Thought Dump

Crazy to think that new footage of UFOs was released but the world is so fucking chaotic right now we can’t even be bothered by aliens.

"Noise pop" is not a real music genre

I think I've crossed that line into a certain level of emotional numbness/detachment that people often describe when talking about "politics."

How could I have ever blamed anyone else for feeling like this? Get real jack

Been feeling the same way this last month and was going to make a long post about it but I haven't had the energy for boarding lately. Or really much of anything to be honest.

Why the fuck don't they just sell the dust they put on Takis? Fuck eggs, man, I'd even put them shits on my oatmeal and pancakes and, like, chocolate cake or something, if I could.

zappo wrote:My grandmother's still alive and kicking, and she's spent the last couple of years being molded in large part by Fox News & Co. into something which no longer much resembles the generally, if not uniformly, progressive lady who helped to raise me.  It's been pretty sickening!  I believe the time has come for me to implement the parental controls on her cable box and tell her that her package has simply changed "for the worse," as it often does.  Anybody have any thoughts or even advice about how best/else to handle this kind of thing?

To be clear, when I say "how else," I don't mean what to do instead of blocking the lunatic "news" channels.  I'm doing that shit.  MSNBC, too.  And that psychotic Fox Business channel or whatever it's called.  Not just for my and my mother's sanity, either--the old girl is shaving years off her life on account of the panic, terror, and exasperation with which she regularly allows these shits to fill her.  What I mean is how else to explain away the channels' disappearances, etc..  More than open to suggestions, here, regardless of whether (unlikely, I know) or not y'all've dealt with something along these lines.  And no, she won't be able to crack the code.  I'm lucky enough to have her account in my name, and my mother is the emergency back-up or whatever they call it.  We got shit locked the fuck down on that end.

This post from the TV thread was like eight months ago or something. I blocked the channels and said that her cable package had changed. I'm very glad to report that it wasn't a particularly big deal.

This post is to address two things in service of a third. They're indirectly related in that they concern my grandmother. She now lives with me (as of late last year), as she's technically capable of living on her own but, if we're being honest, not safely or comfortably.

1. The coronavirus shit has, much to my surprise and in spite of some initial reluctance on her part, radically reoriented my grandmother's worldview. For the better! I don't think this has anything directly to do with blocking Fox & Co., either, as she only really started coming around after she had allowed herself to come to terms with the fact that these shits is for real. But she has totally turned on President Trump and the GOP and is even saying things like, "Biden sucks shit, but at least he's not trying to get us killed." I'm paraphrasing. This is a welcome development, however impermanent it may be! (I hope it will be more-or-less permanent, but who knows what tomorrow holds?)

2. My grandmother turns 80, today. She's got serious respiratory problems and has Lupus and several other autoimmune disorders, so this birthday really, like, means something in light of the whole pandemic thing. Making it all the way to 80's fucking incredible no matter what, but everything that's going on really throws into relief not just how boss it is and how blessed (if you will) she is, but also just how tenuous that blessing is. Like, not the tenuousness of life in the face of health issues, either, but rather the tenuousness of how "essential" her life (or death, ugh) is to the political and economic structures and figureheads in this country and world. Really makes you think!

That's the thought dump, I guess. But I'm also here because my elderly-ass grandmother is 80, has lived a long, hard, sometimes bitterly fought life (raised in Germany during WWII, both parents died in/during the war, lived as a refugee, nearly died hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times), endured a physically abusive marriage which she barely survived (60 years later, she still gets migraines from the head trauma), and has very much been one of the "little guys" in this country who is always--ALWAYS--getting chewed up and spat out and then forgotten (or even blamed in bad faith for those misfortunes) by the system(s). And she can't see anybody because of her health issues. And she's lonely. And she really could die pretty easily and gruesomely, all of a sudden. And if I could tell her that some of my internet bros told her, "Happy birthday!" I think it would at least bring a smile, however befuddled, to her face.

3. So, anybody wanna wish this old German bird a happy one? I'll poz you!

That is awesome dude. Great, fucking life affirming post. Happy birthday to your grandma and big ups to you for helping her out and being a baller ass grandson.

Happy Birthday Gramma Zappo.

Happy Birthday to her! But more importantly, it is really cool that you have welcomed her into your home. Maybe it seems like the obvious thing for you to have done but that unfortunately is not the case to most people and it should really be applauded.

Happy Birthday!!!

I don't want to be a burden to the people who I love and keep in touch with. I know they have more important things to deal with, and I actually feel guilty for not helping them as much as I could.

The people who I still hold in high regard and/or love... with whom I haven't spoken in a while... I could never impose on them. Fuck that, I don't want to be that kinda friend.

And I'd never reach out to anybody else with my stupid problems, like who the fuck am I right?

I am not trying to humble brag by calling myself "courteous," but, to my brain at least, it really seems like options are severely limited for any courteous person who's lost and hating themselves and just wishing for a bit of human contact.

BGwaves wrote:Happy Birthday!!!

Just in case this was directed to Morrissey, not a good post at all!

Thanks, everyone! Her heart was warmed. An old friend of mine from Japan, who now lives Down Undah, even called and sang her "Happy Birthday" with her housemates in Sydney. People really came through, and my grandmother was heard to remark that it may well have been "one of my best birthdays ever" even though she had expected it to be the worst.

Ned, I feel your post a lot.

95% of everyone who participated in Disco Demolition Night would age into avid MAGA chuds within 30-40 years' time (or much sooner).

And yet, I believe that racism was not a motivating factor in the event.

Sharing this opinion here because I don't want to drop it into a different discussion where it would be seen as carrying water for racist concern trolls.

^ I definitely have thoughts, but I’m not sure what they are yet. There’s a lot going on with that very interesting thought u just dumped here.

undo wrote:95% of everyone who participated in Disco Demolition Night would age into avid MAGA chuds within 30-40 years' time (or much sooner).

Fuck it, I really cannot back this claim up in any meaningful way. Like I know anything about white WLUP listeners 40 years ago that I'm not just extrapolating from the few people I know now who listen to the station or mow their lawns while wearing Loop shirts they've had for twenty years or whatever. Suffice to say they live in the past, thought it was great, and would love for it to be great again (regardless of what political party they vote for, if they're even registered to vote at all).

The summer of '87.

In all honesty, if I do happen to live through (to one extent or another, idk) what we would call the end of the world, I can easily see myself coping with it Very Poorly, not just in an emotional or survivalist sense but... it may reveal the true rot of my morals, my True Self and perhaps he's a dispicable person after all!

Let's not kid ourselves here. I am sitting on the couch watching people protesting in the street. Why is that?

We'll see, I just home from work and I have social anx but also I just don't want to get Involved... or you know maybe

Maybe what?

I have a funny attitude about things, you know, but how could I not?

Why is my phone doing this all the time when I'm trying to type

I feel it

I get to take ambian once every couple of months or so and I really look forward to it

I'm a cat who loves to snooze, you see.

What I'm saying is it's by far the best part of my day! But is that so wrong?

Perhaps I am the white liberal after all, I love being comfortable more than anything else!

It's a real way of life!

I am not sure if you are feeling guilty or something but you shouldn't kick yourself for not wanting to go out and protest during a literal pandemic. Also, you can be uncomfortable with people destroying property and looting and still be really upset that the police in this country cannot help themselves from murdering unarmed black men.

I could make a longer post right now about how the discourse of "white privilege" and "allies" does not capture the idea of real social solidarity very well. We talk about this stuff as though it was all psychological. And of course there is a psychological dimension to these social issues. It is true that being constituted as a white subject in the United States leads to some horrible and inexcusable blindspots in how we see and interpret our social world. The "woke" discourse is supposed to address these limitations and it mostly does a good job. But if we really want to fight for social justice and not just turn everything into a solipsistic exercise in white guilt/consciousness-raising, we would be fighting for economic reforms in this country.

We need to fight for capital controls that prevent American companies and investors from seeking higher capital returns abroad because it is easier to exploit the unorganized populations in underdeveloped countries. We need real investment in underdeveloped communities of color in this country, especially in education, job training, health, after-school programs, etc. etc. etc. People only loot and destroy when they feel like they have no stake in their physical/built environment and when they feel hopeless to change or control their own destinies. This is not a symptom of a lack of social control (which is what neurotic white conservatives interpret it to be) but of a lack of any hope. It is not an accident that the looting is happening the weekend before rent payments are due and 1/4 of the American workforce has lost their fucking job over the last three months.

People need to connect the dots. Bernie Sanders was literally the common sense moderate in the race. Everything else was extreme and was bound to lead to this anarchic destruction. The pandemic has just accelerated things and really laid bare how dysfunctional things have gotten in this country. I lost the thread of this post... Take care of yourself, Undo.

Perhaps my whole idea of myself bears almost no real resemblance to the actual person you have to endure, day in and day out, posting here in this very board under this very account! And, you know, he's barely connected at all to this walking, talking bundle of cravings and sloth who goes into the world and lives with real people?

Which is the real self?

The self who thinks?

Or the self who acts? Who is?