squidbag

Tearing the Ticket

I hope to hell I die off camera.

Seriously, the sudden variety of on-camera death is either pointlessly gory - which I don't need; the idea of everyone seeing the chicken salad I had for lunch and the state of my liver whilst I'm trying to check out of this life with some last shred of my damned dignity after a monster attack does not thrill me (and would take the prestige away from my death scene) - or heroic to the point of ridiculousness, so that the life that precedes it is instantly made to stand small in the shadow of the heroic act that resulted in my death. Every act with meaning that happens after something like that is framed by the heroic sacrifice of the departed, and you forget that he used to swear at people in grocery lines. A hail of slow-mo gunfire is not for me. I might jump in front of some people to save them, but that would depend upon the people, and if the violence is quick enough, it's liable to catch me weighing the worth of my compadres before deciding to sacrifice myself for their potential collective mediocrity. I could end up missing this opportunity entirely and find myself staring at the receding bus that ran them all over and wondering if I should just leave, or call somebody, or...?

The non-sudden, foreshadowed for fifteen fucking minutes, on-screen sort of demise is usually reserved for one of three people; the Plot Device, who kicks off early on and you have to see it happen (usually in entrail-wrenching detail) to frameworkily understand all the subsequent stuff that springs from that event, the Wise One, who passes along important knowledge or a sacred trust (or both, possibly accompanied by a totem) and likely makes you cry about midway through the film, or finally, the Protagonist's end scene death, which only happens if the story is about you, and I'm not egotistical enough to assume that this one is. I guess it could be. Maybe I'm the one who doesn't see his destiny's path until the third act or something. Somehow, I doubt it, though. I've lived too long to be the Plot Device for someone else's story though, and I think we can agree the closest I'll ever get to Wise One is wiseguy.

Besides, all of these pretty much require a strained-breath soliloquy, a recitation of final wishes pushed out behind a sucking chest wound, or a pacific "giving up of the ghost" resignation move. The first one sounds laborious, and further has the additional pitfall of timing issues; I can't imagine anything that would piss me off more than dying before I was done talking - unless it's finishing the big speech and then being forced to hang out and make fucking small talk as I'm shuffling off. I write, I use social media, I spend quality time with my friends and family and I have more conversations in a day than I would usually prefer; if I haven't said it somewhere by the time I'm dying, then I'm expecting the rest of you can live without it. No speeches, please. If a man can't get some quiet while he's checking out, something is seriously wrong with this picture.

Nope, dying off camera seems pretty much the way to go. You can explode gloriously and no one has to see your internal bits, you can drop off quietly from disease, you can be heroic or mundane without the additional responsibility of looking good while you do it. Takes the pressure right off.

All you have to do then is die.

NRA: Stand & Fight!

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I get the NRA emails under the "know thy enemy" principle espoused by Mike Basford via Sun Tzu. Today's missive (hitting my inbox at 12:38am, no doubt to get out in front of this) was especially frothworthy, so I thought all of you should be entitled to it, along with my biting and incisive commentary thereupon. Trust me, it'll blend in so well, you'll think me and Wayne had a conversation. Words of Wayne in subtle, blood-hued RED.

SQUIDBAG,

It's not about protecting children. It's not about stopping crime.

Well, Jeez, Wayne – what's it all about?

It's about banning your guns…PERIOD!

That's an exclamation point, Wayne.

Last week, NRA sat in on a White House meeting that was sold to the public as an "open discussion" about how to improve school safety. But that was a dirty lie.

Not just a lie. A “dirty lie.” A dirty, dirty lie. A dirty lie that needs a spanking. As opposed to all of the clean lies we always hear.

They didn' listen to gun owners' concerns…they didn' consider any real solutions on how we can keep our kids safe…instead Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and their gun ban allies in Congress only want to BLAME you, VILIFY you, BULLY you, and STRIP you of your Second Amendment freedoms.

This is interesting. Seemingly without realizing it, Wayne effortlessly switches from talking about the past tense event – the meeting (after some alarming formatting errors and groundless assertions) to standard present-tense ALL CAPS rhetoric about second amendment “freedoms.” Could be just a reflex. That choice of language is interesting, too. A “freedom.” Not a “right.” A right is inherent, a freedom is granted, and can be restricted under certain circumstances without real harm, yes? Impinging upon a right is a basic human violation, but restricted freedoms are something that normal, rational people who enjoy society consent to every day. But let's read more of Wayne:

Right now, they're steamrolling ahead with legislation that would ban your guns, register your ammunition purchases, and even force you to register the firearms you already own with Obama's anti-gun bureaucrats.

Apparently, you'll only be made to register them with Obama's anti-gun bureaucrats, instead of some state-based or national registry, which'll keep the Nazis from rounding them up when the shit hits the fan; I mean, if there's no central list, and just some registration happening with some of Obama's socialist crunchy cronies, there's nothing to worry about, right? I mean bureaucracies are legendary for their inefficiency and foot-dragging - how good can these records even be?

I warned you this day was coming and now it's here. This is the fight of the century and I need you on board with NRA now more than ever.

He warned you. Oh, god, he warned you. YOU were goddamn WARNED. This makes Wayne sound like one of those “END IS NIGH” guys with a sandwich board and a grudge, pounding the concrete and preaching bile. Which, in a way...

I urge you to renew or upgrade your NRA membership as soon as possible. If it's more convenient for you to do so online, you can follow this link: www.NRA.org/StandAndFight.

Now is the time when I need you and every gun owner to put an NRA membership card in your wallet and STAND AND FIGHT for our freedom. No one can take your place at the front lines of this battle…if we lose now, we lose everything.

The card is what you show vicious revenuers who show up at your door looking to register your weapons, take your freedom, and provoke another Ruby Ridge. It wards off gum'ment people like garlic does vampires. See, it shows that you chose to STAND and FIGHT instead of rolling over for the G-Men, and that scares them off. They run from that card.

Also, to him, guns are everything. He says it right here. There's no having a conversation with that.

The media has been on a vicious tirade to slander and intimidate you, me, and our fellow NRA members. We've been called terrorists and worse.

Actually, you guys are doing a pretty good job of acting like gibbering maniacs all by your lonesome, no help required from the media, who let's face it, couldn't intimidate anyone these days. When people go on video yelling and screaming hateful words and incendiary rhetoric and then they couple those together with actual threats of gun violence, the only thing missing from the terrorist's resume at that point is the actual murderous act. Are you expecting us to wait until you fruitbaskets actually do something violent to respond? 'Cause let me tell you, that runs 90 degrees into this “let's keep a registry of mentally ill people and stop them from gun violence before they start” argument you guys are trotting out lately. That one's already T-boned Constitutional rights (the ones you invoke and misinterpret to keep guns but conveniently forget when it involves privacy and fair trial for other folks) so hard the logic's all wonky, but logic's not a big thing for the NRA, is it?

ONLY the NRA could take a logical argument so simple that it's nearly a mathematical expression and ignore it. Fewer guns results in less gun violence. Done. Of course, the NRA disagrees, and would attempt to argue that people would still have just as many babies without fucking, watch more televisions with fewer TVs, and get fat eating less food. But let's move on.

They've blamed us and our Second Amendment freedoms for the actions of violent criminals and madmen. Our lives have been threatened.

Aw, threatened? By people with guns? Poor Wayne. He's afraid, and all that will soothe him is a cold steel phallus, smelling of cordite, lead and oil. I wonder if Wayne would feel less threatened if we took guns completely out of the equation. Granted, someone can still kill you with a knife or explosive, so we should regulate the kinds of those that are available. Oh, wait. We do. We actually keep track of how much fertilizer and cold medicine people buy, but tracking bullets would be a major problem. Knives are only somewhat restricted, but knife attacks are way less lethal than gun attacks, this from someone who's lived through both. (I just realized, I have a pretty good resume for this argument.) But Wayne's standing strong:

But I won' let these brutal and bitterly personal attacks on you and me go unchallenged. I'll fight freedom's enemies. I'll fight to make our schools safer. And I'll fight for your fundamental right to self-defense and your sacred Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Okay: Wayne wants to make schools safer by adding guns, which is kind of like making traffic safer by adding cars. Also? I can handle my “fundamental right to self-defense” with my knobby hands, an aluminium bat, a big stick or the knife rack in my kitchen. It's harder to kill someone bare-handed, but then there's also less chance of bullets going through drywall and erasing one of my kids or my wife from the planet, too. Guns are the weapons of the commitment phobic, Wayne: the violent bastard who's weak or afraid of a little intimacy in his violence. Man up and take a self-defense class. Get in touch with your fucking feelings.

But my strength, and the strength of our entire NRA organization comes from you and your strong commitment to our membership. I need you in our corner TODAY.

Strength through unity. And cash. Shameless appeal for more dough to be used on propaganda.

Thank you for your friendship and your support. Your letters and your words of encouragement mean more to me than you could ever imagine.

I find it hard to believe these “letters and words of encouragement” exist. I demand proof.

Together, we will defend our freedom.

Wayne LaPierre

Executive Vice President

www.NRA.org

We'll let Eddie Izzard end this one: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people, and monkeys do too (if they have a gun)."

 

Mistaken Identity

I've told this story aloud a couple of times recently and been encouraged to blog it, so here you go.

I went out last Saturday night for random things: soap, laundry detergent, motor oil, and toothpaste. I ended up at Dollar General because it's close to my house. I say that I "ended up" there, because when I left my house needing things, I didn't actually know where I was going. So I found myself parking, finding stuff, and rounding a corner with a double armload of crap (I never get baskets because I instantly forget they exist every time I walk through the door of any retail establishment) inside of the sad overstock sale that is Dollar General at about 5:30 or so last Saturday evening.

The next two things that happened were a woman shouting "FUCK YOU, BRIAN!" and throwing her cellphone at my head. I moved, kind of, and the phone glanced off of my bottom lip, raising a bump. It ricocheted off of the shelf and clattered to the ground somewhere behind me. About the time I got "Hey..." out of my mouth, she unleashed a torrent of honor performance mea culpas like you've never heard/seen and eventually burst into tears. I wasn't even really mad, but I think the combination of me not being Brian, the failed catharsis and whatever makes you so angry with someone that you try to brain them with your phone won out on her emotional load. I said, "I'm not Brian." and "Your phone's probably broken," but that's all I got in there against the hail of apologies and crying and realizations. I kind of just left her in aisle whatever and went and bought my stuff and left. The Dollar General staff responded to this not at all. Vindictive cell attacks must be a thing that happens in there a lot.

When I returned home and told my wife this story, she pronounced it karma. She's probably right.

Grace Under Standards

I had my first ever exposure to Nancy Grace (shown here with her meat mask in place so we won't see what she really is) on Wednesday morning. I'm not impressed, but hey - this is what I get for watching television.

I was home with the kids on their last day of Winter Break that morning, and they weren't up yet when I finished C's breakfast, lunch and coffee and saw her on her way to meetings and the run-up for her Spring 2013 student preparations. So I sat on the couch for a minute surrounded by the laundry that was everywhere and the holiday debris that I took down yesterday (realistic goals, people) and flipped on the TV thinking there might be news.

There wasn't. There was only Nancy Grace frothing her noisehole in the general direction of this story about Jodi Arias, the original overly attached girlfriend. Jodi allegedly dated a guy, converted to Mormonism, stalked him and then crept into his house one night, and after they had sex, stabbed him 27 times, slit his throat and shot him twice. Then, after taking pictures of the sex and the murder, it seems that Jodi "hid" the camera in the washing machine where it was easily found by cops. She first claimed that she'd never been there, then that other people did the murder, and finally, that she was defending herself from an attack by the dead boyfriend. I'm not sure why no one's suggested that she might be clinically and legally fucking nuts, but hey - she sings songs from prison and gives really focused interviews, so she's good television.

Which apparently made Nancy Grace jealous, and she decided that she needed to be good television, too. That's why she committed this little travesty of journalism on live morning TV. Once you've watched it and tried to remember that she's not a FOX Talking NewsHead, you might be tempted to pop on over to her website and look at the last several posts where she's milking this fucking thing for all it's worth - crime scene photos, sketches of Travis' the dead boyfriend's wounds, transcripts and photos of Jodi - oh, it's a career for Nancy.

Then you look into Nancy a little bit, and you find out that her fiance was murdered while she was in college. Okay, that makes her motivations to be a prosecutor and victims' rights advocate make sense. However, her time as a prosecutor is marred with misconduct which resulted in accused people going free without trial, which certainly seems like something she should be against, and the details of her fiance's murder seem to have been exaggerated by her to make her mythology more dramatic, which is right up there with the worst kind of lying. Additionally, she has capitalized on the aforementioned murder with a television show and a fiction book of the same, which is just creepy as all get out. The book's apparently the first in a series, too. Bleagh.

So - I urge you to avoid Nancy Grace, who's not out there for victims, she's out there for herself, and is simply another in a long line of loudmouths lowering the tone of informational exchange in contemporary American life.

2013: The Year of Listening

I had this unfortunate moment last night.

See, in the hours leading up to midnight, I had been stacking canned goods(by date) in my den while listening to the news programs about the fiscal cliff, various celebrities, and the general state of our society. My shotguns and automatic weapons were cleaned and loaded and ready, and I had shored up the backyard against rear attacks, the land cleared, and lines of sight established. The right people had all been called, and the secret cache was full of gold, the back room with salted pork and pickled vegetables. We had been sitting around the campfire the previous evening singing songs of protest and overthrow while painting the banners we would fly when the time came at midnight on New Year's Eve. New utilities on, boots broken in, maps of the area committed to memory, I was whipped into a frenzy and ready to be an instrumental part of the bloody revolt I thought was coming at midnight. We would kiss in 2012, and awaken in 2013 in a world of our making, under a government we held and controlled as the skies blackened with the fires of passion and the tree of liberty was fed by the blood of those who had foolishly resisted us.

All of this was in my mind - clear and balanced on knife's edge - as I broke the traditional kiss and smashed out of my house and into the streets smelling of gun oil and adrenaline rage shouting "BACKS AGAINST THE WALL, MOTHERFUCKERS," only to find that instead of revolution at midnight it was a New Year's Resolution at midnight that we were supposed to make.

Boy is my face red. Maybe next year.