#Hashbrowns

I had a dream wherein I was watching an episode of “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” the Nickelodeon horror show which uses campfire stories as a framing device for junior grade versions of Twilight Zone episodes.

I noticed right away the unusually low production values, looking rather like a low-grade film stock from the 1970s. The meandering story followed various counselors at a summer camp as they went about their day, in the fashion of typical horror movie set up.

It seems the show has decided to use normal film footage of a low grade schlock horror film, since all of a sudden, out come some tits. Nothing really titillating or interesting, just a girl decides to remove her top, as exploitation films are wont to do.  I think to myself “well, deciding seeing nudity isn’t going to scar kids for life? good for you? I guess? I suppose you just have Standards and Practices to worry about, not the FCC, so you can do that if you want. but this really doesn’t seem worthwhile.”

From there, the story sort of meanders without any real direction with occasional gratuitous, not-very-appealing partial frontal nudity without ever actually getting to the promised horror story, like the first act of Birdemic, but literally without ever getting to the promised birds.

Even in my dreams, I waste my time doing nothing in particular.

Rapture people, I totally feel for you. You really don’t need anyone making fun of you.

Normally, I’d be inclined to sanctimoniousness in the face of being completely right about something, especially something where you are telling me to my face that you are better than me, and that for this reason I deserve to die horribly at the hands of Satan himself.

But that’s not where you are right now. Right now, far more important to you that I and the countless others like me were right was that you were wrong. Something you believed, really and truly, with all your heart, was false. You had accepted it on faith. Some of you took dramatic steps acting on this certainty you had for the end of your mortal life; emptying bank accounts, quitting jobs, in some cases giving away or putting down family pets. There’s another set of people who go through the same actions: Suicides.

You have lived your life with the meaning hinging on what you were certain would be this one day and now that’s gone, leaving nothing but a hole. You’ve endured an absolute disappointment. For this, you have my sympathy.

Please do not go back to waiting for the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It never arrives.

I figured a conventional first post would be a description of my intents in having one of these internet speaking podiums. My ideal is occasional sincere expressions of optimism and idealism, sandwiched between jaded informed dissertations on popular culture and history.

I begin with storytime, about a man named John Smith T. Yes, that was his name. Well back in the day, before the great land of Missouri was a state full of political assholes, it was a territory full of political assholes. The core of power in the region was the Junta in St. Louis. Such political assholes were they, that Junta is not a term applied to them by modern critics, comparing them to banana republics. This is what they called themselves.  John Smith T was what might be called an “enforcer” for the Junta in the St. Louis area. He might also be called a land pirate.

That is not to say he was like a pirate but on dry land (though he was.) it was that he pirated land. He became a wealthy lead mine operator by finding successful lead mines, then purchasing deeds of dubious quality. When he claimed his specious ownership, the rightful owner had two options: roll over and give their property to him, or dispute it, at which point John Smith T would claim offense at “being called a liar,” challenge the man to a duel and shoot him dead. His method of provoking duels and murdering people was quite successful, both as business practice, and at murdering enemies of the political machine of which he was a part. And despite his many, many murders, he never got any sort of comeuppance and died of a fever as an old man.

Congratulations. You now have about as much benefit of a history degree as I do. Knowing about this guy was my original research, and that is pretty much the only thing I got out of it that you couldn’t gather with just a studious reading of wikipedia followed by reading some of the books listed in the reference section on the articles. Enjoy your diploma.