A brief spike in traffic

For 3 days running I had over 100 views to the site, akin to a miracle.  I’m not that interesting, so it must’ve all been for recent Jeopardy! contestant Rachel Lindgren.

It’s my duty to warn you thirsty nerds AGAIN that smart women are not a solution to anything and being a sapiosexual is a road to nowhere.  If she’s smart while you’re enamored (subtract 25 IQ points for each boob and asscheek) you’re in QUADRUPLE the danger of being manipulated.  Not that I overly give a shit what happens to you, you’re probably better off than me.

I believe this blog is now 10 or 11 years old, which means little because I rarely posted after 2009, was it?  It has brought me neither joy nor grief, certainly no money or gavina.  I don’t read my own shit so I’ve forgotten most of it, except to remember impassioned movie reviews about Batman (pointless) or politics (far more pointless) and cussing out my wage slave job while doing nothing to improve my lot in life.

Two things happened in the last 5 years which changed the entire arc of my  inclinations, I got out of the shit job and I “discovered” whores.  Also, my father died  at 73 of natural causes, if you count lung cancer as natural.

The whores saved my life.  Once I was getting laid fairly regularly all the Mysteries of Womanhood evaporated, which was bittersweet, but poetry is either written out of your system or it burns you from the inside out like drinking bleach.  Poetry IS drinking bleach, usually for the reader. 

The women’s humanity made me less of a misogynist, and it even seemed a few of them enjoyed the ride beyond getting paid.  (I haven’t been laid in over a year due to health problems so that’s on pause.)

I’m closer to 50 than 40 now.  I’m not better than I was in 2006, but like to think I’ve learned much the last 10 or 11 years.  I wouldn’t trade my scant “life’s work” of writing for falling in love.   

Here are the final lines from a long ago poem.

I know it’s coming, death or a balloon.

The slitted eyes of a petted cat.

Iron Fist is a Flop

       It’s to my shameful laziness I’m watching Iron Fist, which in addition to the now-standard whining about racial casting choices was panned by critics for being shitty and boring.  The critics were right, I’m only two episodes in and doubt I’ll watch a third.

     All of these Marvel Netflix series face the same challenge:  turn a 2-hour movie into 20 interesting hour-long episodes.  There have been 4 such attempts so far: Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and two seasons of Daredevil.

      Daredevil features a popular lead character, talented cast, good action, solid chemistry and interesting villains.  Jessica Jones had characters made interesting by their flaws and a terrifying villain.  Luke Cage mostly sucked, dragging-out a razor-thin plot, but still had solid leads, style and an unexpected great soundtrack.

      Iron Fist has nothing going for it.  Danny Rand is Danny Bland.  He looks like a doughy smelly hippie and walks around New York barefoot, which is the least bizarre thing about him.  His backstory reads like it was invented by an 11-year-old half-remembering Green Arrow and Batman:  Danny Rand, age 10, survives a private plane crash over the Himalayas which kills his billionaire parents (for now, we never see their bodies and since comic book characters pass between life and death like saloon doors they could return at any time.)  He is found by magical martial arts monks who train him to become the Iron Fist, whose sole purpose is to stop a shadowy evil organization called The Hand.  (Let’s hope he can do it, since he claims he’s the only warrior who can stop them.)   

     Now, 15 years later, adult Danny returns to NYC to claim his family business, but instead of going to the media to announce his triumphant return to the land of the living, Danny the Dirty hippie saunters barefoot into his family’s company building and asks to see his father’s former partner or the partner’s son.  The receptionist does what any sane person would do and alerts Security so the audience can get a sneak preview of Danny’s magical martial arts prowess as he wends his way up to the CEO’s office. 

     The villain (or at least antagonist) is a standard corporate businessdick with slicked-back hair.  He and his sister were the children of Daddy Rand’s partner.  In flashback we learn Slick, who was a few years older than Danny, was a major-league asshole and bully.

     The grown-up Slick, now CEO of Rand Corporation (isn’t that a real thing?) is first dismayed by the sight of a filthy hippie in his office and then greatly alarmed when the hippie claims he’s Danny Rand, which if true means Rand owns the company.  Slick and his semi-sexy blonde sister both refuse to believe it, and here’s where the story first shits the hammock:  who can blame them?  “Danny Rand” shows up with no evidence, not even one story or remembrance only the three of them would know.

     Instead of another fight, Danny merely leaves to hang out at a park among tree leaves (barefoot) and a wise White homeless bum who spouts a few semi-poetic lines about society before OD’ing. Next Danny bumps into an Asian woman posting flyers for her martial arts dojo and asks for a job (neglecting to inform her he’s a martial arts master).  Naturally she tells him no, so next Danny breaks into his former childhood home, a brownstone owned by Slick’s blonde sister.  Instead of talking to her when she comes home he flees, only to confront her the next morning outside on a busy street where she can cry for help.  Again, Danny provides zero evidence of his true identity, but he does magically flip over a speeding cab, which only confuses Blondie.

    Really I should stop here, I’ve given ample examples of why Iron Fist doesn’t work.  The writers strove to give Danny Rand a good-natured or well-meaning/innocence vibe but he just comes across as retarded.  In Iron Flop: Part Next we’ll continue this anal-sys written because I’m too lazy to write anything else.

In the Spirit of Bill Hicks

Poisoned by Welfare

Zukks quit because gays in California had just received a domestic something-or-other which qualified them for housing loans; since his religion does not condone The Gay, he told his boss he could not continue to work there.

Happily married two years ago with a precious baby son arriving a year after that, he sent out a mass email to friends requesting financial help.  I was more than happy to send him money; he had put me up many a night when I was living in my car in LA.

I didn’t realize Zukks had so many friends, with the donations he was able to buy a 70’s camper and escape from LA to Oregon, where his father had recently retired.

Life in the Pacific Wonderland is pretty sweet for Zukks. He nor his wife have to work to receive welfare benefits, he alone just has to attend certain job meetings to stay qualified, like taking SCUBA classes with zero intention of going anywhere near water.

The last time we conversed telephonically Zukks threw me a new one: it was the gays’ fault for his family having ended up where they were, therefore he was the victim, a claim so ridiculous I’m embarrassed to even type it.

When Zukks recently pestered me via texts (on his obamaphone) I went off on him, reminding him I worked and was therefore not always available.

You do remember WORK, don’t you?

He texted back: Ha ha good luck if im supposed to feel guilty for getting free stuff.

I didn’t answer.

This is what welfare does to once-productive people. Welfare–or rather the condition of non-work it enables–is the most seductive and powerful of all the addictions, more powerful than heroin, nicotine, alcohol, TV and the internet combined. The longer you lie on your back in the social safety net, the more it feels like a hammock. Every working person is a potential welfare junkie. No one is immune to the lure of paid leisure and not having to deal with unpleasant people for whatever length of time they consider excessive (for me it’s 5 minutes).

Zukks still has principles, poisoned though they are. The part of his faith about God requiring work he seems to have forgotten, but when the Oregonian System announced that in order to continue receiving benefits his wife would have to begin the same employment classes, he declined. He wants Wifey to be a stay-at-home mother, a noble goal, if they could do it on their own dime and time.

Just when it seemed Zukks was going to have to take control of his life again his income tax refund arrived, and just as that money ran out the State made him eligible for benefits again. (UPDATE:  More good news, Oregonians, Zukks’ wifey is indeed knocked up; the ensuing hospital care is on your tab)! You people sure are generous with your granola. 

I asked Zukks a while back if he planned on living this way forever. He appears to have no plan for the morrow, and the sobering truth is, he probably could live off The System forever, no matter which political party rules (we’re so far gone that as you’re reading this, you’re already thinking of someone you know who is gaming the system).

When Zukks was working, he always did quite well, making more than me most years, and that’s sans the fake degree from the fake school where we first met. Now he’s being paid by the State to fail.

I’m the first to admit failing to live up to full potential, but I eat the shit, deal with assholes and pay the fucking bills that have to be paid, as do millions of Americans. The law can’t force someone to feel guilty (even as a motivator to do and be better) but it should force welfare rollers to acknowledge, even if it just means checking a box, that “free” means someone else is paying for it.