On Portrait of an Addict to Drug Memoirs With Terrible Titles (As a Young Man)
PS: James Franco, all is forgiven.
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On Portrait of an Addict to Drug Memoirs With Terrible Titles (As a Young Man)
"I will always do this when I get high. I will always think my torso looks lean and muscled and sexy. I will always, many times, clock myself in the mirror and think, Not bad. I will, to be perfectly honest, turn myself on."
This looks like it might actually be one of the worst books yet written.
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On Ask 'Them': Hello, I Voted For George Bush. Twice! Let's Talk!
The mistake was in the way I expressed myself; I don't give our anonymous buddy the right to speak for all Republicans ... but he certainly can speak for himself, as someone who liked Bush's policies well enough to vote twice for the man.
And I'm not sure I consider myself any kind of capital-D Democrat right now, much less a representative one. (On the other hand, presuming to speak as "Joe/Jane Democrat" can be an effective rhetorical strategy -- right?)
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On Ask 'Them': Hello, I Voted For George Bush. Twice! Let's Talk!
We should start placing bets on how long this feature will last. My guess is: two posts.
And by the way, I'm glad this post was put up, if only for the comment thread it inspired. It's nice to know I'm not the only full-on crank out here in Awl-world. (Some of my sheepishness about being a crank is legitimate, by the way. The next time I post a lengthy comment on this site, it'll be about something like Birdemic or the Domino's Pizza reboot. Got to have some balance in life, or you'll lose your mind!)
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On Ask 'Them': Hello, I Voted For George Bush. Twice! Let's Talk!
You hit the nail on the head, Miss D. For most of my lifetime, the American "liberals" who've had the microphone have: pleaded, cajoled, pouted, flattered, and tried, in various other pathetic ways, to ingratiate themselves to people who ridicule and despise them. Instead of bravely advocating for the people they presume to speak for, they apologize. They apologize on behalf of the blacks, the gays, the women, the members of those funny "miscellaneous" ethnic and religious minorities ... and occasionally inject little pleas for tolerance and understanding. And they always preface these pleas by reiterating the ways in which "liberals" are just like normal people: we're all in favor of war ... we all believe in capitalism ... we all believe in Jesus ... we all think drug addicts belong in prison ... we all think it's right and good that some people who do no work are Scrooge McDuck-rich while others who work 50-hour weeks are dirt poor, etc.
Meanwhile, Republicans have simply kicked ass.
Conservatives talk and act like they believe in what they're saying -- like they believe that they're right, and that they deserve to win. And they've been winning, and winning, and winning.
Of course, it certainly isn't -- and has not been -- true that ALL liberals are lily-livered pantywaists. Interestingly, the gay rights movement has been provocative, disorderly, and loud as hell for the last 30 years, and -- hm! -- gay rights are one of few areas where social progress has been consistent and undeniable in past decades.
And of course, there were those moonbats and weirdos who came out in droves -- some of them with angry faces! some of them saying impolite things! -- to protest the Iraq War in the months before Bush, with the strong support of the Democratic Party, decisively flushed our legal and political traditions down the toilet, along with the economy.
But those sorts of people are "unserious." They're silly, unrealistic and -- yes -- angry.
I don't really have a point here, I guess. But I notice that, as the farthest fringe of the right wing has deserted so-called RINOs -- the most recent example of this trend being the defeat of Senator Bennett in Nevada last week -- the Republican Party has pulled even harder to the right, dragging Obama and the Congressional Dems out to sea with them.
Back in 2000, I fought bitterly with my friends who were voting and campaigning for Nader. It's still not clear to me that I was wrong back then, but I certainly have more appreciation for the arguments I was dismissing then. I've traditionally voted for Democrats not because I've believed they'd achieve real progress, but simply to slow the bleeding. I no longer have much faith that this Democratic Party can even pull that off.
(And I take back what I said in my earlier comment about the Supreme Court. Obama has just moved it farther to the right.)
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On Ask 'Them': Hello, I Voted For George Bush. Twice! Let's Talk!
Heh -- since I've joined the chorus ridiculing this author's choice to write anonmymously, I guess I should add that my name is Matt Williamson.
If I were writing with a byline, of course, it would never even occur to me to go by "Sansho Dayu is a Bastard." I'd use my real name.
PS: Sansho Dayu is SUCH a bastard!
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On Ask 'Them': Hello, I Voted For George Bush. Twice! Let's Talk!
Yeah ... I'm not really interested in this feature. Not a knock against Choire and the other Awl overseers, but I don't think any Awl readers really need additional insights into the belief systems of white, religious right-wingers.
And the tone of this initial post makes it clear that that's what this feature will be about; this guy isn't interested in softening his glib attitudes about "transgendered" people or pinko feminists or any of the other dark-skinned/queer/ovulating weirdos who together make up a majority of this country's population and an even bigger majority of the world's. Instead, he's out to soften my own attitudes about the people (not theoretical people, but the flesh-and-blood kind) who've been telling me all my life that homosexuality should be punished as a crime, and that the working poor shouldn't be allowed to go to the doctor. (Much worse than those kinds of people are the ones like our columnist, who may not believe, themselves, that consensual sodomy should be a felony crime, but are willing to vote for those who do, out of base greed.)
This initial come-on reminds me, vaguely, of those street evangelists who sometimes ask me whether I've heard the "news" about Jesus Christ. (Er, no, I've never heard about Jesus.) I've spent most of my adult life listening to right-wing orthodoxy and its justifications: from the lowbrow "protect the children from the gays" stuff to the cold-blooded market "realism" of the Posners of the world to the highbrow bigotry of the William F. Buckleys. Religious right-wingers were my teachers in school, and my classmates, and my neighbors. I've spent my whole life listening to their media and living under their policies.
I know what right-wingers want and don't want. I know what they fear and trust. America is their world, and I've been living in it all my life.
Two of the anonymous author's incorrect assumptions are that Barack Obama represents me (or my politics), and that I look to him for advice in how to live my life and talk/think about politics. I voted for Obama -- a moderate with a conservative tilt -- reluctantly, and hoping, as I did, that his talk about finding "compromise" with Palin/Bush/McCain conservatives was just a smokescreen. It apparently wasn't; Obama is willing to sell me out completely, just as Clinton was, in order to appeal to people who will never vote for him or even listen to him respectfully.
Our two wars have been ramped up. Guantanamo and the black prison sites are still operating. The Treasury has been emptied into the wallets of Wall Street pirates. Even after the health care reform passes, I won't be able to afford insurance. Don't Ask, Don't Tell remains in force. The people who came out in droves to support Obama have absolutely nothing to show for their hard work, except (and I guess this is no small thing) that the Supreme Court hasn't tilted any farther to the right (assuming that's even possible).
Republicans and Mormons -- and I have plenty of experience with both, having spent 95% of my life in or near the "heartland" -- both have strong authoritarian streaks. Hence, during the Bush years, all of the indignation about "attacks on our president." I understand, then, why a Mormon Republican would think that Obama is "my guy," just as Bush was "his guy."
Obama isn't my guy, although I can't bring myself to personally despise him. But I believe -- unlike Obama and most "mainstream" "left-wingers" -- that it's immoral and cowardly to respond to evil (a word I use in a secular sense) in a quiet, patronizing NPR voice. The way to respond to evil is to combat it openly. The current Republican party stands for all kinds of evils; its ideology is unacceptable to me. If the author of this post were the sort of person I consider moral, he would find it unacceptable as well. It isn't possible to change everyone's mind; sometimes, you have to acknowledge that compromise is impossible, and dig in for a fight.
As we speak, drone strikes are leveling houses full of civilians in Pakistan, people who have never been charged with crimes are sitting in cages in Guantanamo Bay, a sea of oil is drifting towards the coast of my home state, and people like my friend who recently received a heart transplant are sweating bullets trying to figure out whether they'll be able to pay for next month's medicine. Forgive me if I'm not tickled by the idea of some low-key sparring with an unrepentant two-time Bush voter.
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On Flicked Off: 'Toy Story 3' Provokes Mass Audience Sobbing
Someone loudly took a cellphone call in the theater during the "Andy says goodbye" scene at the end of the movie. So my own tears were mostly tears of rage.
Wonderful movie. Pixar can no longer top itself, but it somehow manages to tie itself again and again.