Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1064
Garland's Civil War has too much realism and also none, thank god. $20 to rent Eras for 3 days.
Good morning! Hello. How are you? What is up. Thursday. Okay. Cool. Today is my last official work day of the year, that is exciting. Though I will still be doing work. You know how it is. Amurca. Overslept today by thirty-five minutes, forgot to set my alarm. Jane woke up at 6:20 anyway. Ended up only being six minutes later than usual. Victory.
Now look here ole chap, I’m a proud proponent of free speech, etc., etc., and none of this is meant to imply I would like laws changed regarding any of this, but fuck Alex Garland in the ear for this new Civil War movie, we don’t need that noise whatsoever, especially from some commie Brit. Nope, nosiriee not right now. And I don’t care if it has a poignant important leftie message, this is the 21st century bro, the choads make up their own messages from movies have we learned nothing from Fight Club or “Smells like Teen Spirit”?
I’ve been somewhat dubious of John Green’s mantra that “books belong to their readers” because I don’t think books should belong to their readers, I am a diehard, desperate, clinging adherent to the concept of absolute truth. But I realized recently that there’s a “To Serve Man” thing going on here. John Green wasn’t telling us books should belong to their readers, in some aspirational way, nope nope nope. Dude was telling us it’s a cookbook. It’s a warning: “be careful — books belong to their readers.” As in they’re dumb and even if you write Starship Troopers as a warning about fascism (yeah right) they’re still gonna watch it and say that hey fascism rules!
It’s like a corollary to Popehat’s law that “even if you fuck a goat to own the libs, you’re still a goat fucker.” Even if you make Civil War as a warning, you’re still the dude who inspired a bunch of people to do civil war.
Nope nope nope.
(Long tangent about art and how I love art and art rules my life and I am an artist dammit, and art is love and art conquers all and art should have no boundaries but also don’t be an idiot and make irresponsible art and that might sound like a contradiction but it’s not, etc. etc., art art art).
Anyway I finally worked up the gumption to watch the trailer and while it’s wildly morally irresponsible, luckily, it’s also realistically dumb and falls into the same fallacies that everyone else falls into about a potential civil war. The two big ones are that states mean something and that the military has some sort of geographic allegiance.
Look if America’s gonna do civil war, states don’t mean shit. Do we really think that the people of New Orleans are gonna go “shit yeah I am totally uniting with those yokel Trumpers from New Iberia” when the city was +68 for Biden? Do we think the 49% of North Carolinians who are reliably blue are gonna be like “shit yeah lets help those Trumper lunatics take over the government.”? The largest red city in America is freakin Oklahoma city. Garland’s trailer for Civil War starts with the preposterous notion that Texas and California united with each other in a rebellion. An insane enough proposition but the idea that Texas, especially, could be united at all in a civil war is absurd. Houston is blue. Austin is blue. Dallas is blue. This ain’t gonna be Lincoln’s civil war. It’d start with 50 miniature civil wars where the rural red areas aren’t gonna accomplish anything unless they take a city or a military base.
And speaking of the military, the other thing that’s different from Lincoln’s era is that the military is not, generally speaking, stationed at home. The personnel at Vandenberg or Bragg are not, by default, dedicated to the well-being of California or North Carolina. They’re a bunch of people assigned to a location nothing to do with where they grew up. And sure some of them might feel some allegiance to some local rebelling force, but the whole base sure as hell isn’t and the odds are most of the military is gonna feel its main dedication to… the military.
Same could be said for the police. Sure by and large they are a red fifth column running through our blue cities, but their power is limited in full-on uprisings, without the support of the national guard, and that is, half the time, in control of the other party. Say you want about Kathy but she ain’t sending the guard to help the NYPD take over the city for Trumpers. And even if Gregg Abbot calls up the guard (half of which are probably from cities) and they listen to him and they show up, dude’s gonna plenty busy keeping freakin Houston under control to get around to marching on Washington lol.
And then there’s the guns. According to the best data I can find, about 20% of our guns owners are in cities, 48% of them in the suburbs, 32% of them in rural areas. This of course raises the question of what is a suburb, which is actually very interesting, but the gist of it is most people live in “inner” suburbs, and they are more blue. This article is fascinating, btw. So, yeah. Okay. Invade the cities. You gotta get through all the suburbs first, where half the guns are, before you even get there. That’ll take em a while before even Louisiana or Alabama could successfully “secede” as a state.
It won’t be states, it’ll be scattered pockets, without airports, without ports, without money, without the military. There is not a single Federal Reserve bank in a red city.
I stayed up way too late in bed thinking about this. Damn you, Garland.
Anyway Taylor we are not paying $20 to rent a film for three days you are on crack, it is wildly irresponsible and out of touch and I am decidedly not here for it and I just gave you $50 for two damn Christmas ornaments. I mean come on, man. This is ridiculous.
Last night Emma and I watched a Rick and Morty and without giving too much of the (bonkers) plot away, it stars both Ice-T and an Ice-T impersonator. The thing is, the Ice-T impersonator (Dan Harmon himself, actually) was a really good Ice-T impersonator. Sounded just like Ice-T. Except when the real Ice-T talked, and then you’re like “oh, no, that’s definitely Ice-T.” But Ice-T and the Ice-T impersonator sounded nothing alike. And then you star asking yourself: “is it weird that the Ice-T impersonator sounds more like Ice-T than Ice-T does, but at the same time I can totally tell which one is Ice-T?”
Really makes you think.
Moody and quiet! Winter sadness! Twilight and candles and quiet! Why don’t I have a canopy bed anymore? I was a teenage goth.
All right talk soon you have a lovely Thursday.
i was SO disappointed that the TS rental is $20. i’m pretty sure i won’t watch it, the archer, long live, and wildest dreams be damned!
btw next time you want custom ornaments that involve needle crafts, come to me! i made a red scarf ornament after Red TV was released. also i haven’t forgotten about our granny square cardigan discussion...
I think they’d be “Texas” and “California” no matter how much of the state they represent--kinda like the various splinter groups of the IRA. One concept that transcends everything in this country is branding!