We Had Joy, We Had Fun
It’s funny to imagine oldies stations of the future playing Black Flag or Meshuggah. Even the thought of, say, Dinosaur Jr. or The Strokes on “FM 95.6—Oldies All the Time” is pretty hilarious. At the same time, this future vision kind of makes me look forward to living in a retirement home.
When I think about retirement communities, I picture a cross between Whole Foods and Epstein Island, although everyone who works there should be of legal age. So no funny stuff, OK? But after all, who doesn’t like a little massage. Anyway, when I look into my crystal ball, I see a balding man in basketball shorts sipping a martini by the pool, while workers sweep up and bring towels and stuff. Meanwhile, the piped-in music service is playing Pavement tunes, and there are bidets literally everywhere. Sign me the fuck up, and p.s. I will totally crush any seniors in ping-pong.
I’m not expecting anything too extravagant. But maybe you could dream along with me just for a minute. So at the evening buffet, instead of a fake luau with imitation crab, iceberg lettuce, and canned pineapple chunks, I was thinking we could do a Mediterranean theme, with fattoush and roasted eggplant in tahini sauce. And the next day could be like miso ramen night. What do you think.
I believe that old people should be coddled, because they managed to get that far without jumping from a high place. Nobody wants their golden years to become their shit-brown years. True, we do have Social Security, which is like an endgame budget pity party that you paid for up front. But I think there should be some way to cash in on all the emotional interest accrued as well. And I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll be sad hearing those Pavement tunes by the pool. So I’ll be needing a swag bag for that.
On the other hand, cringe feels. Because how embarrassing is it to think that at one point, you felt that art could maybe change the world. That everything was going to be all right, because some stupid pop song made you feel happy? It’s your own fault. You should know that those good feelings are just leverage opportunities for private equity.
They’re Not “Theories”
In the spirit of black Americans recapturing the n-word and making it their own, I’m leaning hard into the term “conspiracy theory” and trying to make it my own: “Of course I’m a conspiracy theorist! Open your eyes, jackass!”
Unfortunately the stain of QAnon, along with the relentless drumbeat of craven media dopes, has tainted the label. So I’ve been trying out new terms like “conspiracy patternist.” But I think it would be funny to try to make “trusted conspiracy expert” or “conspiracy scientist” happen. Can you help me?
Internet Rabbit Holes
For about 100 years, the age of consent in Delaware was 7! Seven!
THAT’S NOT MAGA, RIGHTLars Ulrich was a tennis prodigy! Wut!
HE SHOULD CHALLENGE DAVID FOSTER WALLACE WHEN HE DIESCan you believe that Bhad Bhabie made $40 million in 2021 just from OnlyFans!
CASH ME OUTSIDE INDEED
Get GOATED
What if you’re born in January? You have not only the crappiest sign—Capricorn—but also the crappiest birthstone, the garnet. It makes sense because after all the Christmas and New Years drama, nobody’s trying to gaf about you and your dumb little birthday.
However I found a way out of this gloomy post-holiday dungeon. The solution to the dilemma, as is so often the case with any dilemma, is to simply put it in ALL CAPS. Capricorn may be the sea-goat, a made-up, irritable, and ugly creature, but G.O.A.T. is another story. Think about it: who would win in a deathmatch between Greatest of All Time and a VIRGIN?
Redpilled Circle of Champions
“Davos is basically Cannes for oligarchs.” —Walter Kirn, 2023
Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200
For all of Biden’s incoherence, you have to admit his antitrust warriors have been working hard. For me this is the one, and possibly only, reason to vote for an Adderall-powered, hair-sniffing wax effigy. I’m quite serious.
You can tell that FTC chair Lina Khan and DOJ boss Jonathan Kanten are heroes because Fortune and the WSJ regularly put them on blast for “getting in the way,” “making it harder to do business,” etc. Dear Wall Street titans: go fuck yourselves.
And I’m sorry but standing up to market bullies is not a left-right issue; antitrust legislation is about as American as hot dogs and apple pie. This country is supposed to be founded not only on freedom, but on fairness and equality of opportunity, hence the guardrails. Hey! if you like smashing up mom and pop shops so much, why don’t you go donate to Antifa or something. Oh wait, you already did? OK that’s my bad.
I can hear the howls now: listen to this typical Californian nanny state glazer, loves taxes, overregulation, etc. Look, I’d be a full-blown libertarian if people weren’t such assholes. I mean of course not all of them are. Most people don’t wake up every day looking forward to Screwing Thy Neighbor. But it only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch, especially in an unregulated casino that practically forces you at gunpoint to squash all competitors. We don’t let sumo wrestlers fight toddlers for their snacks, do we?
Antiracism Starter Pack
BLACKENED is the best way to cook fish. Can you imagine if you tried to make fish “whitened”? What would that be, poached in mayonnaise? Speaking of which...
MAYONNAISE is objectively disgusting. Note, IT IS WHITE
PALE AS A GHOST is not a compliment. In fact, white people often compliment other white people on their tans, or children who have some “color in their cheeks.”
Based Qu’ran
2:221-222
Do not marry polytheistic women until they believe; for a believing slave-woman is better than a free polytheist, even though she may look pleasant to you. And do not marry your women to polytheistic men until they believe, for a believing slave-man is better than a free polytheist, even though he may look pleasant to you. They invite you to the Fire while Allah invites you to Paradise and forgiveness by His grace. He makes His revelations clear to the people so perhaps they will be mindful.
They ask you O Prophet about menstruation. Say, “Beware of its harm!” So keep away, and do not have intercourse with your wives during their monthly cycles until they are purified. When they purify themselves, then you may approach them in the manner specified by Allah.
Another Word for Donkey is Ass
Imagine a “democratic” political party that:
bans debate between candidates
refuses to count certain states’ delegates
pretends non-incumbents don’t exist
works hard to censor unfavorable reporting
Yeah, I’m triggered. Everyone’s all “oh, so what, do you like Trump now? Are you like alt-right or something?” Listen, I was once a registered Democrat, and I’ve never voted Republican in my life, not that it’s any of your business. But this is not the party of FDR, or even of Dennis Kucinich. Things change. So my one request to Xi Jinping would be to please help us make this party collapse under the weight of its own hypocrisy and corruption. I said please.
Chef Yawny Cooks Kin
My father-in-law’s imitation of foreign accents goes like this: “heeta harta hurta,” plus, optionally, an actual word from that language. For example, his Norwegian imitation might be “heeta harta hurta lutefisk,” and his German imitation could be “heeta harta hurta Steinlager.” This past holiday season I tried to bait him into saying something about Putin, so I could follow up with “heeta harta hurta vodka” and thereby score some son-in-law brownie points. My stratagem didn’t work, but I did pretend to like the Green Bay Packers, so: Mission Accomplished.
Most Things Are Unwatchable
We’re on the downslope of Peak TV now, where quantity has totally overwhelmed and drowned out quality. I can’t tell you how much streaming content I’ve abandoned in the last year. I’ll admit that modern productions are pretty well shot. But the scripts are terrible, having been written by ChatGPT, or by ESL hacks working for pennies on the dollar. News flash: not everyone can be Vladimir Nabokov.
Sometimes I look at IMDB ratings for help in culling the wheat from the chaff. For example, I followed its general recommendation to watch every James Wan movie, which turned out to be a pretty flawed plan, because his movies are dumb, including but not limited to The Nun I and II, La Llorona, and the entirety of the Saw, Conjuring, and Annabelle franchises. Yes, of course dolls are scary, because they look like corpses, as do clowns and priests. And it’s true that sudden unexpected noises can startle you. But let’s face it, jump scares in dark areas are not all that hard to do.
Speaking of poor lighting, why is that in every one of these “creepy” settings, electricity is always fucked? Even in some brand-new, ultra-modern house, all of a sudden shit starts malfunctioning randomly because, apparently, evil is like an electromagnetic field that disrupts the flow of electrons through copper wire, or something. Meanwhile, in movies that are set in older houses, stone chateaus, churches, etc., not only is there often no electricity at all—yo, it’s the 21st century—you’re also supposed to imagine that some invisible caretaker is keeping hundreds of candles lit in every room of this 50,000-square-foot property. Which would be a lot more expensive and far more of a pain in the ass than running a little bit of track lighting. For Christ’s sake!
I guess horror films have always had a mixed relationship with Christianity. Silver crosses and holy water are reliable tools, but they’re actually only about 50% effective against evil. And you’d think a sacred place of worship would provide some protection, but a lot of the heaviest action goes down in Catholic schools, chapels, etc. Likewise, priests are often the first and last line of defense, yet are also lightning rods attracting the most demonic attention. Does Christianity even work?
To be fair, this Christian horror focus does seem a bit narrow. When will someone make a movie about a killer rabbi, or a homicidal imam? I’m guessing never, because wHiTe SuPrEmAcY, but I think it’s anti-Semitic and Islamophobic NOT to offer the role of Evil Personified to all races, creeds, and colors.
Before I sign off here, I’d like to give an honorable mention to the TV series Yellowjackets, in which a bunch of marooned girls resort to cannibalism after one of them says “I mean [the dead girl] would have wanted us to.” I know a lot of weirdos, but I can’t think of a single one that would want me to eat them when they died.
Oh, and a girl gets her entire face ripped off by a wolf, but like 2 weeks later only has a couple of faint lines on her face. Then we discover that one of the girls—on an all-star soccer team competing in the nationals—has packed enough psilocybin mushrooms for everyone at Burning Man. Because apparently that’s how you win soccer tournaments. So the girls all decide to trip balls out in the forest while collectively starving to death. And it turns out that when these girls take mushrooms, they transform into some sort of bloodthirsty Midsommar cult. Sorry, but getting extremely murderous and violent on mushrooms is not actually a thing.
Cultural Refresh Requested
Why is the owl a symbol of wisdom? Owls are menacing and judgmental, and not in a good way. I think owls should be considered to be evil omens. The other one I don’t get is an olive branch. Olive tree branches are quite weak, so extending one to your enemy as a peace offering seems like some kind of a trick.
What’s up with Marianne Williamson’s Grey Gardens accent?
Come to think of it, Kamala Harris has one too. They both sound like Mrs. Howell from Gilligan’s Island with a head cold and stripped of all her elegance. I guess the accent tries to convey the impression that the speaker might have gravitas or something. Which is pretty funny stuff coming from the mouths of a crystal sage and a mall cop.
The Party Pooper
If you’re on the hunt for a relic of America’s shameful past, you need look no further than the once-beloved children’s book Sounder, a bottomless pit of racist stereotypes and microaggressions. Today’s attentive reader gets a slap in the face in the very first paragraph, in which the family dog, Sounder, is described unblinkingly as a “coon hound.” I understand that the meanings of words change, and that context matters, but actually the feelings of today matter a lot more. Do better, antiquity!
Next thing you know, we get a vivid description of how this dog viciously mauls raccoons and possums, which the family skins and eats for dinner. This will definitely be upsetting to young children—who should be protected, but instead will now require medication after story time. A scant paragraph later we learn how this family sends their cherished and faithful dog Sounder to go out and sleep under the house when it’s thirty fucking degrees outside. What kind of kiddie torture porn is this? We’re only on the first page!
It gets worse: one of the children in the book describes his “Negro” mom’s lips as “big and warm and soft.” Obviously the narrator is (a) super racist and (b) a groomer. I don’t care if language claims that it’s only trying to be descriptive. Tropes are tropes and they are usually toxic.
Suffice it to say, this book must be burned immediately by a gathering of TikTok’ers armed with home hair dye jobs and protest signs.
It’s funny how I used to think Sounder was a sensitive and nuanced portrayal of a black sharecropper’s family, penned by a white man desperately striving to be empathetic. Clearly, like the rest of the American hegemonic superstructure, I was merely trying to assuage my awful, soul-crushing guilt and excuse my unearned privilege. Anyone else getting tired of this theme? OK, I’ll stop.
Baby on Board Alternate Squad
Sports
In the abstract, I’m not against pro sports. What’s wrong with a little bit of civic pride? Plus, the economic engine of sports provides a lot of jobs. And on a symbolic level, you might look at it as We The People paying athletes to fight a bunch of miniature civil wars by proxy so we don’t have to fight real ones.
There are a few problems though. First, regarding the idea that sports acts as a kind of relief valve for internal pressures: sports can actually introduce animosity into society. Because people still get really mad, and sometimes even kill each other over sports, like they do in Brazil. In the USA, it’s more like guys breaking stuff and fighting, but you know, after a big loss, people will light police cars on fire and such. I’m not exaggerating, just Google “sports fan rage,” you’ll see.
Secondly, pro sports are so massive now that the teams are all owned by private equity firms and corporate overlords, so obviously this is all just one more way for elites™ to solidify their grip on the Common Man.®
Finally, I’m not entirely comfortable with a handful of rich dudes owning a bunch of other dudes. There’s a term for that. I mean players are literally bought and sold and everything. And yeah, the athletes get paid, some of them really well, but only if they make way *more* money for their owners!
I realize that to some extent all of us are already owned by corporations, but this is just so in your face. I mean it’s pretty rare that your boss comes at you out of nowhere with, “you’re moving to Minnesota. Pack your bags, you leave in two days.” Recently Kanye West said that slavery was a choice. I know Kanye is crazy, but in the case of sports, if he had amended that statement to say “highly compensated slavery is a choice,” maybe people wouldn’t think he was so insane.
My Way vs. the High Way
PE + RE => FU
Blackstone is the largest residential landlord in the US. And guess what: like any responsible capitalist enterprise, they’re actively managing their portfolio. Which means, you know, optimizing, tweaking, improving profit margins. So kudos to them. They probably have some really smart engineers and AI systems helping to develop routine optimizations like, oh I don’t know, sudden rent hikes, evictions, deferred maintenance, nuisance fees, stuff like that. Besides Blackstone, there’s also the aptly-named Cerebrus (“three-headed dog”), and of course America’s favorite family, the Kushners, who’ve long been invested in streamlining their extensive real estate portfolios, a/k/a squeezing tenants.
The key here is to ask yourself: are you afraid of progress? Are you afraid of technology? If so, maybe try considering all living things as resources. In the end, we’re all just organized collections of molecules, right? So why should we humans be any different than, say, iron ore, or mosses on a rock? That would be the height of arrogance, right? And anyway, do you really want to be on the wrong side of history’s upward-bending arc?
To the tender-hearted progressives who despair at the “cruelty” of the marketplace, please take solace in knowing that the average citizen does have options.
Option 1, enter into a crushing, lifelong debt service arrangement;
Option 2, get a job at a company dedicated to fleecing the commons;
Option 3, relax into a carefree lifestyle snorting fetty and tranq under a bridge.
Option 4, all of the above
Unsolved Mysteries Vol. XXVI
#1
Yawny: Do you think Swedes are cringe?
Wife: I don’t know, I don’t really think about that too much.
#2
Wife: You’re such a glass-half-empty person.
Yawny: You mean I’m aspirational?
Wife: What? No! I just think you could be a little more thankful for everything that you have.
Yawny: Oh like being thankful for having another twenty years to pick out a lining for my coffin?
Wife: What?
The Notorious RNG
What if God is a random number generator? Or randomness itself? That works, right?
Listen: Darwinian evolution relies on random mutation for a species to progress—i.e. to become smarter, stronger, more resilient, live longer, etc. So in this context, randomness is certainly good in the long run. I mean we’re descended from the same organisms that gave rise to bacteria and mushrooms. But we’re not bacteria or mushrooms. Thank fucking God! Although the mushroom community is probably pretty based.
OK, so that’s the aggregate view. But at the individual level too, each of us gets a fairly random DNA profile. Then a similarly random set of life events shapes your overall development. So if God is in fact just randomness, then He is certainly involved with, and impacting, everyone’s lives very directly and personally. Thus, God is always present in all of our lives, being unpredictable and unknowable, but also all-powerful.
However it’s important to note that none of this has anything to do with a master plan necessarily. It kind of sounds more like God just rolling the dice over and over again to see what happens.
If Florida is Such a Libertarian Paradise...
…then why is their arch nemesis, the evil, lefty West Coast, still helping subsidize FEMA payments to all the freedom-lovers who decided to move to GROUND ZERO for HURRICANES?
Y’all know that hurricanes are “free” to destroy your swampland home, right? Whatever happened to that whole “no handouts” / ”government is the problem” thing?
Look, San Francisco has a major earthquake about once every 100 years. Florida has major hurricanes every damn year. I kind of feel like you right-libertarians should get zero money from us left-libertarians.
We are in agreement on one point, though, which is that everyone should ignore Hollywood. Maybe that’s the rallying cry this country needs: comic book superhero movies are dumb and Barbieheimer was a massive fucking psyop.
A Real Humdinger!
Imagine if you had voices in your head talking to you all the time. That would suck, right? Though at least you’d be having a conversation. But what if instead, you had only an incessant whining noise, like a mosquito buzzing in your ear, that never goes away? I welcome you all to the wonderful world of tinnitus!
Now then. What if, in addition to the high-pitched squeal, you also heard a constant low-frequency rumble magnified by refrigerators, container ships, trucks, or any other idling machines within a one-mile radius? Welcome to the magical, mysterious World Hum! It’s magical + mysterious because only 2% of humans hear it and nobody knows how or why it develops. Though placing your head in front of Brian Chippendale’s kick drum for an hour might do the trick.
Elitist Reaction Video
I’m still mad about people pronouncing realtor as “real-a-tor”. There’s no vowel between the L and the T! But I also hear “anti-Semetic” all the time. You might guess that this is based on an analogy with the word emetic, because people are racist and emetic means vomit-inducing, except for the fact that 95% of you don’t even know that word, especially those of you who consider us jews* to be nauseating. Finally, everyone says the hot new drug like “fentan-all,” when it clearly should be pronounced “fentan-ill.” Pronouncing it as “fentanol” almost makes some sense, in that the word ending is the same as in alcohol, but you really shouldn’t mix the two.
Competing Theories Re: The Sudden Explosion of Teslas All Over San Francisco
Everyone completely forgot that Elon Musk is no longer an innovator, but is actually an apartheid Nazi extremist
Tesla drivers are mostly South Asian coders who either didn’t get the Musk Is Evil memo from Western elites, or got the memo and shrugged
Even if Elon Musk is proven to be a total Nazi, you can still drive a Tesla if your company’s app says it will make the world a better place, which qualifies its employees for a moral offset.
No Wonder Most Americans Are High-Strung and Anxious
What about in movies when a character (usually a Standard Dad) gets out of bed at like 1 am and goes to the kitchen to fix himself a midnight snack? WTF is that. I don’t think I’ve ever done that in my entire life— not even when I was a little kid. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I’m thinking “I need to go back to sleep,” not “what could I do that would keep me awake for another hour.” You know?
Also, bro, you just fucking ate a few hours ago and you’ve been doing literally nothing since then, you should not be hungry. Unless all you had for dinner was Oriental flavored Cup Noodles, in which case you should be back in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering where everything went wrong.
Top Scams of 2024
Anti-glare coating on eyeglasses
Anti-scratch coating on eyeglasses
Glucosamine
AOC
Post-Humanism L
If you ever go to the flea market, you might be reminded of those videos of children in third world countries picking through mountains of garbage in search of possibly resellable items, especially electronics containing little bits of precious metals or whatever.
But in the U.S., rather than looking for trash to sell on the black market for pennies, the scavengers are searching for little shards of authenticity. And I totally support this! You see, “vintage” means “old,” but it also means “before everything sucked and had a USB port.” Like bespoke tailored suits probably have USB ports now.
Anyway I think of vintage shopping as sort of hipster MAGA, and I’m here for it. And from this place, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump over to that doomsday prepper life. I got my tent, a grappling hook, and a shovel, LFG!! Let’s get the fuck out of here!