love to adore and
attend to you, worship at the altar of your cock as you ignite me, but
I’ll never ask you to give until it hurts. I don’t know how to be that
selfish; it’s antithetical to my nature. I’m all about pleasure, as
panacea to all the pain. This type of connection is not without its
complexities, which makes it all the more arousing. I want to evolve,
challenge and be challenged, and push each other to our sensual limits,
but only on our own planet, out on Neptune somewhere, not back on Earth;
the Sirens of Titan seducing us to the Liquid Sky.
Xoxox
Your quixotic, anachronistic, cock-sucking, Cosmic, Sex Kitten ; )
"Men will always fall in love with you. They always have. You are
alluring and evocative of that certain something they long to attain.
Which among them has the fiber, the connective tissues to allow you to
continue to seek what you desire even as you deign to please them, at
least in that fired moment? And yet, they cannot "allow" you anything,
your life is yours for the making. They delude themselves . . . You are
lovely and deep and wild and willful in your own way. Can you be
contained? I think . . . No. And yet you will pursue that ecstasy - one
more time, two more times, every time it feels soooo right. I think that
I will work to be here when you need me. A flicker of light. A scented
space . . . the musky smell of Man. A memory from the future. A dream of
past lives surging along our elliptical orbit across the Universe." ~ MN
Dave Alvin- King of California
"The long Poetess, stricken. Smitten with that bitter hunger. A bitterness that spurs you on, impels you forward, reckless (some say) and thickened by the turbulence of the swirl.
But I say no, not reckless at all. This is a measured descent with a hard-won calculus derived from time (years, eons) spent watching, baiting, fetching unwary travelers and temporary companions . . . " ~MN
********
"If there's not something wrong with me, there should be." ~ Johnny Thunders
The Birthday Party- Fears of Gun
I’m descending into some obsidian, psychosexual madness. My only solace found in the lascivious sleaze and melancholic smut. As the angst and perversion roil inside like Charybdis, swallowing sailors down her hungry gullet, I reel. Fingers down the throat of love, indeed."
The New York Dolls- Personality Crisis
"But you think about the times you did they took every ounce/
When it sure got to be a shame when you start to scream and shout"
Why I ever turn my back on punk, I’ll never know; it ebbs and flows over and inside. It electrifies me with power and lust, like a trashy, sordid shock treatment. Seducing me back into the cum-soaked brine of the Liquid Sky.
"If there's not something wrong with me, there should be." ~ Johnny Thunders
The Birthday Party- Fears of Gun
I’m descending into some obsidian, psychosexual madness. My only solace found in the lascivious sleaze and melancholic smut. As the angst and perversion roil inside like Charybdis, swallowing sailors down her hungry gullet, I reel. Fingers down the throat of love, indeed."
The New York Dolls- Personality Crisis
"But you think about the times you did they took every ounce/
When it sure got to be a shame when you start to scream and shout"
Why I ever turn my back on punk, I’ll never know; it ebbs and flows over and inside. It electrifies me with power and lust, like a trashy, sordid shock treatment. Seducing me back into the cum-soaked brine of the Liquid Sky.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Saturday, August 3, 2019
And Another Thing Democrats... / Meet the New Boss; Same as the Old Boss
And Another Thing Democrats...
With the Democratic debates raging on, with no sign of civility ahead; I can't help but bubble and roil like Vesuvius. These ridiculous personal attacks each Democratic candidate is hurling at each fellow candidate reeks of myopia. We would be better served to just pick the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidate as quickly as possible, without all this frivolous infighting that's going to come back and haunt the Democrats later, in the form of a large, bombastic orange tornado of arrogant power and sheer luck that will leverage each and every one of these barbs in the general election.
Each petty swipe is just another round of ammunition for the opposing side. Doesn't anyone on that dais of twenty candidates fucking get that? Gnawing each other apart is only going to help Trump in the long run. This ridiculous game of who can throw the most "zingers" out is so tedious and cringe-inducing. You're not comics, assholes; this isn't a roast. Jeff Ross isn't back stage in an Alexander Hamilton costume. You're politicians, fucking act like it. For fuck's sake, just focus on the actual issues at hand in this country, instead of getting sucked into the circus vortex Trump's victory has created. Be the anti-Trump. But with balls. Cast Trump as the villain he is, not all the other Democratic candidates. Save some of that venom for the real opponent. You're going to need all the momentum you can muster to beat a candidate with absolutely zero scruples, willing to say anything to win, no matter how outlandish, impossible, or God-awful.
I don't even care who the Democrats pick at this point, but let's just make it a winner. A real contender. We need someone that can really go head to head with Trump in the debates, and in the media. And someone fucking likeable; someone with a lot of mass appeal. Now is not the time to fuck around with candidates who sound good on paper, but have no real chance of getting swing votes, no matter their qualifications. (I'm looking at you Julian Castro...I'm sure the conspiracy mill already has a big hard-on just thinking about that.) We need a win, by any means necessary. Playing nice, and playing by the rules, cost us the election last time. That's what got us into this mess; acting like a bunch of self-righteous know-it-alls. And how did that work out?
So just fucking pick someone already, and let's all rally behind them like everything depends on it, because it does. Let's rally behind our candidate the way the Republicans rally behind Trump. They bend over backwards and contort themselves into all kinds of inhuman shapes kissing Trump's ass and defending his outrageous, inflammatory speech. But God damn it, they stand by their man. Which is what we need to do in the Democratic party. We need to extol only the virtues of our candidate, while decrying every awful thing Trump does, to drum up people who just want to vote against Trump, not necessarily for our candidate. We can pick apart their policies, and character, and whatever else we hate about the Democratic candidate, once they move squarely into the Oval Office, and not a second before.
And, I don't want to hear this whiny "I'm not voting" bullshit because your primary candidate didn't win the nomination. Pull on your adult panties, and fucking vote for whoever the Democratic candidate is, and shut the fuck up about it. There is no perfect candidate, because there are no perfect people. Sorry to disappoint you all, but these are just three-dimensional human beings like the rest of us, full of faults, foibles, and pedestrian errors. But guess what, they are still all better than Trump. That's really the only thing we have to bear in mind at the moment; 'Still better than Trump.' In fact, that's a pretty truthful campaign slogan. Let's put it on blue hats, and blue t-shirts, and overlay our profile pictures on social media with it. Still Better Than Trump: SBTT. MAGA vs. SBTT. Let's start chanting that at Democratic rallies. We could do with a little populist fanfare to get voters emotionally invested.
Meet the New Boss; Same as the Old Boss
Which ties into the other movement that is sticking in my craw; the far left and their authoritative rhetoric. I know I've harped on this before, but it seems to be getting more pronounced as the elections looms. Much like the fever pitch it reached right before and immediately following the 2016 election. I'm just as tired of hearing about the white, male patriarchy as I am about Trump's latest racist-filled, garbage tweet. I'm not even sure which I find more distasteful; the directly bigoted pig, or the snake who hides their judgement behind the guise of sanctimony.
If I wanted to be told what to do by a bunch of people I'm supposed to respect by default, I would just attend church. I have been rebelling against whatever authority existed, on a micro level, and on a macro scale, since I was a kid. It's just the way I'm wired; to question everything that comes across my proverbial desk. To rebel, or full-on revolt, if what I see isn't what I think is right. Now that doesn't mean everyone has to agree with me, or think like me, or whatever, I'm just doing what is right for me. I don't need nor want to push my personal, philosophical beliefs on anyone else. If so, then they would cease to be my personal, philosophical beliefs, and more of a tyranny of sorts, or maybe even worse, some kind of guru-ism. Blech. "What might be right for you, may not be right for some," claimed a wise theme song, once. One of the core tenets of my philosophy is that I mind my own fucking business. I can advocate for change or certain principles, I can express my opinions and beliefs passionately, but I cannot force-feed or browbeat those principles into anyone. For if I do, then they are no longer real or true, but just a symptom of brainwashing or fatigue in whoever I am instilling (or rather, installing) them in. It's like a forced confession, after hours of grueling interrogation; the suspect will say anything to just make it stop.
One of the patent hypocrisies I can't stand about some of the voices gaining traction on the left, is this idea that instead of simply expressing an opinion, or suggesting different solutions, its laid out as THE opinion, THE solution. Instead of "I feel this way about A, B, and C," its "You should feel this way about A, B, and C." It's that subtle and insidious difference that is simultaneously galling and so effective. Perfected over thousands of years by none other than, the very Patriarchy in question. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Does one really care what type of person is inside the jackboot that is stepping on their neck? So we trade a white, male patriarchy for a more physically diverse and inclusive, but ideologically similar on the other end of the spectrum oligarchy? Oh, great. This is really soooo much better, thank you wise, Far Left Overlords! Pfft.
Everyone on this earth has some sort of cross to bear, because we all have mixed-up garbage brains ourselves, on top of trying to interact with other garbage-brained people. We are more similar than we are different when we really boil it down, but we seem to be cordoning everyone off into even smaller groups than expanding ourselves into wider teams. It's mind-boggling to me, some of the completely foreseeable, but unstoppable effects of this intersectionality theory. No one wins when we play the game "Who's got it worse?" Most people have it bad, because existing is exhausting. Let's have compassion for all people, across all different kinds of situations. The old saying, charity starts at home, keeps leaping to mind. Let's take care of the people immediately around us, instead of worrying about what some D-list celebrity or random citizen said on Twitter. Or what some teen wore to prom, or who's allowed to make tacos. Who gives a fuck? Why does it matter? We're giving platforms to bozos who don't deserve platforms. And babbling about shit on social media and tweeting feigned outrage is no where near the same as enacting policy and law, which is the only real way to change any of these rigged systems. Telling white, cis-gendered males that their feelings no longer matter, because they have historically mattered long enough, is not a great way to get votes. And I'm just spit-balling here, but maybe that is a huge reason why Trump drummed up all the votes he did. Because even if he was lying through his capped teeth, people still want to hear "Don't worry, I got you." While the Dems squabble over meaningless tripe, the Republicans are out winning elections, where it counts.
But what we can do, is let everyone voice their opinion. Let everyone squawk about whatever they want, and let the chips fall where they may. Hear everyone out, and try to enact policies that do the most good for the most number of people. Which I still believe the Democrats are capable of, by a mile. While staying above the petty fray. Attempting to silence any one group of people is going to have a backlash, just like it did in the 2016 election. The Republicans, namely the Donald Trump campaign and its affiliated cohorts wielded the Far Left's disdain (no matter how deserved) of white, cis-gendered males to court and woo a lot of former Democratic voters over to their side, flipping formerly Democratic stronghold states red. Conversely, Barack Obama wooed plenty of voters over to the Blue Team, using emotional speech of a positive nature back in 2008. The power can be used for good or for evil, and remains subjective as to which is which.
If the people rebelling against the patriarchy aren't any more morally sound or capable than the current patriarchy, what have we done but waste more fucking time? If they are engaging in the same power corruption, in-fighting, and oppression of certain groups, then all we've made is a lateral move. Everyone should have a voice, not just who the people in power deem acceptable as to having a voice. We have to at least strive toward the ideal that "All (hu)men are created equal." And that cuts both ways, yes that means traditionally marginalized people get a say, but so do the traditionally privileged. It's not a one or the other scenario. It should be all. And yes, I understand that's overly idealistic, but so are most of the notions on the far left anyway. Like "love trumps hate" and all that bullshit. Yeah, in a perfect world, maybe. Hate often wins. Might often winds. Power often wins. Greed, selfishness, anger, often triumph over love, kindness, and altruism. A brilliant friend once told me, "It'd be nice to live in a world where poems cure cancer, but we don't live in that world." It's unrealistic, and naive; immature, really.
We can't engage in the same oppressive tactics and dismissive behaviors and policies that the Patriarchy in question did, and call ourselves different or better. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It's simply another set of people who think they should have authority over others telling us all what to do, and what to think, and what to feel. Instead of urging us to go find the answers for ourselves. But with the Far Left; it seems an even narrower road to walk on their path of goodness or acceptance. At least in the Catholic Church, you could repent any and all of your sins and be absolved. (No wonder the Catholic Church has been around 2000 years, they know how to play to the human psyche.) With this new faction, differences of opinion on the dogma are not allowed, let alone mistakes, with severe social media flagellation to follow, with no thought to absolution. Social Justice Heretics are simply exiled forever, no longer allowed to exist, even after the humiliation rituals.
And each side, throughout history, has always thought that they had supreme righteousness on their side. There is nothing new under the sun, after all, so I rebel against it all. Don't tell me what to think or how to feel, I can manage just fine on my own, asshole. If anyone thinks that they are somehow vested with some authority that was bestowed upon them from on high to rule others, I say to them, you can fuck right off. I don't care which group they are affiliated with.
I think of all humans as measly grains of sand on a vast beach; no one grain of sand any better than any other grain of sand. We are all equally as arbitrary and pointless as the next. The only thing we can do is try to be decent little grains of sand. Where we don't act like our sand is somehow less gritty than our neighbors' sand, and we don't encroach on any other grain's right to be on that vast beach. It's deceptively simple.
I'm tired of everyone acting like they know all the answers, and so definitively too. I don't fucking know any of the answers, and I turn this shit over in my mind a thousand times a day. The best I can come up with is people should be free to pursue whatever happiness they can scrounge up in this dumpster, as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of another in that same pursuit. It isn't much, I know, but it's all I got.
With the Democratic debates raging on, with no sign of civility ahead; I can't help but bubble and roil like Vesuvius. These ridiculous personal attacks each Democratic candidate is hurling at each fellow candidate reeks of myopia. We would be better served to just pick the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidate as quickly as possible, without all this frivolous infighting that's going to come back and haunt the Democrats later, in the form of a large, bombastic orange tornado of arrogant power and sheer luck that will leverage each and every one of these barbs in the general election.
Each petty swipe is just another round of ammunition for the opposing side. Doesn't anyone on that dais of twenty candidates fucking get that? Gnawing each other apart is only going to help Trump in the long run. This ridiculous game of who can throw the most "zingers" out is so tedious and cringe-inducing. You're not comics, assholes; this isn't a roast. Jeff Ross isn't back stage in an Alexander Hamilton costume. You're politicians, fucking act like it. For fuck's sake, just focus on the actual issues at hand in this country, instead of getting sucked into the circus vortex Trump's victory has created. Be the anti-Trump. But with balls. Cast Trump as the villain he is, not all the other Democratic candidates. Save some of that venom for the real opponent. You're going to need all the momentum you can muster to beat a candidate with absolutely zero scruples, willing to say anything to win, no matter how outlandish, impossible, or God-awful.
I don't even care who the Democrats pick at this point, but let's just make it a winner. A real contender. We need someone that can really go head to head with Trump in the debates, and in the media. And someone fucking likeable; someone with a lot of mass appeal. Now is not the time to fuck around with candidates who sound good on paper, but have no real chance of getting swing votes, no matter their qualifications. (I'm looking at you Julian Castro...I'm sure the conspiracy mill already has a big hard-on just thinking about that.) We need a win, by any means necessary. Playing nice, and playing by the rules, cost us the election last time. That's what got us into this mess; acting like a bunch of self-righteous know-it-alls. And how did that work out?
So just fucking pick someone already, and let's all rally behind them like everything depends on it, because it does. Let's rally behind our candidate the way the Republicans rally behind Trump. They bend over backwards and contort themselves into all kinds of inhuman shapes kissing Trump's ass and defending his outrageous, inflammatory speech. But God damn it, they stand by their man. Which is what we need to do in the Democratic party. We need to extol only the virtues of our candidate, while decrying every awful thing Trump does, to drum up people who just want to vote against Trump, not necessarily for our candidate. We can pick apart their policies, and character, and whatever else we hate about the Democratic candidate, once they move squarely into the Oval Office, and not a second before.
And, I don't want to hear this whiny "I'm not voting" bullshit because your primary candidate didn't win the nomination. Pull on your adult panties, and fucking vote for whoever the Democratic candidate is, and shut the fuck up about it. There is no perfect candidate, because there are no perfect people. Sorry to disappoint you all, but these are just three-dimensional human beings like the rest of us, full of faults, foibles, and pedestrian errors. But guess what, they are still all better than Trump. That's really the only thing we have to bear in mind at the moment; 'Still better than Trump.' In fact, that's a pretty truthful campaign slogan. Let's put it on blue hats, and blue t-shirts, and overlay our profile pictures on social media with it. Still Better Than Trump: SBTT. MAGA vs. SBTT. Let's start chanting that at Democratic rallies. We could do with a little populist fanfare to get voters emotionally invested.
Meet the New Boss; Same as the Old Boss
Which ties into the other movement that is sticking in my craw; the far left and their authoritative rhetoric. I know I've harped on this before, but it seems to be getting more pronounced as the elections looms. Much like the fever pitch it reached right before and immediately following the 2016 election. I'm just as tired of hearing about the white, male patriarchy as I am about Trump's latest racist-filled, garbage tweet. I'm not even sure which I find more distasteful; the directly bigoted pig, or the snake who hides their judgement behind the guise of sanctimony.
If I wanted to be told what to do by a bunch of people I'm supposed to respect by default, I would just attend church. I have been rebelling against whatever authority existed, on a micro level, and on a macro scale, since I was a kid. It's just the way I'm wired; to question everything that comes across my proverbial desk. To rebel, or full-on revolt, if what I see isn't what I think is right. Now that doesn't mean everyone has to agree with me, or think like me, or whatever, I'm just doing what is right for me. I don't need nor want to push my personal, philosophical beliefs on anyone else. If so, then they would cease to be my personal, philosophical beliefs, and more of a tyranny of sorts, or maybe even worse, some kind of guru-ism. Blech. "What might be right for you, may not be right for some," claimed a wise theme song, once. One of the core tenets of my philosophy is that I mind my own fucking business. I can advocate for change or certain principles, I can express my opinions and beliefs passionately, but I cannot force-feed or browbeat those principles into anyone. For if I do, then they are no longer real or true, but just a symptom of brainwashing or fatigue in whoever I am instilling (or rather, installing) them in. It's like a forced confession, after hours of grueling interrogation; the suspect will say anything to just make it stop.
One of the patent hypocrisies I can't stand about some of the voices gaining traction on the left, is this idea that instead of simply expressing an opinion, or suggesting different solutions, its laid out as THE opinion, THE solution. Instead of "I feel this way about A, B, and C," its "You should feel this way about A, B, and C." It's that subtle and insidious difference that is simultaneously galling and so effective. Perfected over thousands of years by none other than, the very Patriarchy in question. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Does one really care what type of person is inside the jackboot that is stepping on their neck? So we trade a white, male patriarchy for a more physically diverse and inclusive, but ideologically similar on the other end of the spectrum oligarchy? Oh, great. This is really soooo much better, thank you wise, Far Left Overlords! Pfft.
Everyone on this earth has some sort of cross to bear, because we all have mixed-up garbage brains ourselves, on top of trying to interact with other garbage-brained people. We are more similar than we are different when we really boil it down, but we seem to be cordoning everyone off into even smaller groups than expanding ourselves into wider teams. It's mind-boggling to me, some of the completely foreseeable, but unstoppable effects of this intersectionality theory. No one wins when we play the game "Who's got it worse?" Most people have it bad, because existing is exhausting. Let's have compassion for all people, across all different kinds of situations. The old saying, charity starts at home, keeps leaping to mind. Let's take care of the people immediately around us, instead of worrying about what some D-list celebrity or random citizen said on Twitter. Or what some teen wore to prom, or who's allowed to make tacos. Who gives a fuck? Why does it matter? We're giving platforms to bozos who don't deserve platforms. And babbling about shit on social media and tweeting feigned outrage is no where near the same as enacting policy and law, which is the only real way to change any of these rigged systems. Telling white, cis-gendered males that their feelings no longer matter, because they have historically mattered long enough, is not a great way to get votes. And I'm just spit-balling here, but maybe that is a huge reason why Trump drummed up all the votes he did. Because even if he was lying through his capped teeth, people still want to hear "Don't worry, I got you." While the Dems squabble over meaningless tripe, the Republicans are out winning elections, where it counts.
But what we can do, is let everyone voice their opinion. Let everyone squawk about whatever they want, and let the chips fall where they may. Hear everyone out, and try to enact policies that do the most good for the most number of people. Which I still believe the Democrats are capable of, by a mile. While staying above the petty fray. Attempting to silence any one group of people is going to have a backlash, just like it did in the 2016 election. The Republicans, namely the Donald Trump campaign and its affiliated cohorts wielded the Far Left's disdain (no matter how deserved) of white, cis-gendered males to court and woo a lot of former Democratic voters over to their side, flipping formerly Democratic stronghold states red. Conversely, Barack Obama wooed plenty of voters over to the Blue Team, using emotional speech of a positive nature back in 2008. The power can be used for good or for evil, and remains subjective as to which is which.
If the people rebelling against the patriarchy aren't any more morally sound or capable than the current patriarchy, what have we done but waste more fucking time? If they are engaging in the same power corruption, in-fighting, and oppression of certain groups, then all we've made is a lateral move. Everyone should have a voice, not just who the people in power deem acceptable as to having a voice. We have to at least strive toward the ideal that "All (hu)men are created equal." And that cuts both ways, yes that means traditionally marginalized people get a say, but so do the traditionally privileged. It's not a one or the other scenario. It should be all. And yes, I understand that's overly idealistic, but so are most of the notions on the far left anyway. Like "love trumps hate" and all that bullshit. Yeah, in a perfect world, maybe. Hate often wins. Might often winds. Power often wins. Greed, selfishness, anger, often triumph over love, kindness, and altruism. A brilliant friend once told me, "It'd be nice to live in a world where poems cure cancer, but we don't live in that world." It's unrealistic, and naive; immature, really.
We can't engage in the same oppressive tactics and dismissive behaviors and policies that the Patriarchy in question did, and call ourselves different or better. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It's simply another set of people who think they should have authority over others telling us all what to do, and what to think, and what to feel. Instead of urging us to go find the answers for ourselves. But with the Far Left; it seems an even narrower road to walk on their path of goodness or acceptance. At least in the Catholic Church, you could repent any and all of your sins and be absolved. (No wonder the Catholic Church has been around 2000 years, they know how to play to the human psyche.) With this new faction, differences of opinion on the dogma are not allowed, let alone mistakes, with severe social media flagellation to follow, with no thought to absolution. Social Justice Heretics are simply exiled forever, no longer allowed to exist, even after the humiliation rituals.
And each side, throughout history, has always thought that they had supreme righteousness on their side. There is nothing new under the sun, after all, so I rebel against it all. Don't tell me what to think or how to feel, I can manage just fine on my own, asshole. If anyone thinks that they are somehow vested with some authority that was bestowed upon them from on high to rule others, I say to them, you can fuck right off. I don't care which group they are affiliated with.
I think of all humans as measly grains of sand on a vast beach; no one grain of sand any better than any other grain of sand. We are all equally as arbitrary and pointless as the next. The only thing we can do is try to be decent little grains of sand. Where we don't act like our sand is somehow less gritty than our neighbors' sand, and we don't encroach on any other grain's right to be on that vast beach. It's deceptively simple.
I'm tired of everyone acting like they know all the answers, and so definitively too. I don't fucking know any of the answers, and I turn this shit over in my mind a thousand times a day. The best I can come up with is people should be free to pursue whatever happiness they can scrounge up in this dumpster, as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of another in that same pursuit. It isn't much, I know, but it's all I got.
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